"Hero" by Paul Engle

Paul Engle is a very contemporary American poet. He died in 1991, leaving behind a legacy of support for writers with his Writers' Workshop program at the University of Iowa, which became a model for many university writing programs thereafter.

Key terms: irony, parallel structure, free verse

Hero

I

I have heard the horn of Roland goldly screaming

In the petty Pyrenees of the inner ear

And seen the frightful Saracens of fear

Pour from the passes, fought them, brave in dreaming.

But waked, and heard my own voice tinly screaming

In the whorled and whirling valleys of the ear,

And beat the savage bed back in my fear,

And crawled, unheroed, down those cliffs of dreaming.

    II

I have ridden with Hannibal in the mountain dusk,

Watching the drivers yell the doomed and gray

Elephants over the trumpeting Alps, gone gay

With snow vivid on peaks, on the ivory tusk.

But waked, and found myself in the vivid dusk

Plunging the deep and icy floor, gone gray

With bellowing shapes of morning, and the gay

Sunshaft through me like an ivory tusk.

    III

I have smiled on the platform, hearing without shame

The crowd scream out my praise, I, the new star,

Handsome, disparaging my bloody scar,

Yet turning its curve to the light when they called my name.

But waked, and the empty window sneered my name,

The sky bled, drop by golden drop, each star

The curved moon glittered like a sickle's scar,

The night wind called with its gentle voices: Shame!

    IV

I have climbed the secret balcony, on the floor

Lain with the lady, drunk the passionate wine,

Found, beneath the green, lewd-smelling vine,

Love open to me like a waiting door.

But waked to delirious shadows on the door,

Found, while my stomach staggered with sour wine,

Green drunkenness creep on me like a vine,

And puked my passion on the bathroom floor.

    V

I have run with Boone and watched the Indian pillage

The log house, fought, arrow in leg, and hobbled

Over the painful ground while the warrior gobbled

Wild-turkey cry, but escaped to save the village.

But waked, and walked the city, vicious village,

Fought through the traffic where the wild horn gobbled,

Bruised on the bumper, turned toward home, hobbled

Back, myself the house my neighbors pillage.

    VI

I have lain in bed and felt my body taken

Like water utterly possessing sand,

Surrounding, seething, soothing, as a hand

Comforts and clasps the hand that it has shaken.

But waked, and found that I was wholly shaken

By you, as the wave surrounds and seethes the sand,

That your whole body was a reaching hand

And my whole body the hand that yours had taken.

I find this poem fascinating. It is at once fun, melancholy, fantastic, romantic, and musical. The poet/narrator is describing many different dreams (vivid and real-seeming dreams) and what happens when he awakes from them. Often his dreams are disappointing- the reality that he faces when he wakes up is "savage," "icy," and "drunken." His reality is brutal in comparison with his romantic, exciting, adventurous dreams. Then, at the end of the poem, there is an element of sensuality and romance. The narrator describes waking up with a partner, and the experience of being embraced rather than falling to the floor or being blinded by the light of morning, like the other stanzas suggest. This progression makes the poem feel like a song or lyric to me; it's fairly easy to follow and is summed up rather romantically with the last stanza. It's also ironic and almost funny as I read the various experiences that the narrator has with dreams- I wouldn't have expected the seemingly serious ending. This surprise is enhanced by the irony structure (parallel & numbered stanzas) coupled with the discussion throughout. I'm curious about what exactly it refers to. It seems strange to have this authentic thoughtfulness after all of the comical, negative experiences that are described. It also feels a bit like a sitcom- funny funny funny entertaining with a heartfelt moment at the end. 

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/180596