Poetry Forum

Call for the robin-redbreast and the wren,
since o'er shady groves they hover
and with leaves and flowers do cover
the murdered sweethearts of unfaithful men.
Call unto their laying in
the banjo and the violin
to charm the birds out of the trees
that they may sing for such as these;
but keep Tom Dooley hence, and all that sigh
so false until they in perdition lie.

Hi David,

Well, it's charming, and the music is very nice. It feels a bit like one of Queneau's Exercices du style though. Here's the Eliot I was remembering:

‘Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
‘Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!

All this to say it's extremely easy on the eye, but what is its inner necessity?! I ask.

Cheers,
John

Interesting David, it's been a while since I've seen you post an out and out rhymer and this one really drives the music home. The metrical variations are intriguing but the distraction does give a sense of unfaithfulness. There's a certain mystery to the poem, particularly with the Tom Dooley reference, that makes me wonder what's been going on.

Now I might be missing something here like a sequence of deliberately archaic verse as part of a bigger schedule you're working on.

That said it is charming and as has also been said, intriguing.

I love the last two lines and fully empathise. It reminded me, in a distant kind of way, of Shakespeare's sonnet that lists all his lover's defects.

Thanks chaps. (This is a very chappish forum, isn't it? Have you noticed? I like it here, but that is - perhaps - one of its failings.)

Yes, it is archaic and Shakespearean and all that, mainly because most of it is just an appropriation of this: https://englishverse.com/poems/a_dirge ... one of my favourite poems, and one of the not that many that I know by heart. And, when going over it in my head, the shady grove has always stuck out as being the name of one of those great old Appalachian murder songs, so I repurposed the original accordingly.

I'm slightly gutted to find out, on doing my research for this one, that "Shady Grove" isn't actually a murder song at all. Still, I'm ignoring that petty detail. It's the sort of place where the murders tend to occur, and "Tom Dooley" is definitely a murder song ...



So is one of Olivia Newton-John's big hits, of course. (No, not "Let's Get Physical".)

It's just a bit of fun with John Webster, really, but I quite like it. (I think John pops up in "Shakespeare in Love", briefly.)

jisbell00 wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 20, 2023 7:45 pm

All this to say it's extremely easy on the eye, but what is its inner necessity?! I ask.

Ah well. Good question, John. What can I say? Well, it suggested itself to me. That's the best I can do by way of an answer.

Cheers all

David

Hi David,

Good to see that fine Webster poem, to which you've hewn pretty closely. I like how your text interacts with it. Tom Dooley is reasonably well-known I think to folk fans, so didn't throw me unduly, though I couldn't have said what he got up to. Hide your head Tom Dooley? I didn't know Shady Grove, but Matty Groves is also a murder song in the folk tradition.

Yup, a rather tendentious John Webster persona appears as an adolescent in Shakespeare in Love. I like this by Webster: "Cover her face - mine eyes dazzle - she died young."

Cheers,
John

Thanks John. Is your Webster quote from "Duchess of Malfi"? We did that at A-Level, and I think I remember the line from there, along with not much else. Only, I think, the famous "malcontent" character - Antonio Bosola? A sort of prototype antihero, as I remember - although I suppose antiheroes go back way beyond that.

Oh, and a wayward cardinal, perhaps.

Cheers

David

Hi David,

Yup, Duchess of Malfi. Well spotted! I didn't read English at A level, but was in our school performance as Second Spear Carrier, as I like to say. It's a great play, full of light and shade as you note. At least, that's how I remember it.

Cheers,
John