Working on the libretto for the operetta, Vox Populi, has brought me back to my love of poetry.
My favorite poems create a universe with a few words. Two good poems with a similar subject, put side by side, can introduce the creator of the other.
Like a painter organizes color and shape with his or her brushstrokes, the poet organizes a vision with the sound and rhythm of words:
“Whose woods these are I think I know./
His house is in the village though;/“
The brushstrokes? The sound and rhythm of these two lines? Speak them out loud. They are like the rocking of a hammock they are so smooth and quiet.
In complete contrast however:
“I sought a theme and sought for it in vain,/
I sought it daily for six weeks or so./“
Brush strokes? This is not like the rocking of a hammock, it is like riding a three-legged horse.
Those are the opening two lines of two completely different poems by two completely different people. Now let’s look at the last two lines of these two poems.
“And miles to go before I sleep./
And miles to go before I sleep./“
Brush strokes? The same rocking hammock. Compared to:
“I must lie down where all the ladders start,/
In the foul rag-and- bone shop of the heart./“
That must’ve been a hell of a rough ride? You are correct.
They are both about the end of life. The first by Robert Frost is entitled “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” and the second by WB Yeats is in titled “The Circus Animals’ Desertion.”
Both are about “acceptance,” it seems to me, but that acceptance comes in completely different, very personal forms. Frost’s, in a late evening snowy New Hampshire woods, and Yates’, with the casting off his “Circus Animals” (his life’s work of Irish themes).
The libretto for the operetta is meant to be baudy and entertaining. My poetry, on the other hand, is a personal statement that is directed from me to the reader. It’s from my heart.
I have placed links to both poems below for your review and your own contrasts and conclusions. Feel compassion for these two people. They are writing because they are reaching out to you.
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost
“The Circus Animals’ Desertion” by W.B. Yeats