   
|
 
LCARS
Library Computer Access and Retrieval System
The Poems of My Liking
Shawn Thornburg
I could not decide on one literary piece to limit my opinion to, so I had to eliminate all but the two I most enjoyed reading (though they are completely unrelated): �We Are Seven� (William Wordsworth) and �The Rime of the Ancient Mariner� (Samuel Taylor Coleridge).
Never has a poem or any writing inspired me as much or given me as much insight into a child�s faith as �We Are Seven�: the little girl, the �Simple Child� (line 1), believed so blindly that her two dead siblings were alive in Heaven and that her four journeying siblings were in her heart and therefore still with her (though that idea was never mentioned) that she adamantly held her contention that all seven were still together against the author�s objections (�If two are in the church-yard laid, then ye are only five.� line 35; �But they are dead; those two are dead!� line 65) throughout the whole dialogue; she had such faith in God that they would be together again one day that she considered them as good as together now. It is a poem I should like to hang as a large poster on the wall of my house (should I ever get a house of my own, I should like to paint it on a wall, large and highly visible to all who enter�hopefully, it can inspire them as much as it has me). If the girl didn�t have the faith I believe God wants us all to have, she might have grown up depressed and been easily influenced by those who would harm her, and she might have constantly sought escape from those who reminded her of her lost siblings, and thus her loneliness; she might not have lived much longer if she hadn�t the faith she demonstrated. I cannot begin to conjecture what Wordsworth�s intention was, but let�s pretend for a moment that he knew what he was doing when he wrote this poem: if I pulled out of it what I did, I can only guess that at least some of what I think he meant, if not all or more, was part of his point, and that he was trying to capture what it is to have the faith of a child. Great poem.
Hypnotic storytellers; awful supernatural storms; journeys to the south pole; a skeleton ship with Death himself at the helm; the walking dead�who could ask for more exploits from a story? Coleridge wrote an arousing adventure that would inspire the modern entertainment buff (once he worked his way past the poetic language) to say,�When�s the movie coming out?� I caught my leg jumping up and down (the way it does during an intense action movie) many times while I was reading this poem. I loved the way he described the directions the boat sailed: �The sun came up upon the left, Out of the sea came he! And he shone bright, and on the right Went down into the sea� (line 25), and the look of the skeleton ship: �And straight the Sun was flecked with bars, (Heaven�s Mother send us grace!) As if through a dungeon-grate he peered With broad and burning face� (line 177). Though I despised the main character for shooting the albatross, this is also a poem that I should like to hang on my wall (or, if I felt brave enough one day, I might undertake painting it on a wall near �We Are Seven�, though I highly doubt I will ever feel brave enough). I did catch a little inspirational thinking at the end (the mariner walking to the church to pray), but I didn�t really feel that it was Coleridge�s intent to inspire. Again, great poem.
  
|
