Red, white, and blue
Are made not exclusively with stars and stripes.
The rings in the trees of nations are often forgotten.
Revolutions and invasions are both like each other.
We all need each other.
We’ve all needed each other.
Resistance to kings or fascists, require an act of allegiance
Among those who fight the good fight.
Nous étions amis; Nous sommes amis; And we will be friends.
Viva Tout le monde.
Disillusionment at Ten O’Clock
Wallace Stevens
(1879 – 1955)
The houses are haunted
By white night-gowns.
None are green.
Or purple with green rings,
Or green with yellow rings,
Or yellow with blue rings,
None of them are strange
With socks of lace
And beaded ceintures.
People are not going
To dream of baboons and periwinkles.
Only, here and there, an old sailor,
Drunk and asleep in his boots,
Catches tigers
In red weather.
Oki doki, this is an interesting poem. My interpretation of this poem: Its a love story.
First the bit of information given is that " the house is haunted," by a spirit, by a memory, something.
Then it describes night gowns, white ones. Not Green nor purple nor yellow. And this makes be believe it is about a women.
The man loves this person for who she is, and he does not need socks of lace and beaded ceintures.
But there is no dreams of playful things like baboons and periwinkles.
Only thing that is here and there is old saloirs, drunk and asleep.
But in his sleep, in his dreams, he catches tigers in red weather, making me think of war.
So now his wife is gone the only thing that fills his heart is sorrow and anger.
Although its been brought to my attention
That the white robes might by a reference to society and they don't have the ability to have wonderful dreams, and the sailor who can have those dreams is forced to drink and sleep in his clothes by the rest of this plain society.
Walt Whitman
(1819-1892)
A noiseless patient spider,
I marked where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Marked how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launched forth filament, filament, filament, filament,
out of itself
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.
And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the
spheres to connect to
Till the bridge you will need be formed, till the ductile
anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O
my soul.
Alright, lets get right into it.
Theme: I think the purpose of this poem is to exaggeration the importance of feeling like you belong somewhere.
In the first stanza, the author creates a metaphor between a spider and his soul (named in the next stanza). Whitman tells how this spider gazes on the infinite space around it and begins to spin a web, trying to make a home for itself. Spinning, and spinning, and spinning, giving all of its effort into this mission.
In the second stanza, the author tells more of the feeling of the search. Telling how in the vast emptiness.; trying to find a sturdy, strong place where it can feel some belonging. It gives its entire self into trying to catch this somewhere, until something holds and it can be at peace.
