I read it because it came out of an experiment
with other languages.
It's a poem called The Young Ionia, which
I think is also a mimeographed.
And this poem was suggested by a rating of Euripides--
the Buckeye-- because one of the choruses in this play was
written in a meter called ionic a minore which is 2 shorts
and two longs--
T-D-D-D, T-D-D-D. And I just wondered if this could be used
as the basis for a poem in English just for fun.
It started as an experiment in metrics.
You can see the title is a pun.
Nobody has to know what it means.
It's supposed to sound like the name of a girl I guess.
But it's called The Young Ionia because the meter
is ionic a minore--
minor ionic.
It started, as I said, as an experiment in meter.
Poem start in lots of ways and least often with ideas I
suppose.
They start with the way two words fit together.
Dylan Thomas says, "They start with a mere cadence
in the head."
Elliot and Valerie have said, "They
start with the way two images go together perhaps."
Well, this happened to start with a cadence.
But I don't think, at least I hope
it isn't merely a metrical experiment
because that's nothing.
And I hope that this was just a starter that
got something emotional going and it
turned into a poem of unhappy love,
love unhappy for one reason or another.
Each line consists of three ionic a minore feet.
But since that looks monotonous I
broke up the lines by never having to break twice
in the same place.
I mean, by having an offbeat break in the lines.
It's in effect you may not hear but can see on the page.
And by having a lot of rhyme in the poem.
I don't know why.
Sounded pretty.
There's too much rhyme, I think, somewhat to be taken out.
But the rhythm is this two shorts two longs--
T-D-D-D, T-D-D-D. If you could come on the late train
for the same walk or a hush talk by the fireplace when the ash
flares as a heart could--
if a heart would to recall you.
To recall all a long look.
To enwrap you as it once had when
the rain streamed on the fall air and we knew,
then, it was all wrong.
It was love lost and a year lost.
Of the few years we account most.
But the boughs blew and the cloud blew
and the sky fell from its rose ledge on the wood's rim
to the wan brook.
And the clock read to the half-dead, a profound page
as the cloud broke and the moon spoke and the door shook.
If you could come, and it meant come at the steep price.
We regret yet as the debt swells in the night time.
And the could come if you could hum in the skull's drum.
And the limbs writhe until the bed cries like a hurt thing.
If you could-- but the moon is dead and the clock is dead.
For we know now we can give all but it won't do.
Not the day's length nor the black strength or the blood's
flush.
What we took once for a sure thing, for delight's right,
for the clear eve with its wild star in the sunset
we would have back at the old cost, at the old grief.
And we begged love for the same pain, for a last chance.
Then the God turns with a low laugh--
as the leaves hush--
but the eyes ice and there's no twice.
The benign gaze upon some woe but on ours no.
And the leaves rush.