HEnce vain deluding joyes, The brood of folly without father bred, How little you bested, Or fill the fixed mind with all your toyes; Dwell in som idle brain, [ 5 ] And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess, As thick and numberless As the gay motes that people the Sun Beams, Or likest hovering dreams The fickle Pensioners of Morpheus train. [ 10 ]
The opening 10 lines of the companion poems are both written in identical form, an alternation between Iambic Trimeter and Iambic Pentameter.
While the Cock with lively din
Is "the Cock with lively din" a reference/extension of the Lark from line 41? "Cock" typically refers to a rooster; however, the word's definition simply applies to any male bird. Both the lark and rooster are known for their morning songs, and it seems that Milton could be playing with them interchangeably to possibly add further depth. If the lark is what comes to the speaker's window in line 46 and then flies away "while" the cock begins its song which covers the "rear of darkness thin", then it seems that the flying lark's poetic agency becomes one with the "lively din" of the cock(which again, could be the lark itself) to become the observing entity responsible for the narrative sequence which follows. It is worthy to note that a lark's song is sweet and a rooster's is rather unpleasant, yet they are both birds carrying out their instinctive morning calls. Their significance in the poem perhaps represents an extension of the duality between the two companion poems, signifying how joy can manifest itself in more than one way.
Pwe rhytbmia;SIow motion suturings,\7ith no one thcre to sew them, perforatcThc apex, boring thror"rgh: a water-vcnt,Inhalant and cxhalant;knottcd thrcadsAre pulled to fasten equidistant nodesAlong a helix-rim;a clockwise twis
A "studder" in the stanza's form creates a sense of caution as we read. I'm doing my final project on Adrienne Rich's "Diving Into The Wreck", which also employs this approach. The oceanic ideas present in both poems lead to a feeling of "diving" or perhaps "sinking", but also the movement relates to the oscillation of snails and of course, her husband's sutures.
doesn't matter, really,
I might be mistaken, but I'm fairly certain that Schnackenburg never used the phrase "doesn't matter" in any of her previous poems - yet here it appears twice while still on the first page. This newfound feeling of apathy is crucial.
Angular momcntum; symmctry;Strccessively self-generati ng cu rvesProjecting helixcs, the axis fixed;Then tilting on irs axis; rorsion-tilt;
Reminds me of calculating rotational motion and the derivative of such in regards to a fixed body around a fixed axis. I wish I could speak more about this concept, but my class on this subject is what made me switch from an Applied Mathematics major to English lol.
http://www.real-world-physics-problems.com/rotational-motion.html
FUSITURRICULA
My mother and her family were Italian immigrants, and this word couldn’t help but remind me of a song I often heard while growing up living with her and my grandparents: "Funiculì, Funiculà". The title doesn't translate to anything but pure nonsense, but it was written to celebrate the opening of the first funicular cable car on Mount Vesuvius. While not really having anything to do in direct relation to the poem, the notion of Mount Vesuvius: a volcano which by nature "Materializes [and] dematerializes", was poignant imagery I enjoyed keeping in mind while reading this. Particularly, examining the poetic similarities and differences between a "fusiturricula" sea snail in the vast ocean and venturing the heights of an active volcano via cable car - specifically the idea of what it must feel like to be in a state of relative rest.
whorl
a pattern of spirals/circles
logarithmic
Logarithmic differentiation is used to simplify complicated derivatives in order to solve them. A logarithm itself is essentially the exponent to which a certain number must be raised to in order to produce a certain number. Again, we see Schnackenburg employing elements of mathematical and empirical reason as a means to understand death.
The wondrously unlocked squate rcot of j;And 3.141 . . . i atreasure-storeMarcellus cannot plunder; cannot use;l'nd 1.618. . . : the weightless goldNo scales are needed for, no lock and key
The square root of 3, Pi, and Phi (The Golden Ratio) are all irrational numbers. However amidst their irrationality, they provide some of the most beautiful and exact precisions in mathematics, and life. In fact, these precisions are so exact that their full decimal expansions are humanly incalculable and therefore deemed "infinite".
Above his head a water-ceiling sways,Beneath his feet the ancient magma-flowsOf metamorphic, underearth plateausAre moving in slow motion, all in play,And all is give-and-take, all comes and goes,And hush now, all is well now, close your eyes,Distant ocean-engines pulverize
These lines are the first which begin to delve into the poem's greater contextual themes which explore infinity and endlessness, as it calls to mind a notion of universality across everything. The infinite and the endless are very similar, but remain distinct: 'infinite' refers to an indeterminable end or countlessness of size; whereas 'endlessness' is the absence of an end. The repetition of "all" (and the repeated moments throughout the poem) is so pertinent here because its repeated flow provides the reader with a sense of "give-and-take", much like a wave - which are then described immediately in the subsequent line/stanza with "Distant ocean-engines". There's a discovered oneness within the dichotomies of "give-and-take", "the comes and goes" the sky ("a water-ceiling") and the subterranean ("underearth plateaus"[which is a seemingly contradictory description of itself]); which makes one question the line between contradiction and balance. There is a oneness and balance present amidst all which seems to contradict, which is why I think mathematics is so especially relevant to the poem's overall theme (of course, outside of the fact of it being Archimedes' field of study). Mathematics is centered around unity: positive vs negative, integral vs differential, rational vs irrational, etc. And once contradiction (which scares us) can begin to become interpreted as balance, the inescapable infinities and endlessness of the universe do become peaceful, like a lullaby.