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Martin Underwood continues his series ‘Rear View’ in which he reviews poems of his choosing.

      Mirage

      The hope I dreamed of was a dream,
              Was but a dream; and now I wake
      Exceeding comfortless, and worn, and old,
              For a dream’s sake.

      I hang my harp upon a tree,
              A weeping willow in a lake;
      I hang my silenced harp there, wrung and snapt
              For a dream’s sake.

       Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart;
              My silent heart, lie still and break:
       Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed
              For a dream’s sake.

                                                                            Christina Rossetti

This little poem is to me memorable for its haunting sadness. This is stressed partly by the refrain and partly its rhyme. The first impression is that it is in ballad rhythm, but suddenly the third line throws one ‘off balance’ because it is longer and also because one is anticipating a rhyme with the first line – and there is not.

It is the second and fourth which rhyme, emphasising the refrain. The long line followed by the shorter builds to great effect in the last verse. Although not strictly a ballad form, in fact line three (five beats) and four (of three) maintains overall the regular four/four.

The first verse sets the tone of sadness: ‘Hope was a dream, …a dream,…a dream…’ And as in many ballads this repeating motif runs through the whole. But unlike a ballad it is in some ways more sophisticated both in metre and the handling of the subject. The whole poem springs from the first word ‘hope’ – which is never mentioned again but referred to in ‘dream’.

The second verse calls up, for me, ‘we hanged our harps upon the willows, yea, we wept…’ from the exiled Israelite lament in Psalms. This referring back to poetic tradition adds another dimension, but if the reference is not recognised there is still poetic strength there.  Rossetti’s phrase ‘wrung and snapt’ is unusual, slightly mysterious and typical of her simple yet memorable style. In fact in this poem it is the only unusual phrase and vocabulary the rest being very simple, the effects being created by repetition.

It is one of Rossetti’s gifts to create a memorable phrase:

‘earth as hard as iron/water as a stone…’; ‘now that frost begins to glaze…’ ’gusty creaks my tower/and lonesome, very lonesome, is my strand…’;
‘tears swallowed by the sea…’ ‘Autumn’s chilly self’…

The last verse again has the triple repeat and the repeat of ‘break’ on top of that, leading to the climax of the penultimate (longer) line which is wiped out by the blow (repeated) of ‘For a dream’s sake’ – in other words, for nothing.

                                                                                                                                      Martin Underwood

The great difficulty in all art is to put ideas into their necessary order.

                                                                                                                                                                                              Igor Stravinsky