Hello,

Can anybody explain to me what the author, Thomas Lovell Beddoes, means by "dun" and "loop" here? Does the first one refer to a dark colour, and the second one to a hole in a wall covered with ivy? Really hard to understand ...

To Night

So thou art come again, old black-winged night,
Like an huge bird, between us and the sun,
Hiding, with out-stretched form, the genial light;
And still, beneath thine icy bosom's dun
And cloudy plumage, hatching fog-breathed blight
And embryo storms, and crabbéd frosts, that shun
Day's warm caress. The owls from ivied loop
Are shrieking homage, as thou cowerest high;
Like sable crow pausing in eager stoop
On the dim world thou gluttest thy clouded eye,
Silently waiting latest time's fell whoop,
When thou shalt quit thine eyrie in the sky,
To pounce upon the world with eager claw,
And tomb time, death, and substance in thy maw.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 30 Dec 23 | 06:16PM by Minicthulhu.

I would agree that "dun" refers to a quality of color, as per one of the definitions of that word in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary: "Dark, dusky; murky; gloomy."

As for the "ivied loop", I read that simply as a description of overgrown ivy, as you might find in an abandoned or ruined structure (with all the associated gothic splendor!). "Loop" as a word choice was probably driven as much as anything by the need to rhyme with "stoop" and "whoop", but it does a good job (in my mind) of capturing the phenomenon of overgrown foliage.

Thanks a lot for your answer.

As it happens, I've been reading Beddoes' Death's Jest Book recently, and while I can't really recommend the play as a whole (it's bloated and repetitive), I can see why CAS admired Beddoes as a poet. Much of the play is little more than an extended obsession with mortality, but there are some moments of real poetic beauty scattered throughout, as in this example from Act Two, Scene III:

Quote:

Nature's polluted.
There's man in every secret corner of her,
Doing damned wicked deeds. Thou art old, world,
A hoary atheistic murderous star:
I wish that thou would'st die, or could'st be slain,
Hell-hearted bastard of the sun.

It is interesting how some poets and authors called the world a star in the olden days which is a nonsense I guess. By the way, what does "hell-hearted" mean here? Evil?

Minicthulhu Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It is interesting how some poets and authors
> called the world a star in the olden days which is
> a nonsense I guess. By the way, what does
> "hell-hearted" mean here? Evil?


A lot of what you're talking about comes under the heading of "poetic license".

The use of "star" is far subsidiary to "hoary atheistic murderous". It could have been "rock", and of course "planet" would have broken the rhythm. Jarring.

For "hell-hearted" I think it's far more inclusive of general malevolence than just "evil". There's definitely bad intent--and "evil" by itself, does not convey intent.

My opinions, only...

--Sawfish

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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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