An Address to the Heart...

       Over the last few weeks I have been recording, for The Library of Congress, the complete poems of W.B. Yeats, in which the heart--usually metaphorically--is often directly addressed. And, frankly, sometimes the results are quite banal, and one wonders why the winner of the Nobel prize for literature decided they were worth publishing.
Take the first verse of "A Song," for example.
    
        I thought no more was needed
       Youth to prolong
       Than  dumb-bell and foil
       To keep the body young.
       O who could have foretold
       That the heart grows old?

     The answer to the question is "well, pretty much everybody, unless they believed in eternal youth."
I quite like "dumb-bell and foil." But though W.B.Yeats might have lifted the occasional dumb-bell, I doubt that he did much fencing (the 'foil').
      You might also note that he is fairly liberal with his near rhymes ('prolong' with 'young') and doesn't worry too much about exact scansion.
       He is better in a direct address to his heart in "The Tower."
  
      What shall I do with this absurdity--
      O heart, O troubled heart--this caricature,
      Decrepit age that has been tied to me
      As to a dog's tail?

      I had a certain fellow feeling when I recorded those lines.

     Another tick he seemed to have was an addiction to long titles. Such as: "On hearing that the students of our New University have joined the Agitation against Immoral Literature." "I see Phantoms of Hatred and of the Heart's Fullness and of the Coming Emptiness.""The Poet pleads with the Elemental Powers."

    I thought: let's give it a try:

         The Poet addresses his Heart with the News that
               He has to have a Pacemaker Installed

          Old Ticker, why have you betrayed me,

          Fluttering, quivering, missing the odd beat,

          Shaking the stylus on the EKG?

          Is it revenge for my conceit,

          Feeling so fit for seventy-six?

          Did I push you too hard with the hiking and biking?

          Is that why you’re playing these cardiac tricks?

          Or was my diet not to your liking?

          Maybe it’s simply our DNA,

          Some maladjustment growing since conception,

          The genetic dice just rolled that way,

          Creating some electric misconnection.

          Possibly it’s just the wear and tear of years,

          The heartaches, strains, vicissitudes of life,

          Those disappointments and those fears and tears,

          Sorrow, regrets, omissions, anger, strife.

          But life has also been so rich

          With love and pleasure, beauty, music, art:

          These soothe the soul, but cannot stitch

          The tattered tissues of the aging heart.

          And now for shocking news, my dear Old Ticker.

          Down through our veins they’re threading wires

          To goose you into beating quicker

          To match the speed a longer life requires.

          Sorry to saddle you with this encumbrance,

          To make your pace beat faster than before.

          Consider it as life insurance,

          Covering the risk we both might suffer more.

         “Your heart will last a lifetime,” I’ve been told.

         “How true,” is all I can reply.

          You’ve been a bosom pal, a heart of gold:

          We’ll hang in there together, you and I.

          Forget the intimations of mortality,

          Just be very thankful we’re alive:

          Let’s rather focus on longevity—

          I think I’m going to shoot for ninety-five.

     It took some time to work this out, and I did reject two verses that maybe I should have kept:

                     Rejected Verses

          And now for shocking news, my dear Old Ticker.

          They’re going to make you work much faster,

          To goose you into beating quicker

          With an electronic blaster.

          Well, maybe ‘blast’ is just exaggeration.

          The voltage will be miniscule

          And only last a fleeting micro-sec’s duration,

          And with the power of just a milli-joule.

All for now. I have the interrogation appointment in a week's time. That should prompt another entry.