Two Worlds
A fiery young world, in far voids of sky,
Called to an old world growing dark and chill:
"Now that you hear the hour you must die,
Tell me what mighty memories haunt you still!"
Then from the old sad world this answer fell:
"Vast peoples rose and vanished where I swing....
But all my poor tired soul remembers well
Are the great songs my poets used to sing!"
Commentary
Ah, the infinite vanity of the poet. Other poets have expressed similar sentiments, though none, I think, so extreme; still, Fawcett merely tapped into the popular sentiment that poets are a higher form of life. Strange that the notion finds greatest favour among poets <g>.
As for the poem itself, it’s certainly not one of the ‘great songs’. The scansion is weak, and the exclamation marks annoying, to name just two of its flaws. And yet, having outlined what I don’t like about it, I’ll go on to say that I do like the poem as a whole. Despite the flaws in the versification, the central image is a compelling one1; indeed, I feel that the poem is too short to do it justice, and that it’d have benefited from a fuller exploration of the theme. Whatever Fawcett lacked, it was not scope of vision.
Biography
Not a scrap of biographical information could I find - ‘American poet’ says the Poet’s Corner, and that’s about it.
Links
- For a far better poem on the same theme, see Arthur O’Shaugnessy’s ‘Ode’,
- And because this poem reminds me irresistibly of Leslie Fish’s song ‘Hope
Eyrie', here's a link to the lyrics:
<[broken link] http://gamgee.acad.emich.edu/~roth/SONGS/hopeeyrie.html>
and for completeness sake, one to the mp3:
<http://www.prometheus-music.com/audio/hopeeyrie.mp3>
— Martin
-
and certainly one that appeals to the sf fan in me ↩