changeling67: (Default)
RMB ([personal profile] changeling67) wrote2014-02-22 09:48 am

Cornish Poet Jack Clemo/John Harris - Day 3

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This does not bode well for the day ahead.

I have a death wish - I have selected John Harris (Cornish miner) as my comparative poet.  He just happens to be the subject that my lecturer majored in, when she completed her MA study.  I have a feeling I will hand this in, wait for the excrement to hit the whizzy thing and then wish that I had contemplated Arthur Caddick instead.

15:25
I think I am about 3/4s there re the essay, before I edit.  This will be a blessed relief for me, as I have just got a heavy-duty book on Lit Theory by Rivkin and Ryan that I have been urged to consider my 'bible' (it is yet another mini 'telephone directory' and infinitely less readable).  This is for the up-and-coming TH2 essay, which is read a text in the theory of your choice = Jane Eyre/Feminist.  The joy.  It starts tomorrow, but not before I complete Clemo/Harris.

In Dolcoath Mine

The heat, the cold, the sulphur and the slime,
The grinding masses of loosened rock,
The scaling ladders, the incessant grime
From the dark timbers and the dripping block,
The lassitude, the mallet's frequent knock,
The pain of thirst when water was so near,
The aching joints, the blasted hole's rude shock,
Could not dash out the music from his ear,
Or stay the sound of song which ever murmured clear.

The cavern's sides, the vagues of shining spar,
The roof of rock where scarce the candle gleams,
The hollow levels strangely stretching far
Beneath the mountains, full of mineral seams,
Where evermore to him befitting themes,
For his meditations and his rustic lay;
While in the darkness his pale visage gleams,
To read rich sonnets on the furrowed clay,
And craggy slabs that jut the ladder's lonely way.


John Harris (Miner, Poet and Methodist Preacher)

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