Four Poets, Four Poems on Hope

         ~ POETRY CENTRAL     Volume 2, Number 1      Four Poets, Four Poems on Hope ~ 

While there’s life, there’s hope.  attr. Cicero, ca. 60 BC

I admit it.  I’m a glass-half-full guy, especially when it’s filled with Cognac or a really nice Burgundy.  In my poetry, if I write about very serious topics such as war, death or suffering, I try to give a nuance of hope, a roadmap, however buried in a metaphor or hidden in a seemingly converse tone, that might lead one to consider a way out, an overcoming.  That's just the way I like to write.  There’s a rich tradition in the history of poetry on hope.  I scanned my Norton’s Anthology and came up with four poets and four poems which deal very specifically with the topic of hope.  In fact, they mention the word in the title!  The poems are by John Keats, Emily Dickinson, Emily Bronte and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 

You will find an interesting contrast between the first two poems, which are more salutary and treat the qualia of hope in a positive, upbeat manner, versus the second two, which come across in a much more dark, veiled way.   Still, one can find points of commonality in the ultimate impressions and conclusions drawn by the dissimilar poems.  As well, thinking about the concept and quality of hope from both viewpoints offers a unique opportunity to reflect on both the benefits of having hope as well as the utter dejection that might arise from losing hope.  Since the Keats poem is quite long, I’ve included the first and last two stanzas, and provided a hotlink to view the entire poem.   The others are fairly short and the entire poem appears below.  To help orient the reader, I've included a very brief biographical sketch of each poet as well as an introductory explication of the poem.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

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John Keats (1795-1821) was one of the most acclaimed of all the Romantic poets.  Keats’ poems were highly charged with sensual imagery (i.e., Eve of St. Agnes), and is perhaps best known for his Odes.  In many ways, Keats led a tragic life.  Certainly, it was an abbreviated one.  Keats died of tuberculosis at the age of 26.  His poetry was not readily accepted during his short life, and he was criticized harshly in the periodicals of the day.  Keats poem, To Hope, written in 1815, is a monumental declaration of the power of hope.  In his poem, Keats personifies Hope, after a fashion, and capitalizes the word throughout.  Written in an ababcc rhyming pattern with eight flawless stanzas of iambic pentameter, the poem flows with striking fluidity.   A magnificent repeating couplet graces the poem:  Sweet Hope, celestial influence round me shed,/ Waving thy silver pinions o'er my head!   Keats uses the repetition of life’s stresses and difficulties to build tension, just as the beautiful resounding couplet gives resolution.  And we see the waving pinions and imagine their influence in our own world of stress “enwrapped in gloom.”

To Hope

 

v1

When by my solitary hearth I sit,
And hateful thoughts enwrap my soul in gloom;
When no fair dreams before my "mind's eye" flit,
And the bare heath of life presents no bloom;
Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head!

 

v7

Let me not see the patriot's high bequest,
Great Liberty! how great in plain attire!
With the base purple of a court oppress'd,
Bowing her head, and ready to expire:
But let me see thee stoop from heaven on wings
That fill the skies with silver glitterings!

 

v8

And as, in sparkling majesty, a star
Gilds the bright summit of some gloomy cloud;
Brightening the half veil'd face of heaven afar:
So, when dark thoughts my boding spirit shroud,
Sweet Hope, celestial influence round me shed,
Waving thy silver pinions o'er my head!

by John Keats, 1825

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) is one of the most beloved of all American female poets, yet she wrote in utter obscurity, and her poems were not published until after her death (except for a few published anonymously).  Dickinson is known for her unique and innovative use of grammar, meter, and vocabulary.  Her poetry attests to the influences of William Blake and Ralph Waldo Emerson.  She wrote over 1700 poems, all untitled.  Though Dickinson spent almost her entire life in seclusion, she was a very passionate, opinionated poet.  In her famous poem, Hope is the Thing With Feathers, we find hope equated with an imagined bird that lives in the soul.  The poem provides a sensual panorama of the peace and calming influence that that kind of hope can provide.  Finally, and perhaps above all, it asks for nothing in return.

Hope Is The Thing With Feathers

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Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me

 

by Emily Dickinson, 1891

Emily Bronte (1818-1848) author of the unparalleled gothic novel, Wuthering Heights, also wrote poetry, and together with her sisters Anne and Charlotte, issued a book of poetry entitled, Poems, in 1846, under pseudonyms.  She was born on the moors in northern England which shaped her dark and yet imaginative views on life seen in her novel and poetry.  She had few friends, and, like Keats, died at an early age from tuberculosis.  Emily Bronte has been called one of the great English lyric poets.  Interestingly, Emily Dickinson chose one of Bronte’s poems to be read at her funeral.  Bronte’s poem, Hope, is a fascinating “other side” look at hope daunted.  She likens hope to a timid friend, a sort of detached observer, yet cruel in her decision to remain at a distance.  Further, she compares that kind of dashed hope to “selfish-hearted men,” which may be construed as a social commentary on the state of women's rights during the period.  Bronte’s hope misleads.  It is treacherous, false and unrelenting.  All magnified, when contrasted in light of the benefits that true hope might afford.  The poem is haunting and dark, with an unforgettable ending line.  Yet, in the reading, one kind find points of identification in the harsh, petulant complaints of an individual who has experienced hope thwarted. 

Hope

 

Hope was but a timid friend;
She sat without the grated den,
Watching how my fate would tend,
Even as selfish-hearted men.

She was cruel in her fear;
Through the bars one dreary day,
I looked out to see her there,
And she turned her face away!

Like a false guard, false watch keeping,
Still, in strife, she whispered peace;
She would sing while I was weeping;
If I listened, she would cease.

False she was, and unrelenting;
When my last joys strewed the ground,
Even Sorrow saw, repenting,
Those sad relics scattered round;

Hope, whose whisper would have given
Balm to all my frenzied pain,
Stretched her wings, and soared to heaven,
Went, and ne'er returned again!

 

Emily Bronte, 1843

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), was one of the greatest English poets in history.  Coleridge, who wrote The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Christabel, and Kubla Khan, is considered one of the principal poets of the Romantic movement.  He is known for his incomparable narrative voice as well as his shorter, meditative “conversation poems' (This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison and Frost at Midnight).  In the poem, Work Without Hope, Coleridge uses nature as a setting and backdrop to display the built-in hope which things like slugs and bees exhibit, that "work" without a thought or care, and certainly never entertain the thought of hopelessness.  The poem turns brilliantly on a self-comparison to the narrator, who cannot work, for he has lost all hope.  In some way, he has lost the object or purpose for his work.  It's not hard to imagine what kinds of emotional trauma can lead ourselves into a similar spiral downspin.  The emotional quality of this poem (really a sonnet) is striking, and the reader is made to see the utter despair and finality of losing hope.

Work Without Hope

 

All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair -
The bees are stirring -birds are on the wing -
And Winter slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
And I the while, the sole unbusy thing,
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.

Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,
Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.
Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,
For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!
With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll:
And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?
Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And Hope without an object cannot live.

 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1825

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Written by Edward Nudelman, Books Correspondent for POETRY CENTRAL

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