Category Archives: Lyric

BOOKS:  木兰辞 [Ballad of Mulan] by Anonymous

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The Ballad of Mulan: 木兰辞 (Simplified Chinese Characters with Pinyin)The Ballad of Mulan: 木兰辞 by Song Nan Zhang
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Available online at YellowBridge

This is a short lyric poem (15-1/2 quatrain, or 62 lines) that tells the story of a young woman who disguises herself as a man and joins the military to fill a slot that would otherwise have required her aged and infirm father to serve. The tiny poem packs in ten-plus years, during which Hua Mulan serves with great distinction and then returns home to take care of her parents. It’s a well-known tale that emphasizes the importance of filial piety and sacrifice. Though outside of China (as well as Taiwan and other Chinese cultural enclaves,) many may know it from the Disney version which has been panned for ditching the Confucian values and replacing them with ones that were thought would resonate better with a Western audience.

The poem is mostly arranged in quatrains of five-character lines with alternate line rhymes.

It’s a quick read and there is no room for the detailed tales of heroism that are depicted in adaptations.

If one is looking for a culturally insightful telling of the story of Hua Mulan, this is the right place to look. I’d highly recommend reading it.

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“Alone” by Edgar Allan Poe [w/ Audio]

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From childhood's hour I have not been
 As others were -- I have not seen
 As other saw -- I could not bring
 My passions from a common spring ---
 From the same source I have not taken
 My sorrow -- I could not awaken
 My heart to joy at the same tone --
 And all I lov'd -- I lov'd alone --
 Then -- in my childhood -- in the dawn
 Of a most stormy life -- was drawn
 From ev'ry depth of good and ill
 The mystery which binds me still --
 From the torrent, or the fountain --
 From the red cliff of the mountain --
 From the sun that 'round me roll'd 
 In its autumn tint of gold --
 From the lightening in the sky
 As it pass'd me flying by --
 From the thunder, and the storm --
 And the cloud that took the form
 (When the rest of Heaven was blue)
 Of a demon in my view --

“Infant Sorrow” by William Blake [w/ Audio]

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My mother groan'd! my father wept.
 Into the dangerous world I leapt:
 Helpless, naked, piping loud:
 Like a fiend hid in a cloud.
 
Struggling in my father's hands,
 Striving against my swadling bands.
 Bound and weary I thought best
 To sulk upon my mother's breast.

“A Needle’s Eye” by William Butler Yeats [w/ Audio]

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All the stream that's roaring by
   Came out of a needle's eye;
 Things unborn, things that are gone,
    From needle's eye still goad it on.

“With a Clean Heart” (Tiszta szívvel) by József Attila [w/ Audio]

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Have no mother, have no dad,
 have no country, have no God,
 no cradle, no winding sheet,
 no lover, no kisses sweet.

Haven't eaten for three days,
 my head spins, the body sways...
 Twenty years! My might, my gale,
 twenty years are now for sale.

If there is no customer,
 sell it to Devil in hell.
 With a clean heart, I will steal,
 If need be, I'll even kill.

They'll catch me and hang me up,
 with soft earth cover me up,
 and death-bringing grass will start
 from my beautiful, clean heart.

Translation by Frank Veszely in Hungarian Poetry: One Thousand Years (2023) Altona, Manitoba: Friesen Press, pp. 156-157.

NOTE: This poem got Attila expelled from university and preemptively scuttled any possibility of a career in academia. (Hence, my affinity for it. Any poetry that extracts such a cost is probably excellent poetry.)

Chimpanzee [Lyric Poem]

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Our closest relative, the Chimpanzee
   Lacks our affinity to be fancy.
 To them we are but pant-wearing buffoons
   Who've lost all freedom to shoot the moon.

Asian Weaver Ant [Lyric Poem]

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There once was a wee Asian Weaver Ant
  Who lived on a big banana tree plant.
 When they cut down his tree, a problem arose,
  Moving to a rubber tree would be too on-the-nose.

Blue Sheep [Lyric Poem]

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The Blue Sheep must be ever so sad:
 For of all the colors in which its clad --
 None is blue; there're shades of brown, black, and white,
 But blue must be symbolic, if judged by sight.

“Some keep the Sabbath going to Church –” (236) by Emily Dickinson [w/ Audio]

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Some keep the Sabbath going to Church --
   I keep it, staying at Home --
 With a Bobolink for a Chorister --
   And an Orchard, for a Dome --

Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice --
   I, just wear my Wings --
 And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,
   Our little Sexton -- sings.

God preaches, a noted Clergyman --
   And the sermon is never long,
 So instead of getting to Heaven, at last -- 
   I'm going, all along.

BOOKS: “The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar” by Paul Laurence Dunbar

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The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar (AmazonClassics Edition)The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar by Paul Laurence Dunbar
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Available online at Project Gutenberg

As the title suggests, this is all the published poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar. With a career pre-dating the Harlem Renaissance, during which lyric poetry ruled the roost, Dunbar may not be as well-known today as several of the African American poets who came later, but it’s not for being any less masterful.

The collection includes a wide variety of lyric forms from simple quatrains to intermediate length poems of several pages. The content and tones also vary, and there is often a sense of whimsy in the poems that goes beyond just being lyrical in form. Dunbar wrote both in dialect and in standard English. He was a big fan of James Whitcomb Riley’s dialectal work, as a poem in Riley’s honor attests. The dialect poems are easy enough to follow and are a pleasure to read. Dunbar was by no means limited to dialectal writing; he also wrote in Standard English cleverly, and the juxtaposition of his very “proper” poems and the dialectal ones shows a great range.

I’d highly recommend this collection for poetry readers, particularly those who enjoy lyric and dialectal poems.

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