Category: 2021 Blog Posts

In the poem, “Death, men say, is like a sea”, Field writes of the comparison of death to the sea. The first and third stanza highlights the negative description of the sea, while the second and fourth challenge this imagery by equating the sea to comforting sand and comfortable land. The poem follows a A-A-A-B-C-C-C-B rhyme scheme that places emphasis on the last line of each stanza. The ending words of the last lines of each stanza consist of terror, error, ambition, and remission. These words portray the widely-believed notion that death is something that is frightening, which is addressed throughout the poem, but then negates this idea and promotes the opposite notion, that death is “tender” (Field 8), “warm” (Field 8), and “soft” (Field 8).

The first stanza compares death to a stormy sea that “engulfs mortality” (Field 8). The use of “engulfs” insinuates that death eliminates “mortality”, which in this case would mean humanity, which puts emotions of fear and resentment towards death for “blindingly” (Field 8) taking away life from humans. But, as the second stanza asserts, death is a “pleasant” (Field 8), “tender hand” (Field 8) that protects us from the “wave’s drifted error” (1.5.8),which are all the mistakes or regrets that one has made in their lifetime. The poem progresses to mention that the real torture to humans is living as it destroys our ambition, as seen in the lines “[a]nd transmute to broken surge/Foam-crests of ambition” (Field 8). The fourth stanza ends the poem by referencing back to the “errors” and expresses that “[w]e shall have remission” in death. The last line of the poem is essential as it provides a great deal of relief for all individuals due to the notion that all will be amended and forgiven in death.

The constant imagery of a violent sea versus a comfortable beach articulates the transition from life to death, as seen in the difference between the two images, but reverses the perceived perception of these two entities. The imagery of the sea is enforced by the s sounds that are woven into poem as well as the rhyme scheme, as the A-A-A-B-C-C-C-B rhyme scheme relays a repetition that is disrupted by an anomaly and continues to in a cyclical matter, almost like waves crashing onto a beach. The poem overall offers a positive view of death and loss, while using natural images to support this view.

Death, men say, is like a sea
That engulfs mortality,
Treacherous, dreadful, blindingly
—-Full of storm and terror.

Death is like the deep, warm sand
Pleasant when we come to land,
Covering up with tender hand
—-The wave’s drifted error.

Life’s a tortured, booming gurge
Winds of passion strike and urge,
And transmute to broken surge
—-Foam-crests of ambition.

Death’s a couch of golden ground,
Warm, soft, permeable mound,
Where from even memory’s sound
—-We shall have remission.

In the poem “Death, men say, is like a sea,” Michael Field contests the conventional notion of death as the dangerous and dreadful entity to humanity. Grounding life and death alternately in the symbiotic imagery of the sea and its shore, of a body of water and the sand, Field argues that the force of life is more congruous with the conventional notion of death than we think, that death and life converge and reconcile, and that death is, in fact, a safe and final haven. Subsequently, the poem contends, as the writer Hanya Yanagihara would put it, that life is only bearable because it is going to end soon.

There are four stanzas in the poem: three concerning death and one life. Let’s set it up like this: death 1 + death 2 + life 1 + death 2.1 respectively. As the numbers suggest, the kinds of death and life vary, overlap, and evolve.

The first stanza offers the common perception of death, comparing it to the sea, a body of water that is limitless and highly drownable; it is well capable of extinguishing mortality, most notably that of humans. Men depict and conceive death as something negative and defeatist, something to be dreaded like “storm” and “terror.” Death is then described with two adjectives, “treacherous” and “dreadful,” but also with an adverb, “blindingly;” juxtaposing different parts of speech to describe death, Field signifies the inconsistency in the nature of death (death 1) established by men. The rhyme in the first three lines of the first stanza also distinguishes itself from the other stanzas: for we have “sea,” “mortality,” and “blindingly” appearing less visually coherent from the other perfect rhymes: Stanza 2: “sand,” “land,” and “hand” | Stanza 3: “gurge,” “urge,” “surge” | Stanza 4: “ground,” “mound,” “sound.” Already, Field sets the typical perception of death apart from the rest of the poem; death is in fact not what “men say” it is.

The second stanza then offers another perception of death (death 2). In lieu of a dangerous body of water, now, death is the shore, the “deep, warm sand.” Death has metamorphorized from the indeterminate and volatile form of water into the solid and secure form of sand. It is no longer dreadful but something to look forward to: a safe and final shore, that is again a “deep, warm,” and “tender” entity, which will cover the wave’s “drifted error”; Field draws attention again to the erroneous nature of death 1 grounded in the image of water, which is then reconciled by death 2, since the shore of sand and the sea of water are not antithetical from each other; they constantly converge and integrate into each other (sand absorbs seawater; waves erode and carry sand into the sea).

In the third stanza, finally, “life” appears among its death companions. Life, as depicted here, however, is not distinct from death but in fact quite congruous with how death is perceived in stanza one. Life is “tortur[ous]” with the violence of windy passion; life is “a booming gurge,” a whirlpool of turbulent water in constant collision with the winds. The top of the waves are the “foam-crests,” a high point of water where human “passion” and “ambition” meet and fall, and “transmute” into into “broken surge,” into erroneous waves; life 1 becomes on par with death 1. Field puts forth that how men often perceive death (“treacherous” and “dreadful”) is in fact how life itself is. And since death 2 reconciles with death 1, it also reconciles with life 1 as sea and shore, water and sand converge. Life and death are closer than ever.

If in the first two stanzas the perception of death is mediated by simile: “death… is like”; in the latter two, the entities of life and death assume a more direct nature of being, contracted and assertive: “Life’s” and “Death’s” (bold mine). In the last stanza, death has fully evolved and become a true comfort and a safe haven (death 2.1): “a couch of golden ground,” materially and majestically hued. Death is the ultimate place where you are offered respite from “memory’s sound,” from your burdensome weight of living, from the “torture” and the violence of “passion” and “ambition,” from mortality. You have found “remission,” the release from obligation and pain, the forgiveness of sins. Humanity can find refuge in this place that is death; the world stops calling to you–finally–just as the last line of every stanza retreats from the rest, just as you can in death.

Work Consulted: https://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/hanya-yanagihara-x-adam-leith-gollner

I was drawn to the section of stanzas on page 18 of Michael Field’s Underneath the Bough, starting with the lines “Through hazels and apples”.  These stanzas describe the speaker and their love traveling through a garden in the morning.  It closely followed ideas described in the background article for Underneath the Bough.  In that article, Robert Fletcher describes this work as having different and simultaneous accounts of desire; Michael Field’s work seems to have “‘a desire to tell and not to tell…’” (114).  In these stanzas, the speaker describes the act of eating apples, but also simultaneously describes themselves as being “Unfed that day” (Field 19).  They seem to declare something, but also rescind these statements two stanzas later.  This connects to the end of the second stanza from this grouping.  Here Field states, “By one rare rose: / Did we smell at the heart, / And then depart?” (19).  The speaker and the lover seem to indulge themselves in the garden, but then immediately flee.  Additionally, each stanza ends in a question mark, as if to say that the speaker is questioning their actions or questioning the truth of the interactions between the two of them.  The speaker desires to describe the morning interactions but doesn’t completely commit to them as absolute truths.

On the surface, these stanzas seem to describe a morning outing between two lovers, but it also has deep sexual implications and innuendos.  Eating the fruit in this garden seems to signify a passionate sexual encounter between the speaker and their love.  However, the speaker has eaten in the first stanza but seems to end the third stanza feeling unfed or unsatisfied.  Reading these stanzas in a sexual lens perhaps offers the question of whether the circumstances of this erotic relationship, forced to take place “back by the alley”, is satisfying and fulfilling for the speaker (Field 19).  They soon depart this setting after three short stanzas, but it seems that the speaker wishes to live in a place of “roses and apples”, since the third stanza ends with the speaker grappling with their own personal circumstances.  These three stanzas can certainly connect with the rest of the work as well, since Field frequently uses sexual innuendo to make this romantic relationship more tangible.  Frequently throughout this work, erotic relations, such as the one described in these stanzas, are regarded as equal, if not more important, than any verbal expression of love.

Michael Field’s “She gathered me rue and roses” from Underneath the Bough uses repetitive binaries and intentional syntax to exhibit the central and unavoidable awareness of death when love is present (37).

The verb “mingled” immediately draws a binary between “roses” and “rue” in the first line of the poem, revealing that they were apart before “she” brought them together. Roses generally symbolize love, and the Oxford English Dictionary defines “rue” as “sorrow” and “distress” (OED). “She” not only serves as the beginning of the poem but is also syntactically associated with a “complet[ed] bliss”. “She”, then, presents as the beloved of the speaker. Further, “sweet” and “bitter” replace “roses” and “rue” as synonyms in the last sentence of each stanza and therefore take on the initial binary, building on their already opposing definitions. Between these two binaries, there is a consistent distinction between a concept affiliated with nature or love and a concept associated with sorrow. The way that both binaries begin apart and then come together alludes to the larger opposition between life and death, which the poem proposes feels very separate until you love someone. When love is present, death and sorrow feel both intimate and imminent.

The almost identical syntax in the first and last lines of the stanzas point to the central and inevitable awareness of death. The only differences between the first lines are “she” and “life”. Both, the poem says, “mingle you rue and roses”, or bring together love and death. The near but unsuccessful identicality of these lines presents the awareness of death on both a personal and universal level. “She” caused this alignment for the speaker, but “life”, the piece proposes, will do it for you, too.  The last two lines of each stanza are also near-identical: the first reads “the bitter that lived with the sweet” and the second, “the bitter will smell of the sweet”. Both lines reinforce the intimacy between the binaries of love and death. Further, the use of both past and future tense in virtually the same line emphasizes the relativity of that intimacy.

This moment directly relates to the whole of the text because it clings to the Pagan aestheticism throughout “Underneath the Bough” that treats “death as the dark twin of desire” (Thain, Vadillo 113). Especially throughout Book 2, death is just as pertinent of a subject as love. Throughout Underneath the Bough and “She gathered me rue and roses”, love and an awareness of death come in unison.

“Love’s wings are wonderous swift/When hanging feathers lift./Why hath Love wings,/Great pinions strong of curve?/His wild desires to serve;/To swoop on the prey,/And bear it away,/Love hath wings.”(12)

This stanza from page 12 of Beneath the Bough hooked me into the rest of the poem. The personification of Love and its possession of wings conveys the complex nature of love instead of perfect, idealized love. Love having wings might draw to mind images of blissful couples or Cupid (or Eros as they refer to him throughout the book) flying around shooting love arrows. This initial idea concludes that love only brings joy, but Michael Field (aka Bradley and Cooper) uses that personification to explore the other side of love as well. Field develops a fuller view of the emotions of love and their implications for lovers.

If Love’s wings are “wonderous swift,” it can easily overtake anyone who tries to escape it (12). This conjures up images of Love attacking helpless targets. In this case, lovers have no control and Love is far more dangerous. When Field describes Love as a bird of prey, with its mighty wings that are “strong of curve,” it once again shifts the view of Love as a wonderful feeling that people can experience to an overwhelming force that you cannot escape or be free of by choice (12).

The line “his wild desires to serve” is particularly interesting to me because it goes a step further from taking agency away from those who love possesses and takes agency away from Love itself — he is slave to his own desires (12). This version of love starts to sound increasingly more like brainwashing and imprisonment and less like passion and commitment. As love “swoops” down and snatches up its victims, it takes them “away” (12). Like an eagle that swoops down to catch a mouse, the intent is clear: the prey will be taken away from life i.e., itself. It then follows that the state of love takes a person away from themselves. They are so captivated by what they feel that they are pulled from their own being. Field turns an idiom about love on its head with these contrasting descriptions and defies common conceptions of love.

This first stanza sets the tone for the rest of the page. Essentially, after the first stanza, you know that winged Love is not what it seems. Love may lift you above the clouds, but it might also drop you to your death. The rest of the verse shows that these aspects of love affect everyone indiscriminately which speaks to the nature of the poem overall. There is no line that says, “I loved Jack, but he broke my heart.” Instead, Love lifts the “forlorn”, but it is quick to “scorn” them as well (12). It takes away the personal details to explore the personal experience that is so uniquely human. The ups and downs of love affect us all, even if it may seem different for each. In my readings, I observed that the dynamic, multifaceted descriptions of Love in this poem contribute to that message.

I really emotionally resonated with the fifth stanza about death in Book One. “Death, men say, is like a sea”, the stanza opens, illustrating a metaphor of a vastness that encapsulates people with emotions like “terror” like a deadly storm (Field 8) as it is compared to. Field however, does not follow this up with more frightening images of death. They instead take a different approach that one might read as rationalizing grief and a sense of loss with something more accepting and kinder.

The next part goes “Death is like the deep, warm sand/Pleasant when we come to land/Covering up with tender hand/The wave’s drifted error.” (Field 8). The imagery in this is almost the opposite and quite peaceful. Now we see a calm landscape, post-storm, one that implies the sea of death from before made a mistake in being this angry, and is now guided by the “tender hand” mentioned before. Interestingly, the first three lines also rhyme well, adding to the pleasant sounding flow of this part.

The third stanza focuses on the life of the deceased. “Life’s a tortured, booming gurge” it begins, implying a frustration with living and how difficult it is to be alive. This part also has the same three-rhyme scheme as before (gurge/urge/surge) but this one sounds rougher, and stronger words like transmute, passion and ambition stand out a lot.

The fourth stanza takes a similar approach to the second in the continued tone of peacefulness in an attitude to death. “Death’s a couch of golden ground,/ Warm soft, permeable mound,/Where from memory’s sound/We shall have remission.” The three-rhyme scheme here is much softer, and the Fields use a much more delicate set of words in this part as well. Warm, soft and permeable sound a lot more acceptable and safe than the storm and terror from the first part. This section of the stanza also takes the most welcoming and accepting approach of death too. The “remission” they bring up from “memory’s sound” implies a strong sense of relief for the deceased, like yes dying may not have been easy and terrifying, but in death they have peace from the troubles that plagued them. This is a place to relax.

I love this stanza because it takes a complex view of grief and a primal fear of death, which so far has been brought up previously at the beginning, where “mortal men” are told not to fear grief, and take it easy (Field 1). The sense of loss and grief is brought up a few times so far, and as someone who’s personally grieved a lot about things I’ve lost before, this view on death is almost relieving.

Micheal Fields’ poem “AH, Eros…,” on the bottom of page eight, illustrates the beauty and honor in chivalry; and illuminates masculine courage in the face of unjust desires through the use of dictation and imagery. 

The poem begins with an introduction of Eros, the Greek god of erotic love. In the first quatrain, Eros’ is shown to have the ability to overcome men and dictating their sexual interactions. In the proceeding line of the first quatrain, the power of Eros is at work with “…smite/ With cruel, shining dart,/ Whose bitter point with sudden might,… (8). The imagery and diction in these lines reveal the “dart” and “point” represent a penis, unexpectedly and with cruel intentions interacting with a woman. When this interaction occurs, with Eros’s power-consuming the male and dictating his actions, the woman is left with an “unhappy heart–” (8). 

The woman is not only left with an unhappy heart, but her innate “purple-stained” purity is forever lost (8). The color purple represents wealth, wisdom, dignity, and many other positive traits, and those are all lost when a man cruelly interjects with her. 

Yet, Eros’s power is not invincible. It takes a courageous man to resist Eros temptations of erotic love and reside to more chivalrous interaction that leads to more mutual love and appreciation.  

The final quatrain begins with a call of hope. “O’er it sometimes the boy will deign” (8). This first line reveals that sometimes the boy, possessed by Eros power, will deem his submission to his desires beneath his dignity and resist cruelly pursuing erotic love. Instead, he decides to “Sweep the shaft’s feathered end;” and put away his cock. Also, the rhythmic pattern ties together the word “end” and “descend,” which produces the imagery that reveals the surrender of his sexual devices. 

Finally, the last two lines reveal the rise of a long-term intimate relationship through “friendship,” which comes in place of resisting a destructive short-term form of pleasure. Finally, the word choice reveres the act of resisting Eros’s sexual temptation in the final line. “White plumes” at the time of publication were used as symbols of public shaming and cowardice. If a white plume descended or fell to the ground, so too would the cowardice, and what would rise would be a courageous, chivalrous man. 

This specific poem’s meaning fits into the overarching premise of Book I. The poems share imagery and metaphors that reveal a deep appreciation for the order and beauty of nature, environmental nature, and human nature. “AH, Eros…” uses specific diction to unravel one of the most curious pieces of human nature; that being, love and intimacy. This particular passage engages with “being’s law” and the laws that govern us as humans (20.) Similar to how all other sounds in nature repeal the laws of the wind, humans too have laws that guide their being and situate them in the universe (7). 

“All others sound in awe/ Repeals its law;/ The bird is mute, the sea/ Sucks up its waves, from rain/ The burthened clouds refrain,/ To listen to thee in thy leafery,/ Thou unconfined,/ Lavish, large, soothing, refluent summer-wind!” (7).

In Books 1 and 2 of Underneath the Bough by Micheal Field, I was particularly struck by these lines due to their emphasis on sound and silence. The preceding sentence of the stanza referenced here describes the sound of the wind as an “orchestra” with “instruments in tune” as the wind blows through the trees (7). This is placed in juxtaposition with the following cited lines of natural elements defying the laws of nature by holding silence (mute birds, the sea absorbing its waves) to listen to the wind. I think these lines can be viewed as a metaphor for an audience listening to poetry as well, with the wind functioning as immaterial poetry “speaking” among the more solid/material natural world that stops to listen. 

Field parallels the emphasis on sound and silence as poetic subjects in their use of sound as a poetic device. For example, Field uses consonance and assonance so as to replicate this sense of fluidity, or the sound of wind rushing through leaves. They use repeated “s,” “e,” “th,” and “l” sounds, most evident in the lines “To listen to thee in thy leafery,/ Thou unconfined,/ Lavish, large, soothing, refluent summer-wind!” (7). Furthermore, Field’s word choice of “unconfined” here also plays into their use of enjambment, as some lines physically can’t be contained and run into each other when mentioning the sea, waves, rain, and clouds. This could be doubly significant as all of these subjects are parts of the water cycle and thus fluid or ever “refluent” in and of themselves, like the wind.

When thinking of this excerpt in relation to the rest of in Book 1 and 2, the overall wind motif can be viewed as an extended metaphor for lyric or poetry, as it is heavily referenced as being melodic, musical, and free. There is also repeated use of wing/flight imagery in the Books that might be related to Field’s aspiration for freedom in their lives, poetry, and relationships. Field also emphasizes how wind is fluid and changing frequently, perhaps referring to gender and sexual fluidity mentioned in the Introduction to Field’s work.