Hello, my dears. I feel like I have to address the people that comment in each post so here goes. Porche and Riley: you guys will just have to wait because I have no recording equipment, BUT I am going home over break and, knowing Randell, I will be recording so if you have requests, I’ll consider them and then decide how soon I’ll post them. Anyway, Happy Valentine’s Day, I hope you all had a lovely day. So, because Ammara requested an especially cheery post for this week since it was her birthday earlier this week (Happy Belated Birthday, dear!), and since it is currently Valentine’s Day, I decided to actually look for happy poems! …Well, you can’t say I didn’t try.
Soooo, this week, I’ll be looking at “I Love You” by Teasdale and “Sonnet 20” by Rufus Wainwright.
I actually could not find any publication information on this poem!
“Sonnet 20” is sung by Rufus Wainwright, but was written by William Shakespeare.
Here’s the song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aEp7ErHXgE
(Sorry about the ad in the beginning of the video, guys.)
Oh, and here’s the poem!
When April bends above me
And finds me fast asleep,
Dust need not keep the secret
A live heart died to keep.
When April tells the thrushes,
The meadow-larks will know,
And pipe the three words lightly
To all the winds that blow.
Above his roof the swallows,
In notes like far blown rain,
Will tell the little sparrow,
Beside his window-pane.
O sparrow, little sparrow,
When I am fast asleep,
Then tell my love the secret
That I have died to keep.
This poem is absolutely gorgeous. I read it at first and thought, “Oh, how cute. She loves him,” but then I slowly realized it was a secret love that she never got to tell her significant other about. That brought me down a bit, but the imagery distracted me from this because it just fits the whole “I love you,” thing that she has going on. It was hard for me to really distinguish a tone for this, but when it comes down to it, the tone of this poem is wishful and freeing. The whole last stanza did it for me with the wishful tone, but phrases such as “need not keep the secret,” “pipe the three words lightly,” notes like far blown rain,” and tell my love the secret,” established the freeing tone because she is just dying to get this off her chest. The last stanza really ties it up because it’s something she wishes to happen when she has died since she could not or did not allow herself to say the words when she could. Could I please just gush about this poem a bit more for a second? I absolutely love this. I honestly do. I say that every week, but I could see myself reading this poem over and over again. Yes, it is quite sad if you look at it as an unrequited love, but you could also look it as if she was letting her love for him be known naturally. Honestly, she talks about birds, winds, and rain. She doesn’t want to necessarily kill herself trying to get this person to notice that she loves them; rather, she’d rather let it be known naturally That seems to be a happier explanation, but for the sake of analyzing the song along with this poem, I’m going with the first explanation because the words she chose in this poem seem to fit that better.
This song. This song. (Oh man, I do love Rufus Wainwright, but I’ll talk more about him when I finish.) It’s so simple because of the use of the piano and his vocals. I think the piano allows for the image to come alive, but his tone of voice allows for the image to come alive. When I hear the piano, I can see each picture as it correlates with the stanza: I can see the narrator lying on grass, eyes closed. I can see April (I imagined April as a person, rather than the season), bending over her, stroking her hair. When the vocals kick in, I can see her moving along and telling the thrushes, the meadow-larks, etc. As the piano goes along, I can see the breeze moving the trees and the birds flying, but again, when he’s singing, I can see the bigger picture. Trees are dancing and the little sparrow is flitting around the narrator’s love, but as the piano continues, I can see the narrator slowly, but peacefully dying. The sound of the Wainwright’s voice, though, allows for the image of this sparrow telling this mystery person how this person has felt so late, even though it is too late. Since Wainwright’s tone of voice is so melancholic-sounding, it really highlights the wishful tone of this poem, but the light piano in the background emphasizes the freeing tone of the poem, and these two together allow for the poem and the song to intertwine quite nicely with each other.
I don’t even know where to begin. I loved both of these pieces. This song, though, makes me remember how much I really admire Rufus Wainwright, though. He took a poem and made it a song and he did it well. That doesn’t sound right. What I mean is: he took a poem that someone else (who just so happens to be William Shakespeare) and made it his own. He felt his own emotions when he sang this song, and that’s so hard to do, especially when it’s a famous piece like this. Also, he has such a beautiful voice. My goodness. I don’t even know how to describe it, but it’s just so unique and gorgeous. I love how it goes along with this poem. I was going to use Sonnet 20 for my poem as well, but I didn’t feel right since it was made for that poem. Plus it was really hard to put together for some reason. I also loved this poem. It’s still absolutely beautiful and somewhat uplifting. I thought so anyway. Well, I hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading!