SCYTHE SONG ANDREW LANG Have you ever seen men mowing grass with old-fashioned scythes? This poem is the Song of the Scythe. And the words "Hush, ah, hush!" sound exactly like the sound of the scythe as its sharp edge swishes across the stems of the grass and then is withdrawn. The first "Hush," whispered with the sound prolonged, represents the long stroke of the scythe into the grass. The word "ah" is the sound as the scythe is withdrawn. The second "hush" is the second stroke into the grass, and so on. The words should be whispered, "hush" with the breath going out, and "ah" with the breath drawn in. Try to imitate the sound of the scythe as described. You will see, after you have studied the poem, that the poet means much more than the cutting down of grass by the mower. As he watches the grass fall and die beneath the scythe of the mower, he thinks that old Father Time, with his scythe of death, cuts down in the same way all human beings, and that his scythe says to them, — "Hush, and heed not, for all things pass." SCYTHE SONG Mowers, weary and brown, and blithe, Endless overword that the scythe Sings to the blades of the grass below? Scythes that swing in the grass and clover, Sings the scythe to the flowers and grass? Hush, ah hush, the scythes are saying, Hush, and heed not, and fall asleep; Is not to-day enough? Why do I peer PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 5 10 ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD THOMAS GRAY You are now about to read the most famous single poem in the English language, "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard." Its author was Thomas Gray, an English poet. Thomas Gray was born in London in 1716, and died in Cambridge, England, in 1771. He received a fine education at Eton, the famous preparatory school for the University of Cambridge, and at the University itself, where he spent the usual college days and where, after three years of travel in Europe, he lived for thirty years in quiet study and in writing poems. He was one of the greatest scholars of his time. Gray never married. He was a shy, retiring man, knowing few persons, and always suffering from ill health. He had a melancholy or sad disposition. He saw no joy in living, but always looked on the dark side of life. This habit is shown in his great poem, in which he talks of death and of the saddest things imaginable. After the death of his father, his mother and his sisters moved to a small country village named Stoke, or Stoke Poges (pō'jis), not far from Windsor Castle, one of the residences of the King of England. Here, in the churchyard of the village, Gray loved to sit or lie, and meditate upon the lives of the unknown farmers and villagers who were buried there. At other times, he would wander in the woods of Burnham near by, and lie "listlessly," or idly, under a great old tree, and "pore upon the brook that babbled by." He had enough to live on without working, and so he had nothing to do but think and grieve and mope, a very sad and bad habit in general. But in Gray's case, this habit of looking sadly at everything gave the English-speaking world what is commonly admitted to be its greatest single poem. The great poem was begun in the churchyard at Stoke Poges in 1742, when Gray was twenty-six years of age, but was not finished until 1750, after he had retired to Cambridge. He rewrote and corrected it many, many times, during a period of eight years, until it suited him. All the poems that Gray wrote would not fill a book half as large as your reader, but the one great poem, the "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," alone would be sufficient to make his name immortal. As the whole English-speaking world considers this the greatest poem in the language, do you not think it worthy of the study that will enable you to understand and appreciate it? You will have to read slowly, and carefully, and thoughtfully, and you will have to think hard to understand the poem. An elegy is a poem that tells of something sad, as of Death, for example. So this great poem tells chiefly of the unknown lives and the unremembered deaths of those who sleep beneath the gravestones in the "country churchyard" of the village of Stoke Poges. The great people of the parish were buried under the church itself, while the poorer people were buried under the sod of the churchyard outside. The poem may be divided into eight fairly well-defined parts, including the "epitaph," as follows: THE FIRST PART Stanzas 1 to 3, inclusive A description of evening as the poet sits alone in the churchyard among the graves. Stanza 1. a. The curfew tolls. b. He hears the lowing cattle coming home. a. The light fades. b. All grows still. c. The drone of a beetle is heard. d. The drowsy sound of sheep-bells comes from afar. Stanza 3. a. An old owl in an ivy-mantled tower near by hoots a complaint that some one approaching disturbs her right to rule over the place. Now with this explanation in mind, read over very slowly the first three stanzas, seeing the poet in the old churchyard among the graves, and one by one, seeing the pictures and hearing the sounds that he tells you of. Do not hurry over the three stanzas. Shut your eyes at each line, and see the picture, and hear the hoot of the old owl from the tower. As it took Gray eight years to write the poem, it is hardly probable that you can read it in a few minutes, and understand it. THE SECOND PART Stanzas 4 to 8, inclusive All has now grown quiet. The curfew bell, which is a signal for everybody to go indoors, has left the world to darkness and to the poet. And now, with no sounds to disturb him, his mind turns to the dead beneath the mounds in the churchyard. Who were these people that lie buried here? No one knows anything about them. They are forgotten. Once they lived. |