A little over a year ago, when my household and I visited Georgia for a family funeral, we spent some evenings sitting out around a large fire pit. It was then that I discovered the pleasure of setting pine cones on fire, especially when they begin smoldering. As we would be returning home (and I to finish the semester), I needed to have a poem draft ready for poetry composition; so I hastily jotted down a free verse poem that dramatized the lighting of a pine cone.
Around the same time, I was beginning to take a greater interest in alliterative verse — an old poetic form used by the Anglo-Saxons, Norse, and other early medieval Germanic peoples that alliterates initial stressed consonant (or vowel) sounds on the stressed syllables of a line (or vowel sounds), with various configurations. For example, many Modern English translations of Old English elegiac poems such as Beowulf will give one a sense of alliterative verse; though lacking rhyme and strict meter, it still has a distinct rhythm. (See also Ezra Pound’s translation of part of The Seafarer, another Old English poem. Though it unfortunately omits the poem’s hopeful ending, it captures the form well.)
Outside of class, I sought to try my hand at casting the aforementioned free verse poem into alliterative verse. But I had only rewritten part of it when I became occupied with other tasks. So it sat unfinished — that is, until a few months ago, when I read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight for a literature class (which, during the late 14th century, briefly revived interest in the buried alliterative form). I had read J.R.R. Tolkien’s translation before; but this time, I became more aware of the verse form that he so skillfully rendered into Modern English. This intrigued me such that I sought to pick up “The Smoldering Pine Cone” again. After extensive revision, I finally brought it to a presentable form.
I used a few archaic verb forms and a smattering of archaic words (defined in footnotes) for stylistic purposes and for maintaining the rhythm. Using the most modern terms for everything, though perhaps being more immediately accessible, would allow for less flexibility in diction (and thus a potentially less interesting work in this case).
The Smoldering Pine Cone
In whispering woodlands after westering sun
hath deepened all Georgia in dimmest of mirk;1
leagues upon leagues from light-swamped city
in paradise of peach-trees in Piedmont of Cobbingshire;
strong ring the strains of this sweet cherry soil
like clear moonlight coming through the cone-bearing pines.
On an isle in the emnet2 of eight-man’s-height grasses,
‘round a cauldron converse my kindred and I —
a stone-ring of sparks stowed in their backyard;
we jest with full joy ‘round the jaggèd gold lantern,
and I cherish my fire-craft — chasing night’s fog
which cloaketh our sight. A cone I then snatch,
knocked from the needles, knife-keen and pricking —
yet silently snoring in slumber dreamless.
A torch now I wield to take sleep away;
the switch my thumb swingeth to swelter this seed-cone;
its knob then turneth, kneeling to my finger.
Its button boweth, its bottle’s oil hisseth –
a fire-brand brandished, belching forth flame-tongues.
As when the sun waxeth, it waketh this fir-fruit;
this seed that once slept is a cinder cone summit —
lava brooks leaking through lonesome cold stone
in radiant wrath raging with bliss.
Now fade the high flames, yet the fir-cone doth drink them.
With tree-lights it twinkleth, but with treasure-hoard strength —
glaring like a glede,3 yet glistening like snowfall;
smoldering like a smelter, yet sweet like soft rains
with red wine richness wrought in gold goblets.
No dwimmer-craft4 is this, nor dwarven blacksmithery;
but ordinary means that anointed this cone
with a spell of such splendor, sparkling as no oil
that is poured onto princes on pinnacled chairs.
No saving it deserved from its slumber unaware;
yet of all its brethren ‘twas anointed a beacon
for the mirk-laden mists amid the world’s dusk.
Though its innermost embers as heav’n-lanterns gleam
sharp-edgèd, sheer-gored in shimmer otherworldly
from a spell ‘mid its spikes with splendor from of old;
it beareth fate’s burden, the bane of all loveliness.
As it formed from red clay, so to dust bleeds its frame;
into grey ash it fadeth — not a grove of fair firs —
wasting into wisps of withered storm-clouds
dry of all drops, drained of all thunder;
not blazed as a martyr, yet burned as a stake.
But when darkness is doomed to die by the blade
of the King and Rekindler who shall come to scorch all,
the scattered, scathed dust of the skeleton-pine
shall be summoned, and steeled — restoring this seed.
Ever shall its embers endeavor to adorn
re-wrought earth’s fullness with the rubied peach-soil –
while they drink Biltmore’s drafts5 which drown every well-spring
in crimson-hued cream which creeks doth intoxicate
into veins of vivacity — for its vessels of fire.
This conifer’s seedling shall a colonnade beget
for upholding the heavens — a holt6 evergreen
burning with lushness, burnished with wine-gold;
a furnace of fellowship full fair everlasting.
Archaic spelling of murk
Prairie, steppe
Hot coal, ember
Sorcery
The finest soil (from Georgia) mingled with the finest wine (from North Carolina)
A small wooden thicket