The Song That Men Should Sing - Kenneth Mackay - TAKE 2

Note: One analysis of ‘The Song That Men Should Sing’ has already been posted. However, I thought I’d post this one as well as the views presented in this are quite opposite to the views presented in the other one, the more points of view the better.

The poem “The song that Men should sing” is a poem by Australian poet Kenneth Mackay in 1899. In it, the author counters the popular notion that peace and general disarmament go hand in hand. It is important to note that the author, Kenneth Mackay, served in the Boer War and had a strong military background.

The poem contains strong themes of nationalism, anti-pacifism, and racist undertones. The mentality of military people is expertly conveyed through the writer’s point of view. The ingrained belief that war is a necessary part of existence is repeated throughout the piece.

Before we continue, it is important to note that that unlike the other Australia-centred poems present in our additional English syllabus, this poem is not apologetic or in the slightest bit remorseful of the genocide inflicted upon the aborigines. It glorifies the wars waged against these tribal people (perceived to be sub-human). It is also important to note that while the other two poems we have to study (Elder’s passing and The Last of his Tribe) never attained fame or publicity in their time, this poem was published in textbooks for white school children for almost 30 years!

The cohorts who fought when the world was young
Have their blood-red legends told,
For a hundred poets have bravely sung
The deeds of the days of old.

The story is writ of the men who fell
In desert and sun-scorched track:
The legions who served their country well -
The heroes who marched 'Out Back' ... 

The first two stanzas speak on the stories often told of the heroes and soldiers who fought for their country during the beginning of Australia’s bastardized ‘colonization’. Many military words are used to invoke a sense of military honour and bravery.

But they tell us now, in their lifeless lays,
These knights of the stool and pen,
We must boast no more of the stirring days
When they fought and fell like men ... 

In the third stanza, we are told that we should glorify these men no more; they exist no longer, they are long dead.  If we continue to glorify them we are justifying our sluggish laziness through the bravery of our ancestors. In simple terms, we shouldn’t live off the glory of those who are long since deceased.

But the tale is best that has oft been told,
If it love of birthland bring;
And the song they sang in days of old
Is the song that I will sing ... 

This stanza serves as an introduction to the end of the poem. In it, the first two lines inspire a direct sense of nationalism. The final line links back to the title as well as the first stanza. In short, what the poet is saying is that he is aligning himself with the men of old, the soldiers who fought. He’s saying that we can’t establish ourselves as a fighting race merely because our ancestors fought; we too must fight.

We won the land from a nerveless race,
Too mean for their land to fight;
If we mean to hold it we too must face
The adage that 'might is right'.

It matters nothing what dreamers say,
When they prate that wars must cease,
For the lustful war-god holds his sway
In these piping days of peace ... 

                In the above two stanzazs, the author begins the conclusion. The first line is of particular significance, predominantly for its colonial tone of racial superiority. Rather than expressing remorse or sympathy for the aborigines, he calls them a nerveless race. The usage of the phrase nerveless race in this context is an extension of the stereotype created by the British that the aborigines were lazy and cowardly.

                The poet proceeds to state that invasion or war will inevitably come. The aborigines didn’t expect it, and neither will they, the modern day Australians. If they wish to maintain this country they love so dearly they must be prepared and ready to fight for it, rather than merely basking in the glory of their ancestors.

                But why do we need war? Why do we need armies? Can’t we all live peacefully?  Is what many of us might say. The poet is quick to dismiss this notion as folly. He states that war will always exist, as it looms even over days of peace. The usage of the word prate ( infinitive tense of prattle) is particularly significant to the poem. Prattle is a derogatory verb used to describe someone talking on and on about something they know very little about. Through this line, his  dislike of pacifists and his military intuition are brought to the forefront.

So our lads must learn there's a sterner task
Than playing a well-pitched ball;
That the land we love may some day ask
For a team when the trumpets call.

A team that is ready to take the field
To bowling with balls of lead,
In a test match grim, where if one appealed,
The umpire might answer 'dead'!

The poet winds up the poem. In the first of the above stanzas, the author begins a cricket metaphor.  He is saying that we can’t merely exist peacefully and carelessly as that is what the aborigines did. Rather, we must be prepared and ready to fight.

The final stanza provides an interesting extension of the cricket metaphor. The bowling with balls of lead is a reference to firing bullets in the battlefield. The team in this context is a reference to an army.

In conclusion, the poet is saying that he has no problem with peace, but merely wishes to be ready in the event of a war or invasion. The coupling of the gentleman’s sport of cricket with the violence of war provides the aforementioned ideology.

A child said, What is the Grass?

The poem ‘A child said what is the grass?’ was written by Walt Whitman, one of the pioneers of modern American literature. In it, he attempts to respond to a child’s innocent question of what the grass is.  If you haven’t read the poem yet, check it out here:

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-child-said-what-is-the-grass/

Okay, let’s start.

Before I delve into a full-fledged analysis of the poem, I would like to point out a couple of key points about this poem. If a child were to come and ask you what the grass is, what would you say? You’d probably tell him it’s a plant, that it naturally grows, or, if you’re exceptionally lazy, might tell him ‘it’s complicated’. But look at what Whitman does; he sets aside what he thinks he knows and digs deeper and deeper in an attempt to come to the root of the answer. In a manner akin to how children persistently ask question after question, Whitman questions his stance again and again throughout the poem until he finally reaches a desirable answer. By doing so, he attempts to answer the child’s question by thinking like a child.

Another interesting point worth mentioning is how the poem follows no clear-cut rhythmic scheme. Rather, it stumbles forward in a non-linear and haphazard way. It almost seems to follow the poet’s stream of consciousness.  All the answers and subsequent questions in his mind are laid out before us on the paper. By this approach, the poet takes us along with him on his journey for an answer.

The theme of death dominates the piece. This is unsurprising as Whitman was a war nurse in the civil war and had seen much suffering and brutality. Through the course of this poem he seeks to philosophically ascertain that life is no different from death.

Now; let’s begin with the poem.

Upon being asked what the grass is by the child, the speaker muses that it’s impossible for him to answer as he doesn’t know what the grass is any more than the child does. He begins to examine the possibilities of what exactly the grass could be. Mind you, it is important at this point of time to note that many of the lines or stanzas in the poem begin with the phrases ‘I guess’, ‘Or’, etc. By using such phrases his uncertainty and subsequent humility is brought to the forefront. This can be linked back to the aforementioned concept of attempting to analyse this problem from a child’s point of view.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child. . . .the produced babe of the vegetation.

                He examines different possibilities; the first of which is particularly profound as it links to the themes that will emerge later on in the poem. The word disposition is used to refer to one’s attitude, beliefs, or feelings on an issue. Thus, by calling the grass the flag of his disposition, he is quite literally saying that the grass perfectly represents his thoughts on life and death ( his belief that  life is one continuous ciricle; death does not conquer, it just feeds the circle of life ).

The reference to grass being the handkerchief of the Lord appears to be used for its imagery. Take a handkerchief and drop it on a table tennis ball; it’ll cover the ball completely, adhering to its shape. Similarly, grass covers the earth like a blanket, like a divine handkerchief dropped.

The poet now attempts to think of the grass as a product of the vegetation, the result of seeds, fertile soil and favourable weather.

What is important about all of these is not so much the significance each one holds, but the manner in which they have been displayed. It seems as if each of these are points in Whitman’s mind and as he philosophizes on, he is attempting to connect the dots and gain a better view of the overall picture.

The following stanza is particularly important:

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow
zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the 
same, I receive them the same.

                In this section, Whitman begins to ponder on the indiscriminatory nature of the grass. The usage of the word hieroglyphic is somewhat deep as a hieroglyphic is a word written as a drawing. Information encoded in visual imagery. By referring to the grass as a hieroglyphic, Whitman hints that the grass is not merely there for aesthetic beauty, but that it contains some piece of vital information that we must seek out.

                The grass grows everywhere. Broad zones, narrow zones. Near black people, near white people. The grass doesn’t care. In the last line, the subject suddenly changes from the grass to the poet ( I give them the same, I receive them the same). By doing this the poet is attempting to tell us that we should be more like the grass. Also, in case you were wondering, a Kanuck is an offensive term for a Canadian, a Tuckahoe for a Native American, a Congressman for the rich white majority, and Cuff for the enslaved black. These were vital notions for Whitman, who had lived through the Civil War, and seen so much violence, death and suffering over the question of slavery.

                The fact that the grass grows everywhere, and doesn’t care about our differences, makes our prejudices seem shallow, foolish and petty. Whitman embraces this and incorporates himself into the stream of thought to show his support ( the usage of I).

//Please ignore the colours, theres no significance, I just don't know how to blog

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,
It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken
Soon out of their mothers' laps,
And here you are the mothers' laps.

The contrast evoked between ‘beautiful uncut hair’ and ‘graves’ instantly catches the reader’s attention. The sheer polarity, that tug, induced by having beautiful uncut hair and graves so close together in the sentence evokes a sense of energy. The imagery evoked is that of the earth slowly growing hair (untrimmed grass) from the bodies buried within it (graves). This link exists because, like hair, grass grows from roots. Hair can still grow on a human head after he or she dies, so the mentioning of hair goes back to the theme of life sprouting from death. 

Throughout the rest of the above stanza, Whitman continues to build on the idea of grass/death being an equalizer of sorts. Everyone is equal in death. The grass will grow form them nevertheless, regardless of who they were when they were alive. The final line twists the concepts of life and death in a macabre fashion by speaking on the death of a child. The children who have passed have been “adopted” by Mother Nature. The ground holds them like a mother would.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old Mothers,
Darker than the colourless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues,
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths
For nothing.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men
And women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring
Taken soon out of their laps.

The first stanza implies that the grass is pulling its colour from the bodies beneath it. The dark green grass contrasts greatly with the pale white hair on dead elderly people.

The usage of the word ‘tongues’ can be read as talking about the language of the grass. ‘Tongues’, in a biblical context, is a language that the angels of heaven speak and that no mortal can understand. Thus by saying that ‘they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing’, implies that the grass means something, and is not merely there. This links back and emphasizes the point made earlier by referring to the grass as a ‘hieroglyphic’. In short, Whitman is saying that the grass has a meaning, that it has a deep philosophical secret it is attempting to diverge to us.

The sage of ‘I wish’ in the third stanza, implies that he is unable to translate the hints. He wishes he could explain and justify the tragic deaths of people taken long before their time; but he cannot. The fact that death is inevitable and a requiem for life to continue conflicts with the undeniable tragedy of a premature death. The poet deeply wishes that he could explain or philosophize on this front but is unable to do so.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and Children?

The poet now asks another question, delving deeper and deeper in his search for the answer.  He ponders on the fate of those who have died and who now lie buried under the earth. Off this question, Whitman leaps into the enlightening conclusion of the poem.

They are alive and well somewhere,
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at
The end to arrest it,
And ceas'd the moment life appear'd.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and Luckier.

This paragraph is not only Whitman’s answer as to where the dead have gone, but is also his answer to the child’s question. The fact that the dead are alive and well somewhere is odd to say the least, but as we read on we see how the poet has effectively bypassed our traditional views of life and death (life is the beginning, death is the end) and provided us with a much grander scheme of things. The death of a person allows for life, in some form or another, be it the life of the sprouts or the life of creatures. Life begets life. 

In the last 3 lines of the second last stanza, the poet implies that death is not to be mourned as life is nothing but a by-product of death. We are alive and life exists around us because of the death that preceded us. Through this stanza, Whitman paints a verbal picture of our world and its fascinating equilibrium; though constantly changing, everything obeys the law of conservation of energy, even life.

Finally, the image of an expanding circle is evoked to visualize the recycling of life energy. We don’t really die when our hearts stop beating as we are fed back to the earth that birthed us. The life cycle keeps on going and going and going and both the living and the dead are a part of that cycle, interacting freely with each other. By removing our fear of death and our desire to keep it at bay, Whitman, looking at the problem from the perspective of a child, has taken us with him on an amazing journey, at the end of which we’ve seen life and death for the inseparable friends they really are.

So, what is the grass?

          The grass is both life and death. It lives, but it lives because of death. The grass is the embodiment of the paradox that is existence.