A sonnet to be beautifully printed at the beginning of his poems.

***Sorry all, this was supposed to be posted this morning, but instead it sat in my drafts unseen :(

A few notes on my transciption of this sonnet: The double spacing is not replicating Spender's spacing. This whole poem is written as one block. I only double-spaced certain lines so that I could show words that were written above the strike outs. Anything in parentheses are words I'm unsure of. Striked out question marks are crossed out words I can't make out.

(p. 57)

A sonnet to be beautifully printed at the beginning of his poems.

The night was clear, and all the frosted sky 
          spread pale as wine around the living moon; 
          Her
          Whose sad beneficence like milk did swoon 
                      whose
Across the hills; their fleecy backs did lie on high 
      White
??? as sheep, till darkening to huge (abyss, maybe "abysms" to rhyme with "rhythm" ?) 
          left black between, where the great valley lay;
          There was no sound to take the peace away, 
No movement to disturb those slumbering rhythms:
Yet mocking the (purpurean?) dome-- a bird
          That is a poem's birth-- a thought did mar
The sky's all-vacant quiet, and deeply ??? stirred
         Reflecting in my mind, a voice from far--
                                                         unheard
The Night, that whispered to the Earth ???? Word  :---
           "Do you not see my new, my baby star?"
                                                 youngest

                                                        June 22.


I chose to transcribe this poem because I was first struck by its title. It seems that Spender favored this poem, for he wanted it to be the first poem "of his poems," whatever that may mean. To me, this poem is a small indication of this "pretentiousness" that others have talked about in class. Reading through the rest of his poems, I did not think his writing suggested that he thought too highly of his talent as a poet, at least to an excess. I would argue that this collection suggests quite the opposite, for it is a somewhat angsty journal he wrote as a teenager. One could say that he is only showing off his knowledge of poetic form by choosing to do less common sonnet forms, but he was studying in France and probably studying poetry, so it makes sense that he would try his hand at a Petrarchan sonnet.

This poem, to me, is the only example that I would point out which would suggest that he did think quite highly of himself as a poet, for the title suggests that he has picked out this particular poem to introduce his book of other poems in a future publication. The title doesn't have to be read this way. Maybe Spender is just meticulous even in his fantasies about becoming a poet later in life. There shouldn't necessarily be a negativity attached to wanting things to be ideal as Spender did. We should also ask ourselves if we only see Spender's pretentiousness in his earlier works only because he is a known poet today.