[New-Poetry] Request for a criticism of '' the Credo'' by Mary Ashley Tow...

[Joseph Duemer]

That first stanza is really, really creepy. And that stuff about the grape
in the penultimate stanza is pretty freaking weird too. When this query
first hit the list I did a Google search & read a few of MAT's poems, but I
didn't find this little masterpiece of of the Gothic unconscious. There is a
breathtaking bourgeois failure of self-awareness in MAT's poems. Interesting
psychological study, maybe. Poetry, not so much. I stand by my original
judgment.


On 1/4/07, LauraHeidy at aol.com <LauraHeidy at aol.com> wrote:
>
>  In a message dated 1/4/2007 10:58:24 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
> JforJames at aol.com writes:
>
> Anyone have this poem 'Credo' or 'Creed' to post?
> Finnegan
>
>  CREED
> Mary Ashley Townsend
>
> I believe if I should die,
> And you should kiss my eyelids when I lie
> Cold, dead, and dumb to all the world contains,
> The folded orbs would open at thy breath,
> And, from its exile in the isles of death,
> Life would come gladly back along my veins.
>
> I believe if I were dead,
> And you upon my lifeless heart should tread,
> Not knowing what the poor clod chanced to be,
> It would find sudden pulse beneath the touch
> Of him it ever loved in life so much,
> And throb again--warm, tender, true to thee.
>
> I believe if on my grave,
> Hidden in woody depths or by the wave,
> Your eyes should drop some warm tears of regret,
> From every salty seed of your dear grief
> Some fair, sweet blossom would leap into leaf
> To prove death could not make my love forget.
>
> I believe if I should fade,
> Into those mystic realms where light is made,
> And you should long once more my face to see,
> I would come forth upon the hill of night
> And gather stars, like fagots, till thy sight,
> Led by their beacon blaze, fell full on me.
>
> I believe my faith in thee,
> Strong as my life, so nobly placed to be,
> I would as soon expect to see the sun
> Fall like a dead king from his height sublime,
> His glory stricken from the throne of time,
> As thee unworthy the worship thou hast won.
>
> I believe who hath not loved
> Hath half the sweetness of his life unproved;
> Like one who, with the grape within his grasp,
> Drops it with all its crimson juices unpressed,
> And all its luscious sweetness left unguessed,
> Out from his careless and unheeding clasp.
>
> I believe love, pure and true,
> Is to the soul a sweet, immortal dew
> That gems life's petals in its hours of dusk.
> The waiting angels see and recognize
> The rich crown jewel, Love, of Paradise
> When life falls from us like a withered husk
>
> Angela Boewdeker reciting "Creed'" by Mary Ashley Townsend<http://fp.uni.edu/halgedah/seminar_participants/boedeker.htm>
>
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>
>
>


-- 
Joseph Duemer
Professor of Humanities
Clarkson University
[sharpsand.net]
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