One of my literary fascinations is with the American Southern Gothic. I discovered this poem watching “ Southern Literature documentary | 1915 – 1940” (min 5:20). I recommend watching at least that fragment, since not only you can hear the poem being read with portrays of it’s verses images, but you can learn too about the context in which it was written. Sorry, I’m too lazy to explain the lore of The Fugitives literary group haha. With no more preambles, here is the poem itself:
Bells for John Whiteside's Daughter by John Crowe Ransom.
There was such speed in her little body,And such lightness in her footfall,
It is no wonder her brown study
Astonishes us all.
Her wars were bruited in our high window.
We looked among orchard trees and beyond
Where she took arms against her shadow,
Or harried unto the pond
The lazy geese, like a snow cloud
Dripping their snow on the green grass,
Tricking and stopping, sleepy and proud,
Who cried in goose, Alas,
For the tireless heart within the little
Lady with rod that made them rise
From their noon apple-dreams and scuttle
Goose-fashion under the skies!
But now go the bells, and we are ready,
In one house we are sternly stopped
To say we are vexed at her brown study,
Lying so primly propped.
Beyond my fascination with death, I find the juxtaposition of life and death, past and present and the childhood’s world observed through the adult eyes very much interesting. Somewhere I had read that the language used in the stanzas describing the little girl are even archaic to it’s time and romantic, perhaps wanting to evoke the fairytale adventure in everyday play fancied by children. These stanzas oppose to the two last lines of the first stanza and the final one, which use a more modern and sterile language since we are now in a present where the adults are perplexed by the sudden death of the girl.
There’s a lot more of interpretation to this poem, specially when you contextualize it, but in my search for different appreciations I found a response in verse too in a blog. It was made by a lady named Mary Angela Douglas in 2015. Through responses to literary books are not new to me, this one caught my attention, since it’s charged with sincere emotion. While I don’t agree completely with the reasons behind this response, It doesn’t take away it’s beauty.This one is free verse and you can find it both the poem and the explanation made by the author here , (archived link too)
Who Is John Whiteside's Daughter by Mary Angela Douglas.
even the bells don't sing her name:painted in white wash on cotton clouds.
the geese scatter distressed by a
crystal shadow, at best;
a girl in watercolour skirts the grounds.
who is John Whiteside's daughter
what is an elegy without a name
or was grief for her as weightless
as the questions at the end of the chapter:
[can you explain? what was The Poet
trying to say, the Poet who signed
his name to the Poem; for sure
the Poet whose name endures]
what is a watercolour in the rain,
what is a watercoloured name
dissolving here in a close reading
when parents christen even children
dead on arrival
and etch it in stone, the christening name-
if not in marble or the guilded monuments.
she could have been anyone; a tiny doll soldier
in the tomb of an unknown.
well you know, how did her mother feel about that?
does anyone know? that's my question.
did she softly cry not wanting to make a scene
what kind of immemorial poem is this
for my little girl...
the angels took it away with them
(I mean, her name)
leaving behind the funeral train, the flowers;
departing with
her light, her apple white hours
where God, at least, Who knew what to call her,
[Alone, alone...the bells intone: she died alone]
as they say in the South,
called her home
The feminine touch and sensibilities it has this poem are one of it’s strengths for sure, along with the reasonably questioning about identity, memory and death. Althought the vocabulary can be quite simple, I really appreciate the intentions behind this poem response, which strike me as a result of deep reflection. And, as I stated before, I found it’s beauty in said traits.