Pangloss' Song by Richard Wilbur (#poem)

 

Pangloss' Song:

A comic-opera lyric

 

I

 

Dear boy, you will not hear me speak

  With sorrow or with rancor

Of what has paled my rosy cheek

  And blasted it with canker;

'Twas Love, great Love, that did the deed

  Through Nature's gentle laws,

And how should ill effects proceed

  From so divine a cause?

 

Sweet honey comes from bees that sting,

  As you are well aware

To one adept in reasoning

Whatever pains disease may bring

Are but the tangy seasoning

  To Love's delicious fare.

 

II

 

Columbus and his men, they say,

  Conveyed the virus hither

Whereby my features rot away

  And vital powers wither;

Yet had they not traversed the seas

  And come infected back,

Why, think of all the luxuries

  That modern life would lack!

 

All bitter things conduce to sweet,

  As this example shows;

Without the little spirochete

We'd have no chocolate to eat,

Nor would tobacco's fragrance greet

  The European nose.

 

III

 

Each nation guards its native land

  With cannons and with sentry,

Inspectors look for contraband

  At every port of entry,

Yet nothing can prevent the spread

  Of love's divine disease:

It rounds the world from bed to bed

  As pretty as you please.

 

Men worship Venus everywhere,

  As plainly may be seen;

The decorations which I bear

Are nobler than the Croix de Guerre,

And gained in service of our fair

  And universal Queen.

 

-Richard Wilbur

 

Somehow it seemed time for a little light verse, even if it's verse in celebration (?) of syphilis. 

 

Richard Wilbur wrote this for Leonard Bernstein's operetta Candide, the first version of which was performed in 1956. This song for Dr. Pangloss (he was the young Candide's tutor) didn't make it into the operetta--I suspect Bernstein thought it would be too hard to sing and so didn't write music for it--but did make it into subsequent volumes of Richard Wilbur's poetry. But the majority of the lyrics in the operetta were by Richard Wilbur, including its most famous song, 'Glitter and Be Gay', sung by Cunegonde.

 

The House

The House

Sometimes, on waking, she would close her eyes
For a last look at that white house she knew
In sleep alone, and held no title to
And had not entered yet, for all her sighs.

What did she tell me of that house of hers?
White gatepost; terrace; fanlight of the door;
A widow's walk above the bouldered shore;
Salt winds that ruffle the surrounding firs.

Is she now there, wherever there may be?
Only a foolish man would hope to find
That haven fashioned by her dreaming mind.
Night after night, my love, I put to sea.

-Richard Wilbur

I Googled a while looking for a picture of an appropriate house, but didn't have any luck. The picture is from Wilbur's book of poems for children Opposites.  

Richard Wilbur wrote this for his late wife Charlotte. It first appeared in The New Yorker in August of 2009, then was collected in his final volume, Anterooms, of 2010. He himself passed away in 2017.

Poem for a Thursday was originated by Jennifer at Holds Upon Happiness. Her poem for today is here. Brona sometimes joins in and did today. 

Poem For A Thursday: Wilbur

Sunset from our house on New Year's Day

Treetops

Treetops are not so high
Nor I so low
That I don't instinctively know
How it would be to fly

Through gaps that the wind makes, when
The leaves arouse
And there is a lifting of boughs
That settle and lift again. 

Whatever my kind may be,
It is not absurd
To confuse myself with a bird
For the space of a reverie: 

My species never flew,
But I somehow know
It is something that long ago
I almost adapted to.

-Richard Wilbur

Richard Wilbur was an American poet who died in 2017. This comes from fairly late in his career.

The Other Reader refers to him as that poet who loved his wife, and it's true there are several wonderful poems he wrote for his wife. But he was also one of the lyricists for Leonard Bernstein's musical Candide and is capable of quite funny poems.

New year, new commitment to #PoemForAThursday? We'll see.

Jennifer (reliably, unlike me...) has a poem each week at Holds Upon Happiness. This week she's featuring Philip Booth. Brona also a poem this week by Dorothy Hewitt.

Poem For A Thursday: du Bellay/Wilbur

Hubert contemplating a great journey

Happy the Man

Happy the man who, journeying far and wide
As Jason or Ulysses did, can then
Turn homeward, seasoned in the ways of men,
And claim his own, and there in peace abide! 

When shall I see the chimney-smoke divide
The sky above my little town: ah, when
Stroll the small gardens of that house again
Which is my realm and crown, and more beside? 

Better I love the plain, secluded home
My fathers built, than bold façades of Rome;
Slate pleases me as marble cannot do; 

Better than Tiber's flood my quiet Loire,
Those little hills than these, and dearer far
Than great sea winds the zephyrs of Anjou.

-Joachim du Bellay (tr. Richard Wilbur)

Joachim du Bellay was a French poet of the 1500s, one of the so-called Pleiades, seven French poets of that era. He was in Rome when this poem was written, serving as a secretary to his cousin, the cardinal Jean du Bellay.

Richard Wilbur was a wonderful American poet who passed away in 2017.

Here's the French text for those for whom it's useful... 😉

Heureux qui, comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage

Heureux qui, comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage
Ou comme cestuy-là qui conquit la toison
Et puis est retourné, plein de usage et raison,
Vivre entre ses parents le reste de son âge!

Quand reverrai-je, hélas, de mon petit village
Fumer le cheminée, et en quelle saison
Reverrai-je le clos de mon pauvre maison
Qui m'est une provence, et beaucoup davantage? 

Plus me plâit le séjour qu'ont bâti mes aïeux,
Que des palais romains le front audacieux
Plus que le marbre dur me plâit l'ardoise fine:

Plus mon Loire gaulois, que le Tibre latin,
Plus mon petit Liré, que le mont Palatin,
Et plus que l'air marin la douceur angevine.

-Joachim du Bellay

Jennifer at Holds Upon Happiness has a wonderful poem by Elinor Wylie this week.