Selected poems from William Blake

William Blake (1757-1827) was born in London and was educated at home until the age of ten. He then enrolled at a drawing school until he became an engraver. From an early age Blake exhibited talent both as an artist and a poem. He has had mystical vision that are said to be the inspirations for many of his poems. He invented illuminated printing which he used to print the illustrations to his poems in his books Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794).

“The Chimney Sweeper” is the title of two poems written by William Blake. The one below was published under Songs of Innocence (1789) while the other was published under Songs of Experience (1794). The poem portrays the miserable experience of children—some as young as four or five—who were forced to clean chimneys in English in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. 

Child chimney sweepers in New York, photo by Havens O. Pierce, late 19th century. (Image from Wikipedia)

The Chimney-Sweeper

When my mother died I was very young,

And my father sold me while yet my tongue

Could scarcely cry 'Weep! weep! weep! weep!'

So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,

That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved; so I said,

'Hush, Tom! never mind it, for, when your head's bare,

You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.'

And so he was quiet, and that very night,

As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight!--

That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,

Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.

And by came an angel, who had a bright key,

And he opened the coffins, and set them all free;

Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing, they run

And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.

Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,

They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind;

And the angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,

He'd have God for his father, and never want joy.

And so Tom awoke, and we rose in the dark,

And got with our bags and our brushes to work.

Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm:

So, if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.

“The Tyger” was also published under Songs of Experience. It has a sister poem entitled “The Lamb” which was published under Songs of Innocence.

 Detail from an original plate of Songs of Experience by William Blake. (Image from Wikipedia)

The Tyger

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,

And water'd heaven with their tears,

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

“The Garden of Love” was published under Songs of Experience. It is seen as an indictment against organized religion (specifically the Church of England) alleged repression on the naturalness of love.

 Detail from a plate in Songs of Experience by William Blake. (Image courtesy of Wikipedia)

The Garden of Love

I laid me down upon a bank,
Where Love lay sleeping;
I heard among the rushes dank
Weeping, weeping.
Then I went to the heath and the wild,
To the thistles and thorns of the waste;
And they told me how they were beguiled,
Driven out, and compelled to the chaste.

I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen;
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut
And 'Thou shalt not,' writ over the door;

So I turned to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore.
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tombstones where flowers should be;
And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.

"The Clod and the Pebble" was published under Songs of Experience. It contrasts the pessimistic attitude of a clod, a piece of mud, from the optimistic one of a smoothed pebble in a stream.

The Clod and the Pebble

"Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a heaven in hell's despair."

So sung a little Clod of Clay,
Trodden with the cattle's feet,
But a Pebble of the brook
Warbled out these metres meet:

"Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a hell in heaven's despite."

R E F E R E N C E S

Abcarian R. & M. Klotz. (2000). Literature: Reading and writing the human experience (7^th shorter ed.) Boston & New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

“The Chimney Sweeper”. Wikipedia. Retrieved: September 4, 2013 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chimney_Sweeper.

“Chimney Sweep”. Wikipedia. Retrieved: September 4, 2013 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimney_sweep.

“The Tyger”. Wikipedia. Retrieved: September 4, 2013 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyger.

“The Garden of Love”. Wikipedia. Retrieved: September 4, 2013 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garden_of_Love.

“The Clod and the Pebble”. Wikipedia. Retrieved: September 4, 2013 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clod_and_the_Pebble.

Selected sonnets from William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was born in Stratford-on-Avon. Details of his life were rather sketchy. At the age of 18 he married a woman eight years his senior, Anne Hathaway. They would have a son and twin daughters. He lived as an actor, playwright, and poet. He wrote more than 150 sonnets which reveal wide and varied interests. Some of his sonnets are about a mysterious “dark lady”, which fueled much scholarly speculation. His historical plays include comedies such as Pericles (1608) and Cymbeline (1611); tragedies like Hamlet (1602) and Othello (1604). He retired in 1611 in the largest house in Stratford. Considered the national bard of England, his works are considered not only the best literature of England but also among the best in the world.

 

Image taken from: http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Love-Poetry/1762052

SONNET 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

 

Image taken from: http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/37217773.jpg

SONNET 130

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
   And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
   As any she belied with false compare.

Image taken from: http://www.writespirit.net/blog/2012/04/18/let-me-not-to-the-marriage-of-true-minds/

SONNET 116

 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

R E F E R E N C E S

 

Abcarian R. & M. Klotz. (2000). Literature: Reading and writing the human experience (7^th shorter ed.) Boston & New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/

Play Review – Ibalong, the Musical

 Tanghalang Pilipino’s poster for Ibalong for this year.

For its 2013-2014 theater season, Tanghalang Pilipino, the resident theater company of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, brings (once more) the Bicol epic Ibalong onstage as a musical play.

Ibalong tells the tale of heroes in search of a new homeland for their people (see a retelling of the epic in our blog here). The story is reminiscent of Virgil’s Aeneid where Aeneas finds a new homeland for his people after their city was destroyed in the Trojan War (as told in The Iliad by Homer). He founds a new home for them in Italy, which would later become Rome. Both Handyong and Aeneas pass through various troubles as they fight for a new home for their people.

The story

 The young Oryol with her friend, the wild boar Opon.

Tanghalang Pilipino’s “Ibalong, the Musical” is a reinterpretation of the epic tale. Here the humans, represented by Baltog and Handyong, are not portrayed as heroes in search of a homeland. Instead they are portrayed as greedy men seeking to build their own empires. In doing so, they destroy the forest and kill or enslave the halimaw’s of Ibalong. The young Oryol witnessed how Baltog killed her friend the wild boar, named Opon in the play. When she grew up, Oryol fought Handyong in order to save her fellow monsters. But she was defeated by Handyong, who forced her to marry him and to teach him how to find and defeat the other monsters. The play ends with the birth of the son of Handyong and Oryol named Makusog.

Set, sounds, music, and costumes


The set is built on three levels: the stage floor; a middle level of inclined ramps (the one on the right has a trap door) representing high ground; and an upper level, representing heaven. The curtain appears to have been made of plastic straw strings, which appear represent tall grass. It is used for dramatic effect as Oryol mysteriously slithers across the stage.

The music of the play is supplied by three live musicians: an acoustic guitarist and two percussionists. (I’m not sure if recorded music was also used.) The music used in the play has a strong ethnic vibe. Rock was also used in the play, and there are times when the groaning of an electric guitar can be heard.

Perhaps the only down side of the play was the sound system! I appreciated the music of Sandosenang Sapatos because the instruments can be heard live without amplification (but then, that was in the tiny Tanghalang Huseng Batute studio theater). At the beginning of the play (at least for this night), I could hardly understand the words in the song of Oryol. There were also times when the sounds from the wireless microphones on the cast would be spotty. The problem appears to have been fixed during the final act.

The greatest upside of the play are the costumes, especially of the monsters. One would be dazzled at the ingenuity and creativity that went into the construction of the costumes. Winning best costume hands-down is that of Oryol, whose shiny scaly tail was operated by two puppeteers in black manipulating the tail (like those dancing dragons during Chinese New Year).

Plus points also to the choreography: In their vibrantly-color costumes, the chorus would fill the stage, making it a sight to behold.

Jenine Desiderio was excellent in her portrayal of the beautiful and seductive snake-woman Oryol. She also plays the dramatic parts very well. She was able to show both sides of Oryol: strong but also vulnerable. Once more, Trixie Esteban garnered my admiration as the young and innocent Oryol. Her voice, which was like a young Lea Salonga, rang as clear as a bell.

Reflections

Tanghalang Pilipino’s re-creation turns the epic into a modern-day parable on man’s relentless destruction of nature. As Baltog and Handyong pronounce their intention to clear the forests and flush out all the monsters to make space for their kingdoms, I can see in my mind’s eye developments like seaside hotels and condominiums. Their destruction of nature is coincidentally relevant, for our country reeled from the destruction wrought by Typhoon Maring and habagat just the week before.

The Bible speaks of man’s destruction of nature in a way that is eerily modern:  

And the nations were wroth; and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they be judged, and to give a reward to thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and to them that fear thy name, small and great, and to destroy them that destroyed the earth. (Revelation 11:18, emphasis added)

The destruction left behind by the recent typhoon revealed how damaged nature is because of the work of man. Entire towns were flooded because waterways were clogged by garbage. Also, there is the alleged theft of public funds that would have been otherwise used for flood-control projects and relief operations. Could it be that the apocalyptic signs in the Bible like pestilences and famines be—in part—caused by us human beings?

After the destruction of Earth, is rebellion against heaven itself. Greek mythology (in the Theogony by Hesiod) tells of the Gigantomachia, the Clash of the Giants, where the giants piled one mount on top of another in order to reach Mount Olympus and fight the gods. The Bible tells (in Genesis 11:1-9) of a story of people building the city of Babel (yes, it’s actually the city that is called Babel) with a tower in rebellion to God. Both stories tell of the futility of this: the gods strike down the Giants with thunder and lightning and God scatters humans all over the earth by confusing their language.

Personal notes

The play ends with a preview of the Legend of Mount Mayon. As Miss Esteban sings on the stage’s topmost level, Mayon rises majestically in the background. Will there be a sequel to Ibalong, one that tells the tale of the beautiful Daragang Magayon? I wish there will be.

 The cast takes a bow for the curtain call as Mount Mayon rises in the background. (Photo courtesy of Carlo de Castro on Facebook).
 

All images used in this blog entry are property of their respective owners.