Two days ago (HERE), I shared a quote from Dustin Pickering’s “Letter from the Publisher” in Al Salehi and Ivy Schweitzer’s new collection of poetry, Within Flesh, Poems: In Conversation with Our Selves & Emily Dickinson; in his letter, Pickering asserted, “No bigot is spared the anvil and hammer of poetic vision in Within Flesh,” and that called to mind a memory from my days as middle school principal concerning the Pledge of Allegiance.
That anecdote reminded me that I had recently chanced upon a rather highfalutin and very nationalistic poem by 19th century poet Joseph Rodman Drake entitled “The American Flag.” I had attended a symphonic concert, and one piece on the program was the first movement of Antonín Dvořák’s cantata based on the poem.
Here’s the portion of the poem from the piece I heard:
When Freedom from her mountain height
Unfurled her standard to the air,
She tore the azure robe of night,
And set the stars of glory there.
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure celestial white,
With streakings of the morning light;
Then from his mansion in the sun
She called her eagle bearer down,
And gave into his mighty hand,
The symbol of her chosen land.
What do you think of that? There is certainly more loftiest-of-loftier language here than expected, huh? Is magniloquent more “iloquent” than grandiloquent? Which descriptor fits better here?
As I mentioned, the orchestra performed only the first movement of Dvořák’s work, so at home I looked up the entire poem, and wow – it’s quite florid – and bombastic.
That anecdote reminded me that I had recently chanced upon a rather highfalutin and very nationalistic poem by 19th century poet Joseph Rodman Drake entitled “The American Flag.” I had attended a symphonic concert, and one piece on the program was the first movement of Antonín Dvořák’s cantata based on the poem.
Here’s the portion of the poem from the piece I heard:
When Freedom from her mountain height
Unfurled her standard to the air,
She tore the azure robe of night,
And set the stars of glory there.
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure celestial white,
With streakings of the morning light;
Then from his mansion in the sun
She called her eagle bearer down,
And gave into his mighty hand,
The symbol of her chosen land.
What do you think of that? There is certainly more loftiest-of-loftier language here than expected, huh? Is magniloquent more “iloquent” than grandiloquent? Which descriptor fits better here?
As I mentioned, the orchestra performed only the first movement of Dvořák’s work, so at home I looked up the entire poem, and wow – it’s quite florid – and bombastic.
In a nutshell…
1st stanza: Freedom unfurls her majestic banner and presents it to an eagle. (BTW: “baldric” in line 6, a belt for a sword (or other weapon) worn over one shoulder and reaching down to the opposite hip, is a term that would have been familiar to readers of the time.)
2nd stanza: The eagle soars with the flag over (or to keep with the noble spirit of the poem, should I say “o’er”) fields of battle as a harbinger of victory.
3rd stanza: The brave on the battlefield behold the sky-born banner as a glorious symbol of hope and triumph while the cowering foes, struck down by the gallant warriors, view it as a “lovely messenger of death.”
4th stanza: Those battling at sea, specifically those dying wanderers when Death “sweeps darkly round the bellied sail,” will gaze to the heavens upon the splendid colors of the flag.
5th stanza: For those free spirts who live in this land of liberty, the resplendent emblem lights the “welkin dome” of the heavens above. The poem then concludes with an odd if not cryptic rhetorical question.
Oddly enough, all this vainglorious bombast called to mind some lyrics from Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penance.” Mabel sings:
Go, ye heroes, go to glory,
Though ye die in combat gory!
Ye shall live in song and story,
Go to immortality!
Go to death and go to slaughter!
Die and ev'ry Cornish daughter,
With her tears your grave shall water,
Go ye heroes, go and die!
The soldiers respond, “Such expressions don't appear…Calculated men to cheer” – though “Still to us it's evident / These attentions are well meant.”
Mabel and her sisters continue fervently urge the comrades-in-arms to go to glory (and their graves), but the chorus of soldiers resists.
By the way, I just remembered that at the end of Act I, the entire cast observes, “What is life / Without a touch of Poetry in it?”
They then sing in glorious harmony to the heavens:
Hail, Poetry, thou heav'n-born maid!
Thou gildest e'en the pirate's trade.
Hail, flowing fount of sentiment!
All hail! All hail! Divine emollient!
Hell, yeah – amirite?
Okay, after all of this deeply extravagant and extravagantly deep Poetry (capital P, right?) I’m exhausted. I’ll continue with more on Drake’s “The American Flag” tomorrow, and I’ll include something a bit odd that I found.
Dvořák’s complete cantata can be heard HERE. “Hail Poetry” can be heard HERE.
1st stanza: Freedom unfurls her majestic banner and presents it to an eagle. (BTW: “baldric” in line 6, a belt for a sword (or other weapon) worn over one shoulder and reaching down to the opposite hip, is a term that would have been familiar to readers of the time.)
2nd stanza: The eagle soars with the flag over (or to keep with the noble spirit of the poem, should I say “o’er”) fields of battle as a harbinger of victory.
3rd stanza: The brave on the battlefield behold the sky-born banner as a glorious symbol of hope and triumph while the cowering foes, struck down by the gallant warriors, view it as a “lovely messenger of death.”
4th stanza: Those battling at sea, specifically those dying wanderers when Death “sweeps darkly round the bellied sail,” will gaze to the heavens upon the splendid colors of the flag.
5th stanza: For those free spirts who live in this land of liberty, the resplendent emblem lights the “welkin dome” of the heavens above. The poem then concludes with an odd if not cryptic rhetorical question.
Oddly enough, all this vainglorious bombast called to mind some lyrics from Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penance.” Mabel sings:
Go, ye heroes, go to glory,
Though ye die in combat gory!
Ye shall live in song and story,
Go to immortality!
Go to death and go to slaughter!
Die and ev'ry Cornish daughter,
With her tears your grave shall water,
Go ye heroes, go and die!
The soldiers respond, “Such expressions don't appear…Calculated men to cheer” – though “Still to us it's evident / These attentions are well meant.”
Mabel and her sisters continue fervently urge the comrades-in-arms to go to glory (and their graves), but the chorus of soldiers resists.
By the way, I just remembered that at the end of Act I, the entire cast observes, “What is life / Without a touch of Poetry in it?”
They then sing in glorious harmony to the heavens:
Hail, Poetry, thou heav'n-born maid!
Thou gildest e'en the pirate's trade.
Hail, flowing fount of sentiment!
All hail! All hail! Divine emollient!
Hell, yeah – amirite?
Okay, after all of this deeply extravagant and extravagantly deep Poetry (capital P, right?) I’m exhausted. I’ll continue with more on Drake’s “The American Flag” tomorrow, and I’ll include something a bit odd that I found.
Dvořák’s complete cantata can be heard HERE. “Hail Poetry” can be heard HERE.
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