“Aim higher!”
I guess everybody has their own all favorite piece of poetry they share with friends. I’m far from being a poetry buff, but I’d like to present you with a little gem I come across in South Park’s “Manbearpig” episode.
What you have below is Excelsior by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Read, digest and by all means comment on it. After that, feel free to show me your gems. :)
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, ‘mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!
His brow was sad; his eye beneath,
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath,
And like a silver clarion rung
The accents of that unknown tongue,
Excelsior!
In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright;
Above, the spectral glaciers shone,
And from his lips escaped a groan,
Excelsior!
“Try not the Pass!” the old man said;
“Dark lowers the tempest overhead,
The roaring torrent is deep and wide!”
And loud that clarion voice replied,
Excelsior!
“O stay,” the maiden said, “and rest
Thy weary head upon this breast!”
A tear stood in his bright blue eye,
But still he answered, with a sigh,
Excelsior!
“Beware the pine tree’s withered branch!
Beware the awful avalanche!”
This was the peasant’s last Good-night,
A voice replied, far up the height,
Excelsior!
At break of day, as heavenward
The pious monks of Saint Bernard
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,
A voice cried through the startled air,
Excelsior!
A traveller, by the faithful hound,
Half-buried in the snow was found,
Still grasping in his hand of ice
That banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!
There in the twilight cold and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,
And from the sky, serene and far,
A voice fell, like a falling star,
Excelsior!
I was walking in the park, thinking of a … well, what was it really I was thinking of? Many vivid images tumbled in my head, all revolving round this weird Longfellow’s ballad. So, there were mountains of course, real rock and snow, taking the shape of Litvorova Dolina on the way up to Polski Hrebien. Then there came some less defined recollections of green Alpine lanscapes, as if taken from a Herzog’s film, followed by a string of literary associations, which can’t be readily translated into pictures.
The poem’s utterly unsophisticated rhyming pattern, aabb, and simple birdsong language don’t make it a particularly worthwhile example of romantic balladry. Its power, however, is the message it carries, which, as in many romantic stories, focuses on a heroic pursuit. Apparently, in America this simple ballad holds a very special status of a classic that shaped the national mind and spirit at a certain time.
PS Here is how its first stanza was translated into Pidgin English:
One young man walkee, no can stop
Maskee de snow, maskee de ice!
He carry flag with chop so nice
Topside galow!
I’m tempted to take another walk in the park and perhaps think how to adapt ‘Excelsior’ into a lesson.
Hi Tomek :)
I must say you managed to surprise me with your entry :) First of all, poetry; secondly – the poem. Why is it one of your favourites? I suppose that either you have some good memories connected with it or you must have had a great literature lecturer. The poem itself is quite intriguing, I must say, but I’d rather read 19th-20th century literature. As for poetry, just like you, “I’m far from being a poetry buff”, I’m much closer to hating it :) Although I have some favourite poets, like Karol Wojtyła, Zbigniew Herbert and Eldo of Grammatik – the Polish great hip hop duet. Yes, I think hip hop lyrics or song lyrics in general may be poetry, it just depends on the author, as usual :)