WE are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;—
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
Although officially titled simply “Ode” the poem is more often referred to by its more familiar opening line. Even if one thinks they are not familiar with the lines, it is highly likely they have heard them before. In the original Willy Wonka film with Gene Wilder, when Veruca Salt rhetorically inquires whoever heard of a thing called a snozzberry, the weird chocolatier enigmatically responds by quoting the first two lines. Wonka is a definitive vision of exactly the sort of person the speaker of the poem is talking about.
The veils fell round her like thin coiling mists
Shot through by topaz suns, and amethysts,
And rubies she had on;
And out of them her jewelled body came,
And seemed to all quite like a slender flame
That curled and glided, and that burnt and shone
Most fair to look upon.
This poem belongs to a text titled “The Epic of Women” and feature women who played calculated games with men. Men, of course, being a metonym for patriarchal power. The Biblical story of Salome’s dance of the veils before Herod is played out in verse like a narrative, cinematic in the power of its vivid imagery. In fact, the entire point of the poem seems to be to attempt to replicate the effect of the seductive dance of the titular character. It is neither long nor short, but just right in its sinuous construction that lulls the reader.
If she but knew that it would save me
Her voice to hear,
Saying she pitied me, forgave me,
Must she forbear?
If she were told that I was dying,
Would she be dumb?
Could she content herself with sighing?
Would she not come?
If he is anything, O’Shaughnessy is a romantic poet. Not all his verse is dedicated to expressions of romance, but quite a bit fits the description. And when he puts his mind to expressions of romance, it inevitably turns tragic. Lost love, unrequited love, the love that never works—this is the raw material from which he constructs the material of poetry. In this sense, he may well be described as the ultimate kind of poet, for what is thought of when one thinks of poetry if not issues from heart?
