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| Robert Browning |
I just checked my journal. On October 5, 2012 (yes, nearly five years ago), I (more or less) finished memorizing Robert Browning's poem "My Last Duchess."* Here's what I wrote in my journal that day:
... out to West Market, via Szalay’s; stopped at Summit Mall
[Panera], where I read more Mankell and worked on polishing “My Last Duchess,”
which I recited (more or less correctly!) for Joyce ...*
Regular visitors to this site know that I memorize poems--for fun (and desperation?). I was in a phase, back in 2012, of memorizing some that had some personal significance for me. And this one, I can recall with a surprising clarity, I can actually hear as I read the words. That's because I first read it (and heard it!) in English 101, Hiram College, summer 1962. I was taking that course because my parents wanted me to get kind of a "head start" on college, which I would commence full-time in the fall.
They were worried about me, I know--as well they should have been. I'd not exactly knocked myself out (academically) at Hiram High School. I just went through the motions. Graduated with a 3.0. Tenth in my class--which sounds impressive until you realize I graduated from a tiny high school that doesn't even exist anymore. I had very few (any?) intellectual interests and figured, in my late adolescent daffiness, that college was mere preparation for the Cleveland Indians and Boston Celtics, whose rosters I would soon adorn.
Not.
Anyway, my professor in English 101 that summer was Dr. Charles F. McKinley (1913-2004), who became a favorite--and, later, a friend who lived only a couple of miles from our house here in Hudson. And in our literature anthology (Interpreting Literature, which I still have) that poem appears on pp. 339-40.
And I can still remember, sitting in Hinsdale Hall (RIP), hot (no AC), listening to Dr. McKinley, in his rich, resonant, slightly nasal voice, reading aloud that remarkable poem first published in 1842. I could hear the voice of that vicious Duke talking with superior calm about murdering his young wife because she smiled too much--at others. Lord, what a dark poem!
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| Dr McKinley |
So ... I didn't learn the poem in the immediate aftermath of Dr. McKinley's death (it was eight damn years later), but I did think of him as I was doing so, did hear his voice as I was doing so, did wish I could recite it to him as I once had recited that Shakespeare sonnet (#73: "That time of year thou mayst in me behold') when he asked me to do so. He loved that one--not one, by the way, that appears in Interpreting Literature, though I have memorized the five that do, several of which we read/listened to in his class.
Well, I learned "My Last Duchess" in the early fall of 2012, and since then I have recited it (more or less silently) four times a week during my drive to the health club. (Routine!) Never much of a problem.
Until last week.
When, suddenly, I froze. Could not remember words. First it was this segment that went:
- ... for never read
Strangers like you that [?????] countenance ....
And then this ...
- ... Sir, 'twas not
Her husband's [?????] only ,called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek ....
A quick online check gave me the missing words (pictured, presence), and, so far, they have stayed. Though some others--perhaps emboldened by their truant siblings, will soon flee as well? Oh, the horror ... !
But this is just another instance, isn't it, of something our friend Yeats wrote about? "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; / ..."
Indeed.
Meanwhile, I'm still stuffing poems into my head--verse junkie am I. I am now at 212 and counting--and hoping that entropy does not assert itself again.
But, of course, it will. It's what it does.
*Text of "My Last Duchess":
My Last
Duchess
Robert
Browning
That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as
if she were alive. I call
That piece a
wonder, now: Frà Pandolf’s hands
Worked
busily a day, and there she stands.
Will ‘t
please you sit and look at her? I said
‘Frà
Pandolf’ by design, for never read
Strangers
like you that pictured countenance,
The depth
and passion of its earnest glance,
But to
myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain
I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed
as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a
glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to
turn and ask thus. Sir, ‘t was not
Her
husband’s presence only, called that spot
Of joy into
the Duchess’ cheek: perhaps
Frà Pandolf
chanced to say, ‘Her mantle laps
Over my
lady’s wrist too much,' or ‘Paint
Must never
hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush
that dies along her throat:' such stuff
Was
courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling
up that spot of joy. She had
A heart—how
shall I say?—too soon made glad,
Too easily
impressed; she liked whate’er
She looked on,
and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, ‘t was
all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping
of the daylight in the West,
The bough of
cherries some officious fool
Broke in the
orchard for her, the white mule
She rode
with round the terrace—all and each
Would draw
from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at
least. She thanked men,—good! but thanked
Somehow—I
know not how—as if she ranked
My gift of a
nine-hundred-years-old name
With
anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame
This sort of
trifling? Even had you skill
In
speech—(which I have not)—to make your will
Quite clear
to such an one, and say, ‘Just this
Or that in
you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there
exceed the mark’—and if she let
Herself be
lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to
yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
—E’en then
would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to
stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene’er I
passed her; but who passed without
Much the
same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all
smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive.
Will ‘t please you rise? We’ll meet
The company
below then. I repeat,
The Count
your master’s known munificence
Is ample
warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for
dowry will be disallowed;
Though his
fair daughter’s self, as I avowed
At starting,
is my object. Nay, we’ll go
Together
down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a
sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus
of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
**PS--We're probably going to Szalay's and West Market after supper tonight!
