I memorized another poem about courage and devotion, also with a female protagonist like Bess in “The Highwayman”: “Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight,” a poem by Rose Hartwick Thorpe written in 1867. Lincoln couldn’t have read it, but for decades it was a classic in the U.S. Again, the poem celebrated core American values; in fact, I wonder if Alfred Noyes, who wrote “The Highwayman,” was inspired by the earlier poem, since Thorpe’s brave woman was named “Bessie.” “Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight” was Queen Victoria’s favorite poem (British queens like courage, devotion and nobility), inspired music, a play, three silent films, and is referenced in “Ethan Frome” and “Anne of Green Gables” as well as the Tracy-Hepburn comedy “Desk Set.”
In 1883, Hillsdale College conferred on the poet the honorary degree of A.M., because, as its president wrote at the time, “You have written a poem that will never permit the name of its author to die while the English language is spoken.”
Uh, no. In 1883 no one could imagine a U.S. where so-called “manly virtues,” were denigrated and de-emphasized by its leaders, schools and popular culture. Rose’s name is no longer remembered by hardly anyone, and the poem that I memorized and that had a role in turning my interests towards ethics is, I assume, never assigned to students. Here it is—that is the great, forgotten humorist/cartoonist James Thurber‘s amusing illustration of the poem’s climax above:
Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight
England’s sun was slowly setting
O’er the hills so far away,
Filling all the land with beauty
At the close of one sad day;
And the last rays kissed the forehead
Of a man and maiden fair –
He with a step so slow and weakened,
She with sunny, floating hair;
He with sad bowed head, and thoughtful,
She with lips so cold and white,
Struggling to keep back the murmur,
“Curfew must not ring tonight.”“Sexton,” Bessie’s white lips faltered,
Pointing to the prison old,
With its walls so dark and gloomy –
Walls so dark, and damp, and cold –
“I’ve a love in that prison,
Doomed this very night to die,
At the ringing of the curfew,
And no earthly help is nigh.
Cromwell will not come till sunset”;
And her face grew strangely white,
As she spoke in husky whispers,
“Curfew must not ring tonight.”“Bessie,” calmly spoke the sexton –
Every word pierced her young heart
Like a thousand gleaming arrows,
Like a deadly poisoned dart –
“Long, long years I’ve rung the curfew
From that gloomy shadowed tow’r;
Every evening, just at sunset,
It has told the twilight hour.
I have done my duty ever.
Tried to do it just and right;
Now I’m old, I will not miss it;
Girl, the curfew rings tonight!”Wild her eyes and pale her features,
Stern and white her thoughtful brow,
And within her heart’s deep center,
Bessie made a solemn vow.
She had listened while the judges
Read, without a tear or sigh,
“At the ringing of the curfew
Basil Underwood must die.”
And her breath came fast and faster,
And her eyes grew large and bright;
One low murmur, scarcely spoken –
“Curfew must not ring tonight.”She with light step bounded forward,
Sprang within the old church door,
Left the old man coming slowly,
Paths he’d often trod before;
Not one moment paused the maiden,
But with cheek and brow aglow,
Staggered up the gloomy tower,
Where the bell swung to and fro;
Then she climbed the slimy ladder,
Dark, without one ray of light,
Upward still, her pale lips saying,
“Curfew shall not ring tonight.”She has reached the topmost ladder,
O’er her hangs the great dark bell,
And the awful gloom beneath her,
Like the pathway down to Hell.
See the ponderous tongue is swinging,
‘Tis the hour of curfew now;
And the sight has chilled her bosom,
Stopped her breath, and paled her brow.
Shall she let it ring? No, never!
Her eyes flash with sudden light,
As she springs and grasps it firmly –
“Curfew shall not ring tonight.”Out she swung, far out, the city
Seemed a tiny speck below;
There twixt heaven and earth suspended
As the bell swung to and fro;
And the half-deaf sexton ringing
(Years he had not heard the bell)
And he thought the twilight curfew
Rang young Basil’s funeral knell;
Still the maiden clinging firmly,
Cheek and brow so pale and white,
Still her frightened heart’s wild beating –
“Curfew shall not ring tonight.”It was o’er – the bell ceased swaying,
And the maiden stepped once more
Firmly on the damp old ladder,
Where for hundred years before
Human foot had not been planted;
And what she this night had done
Should be told in long years after:
As the rays of setting sun
Light the sky with mellow beauty,
Aged sires with heads of white,
Tell the children why the curfew
Did not ring that one sad night.O’er the distant hills came Cromwell;
Bessie saw him, and her brow,
Lately white with sickening terror,
Glows with sudden beauty now.
At his feet she told the story,
Showed her hands all bruised and torn;
And her sweet young face so haggard,
With a look so sad and worn,
Touched his heart with sudden pity,
Lit his eyes with misty light:
“Go, your love lives!” cried Cromwell:
“Curfew shall not ring tonight!”
And today? Today neither “If,” nor any of the poems mentioned above are taught in our public schools, so none of them are likely to inspire or guide children through life and adulthood. Kipling has been “cancelled,” and the rest are insufficiently woke. Poe’s poems more benign works are sometimes used to teach structure and rhyme, and Robert Frost’s gentle mood pieces like”Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”may make it into the modern classroom. The themes the other poems represent, when poems are used at all, emphasize social justice, rising above racism, “inclusion,” diversity (gotta have the works of gay poets and as few white men as possible), the environment and emotion. Some Shakespeare sonnets make the cut, but nothing featuring bravery, battle or conflict. No more “Horatius at the Bridge,” or “The Charge of the Light Brigade.” Even “Casey at the Bat,” which teaches about arrogance and heroes failing, is out. After all, not many girls play baseball.
I believe that this shift in what rising generations regarded as inspiring poetry and literature has contributed significantly to the weeniefication of American society, culture and priorities.
What poems did you memorize? What poems inspired you?
Ethics Alarms 
I listenened to a podcast recently about the ancient epic poets, like Homer, who would wonder countryside entertaining communities with there long tales. I had often wondered how these poets memorized such tales, but according to what I heard, their goal was never rote memorization, but a dynamic tale retold to match the interests of the particular audience. In the world before the written word, there was no way of knowing if a story were told exactly the same, nor did any care!
The rhyme and meter of the helped the poet recreate the tale as he recorded it, added or substracting sections by chance or in in response to the audience’s enthusiasm or boredom. It was, in essence, an improve act.
When Homer’s Illiad and Oddessy were finally written down, uncountable variations had already existed. The poet retelling the tales before the scribe simply added in every possible tangent and side quest he could muster so they could be preserved for posterity, resulting in many twists and turns and redundancies.
This got me thinking about a short snippet of a Shakespearean play I had to memorize in the 8th grade, Puck’s soliloquy at the end of Midsomer Night’s Dream.
At the time, I’m pretty sure I brute force memorized rotely for my recitation. I soon forgot most of it. But thinking back decades later, I could still hear the rhythm and rhyme in me head. Below is my raw Homeresque creation from memory; I’m pretty sure these paragraphs are largely correct, though I’m also sure I missed one or two:
As 13 year old boy in middle school, thought poetry was kind of stupid, and wondered what value there was in memorizing Puck. In high school, the Oddessy was so bloated, that it was the one book I resorted to using Cliff Notes summaries on, because I just could not read and follow along such dense material. It makes so much more sense now that no sane ancient audience would or could patiently sit through today’s unabridged version!
I can see now that poetry in isolation doesn’t mean much. Rather it can only be understood as a way of preserving and communicating values across generations and connecting people. Iambic pentometer is cute and all by itself, but its value as a means of helping memorization was never brought up in school! Poems about a woman climbing up into a giant bell to muffle its toll would be so much more awesome than a fairy apologizing the preceding play being kind of trite. It is really a shame poetry is being taught in such a superficial manner these days, if it’s being taught at all.
It would be miraculous if Invictus was Abe Lincoln’s favorite poem.
You mean because it was written 10 years after Ford’s theater? Yeah, Ann acknowledged that. What I find depressing is that although the poem was quoted by Winston Churchill, Rep. John Lewis, Nelson Mandella, Barack Obama and others, the first hit on Google if you search for it is the middling Clint Eastwood movie named after it.
The fascinating aspect of the Raven being his favorite poem is that the Raven is just under 200 years old for us so it’s historical. But just under 20 years for Lincoln so it’s contemporary.
It would be like a modern American president carrying a copy of Blackhawk Down or No Country for Old Men or the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to watch regularly.
I rather like The Simpsons animation of the Raven, read by James Earl Jones.
(Tried to link the YouTube video; tried twice but Nevermore)
-Jut
I don’t know – Poe’s Raven has one of my favorite lines; it isn’t at all profound, but it is profoundly delightful to speak and to allow to roll over the brain like a cool river. I memorized the entire poem when I was a teen in the late 70’s and can still recite it. But for the life of me, I can’t remember the “new” neighbor’s names, even though they have been here five or six years. Their dog is Annie. My priorities are laid bare, I suppose.
“And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain thrills me, fills me with fantastic terrors never felt before.”
There may be errors in there. I write it from memory alone.
Poetry makes equals of us all. From Bukowski to Shakespeare. They speak to each person in their own way.
A teenaged me painted the prologue to Thomas Wolfe’s “Look Homeward, Angel” on the back of my closet door; my private and quiet rebellion to a mother very similar to Eugene Gant’s mother. There is still a desperate and layered division between us at 63 and 83 years of age….
“Naked and alone we came into exile. In her dark womb we did not know our mother’s face; from the prison of her flesh have we come into the unspeakable and incommunicable prison of this earth….”
It goes on, but I will allow the readers to discover the rest on their own. It spoke to me, a schizoid, of the utter and undeniable loneliness of life. That book was my “Catcher In the Rye”. It forever changed me. I haven’t read it since my 30’s. I am so afraid that it will no longer move me the way it did in my youth. Some poetry speaks to a time or generation, or a time of life. It can go from profundity to perversion to puling as the decades pile on.
Speaking of poetry, Renee Good was a poet. She received the Academy of American Poets Award. Her writings are now a small and intimate part of her legacy to the world. I lack the skill to copy the poem in its correct format, but I will provide the link:
http://2020 Academy of American Poets Prize | Academy of American Poets https://share.google/m0g4WZTXwRMRMVe9r
Your “Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight” protagonist reminds me a bit of her. I suppose it speaks to us in different ways.
Tim Minchin is undoubtedly genius, a true polymath. His writing, music, comedy, acting and message has evolved from the convention mocking bite of his early works to the haunting and sobering, albeit less confrontational songs “Apart Together” and the tribute to his wife “I’ll Take Lonely Tonight.”
We are all just so fragile, precious and fleeting on this planet. We should seek to always be The Helpers. To contribute far more than we collect. I came from dis-opportunity. I never attended a college, but I never stopped learning and growing. I live on the edges of poverty, I have never had a new car, a designer bag, a house with a view, a savings account…but I, unlike the accumulaters of wealth and power, kinow that these are not how a man is measured. It is not about standing victorious on the bodies of those you ruined. We are lifted up, not by the machinations of despots and dollars, that thirst can never be quenched, but by living in empathy and altruism.
What a rich, thoughtful post, Lisa. Comment of the Day. Thank-you.
Thank you! I am honored.
I’ve not memorized very many poems (or at least, not many outside of Shel Silverstein…), but one that caught my fancy and inspired me to commit to memory is G.K. Chesteron’s “Ballad of Lepanto”. It is not just that it is a Catholic poem commemorating the victory of the Holy League over the Ottoman Turks in one of the greatest naval battles of history, but that fact that it was so inspiring that British troops in the trenches of World War I would recite passages of it to each other. The poem was written in 1911, so at that time of the Great War it was only a handful of years old, instead of the 20 years old The Raven was to President Lincoln. Here’s an excerpt, and I only had to correct two words when comparing with the official text: