All About Books discussion
The Monday Poem
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12th June 2023 - Rosemary by Edna St. Vincent Millay
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Recently came across this piece from a most beloved poet, so decided to pick it for Monday poem! Sourced from poets.org -> https://poets.org/poem/rosemary
This poem, while being on one hand rather obvious in its tone of loss, is also very mysterious. I'm a little puzzled about the last stanza; who is she trying to please? What sirs? Possibly men killed in the war? The last two word in quotations are exclamations of woe.Also, if I remember correctly, "rosemary" is for remembrance and everything she does in the first two stanzas, while seeming unconnected, definitely appear to be an intentional task to remember.
Great choice, Damini! This poem will definitely keep me thinking!
I love this poem. So many things I do and think for the sake of things that are no more. This is where “nostalgia” is more than just just quaint Knick knacks, happy memories, and “warm fuzzies.” It’s an acknowledgement that we contain and are largely compounded of our past. The past isn’t gone, it isn’t even past.
Cleo wrote: "This poem, while being on one hand rather obvious in its tone of loss, is also very mysterious. I'm a little puzzled about the last stanza; who is she trying to please? What sirs? Possibly men kill..."I just thought that she was referring to some of the outdated phrases that have gone (all 3 are in quotes).
"An it please you" uses the word 'an' meaning 'if', plus the 'gentle sirs' instead of 'gentlemen'.
These phrases were from the same era as cooking with an iron pot over an open fire & using rushes on the floor. 15th, 16th century England seems to be the memory she is evoking.
Mod
I was puzzled by some of it too Cleo, though I do like it! It has whimiscal feel. For sure, remembering is an important part of it.
Mod
Me too Steve, and I suppose we all do. There are many pasts that live in us, the older we get, some of them good but not all of them!
Mod
"An it please you" uses the word 'an' meaning 'if', plus the 'gentle sirs' instead of 'gentlemen'.
These phrases were from the same era as cooking with an iron pot over an open fire & using rushes on the floor. 15th, 16th century England seems to be the memory she is evoking.."
This is a wonderful idea Leslie!! - I had been so puzzled by the poem, but keeping what you say in mind, I can read it in a way that makes sense to me.
It fits if you read it as her saying she will do this list of things that people in the past (15th-16th century) did. She will catch rainwater for water. She will cook with an iron pot. She will use rushes for her floor. She will speak in archaic phrases. And she will do it all in honor of how things used to be.
Of course, metaphorically, this could also be as Steve and Cleo say, a whimiscal way of saying that she will honor her memories of the past?
Mod
Edna St. Vincent Millay was such an interesting poet - I've read several of her books. She was idiosyncratic but also very popular in her day . . . and very talented as well!
Mod
That be now no more
I will strew rushes
On my chamber-floor,
I will plant bergamot
At my kitchen-door.
For the sake of dim things
That were once so plain
I will set..."
I read it now - I've been out to a family wedding! Very beautiful. Thanks for sharing
I'm so glad everyone loved the poem - and I'm loving all the interpretations. It felt whimsical and sad to me, but in a very nostalgic sense, of days long gone.
What a lovely poem--thank you Damini! I've been feeling very frustrated with the present and missing the past (it feels like more than nostalgia!), so read it personally in that way at first. The line "brave and gay" made me think of soldiers, as Cleo said, and I wasn't familiar with the quoted lines, so wasn't sure what it meant. Your explanation is wonderful, Leslie! Now I can re-read it and it fits my current mood perfectly, and the "explanations of woe" entirely appropriate. (Maybe instead of my usual grumbling about things that have changed, I'll take up saying "Well-a-day!")
Greg wrote: "Of course, metaphorically, this could also be as Steve and Cleo say, a whimiscal way of saying that she will honor her memories of the past? ..."Well, poetry usually has many layers so it probably includes both a general nostalgia for the days of chivalry (15th, 16th century) and specific nostalgia for her own past.
In terms of one's own past and the sometimes melancholy wish to revisit it, I wonder if the poem is describing how it is that people get into certain habits. For example, I always cook macaroni and cheese the way my mom taught me as a teenager - I am sure that there are plenty of other ways to make it (possibly even better ones) but I cling to that method partly because it evokes memories.
Mod
I'm sure we all have those things we cling to for nostalgic reasons. What you say makes a lot of sense.
That be now no more
I will strew rushes
On my chamber-floor,
I will plant bergamot
At my kitchen-door.
For the sake of dim things
That were once so plain
I will set a barrel
Out to catch the rain,
I will hang an iron pot
On an iron crane.
Many things be dead and gone
That were brave and gay;
For the sake of these things
I will learn to say,
"An it please you, gentle sirs,"
"Alack!" and "Well-a-day!"