Did Wordsworth really say that? 'Fraid so--in "To a skylark." I'm sure that by "liver" he wasn't referring to that large floppy organ that distills poisons from our bodies. But still. It's a pretty awful line.
"Skylark" came up today in conversation in the hallways...the topic was poems we can't teach because they contain such completely dorky lines. Of course, I teach them anyway. Or I would, if I taught Wordsworth, which I don't, because, well, he's on my most overrated list. But dorky lines are, to my mind, what make classes worth teaching. It's so much fun to hoot.
Anyway, here's the whole poem:
UP with me! up with me into the clouds!
For thy song, Lark, is strong;
Up with me, up with me into the clouds!
Singing, singing,
With clouds and sky about thee ringing,
Lift me, guide me till I find
That spot which seems so to thy mind!
I have walked through wildernesses dreary
And to-day my heart is weary;
Had I now the wings of a Faery,
Up to thee would I fly.
There is madness about thee, and joy divine
In that song of thine;
Lift me, guide me high and high
To thy banqueting-place in the sky.
Joyous as morning
Thou art laughing and scorning;
Thou hast a nest for thy love and thy rest,
And, though little troubled with sloth,
Drunken Lark! thou would'st be loth
To be such a traveller as I.
Happy, happy Liver,
With a soul as strong as a mountain river
Pouring out praise to the Almighty Giver,
Joy and jollity be with us both!
Alas! my journey, rugged and uneven,
Through prickly moors or dusty ways must wind;
But hearing thee, or others of thy kind,
As full of gladness and as free of heaven,
I, with my fate contented, will plod on...
And there I stop. Sorry, I can't copy anymore: it's killing me. And anyway, "I...will plod on" makes a much better conclusion, don't you think?
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3 comments:
Oh, no - not Wordsworth, too (We love Jude the Obscure). Try "We Are Seven" by Wordsworth. It's in your Norton. There's a creepy, relentless little girl who's quite different.
Good job you don't teach Wordsworth! That terrible poem is actually by an 11th grade pupil called Panchi in 2008. Wordsworth's actual poem is the rather different
ETHEREAL Minstrel! Pilgrim of the sky!
Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?
Or while the wings aspire, are heart and eye
Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?
Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will, 5
Those quivering wings composed, that music still!
To the last point of vision, and beyond
Mount, daring warbler!—that love-prompted strain
('Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond)
Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain: 10
Yet mightst thou seem, proud privilege! to sing
All independent of the leafy Spring.
Leave to the nightingale her shady wood;
A privacy of glorious light is thine,
Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood 15
Of harmony, with instinct more divine;
Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam—
True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!
OK, it must be from earlier than 2008 since you posted that in 2007. Still, it most definitely isn't by Wordworth.
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