Penmanship Practice – April 2020

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  1. This is a really neat poem!  Thanks for posting it.  Poetry is always a little trickier for me to transcribe because the rules and customs of context in poetry are VERY flexible.  But that's what makes for a more challenging transcription!  Here's my attempt below, let me know if I missed anything.

     

    "High Tide"
    by Winifred Welles

    High on my hill, I watched the tide come in,
    Laying its blue tiles in a broken tomb
    Over the skeletons of sand, over the bones
    Of rocks and wharves, wreathing the long graves
    With griefless hands and stodgy, happy voices.

    From where I look I can see, going over
    All ugliness of death, all that is lost
    or drift.  Whichever way I turn from here
    I can see life and beauty rising, sighing,
    taking hold and making safe.  The dream comes true
    And all the little promises of pools are kept!

    Inward the tide is surely coming;
    Lifting the draggled weeds beneath the shells,
    Lifting the shells beneath the anchored boats,
    Lifting the boats — inward, even to hills,
    Upward, even to me, lifting my hands
    Along the sky, setting my hair afloat
    Until my heart swings free, my tears spill over,
    And I can bear no more — the tide is high.

    1. No worries, Brother. I fixed it for you.

      By the way, your transcription is very good, except for two small mistakes: (1) “strangely”, not “stodgy”, and (2) “finding”, not “sighing.”

  2. Ah, yes.  "Strangely" that brief form escaped me.  It's funny how when you're a little rusty at reading you can look at a form and instantly recognize it as common, but the meaning escapes you!  And I considered the second form as "finding" since your proportions are truly correct, but I must have been imposing my own poetic sense on what she could have been saying… smiley

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