| MILTON! thou shouldst be living at this hour: | |
| England hath need of thee: she is a fen | |
| Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen, | |
| Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, | |
| Have forfeited their ancient English dower | 5 |
| Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; | |
| O raise us up, return to us again, | |
| And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power! | |
| Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart; | |
| Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: | 10 |
| Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, | |
| So didst thou travel on life's common way, | |
| In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart | |
| The lowliest duties on herself did lay. |
And who can write: "Anderson! thou shouldst be living at this hour..."?
We need his commentaries on global affairs and on current space technology. Milton, whom we have quoted before, wrote an epic. Anderson wrote prose epics. Might some of Wordsworth's lines about Milton apply equally to Anderson?
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Alas, while I agree Milton was a great poet, I simply never "got" into his work. His greatest poem, PARADISE LOST, was mostly a ponderous, heavy, even boring read. Even in translation, I like Dante's DIVINE COMEDY far better. Not only did I find the COMEDY a better work of art as a poem, it was fully as sublime as PARADISE LOST and a lot more FUN to read.
I agree, Anderson and his works deserve to become the subject matter of poems eulogizing them and advancing on the topics he covered. In many ways, S.M. Stirling is a worthy successor, even HEIR, of Poul Anderson.
When he chose, Anderson was fully capable of writing good poetry--as the examples he sometimes included in his prose works shows. Three of his longer poems, in particular, resonates with me: "The Battle of Brandobar," "Mary O'Meara," and "The Queen of Air and Darkness." And one of his shorter poems also sticks with me: "Prayer In War".
Sean
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