Robert Frost - Wind and Window Flower

Lovers, forget your love,
And list to the love of these,
She a window flower,
And he a winter breeze.

When the frosty window veil
Was melted down at noon,
And the caged yellow bird
Hung over her in tune,

He marked her through the pane,
He could not help but mark,
And only passed her by
To come again at dark.

He was a winter wind,
Concerned with ice and snow,
Dead weeds and unmated birds,
And little of love could know.

But he sighed upon the sill,
He gave the sash a shake,
As witness all within
Who lay that night awake.

Perchance he half prevailed
To win her for the flight
From the firelit looking-glass
And warm stove-window light.

But the flower leaned aside
And thought of naught to say,
And morning found the breeze
A hundred miles away.



Hi everyone! So today's little touch of love comes from the great Robert Frost (aptly named, as a lot of his poems had ice themes. Go figure). Frost has some of my favorite imagery, and he does so well personifying some rather obscure items; in this case wind and a potted plant. I'm pretty sure we're supposed to sympathize with the wind in this poem, rather than the plant. I'm not really sure, but the plant sounds really aloof. That might just be me though. This wind is looking in on her every night (wow, that came out really stalker-ish) and all she can do is sit there and think "wow, I'm a plant. Go me!" When she finally realizes that the wind wanted her, she falls over and pouts. Go figure. Anyway, moral of my story today: don't be a plant or the wind, they both suck.


Signing off ~Sam Zimmerman

T.S. Eliot - Rhapsody on a Windy Night

RHAPSODY ON A WINDY NIGHT

by: T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

Twelve o'clock.

Along the reaches of the street

Held in a lunar synthesis,

Whispering lunar incantations

Dissolve the floors of memory

And all its clear relations,

Its divisions and precisions,

Every street lamp that I pass

Beats like a fatalistic drum,

And through the spaces of the dark

Midnight shakes the memory

As a madman shakes a dead geranium. 

Half-past one,

The street lamp sputtered,

The street lamp muttered,

The street lamp said, "Regard that woman

Who hesitates towards you in the light of the door

Which opens on her like a grin.

You see the border of her dress

Is torn and stained with sand,

And you see the corner of her eye

Twists like a crooked pin." 

The memory throws up high and dry

A crowd of twisted things;

A twisted branch upon the beach

Eaten smooth, and polished

As if the world gave up

The secret of its skeleton,

Stiff and white.

A broken spring in a factory yard,

Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left

Hard and curled and ready to snap. 

Half-past two,

The street lamp said,

"Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter,

Slips out its tongue

And devours a morsel of rancid butter."

So the hand of a child, automatic,

Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay.

I could see nothing behind that child's eye.

I have seen eyes in the street

Trying to peer through lighted shutters,

And a crab one afternoon in a pool,

An old crab with barnacles on his back,

Gripped the end of a stick which I held him. 

Half-past three,

The lamp sputtered,

The lamp muttered in the dark. 

The lamp hummed:

"Regard the moon,

La lune ne garde aucune rancune,

She winks a feeble eye,

She smiles into corners.

She smoothes the hair of the grass.

The moon has lost her memory.

A washed-out smallpox cracks her face,

Her hand twists a paper rose,

That smells of dust and old Cologne,

She is alone

With all the old nocturnal smells

That cross and cross across her brain."

The reminiscence comes

Of sunless dry geraniums

And dust in crevices,

Smells of chestnuts in the streets,

And female smells in shuttered rooms,

And cigarettes in corridors

And cocktail smells in bars.

The lamp said,

"Four o'clock,

Here is the number on the door.

Memory!

You have the key,

The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair,

Mount.

The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall,

Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life." 

The last twist of the knife.

Happy Sunday everyone! Just thought I'd ruin everyone's day with a poem about utter isolationism. Not really, it's just a good poem. As I mentioned, this poem talks a lot about isolation and a lack of communication. If we look at the poem, there are only a few spoken words, and those are said by a lamp-post. He only has one toothbrush, indicating that he lives alone. The closest he can get to another human being is a prostitute who can't even step out of the doorway to entice him in. The closest he can get to another living thing is to have a crusty old crab grab onto a stick. Most of the imagery in this poem has nothing to do with communication. All of the imagery is either visual or nasal, no sound, no touch (no taste either, but that's not really that important).

There are also a lot of symbols that indicate a sense of distance. Prostitutes are people's excuses for relationships, but there's no real connection. Crabs are crusty, hard-skinned loners who don't connect with others. The moon, used a lot in this poem, is bright, but cold. The moon will watch you with her "feeble eye," but "She is alone." The isolationism is overwhelming and depressing. 

I don't really have any personal connections with the thematics of this story, so I really don't have much to talk about on that end. I do have some experiences with walking around at night, and much of the moon imagery draws me back to those times. I also love this poem for the almost lyrical nature, it flows so well off the tongue and it's just beautiful to read, independent of the message. 

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed it, and thought it as beautiful as I did.

Signing off ~Sam Zimmerman