A/N: this was written as an English assignment to imitate TS Eliot's The Wasteland. We had required excerpts from different types of literature to include, based on what our course had covered over the year. All excerpts are italicized, and translated if need be, and listed at the bottom of the poem. As usual, I don't own anything.
Love made me such that I live in fire
like a new salamander on earth
Like a new-birthed egg
a newborn babe
And then
Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
It stopped
broke
stalled
Four and twenty ladies fair
Were playing at the ba',
And out then came fair Janet
Ance the flower amang them a'
No longer can I hear the voices
the soothing sirens' call
no longer can I feel the stirring
in the Grey King's hall
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Confused
bereft
hurt
left behind
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Can you
turn it back
return
to what once was
Can you
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging
Can you
help me
Four and twenty ladies fair
Were playing at the chess,
And out then came fair Janet
As green as onie glass.
Janet had her herb from Carterhaugh
Bluebeard's wives his egg
Where is my refuge
my harbor
my safe house
Which is the poison to poison her prithee?
The trail climbs in zig-zags
High above spiralling whirlpools.
Swift waters break against sheer rocks.
And every turn
escape
trail
is barricaded
locked
against flight:
Angele dei
qui custos es mei,
Me tibi commissum pietate superna;
Hac nocte illumina, custodi, rege, et guberna.
Amen
My prayer lifts up the skies
Spirals towards heaven
asking
calling
When, high in the clouds, will you proclaim your name?
No te amo como si fueras rosa de sal, topacio
o flecha de claveles que propagan el fuego:
te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras,
secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma.
and yet.
You have hurt me
wounded
scarred
my single solace:
pourtant vous serez semblable à cette ordure,
A cette horrible infection,
Étoile de mes yeux, soleil de ma nature,
Vous, mon ange et ma passion!
'Hauld your tongue, ye auld-faced knight,
Some ill death may ye die!
Father my bairn on whom I will,
I'll father nanre on thee.
Medieval literature: Four and twenty ladies fair 'Hauld your tongue, ye auld-faced knight,
"Four and twenty ladies fair
Were playing at the ba',
And out then came fair Janet
Ance the flower amang them a'
Were playing at the chess,
And out then came fair Janet
As green as onie glass.
Some ill death may ye die!
Father my bairn on whom I will,
I'll father nanre on thee."
From "Tam-Lin," Anonymous, old English ballad
The "southern" Renaissance:
"Love made me such that I live in fire
like a new salamander on earth"
From Rime 208, by Gaspara Stampa
Shakespeare:
"Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'"
St. Crispin's Day Speech, from Henry V, Act IV, Scene III
European Enlightenment:
"Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging"
From "Song," by John Donne
Romantic literature:
"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;"
From "The Second Coming," by William Butler Yeats
Age of Realism:
"Et pourtant vous serez semblable à cette ordure,
A cette horrible infection,
Étoile de mes yeux, soleil de ma nature,
Vous, mon ange et ma passion!"
From "Une Charogne," by Charles Baudelaire
Translation:
"And yet you will be like this corruption,
Like this horrible infection,
Star of my eyes, sunlight of my being,
You, my angel and my passion!"
Chinese literature:
"The trail climbs in zig-zags
High above spiralling whirlpools.
Swift waters break against sheer rocks."
From "The Trail Up Wu Gorge," by Sun-Yun Feng
Japanese literature:
"When, high in the clouds, will you proclaim your name?"
From "The Diary of the Waning Moon," by the Nun Abutsu
Vernacular diction or popular culture:
References to fairytales, Welsh mythology: the Grey King, Bluebeard
Texts written in language other than English:
"Angele dei
qui custos es mei,
Me tibi commissum pietate superna;
Hac nocte illumina, custodi, rege, et guberna.
Amen"
"Angele Dei," prayer to one's guardian angel, attributed to St. Anselm
Translation:
"Angel of god,
my guardian dear,
To whom his love commits me here;
Ever this (day, night) be at my side,
To light and guard, to rule and guide.
Amen."
"No te amo como si fueras rosa de sal, topacio
o flecha de claveles que propagan el fuego:
te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras,
secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma."
"Sonnet XVII," by Pablo Neruda
Translation:
"I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul."
Other:
"Which is the poison to poison her prithee?"
From "The Laboratory" by Robert Browning