Poetry anthology recommendations please

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Try America:A Prophecy, or Poems for the Millenium. Most other things might seem a bit conservative to you now
Blake? Good idea actually, I read songs of innocence/experience and marriage of heaven and hell when I was at school I think, would be good to revisit now.

Definitely fancy poems for the millennium but might have trouble lugging it round the bars where I do most of my reading these days
 

luka

Well-known member
America: A Prophecy

(Engraved 1793)


Preludium​
The shadowy Daughter of Urthona stood before red Orc,
When fourteen suns had faintly journey’d o’er his dark abode:
His food she brought in iron baskets, his drink in cups of iron.
Crown’d with a helmet and dark hair the nameless Female stood;
A quiver with its burning stores, a bow like that of night,
When pestilence is shot from heaven—no other arms she need!
Invulnerable tho’ naked, save where clouds roll round her loins
Their awful folds in the dark air: silent she stood as night;
For never from her iron tongue could voice or sound arise,
But dumb till that dread day when Orc assay’d his fierce embrace.
‘Dark Virgin,’ said the hairy Youth, ‘thy father stern, abhorr’d,
Rivets my tenfold chains, while still on high my spirit soars;
Sometimes an eagle screaming in the sky, sometimes a lion
Stalking upon the mountains, and sometimes a whale, I lash
The raging fathomless abyss; anon a serpent folding
Around the pillars of Urthona, and round thy dark limbs
On the Canadian wilds I fold; feeble my spirit folds;
For chain’d beneath I rend these caverns: when thou bringest food
I howl my joy, and my red eyes seek to behold thy face—
In vain! these clouds roll to and fro, and hide thee from my sight.
Silent as despairing love, and strong as jealousy,
The hairy shoulders rend the links; free are the wrists of fire;
Round the terrific loins he seiz’d the panting, struggling womb;
It joy’d: she put aside her clouds and smilèd her first-born smile,
As when a block cloud shows its lightnings to the silent deep.
Soon as she saw the Terrible Boy, then burst the virgin cry:—
‘I know thee, I have found thee, and I will not let thee go:
Thou art the image of God who dwells in darkness of Africa,
And thou art fall’n to give me life in regions of dark death.
On my American plains I feel the struggling afflictions
Endur’d by roots that writhe their arms into the nether deep.
I see a Serpent in Canada who courts me to his love,
In Mexico an Eagle, and a Lion in Peru;
I see a Whale in the South Sea, drinking my soul away.
O what limb-rending pains I feel! thy fire and my frost
Mingle in howling pains, in furrows by thy lightnings rent.
This is Eternal Death, and this the torment long foretold!’
 

luka

Well-known member

you should read this actually its one of the best ones
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Oh right, they pinched the title. That does look good.

Gonna marinate on this for a couple of weeks and carry on with New American Poetry for now - there's a lot of juice in this thing.
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
I can't really read poetry off a screen unfortunately, it just doesn't go in

Have you got fancy illustrated editions of those Blakes? They look lush, and expensive
 

luka

Well-known member
some are some arent. ive got little ones of a few. urizen. innocence and expereince.... something else cant remember which.
there was a complete illustrated for about £30 on sale about a decade ago but wasnt that well printed
 

luka

Well-known member
its a mistake to think you need to properly read a poem to know what you think about it. you can really just glance at it
theres no need to even read the words actually. you can measure the quality in a glance. i dont exactly know how, but you can.
 
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