  Poetry
This week: Edwin Muir Edited by: Stormy Lady  
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Scotland's Winter
by Edwin Muir
Now the ice lays its smooth claws on the sill,
The sun looks from the hill
Helmed in his winter casket,
And sweeps his arctic sword across the sky.
The water at the mill
Sounds more hoarse and dull.
The miller's daughter walking by
With frozen fingers soldered to her basket
Seems to be knocking
Upon a hundred leagues of floor
With her light heels, and mocking
Percy and Douglas dead,
And Bruce on his burial bed,
Where he lies white as may
With wars and leprosy,
And all the kings before
This land was kingless,
And all the singers before
This land was songless,
This land that with its dead and living waits the Judgement Day.
But they, the powerless dead,
Listening can hear no more
Than a hard tapping on the floor
A little overhead
Of common heels that do not know
Whence they come or where they go
And are content
With their poor frozen life and shallow banishment.
The Castle
by Edwin Muir
All through that summer at ease we lay,
And daily from the turret wall
We watched the mowers in the hay
And the enemy half a mile away
They seemed no threat to us at all.
For what, we thought, had we to fear
With our arms and provender, load on load,
Our towering battlements, tier on tier,
And friendly allies drawing near
On every leafy summer road.
Our gates were strong, our walls were thick,
So smooth and high, no man could win
A foothold there, no clever trick
Could take us, have us dead or quick.
Only a bird could have got in.
What could they offer us for bait?
Our captain was brave and we were true....
There was a little private gate,
A little wicked wicket gate.
The wizened warder let them through.
Oh then our maze of tunneled stone
Grew thin and treacherous as air.
The cause was lost without a groan,
The famous citadel overthrown,
And all its secret galleries bare.
How can this shameful tale be told?
I will maintain until my death
We could do nothing, being sold;
Our only enemy was gold,
And we had no arms to fight it with.
Edwin Muir was born on May 12, 1887, on Orkney Islands. His father and mother owned a farm in Deerness where Muir spent his early childhood. When Muir was around the age of fourteen his father lost the farm. The family was forced to move to Glasgow for his father to find work. Unfortunately this was only the beginning of the tragedies that Muir would have to face over the next few years. He lost his father shortly after the move then both his brothers and finally his mother. This tragic start to Muir's life most definitely played a role in his poetry.
Muir had many unsuccessful and demeaning many jobs over the years in Glasgow. Muir met and fell in love with Willa Anderson. The two married in 1919 and moved to London together. Muir began to travel and write over the next few years and by 1925 he had published his first of seven volumes of poetry entitled First poems Besides writing poetry Muir wrote three novels and translated over sixteen other pieces of literature with his wife Willa.
In 1935 Muir went to St. Andrews and it is said to be where he got his inspiration for his most controversial work Scott and Scotland published in 1936. In 1937 he published Journeys and places and The present age from 1914 in 1940. Muir also published The narrow place in 1943, followed by The Scots and their country and The voyage, and other poems both published in 1946. It was in 1946 that Muir became Director of British Council in Prague and Rome. He held that position for over three years. In 1950 he was appointed Warden of Newbattle Abbey College. During this time he and his wife Willa continued to translate other authors' writings as well as Muir working on his own pieces.
In 1955 Muir was made Norton Professor of English at Harvard University, that following year he published "One foot in Eden" Muir returned to Britain in 1956 and died three short years later on January 3, 1959. All seven volumes of Muir's poetry was collected after his death and they can be found in The Complete Poems of Edwin Muir published in 1991.
The Child Dying
by Edwin Muir
Unfriendly friendly universe,
I pack your stars into my purse,
And bid you so farewell.
That I can leave you, quite go out,
Go out, go out beyond all doubt,
My father says, is the miracle.
You are so great, and I so small:
I am nothing, you are all:
Being nothing, I can take this way.
Oh I need neither rise nor fall,
For when I do not move at all
I shall be out of all your day.
It's said some memory will remain
In the other place, grass in the rain,
Light on the land, sun on the sea,
A flitting grace, a phantom face,
But the world is out. There is not place
Where it and its ghost can ever be.
Father, father, I dread this air
Blown from the far side of despair
The cold cold corner. What house, what hold,
What hand is there? I look and see
Nothing-filled eternity,
And the great round world grows weak and old.
Hold my hand, oh hold it fast-
I am changing! - until at last
My hand in yours no more will change,
Though yours change on. You here, I there,
So hand in hand, twin-leafed despair -
I did not know death was so strange.
Thank you all!
Stormy Lady
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The winners of "Stormy's poetry newsletter & contest" [ASR] are:
First place
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In the night I weep
Lost between death and sleep
Willing neither to let go
Or hold on, yet blood flows
Soft moments linger on
The edge of my mind gone
Past reason, past hope and pain
A fragile smile to gain
As a child in mother's arms
Safe and warm and free from harm
I drift into the stories told
Of castles, faeries, days of old
I do not think, I do not feel
Deaths cold grip, I will not heal
My hands are still against the breath
The last I draw before my death
Second place:
In moments of tranquility,
I remember her hands
holding a stiff bristled hairbrush
as she prepared to brush
my long auburn locks;
my brown hair had a reddish cast
which darkened as I matured.
I remember her smile,
as I attempted to tie my Oxfords
too stubborn to ask for help
or admit
I could not get the shoelaces
to hold a proper bow.
Mother
always made sure I was safe
without preventing me
from making my own mistakes;
I remember
the soft strokes of her fingers
as she wiped
the tears from my eyes.
I remember the stories
she read to me at night,
I was the first child
she carried full term
and now
in her ninetieth year
our positions are reversed.
Third place:
She's a legend taken from the ribs of Adam
for the man was lonely and so, God let her come.
She was born in his way and her fate brought her name
and the billions of stars smiled when she came.
She's blessed with the life that she bears in her womb
and the life that she's born had hastily bloom.
Humanity spread all throughout in the earth;
population increases in time she gives birth.
She's a precious jewel in the life of a man.
Her innocent smile let him know, "She's the one."
Her promising words give endless sincerity
for her heart is filled with genuine purity.
She's a mother to a child who needs guidance to grow
as she held their hands for the fate of tomorrow.
Their moments at night that she filled with stories
are what she just cherished as she left with soft kiss.
She's skillful, precise and a righteous leader.
She never gives up for she strives and works harder.
She believes in herself that all things can be done
as what God has done when she's taken out of man...
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Poetry: June 08, 2011 Issue [#4440]
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