On+the+Portrait+of+Two+Beautiful+Young+People

=Back to The Lieutenant General=

iii. On the Portrait of Two Beautiful Young People
O I admire and sorrow! The heart’s eye grieves Discovering you, dark tramplers, tyrant years. A juice rides rich through bluebells, in vine leaves, And beauty’s dearest veriest vein is tears.

Happy the father, mother of these! Too fast: Not that, but thus far, all with frailty, blest In one fair fall; but, for time’s aftercast, Creatures all heft, hope, hazard, interest.

And are they thus? The fine, the fingering beams Their young delightful hour do feature down That fleeted else like day-dissolved dreams Or ringlet-race on burling Barrow brown.

She leans on him with such contentment fond As well the sister sits, would well the wife; His looks, the soul’s own letters, see beyond, Gaze on, and fall directly forth on life.

But ah, bright forelock, cluster that you are Of favoured make and mind and health and youth, Where lies your landmark, seamark, or soul’s star? There’s none but truth can stead you. Christ is truth.

There ’s none but good can be good, both for you And what sways with you, maybe this sweet maid; None good but God—a warning waved to One once that was found wanting when Good weighed.

Man lives that list, that leaning in the will No wisdom can forecast by gauge or guess, The selfless self of self, most strange, most still, Fast furled and all foredrawn to No or Yes.

Your feast of; that most in you earnest eye May but call on your banes to more carouse. Worst will the best. What worm was here, we cry, To have havoc-pocked so, see, the hung-heavenward boughs?

Enough: corruption was the world’s first woe. What need I strain my heart beyond my ken? O but I bear my burning witness though Against the wild and wanton work of men.


 * //​Compare to//**
 * "Life On My Own" by 3 Doors Down**

Living risky, never scared, wander Closer to the edge Nothing valued think no fear, Always wondering why you’re here

All your purposes are gone, nothing’s Right and nothing’s wrong Nothing ventured, nothing gained Feel no sorrow, feel no pain

Kiss me while I’m still alive Kill me while I kiss the sky Let me die on my own terms, Let me live and let me learn

Now I’ll follow my own way, and I’ll Live on to another damn day Freedom carries sacrifice, Remember when this was my life

Looking forward, not behind Everybody’s got to cross that line Free me now to give me a place, Keep me caged and free the beast

Falling faster, time goes by, Fear is not seen through these eyes What there was will never be, Now I’m blind and cannot see

Kiss me while I’m still alive Kill me while I kiss the sky Let me die on my own terms, let me Live and let me learn

Now I’ll follow my own way, and I’ll Live on to another damn day Freedom carries sacrifice, Remember when this was my life

Kiss me while I’m still alive Kill me while I kiss the sky Let me die on my own terms, let me Live and let me learn

Now I’ll follow my own way, And I’ll live on to another damn day Freedom carries sacrifice, Remember when this was my life.

//**Literary** **Techniques**//
 * i. Asyndeton **
 * In the poem:** Creatures all heft, hope, hazard, interest
 * In the song:** Living risky, Never scared, wander Closer to the edge, Nothing valued think no fear, Always wondering why you're here

The omission or absence of a conjunction between parts of a sentence.

The lack of conjunctions between the connected items in both these series gives both urgency and a sense of poetry. (I would hope so.) It strings these items together in a way that makes it seem as though there is not time for the in-between.


 * ii. Personification **
 * In the poem:** A juice rides rich through bluebells, in vine leaves, And beauty's dearest veriest vein is tears
 * In the song:** Freedom carries sacrifice

The attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form.

Juice cannot ride anything, nor can freedom actually carry sacrifice, but these things give imagery to the poem and song respectively. Instead of using "sits," "rides" gives the image of life and liveliness. For freedom to carry sacrifice is a tip of the hat to the burdens that come with being free.


 * iii. Aphorism **
 * In the poem:** Corruption was the world's first woe
 * In the song:** Nothing ventured, nothing gained

A pithy observation that contains a general truth, such as, “if it ain't broke, don't fix it"; a concise statement of a scientific principle, typically by an ancient classical author.

Sayings generally perceived as the truth. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained" plays to that in order to achieve, you must proceed first. "Corruption is the world's first woe" calls to attention that corruption and manipulation and greed disrupt that which is good, peaceful, and harmonious, thus making it the "world's first woe."