WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The Poetry Fix: Pilot

Episode Date: January 30, 2024

In this episode of The Poetry Fix, we explore Tennyson's enigmatic "Mariana."

Welcome to the Poetry Fix. I'm your host, Erica Kaiba, bringing you your weekly fix of poetry from across time. Today we're reading Mariana by Alfred Lord Tennyson. It's a poem based on a character from Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. The titular Mariana has been deserted by her lover and is now isolated in her moated grange. But here's the weird part. While Mariana in the play is eventually reunited with her lover, Tennyson gives us a seven-stands-a-snapshot of her misery without a resolution. solution. Let's dive in. Mariana. With blackest moss the flower pots were thickly crusted, one and all. The rusted nails fell from the knots that held the pear to the gable wall. The broken sheds looked sad and strange. Unlifted was the clinking latch. Weeded and worn the ancient

thatch upon the lonely, moated grange. She only said, my life is dreary, he cometh not, she said. She said, I am a weary, a weary, I would that I were dead. Her tears fell with the dews at even. Her tears fell ere the dews were dried. She could not look on the sweet heaven, either at morn or even tide. After the flitting of the bats, when thickest dark did trance the sky, she drew her casement curtain by, and glanced to thwart the glooming flats. She only said, the night is dreary, he cometh not, she said. She said, I am a weary, a weary, I would that I were dead. Upon the middle of the night, Waking, she heard the nightfowl crow. The cock sung out in hour air light. From the dark fen,

the oxen's low came to her. Without hope of change, in sleep she seemed to walk forlorn, till cold winds woke the grey-eyed morn about the lonely moated grange. She only said, The day is dreary, he cometh not, she said. She said, I am a weary, a weary, I would that I were dead. about a stone cast from the wall, a sluice with blackened water slept, and o'er it many round and small, the clustered merish mosses crept. Hard by a poplar shook all way, all silver-green with gnarled bark. For leagues no other tree did mark the level waste, the rounding grey. She only said, my life is dreary, he cometh not, she said.

She said I am a weary, a weary, I would that I were dead. And ever when the moon was low, and the shrill winds were up and away. In the white curtain to and fro she saw the gusty shadow sway. But when the moon was very low, and wild winds bound within their cell, the shadow of the poplar fell upon her bed, across her brow. She only said, the night is dreary, he cometh not, she said. She said, I am a weary, a weary, I would that I were dead. All day within the dreamy house, the doors upon their hinges creaked, the blue fly sung in the pain,

the mouse behind the mouldering wainscotch shrieked, or from the crevice peered about. Old faces glimmered through the doors, old footsteps trod the upper floors. Old voices called her from without. She only said, my life is dreary, he cometh not, she said. She said, I am a weary, a weary,

I would that I were dead. The sparrows chirrup on the roof, the slow clock ticking, and the sound to which the wooing wind aloof the poplar made did all confound her sense. But most she loathed the hour when the thick-moded sunbeam lay athwart the chambers, and the day was sloping toward his western bower. Then said she, I am very dreary, he will not come, she said. She wept, I am a weary, a weary, oh God that I were dead.

So, we seem to end on a note of total hopelessness. But knowing what we know about how Mariana's story ends, What is this poem really trying to tell us? You've been listening to The Poetry Fix with Erica Kaiba. Join me next week and we'll be reading one of the most famous love poems of all time.