My recent posts about poet Thomas Bailey Aldrich have been like stuffed Oreos because they’ve been loaded with sweet filling! My write-up two days ago began with Aldrich’s early review of Dickinson’s poetry where he predicted “oblivion” for the “eccentric, dreamy, half-educated recluse” from Massachusetts, and it ended with a scene from Mel Brook’s “Young Frankenstein – and there was plenty of sweet goodness in between. Yestere’en’s post was MEGA stuffed with a look at the word “yestere’en,” Shakespeare’s bones, a song thrush with a Scottish accent, and more!
 | Forthwith, on this morn of the eve of the shortest day of the yeere, I shall bestow further poesy from the pen of Aldrich, one ode entitled “An Ode” and – Hark! -- one somber war washed sonnet, “Fredericksburg.” I’m waxing poetic, can you tell? Wax on, wax off. Seriously, though, take a look at the two Wagnerian works by Aldrich, a haunting sonnet describing the ghastly atmosphere of a Civil War battlefield and an ode written for the 1897 unveiling of the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial on the Boston Common (Shaw led members of the 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry as it marched down Beacon Street in 1863 to depart the city to fight the South in the Civil War) |
 |  Both are fine poems in that there’s nothing wrong with them; they’re…um…fine. They include an abundance of poetic elements. They’re structured in acceptable poetic forms. They certainly sound poetic with their profusion of poetical words. |
But here’s my issue – it’s not so much that they’re old fashioned and outdated – there are plenty of classical poems written in traditional forms with classical elements that withstand the test of time – these are just not two of them. Oh, they’re full of sound and fury, if you know what I mean – but what do they signify? It’s almost as if Aldrich is just trying to sound pompous and poetical.
I’m reminded of the tableau performance by Mayor Shinn's wife, Eulalie, and the ladies' committee in Meredith Willson's musical, The Music Man, where they awkwardly pose in tableaux vivants inspired by John Keats' Ode on a Grecian.
I’m reminded of the tableau performance by Mayor Shinn's wife, Eulalie, and the ladies' committee in Meredith Willson's musical, The Music Man, where they awkwardly pose in tableaux vivants inspired by John Keats' Ode on a Grecian.
“One Grecian urn….Two Grecian urn…lovely ladies.”
I sighed heavily deep into that second section of Aldrich’s ode when I came upon “drave” (followed shortly thereafter with “wrapt”):
Drave through that cloud of purple steel and flame,
Which wrapt him, held him, gave him not again
Let me exhale and move on.
I will say that the color purple in that line by Aldrich called to mind these lines from Dickinson’s “Success is counted sweetest”:
Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of victory
As he defeated – dying –
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!
I sighed heavily deep into that second section of Aldrich’s ode when I came upon “drave” (followed shortly thereafter with “wrapt”):
Drave through that cloud of purple steel and flame,
Which wrapt him, held him, gave him not again
Let me exhale and move on.
I will say that the color purple in that line by Aldrich called to mind these lines from Dickinson’s “Success is counted sweetest”:
Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of victory
As he defeated – dying –
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!
| The entire poem is shown to the right, but the metaphoric battlefield in those two stanzas say more to me about the human experience – “the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat” (#iykyk) – than the antiquated pomposity from Aldrich. Am I being too harsh? By the way, I looked up “drave” (which became obsolete by the Early Modern English period), and some of my favorite uses I found are below. |  |
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