Calvin_10620045_4SA01_Vclass Pengkajian Puisi (Imagery)

 A Song of Despair Poem (1924) by Pablo Neruda

 

The memory of you emerges from the night around me.

The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea.

 

Deserted like the wharves at dawn.

It is the hour of departure, oh deserted one!

 

Cold flower heads are raining over my heart.

Oh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked.

 

In you the wars and the flights accumulated.

From you the wings of the song birds rose.

 

You swallowed everything, like distance.

Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank!

 

It was the happy hour of assault and the kiss.

The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse.

 

Pilot's dread, fury of blind driver,

turbulent drunkenness of love, in you everything sank!

 

In the childhood of mist my soul, winged and wounded.

Lost discoverer, in you everything sank!

 

You girdled sorrow, you clung to desire,

sadness stunned you, in you everything sank!

 

I made the wall of shadow draw back,

beyond desire and act, I walked on.

 

Oh flesh, my own flesh, woman whom I loved and lost,

I summon you in the moist hour, I raise my song to you.

 

Like a jar you housed infinite tenderness.

and the infinite oblivion shattered you like a jar.

 

There was the black solitude of the islands,

and there, woman of love, your arms took me in.

 

There was thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit.

There were grief and ruins, and you were the miracle.

 

Ah woman, I do not know how you could contain me

in the earth of your soul, in the cross of your arms!

 

How terrible and brief my desire was to you!

How difficult and drunken, how tensed and avid.

 

Cemetery of kisses, there is still fire in your tombs,

still the fruited boughs burn, pecked at by birds.

 

Oh the bitten mouth, oh the kissed limbs,

oh the hungering teeth, oh the entwined bodies.

 

Oh the mad coupling of hope and force

in which we merged and despaired.

 

And the tenderness, light as water and as flour.

And the word scarcely begun on the lips.

 

This was my destiny and in it was my voyage of my longing,

and in it my longing fell, in you everything sank!

 

Oh pit of debris, everything fell into you,

what sorrow did you not express, in what sorrow are you not drowned!

 

From billow to billow you still called and sang.

Standing like a sailor in the prow of a vessel.

 

You still flowered in songs, you still broke the currents.

Oh pit of debris, open and bitter well.

 

Pale blind diver, luckless slinger,

lost discoverer, in you everything sank!

 

It is the hour of departure, the hard cold hour

which the night fastens to all the timetables.

 

The rustling belt of the sea girdles the shore.

Cold stars heave up, black birds migrate.

 

Deserted like the wharves at dawn.

Only tremulous shadow twists in my hands.

 

Oh farther than everything. Oh farther than everything.

 

It is the hour of departure. Oh abandoned one!

 

Analysis:

There are more than one imagery found in this poem, which are visual and auditory imagery.

 

Auditory: Auditory imagery appeal to the sense of hearing. The author use words and phrases to evoke sounds, allowing readers to imagine the auditory experience.

             

              - The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea. (Line 2)

* The line describe the sound of the river's lament blending with the sea, creating an auditory image of a sorrowful mingling.

 

 

Visual: Visual imagery appeal to the sense of sight. Authors use visual imagery to create mental images that allow readers to "see" the scenes, characters, and settings in their minds.

 

              -There was the black solitude of the islands, (Line 25)

 

*The visual imagery comes from the “black solitude” which creates a visual image of isolated islands shrouded in darkness that emphasize the sense of isolation and loneliness.

 

Helian (1915) by Georg Trakl

 

In the spirit’s solitary hours

It is lovely to walk in the sun

Along the yellow walls of summer.

Quietly whisper the steps in the grass; yet always sleeps

The son of Pan in the grey marble.

 

At eventide on the terrace we got drunk on brown wine

The red peach glows under the foliage.

Tender sonata, joyous laughter.

 

Lovely is this silence of the night.

On the dark plains

We gather with shepherds and the white stars.

 

When autumn rises

The grove is a sight of sober clarity.

Along the red walls we loiter at ease

And the round eyes follow the flight of birds.

In the evening pale water gathers in the dregs of burial urns.

 

Heaven celebrates, sitting in bare branches.

In hallowed hands the yeoman carries bread and wine

And fruit ripens in the peace of a sunny chamber.

 

Oh how stern is the face of the beloved who have taken their passage.

Yet the soul is comforted in righteous meditation.

 

Overwhelming is the desolated garden‘s secrecy,

As the young novice has wreathed his brow with brown leaves,

His breath inhales icy gold.

 

The hands touch the antiquity of blueish water

Or in a cold night the sisters’ white cheeks.

 

In quiet and harmony we walk along a suite of hospitable rooms

Into solitude and the rustling of maple trees,

Where, perhaps, the thrush still sings.

 

Beautiful is man and emerging from the dark

He marvels as he moves his arms and legs,

And his eyes quietly roll in purple cavities.

 

At suppertime a stranger loses himself in November’s black destitution;

Under brittle branches he follows a wall covered under leprosy.

Once the holy brother went here,

Engrossed in the tender music of his madness.

 

Oh how lonely settles the evening-wind.

Dying away a man‘s head droops in the dark of the olive tree.

 

How shattering is the decline of a family.

This is the hour when the seer’s eyes are filled

With gold as he beholds the stars.

 

The evening’s descend has muffled the belfry‘s knell in silence;

Among black walls in the public place,

A dead soldier calls for a prayer.

 

Like a pale angel

The son enters his ancestor’s empty house.

 

The sisters have traveled far to the pale ancients.

At night, returned from their mournful pilgrimage,

He found them asleep under the columns of the hallway.

 

Oh hair stained with dung and worms

As his silver feet stepped on it

And on those who died in echoing rooms.

 

Oh you palms under midnight’s burning rain,

When the servants flogged those tender eyes with nettles,

The hollyhock’s early fruit

Beheld your empty grave in wonder.

 

Fading moons sail quietly

Over the sheets of the feverish lad,

Into the silence of winter.

 

At the bank of Kidron a great mind is lost in musing,

Under a tree, the tender cedar,

Stretched out under the father’s blue eyebrows,

Where a shepherd drives his flock to pastures at night.

 

Or there are screams which escape the sleep;

When an iron angel approaches man in the grove,

The holy man’s flesh melts over burning coals.

 

Purple wine climbs about the mud-cottage,

Sheaves of faded corn sing;

The buzz of bees; the crane’s flight.

In the evening the souls of the resurrected gather on rocky paths.

 

Lepers behold their image in dark water;

Or they lift the hemp of their dung soiled attire,

And weep to the soothing wind, as it drifts down from the rosy hill.

 

Slender maidens grope their way through the narrow lanes of night;

They hope for the gracious shepherd.

Tenderly, songs ring out from the huts on weekend.

 

Let the song pay homage to the boy,

To his madness to his white eyebrows and to his passage,

To the decaying corpse, who opened his blue eyes.

Oh how sad is this reunion.

 

The stairs of madness in black apartments –

The matriarch’s shadow emerged under the open door

When Helian’s soul beheld his image in a rosy mirror;

And from his brow bled snow and leprosy.

 

The walls extinguished the stars

And the white effigies of light.

 

From the carpet rise skeletons, escaping their graves,

Fallen crosses sit silent on the hill,

The night’s purple wind is sweet with frankincense.

 

Oh ye broken eyes over black gaping jaws,

When the grandson in the solitude

Of his tender madness muses over a darker ending,

The blue eyelids of the silent god sink upon him.

 

Analysis:

There is more than one imagery found in this poem, which are visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, olfactory, and kinesthetic imagery.

 

Auditory: Auditory imagery appeals to the sense of hearing. The author uses words and phrases to evoke sounds, allowing readers to imagine the auditory experience.

 

              - Quietly whisper the steps in the grass; yet always sleeps (Line 4)

* The line above describes the soft rustling and brushing sound of grass when it comes into contact with someone passing by.

 

Visual: Visual imagery appeals to the sense of sight. Authors use visual imagery to create mental images that allow readers to "see" the scenes, characters, and settings in their minds.

 

- In the spirit’s solitary hours / It is lovely to walk in the sun / Along the yellow walls of summer. (Line 1-3)

* The line above paints a picture of a solitary moment where walking under the sun becomes a lovely experience. The author describes “the yellow walls of summer” or rather, a yellowish sunlight that creates a moment of warmth and tranquility.

 

 

Olfactory: Olfactory imagery is related to the sense of smell. It involves descriptions that incite scents and aromas, helping readers imagine specific odors.

 

              - The night’s purple wind is sweet with frankincense. (Line 89)

* The line above suggests the wind carries a sweet scent as the aromatic and sweet frankincense resin at night.