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Serenade

Down dash the splashlets of rain to the ground;
Streams from the eaves full and fluent resound.

Guests gaily chatter, and clatter their chairs,
Readying notes for melodious airs.

Whistling hot water for brisk blended tea
Promises canticles coming to be.

Porcelain cups clink and clang tuneful scales,
Telling the nightingale’s tremolo tales.

Voices articulate part-song romance;
Dulcimers call even wallflowers to dance.

Flames in the fireplace flash, crackle, and glow,
Seething through rapturous nocturnes’ frail flow.

Grandfather clocks in with quarter-hour chimes,
Rhythmically ticking at in-between times.

Silvery trills clear the storm’s final blast—
Quavers and echoes diminish at last.

.

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Serenity

To value victory is never bravery,
But to achieve where others lack the mastery
Is bravery beyond a victor’s history.

Only the tasteful growers who appreciate
Black salsify, worth least of roots men cultivate,
Can know the meaning of the life they contemplate.

Select a posy from sweet morning meditation,
Allow it to accompany the day’s duration,
Or hand it to a friend of sour sophistication.

Performing common penance strengthens brotherhood,
As does a sacrifice not shared but understood,
While secret reparation works a world of good.

His name recalls true music, wafts balsam from the south,
Like wine at heaven’s banquet, it moistens maudlin drouth;
His memory like honey could sweeten every mouth.

One drop of water tastes of every sacred spring,
The moon beams calmly on a peasant, sage, or king.
Suffuse the mind with light, and learn no lesser thing.

.

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Margaret Coats lives in California.  She holds a Ph.D. in English and American Literature and Language from Harvard University.  She has retired from a career of teaching literature, languages, and writing that included considerable work in homeschooling for her own family and others. 

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30 Responses

  1. Michael Pietrack

    As I was reading Serenade, I was humming raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thanks for your comment, Michael. As I was writing the poem, I was listening to a downpour and thinking, “It Never Rains in Southern California,” which goes on, “It pours, man, it pours.” Sad song that needed a more pleasant variation, and you caught the idea!

      Reply
  2. Paul A. Freeman

    Wow! Serenade is an auditory bonanza. I loved the way you start with the storm outdoors, then wander about a house (for some reason I felt a Victorian house) where tea-making and dancing are occurring, and end up outside the house again, with the storm subsiding and, one supposes, the party coming to an end.

    I can’t pretend to understand all the imagery and metaphorical meanings in Serenity, but each time I read it, with its medieval motifs and allusions, I find more to mull over.

    Thanks for the reads, Margaret.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thanks, Paul. The sonics of the storm led to the scenics, and my California suburban house turned into a small Victorian with enough space for a tea dance. On occasion we’ve had parties, classes, or rehearsals here, but the floor tends to become crowded without dancing. Glad you found some worthwhile thoughts in the Serenity poems, too.

      Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      I’m happy you found them beautiful, Allegra, and took the time to say so.

      Reply
  4. Roy E. Peterson

    “Serenade” reminds me of the song by the Cascades, “Listen to the Rhythm of the Falling Rain.” There is wonderful music with harmony in your poem using excellent alliteration that fully enhances the mood. We just had a rain this morning, so your thoughts were eloquently and elegantly timed.

    Each tercet in “Serenity” is interestingly rhymed in triplicate. I have no clue about “black salsify.” I know I ate salsify when a kid, but do not know if it was the black classification. There are some deep thoughts in this poem that require more than one reading (at least for me).

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      I just listened to “Rhythm of the Falling Rain,” a touching sad song with a bright melody. I like it. And I’m happy you like the “music with harmony” in Serenade. I’m advancing when I can compose harmony!

      Black salsify has very dark skin, unlike the pale regular kind which looks like a parsnip. It is white inside and has a strong flavor that is compared to oysters, which I find unpleasant. I think I might be able to appreciate it in a good soup, but I haven’t tried to grow it, and thus may not yet know the meaning of life as my Serenity tercet promises in accord with Confucian lore.

      Reply
  5. Joseph S. Salemi

    These are two really interesting pieces! “Serenade” is primarily dactylic, and Michael Pietrack is right to recall the song “My Favorite Things” from the film The Sound of Music. Even the arrangement in rhyming couplets is the same.

    “Serenade” is a celebration of sounds, and is highly detailed. The sound of a rainstorm, then human voices, then cooking, then china, then singers and musicians, then crackling flames, then clocks, and finally “silvery trills,” which could be anything but which have survived the end of the rainstorm. This is what might be called a purely descriptive catalogue-poem of aural experience. The poem works, because it is a pure verbal artifact, and doesn’t clog itself with meaning, message, or moral.

    “Serenity” is totally different. These are alexandrine monorhyme tercets — I can’t think of a more ball-breaking challenge for a poet. Alexandrines are tricky enough in English, and coming up with rhyming line closures that use three-syllable or four-syllable words complicates matters. But this poem has a problem because it seems to allude to abstract ideas or beliefs, yet those ideas aren’t made clear enough, at least not to this reader. Some of the phrasing is mysterious: common penance, sour sophistication, secret reparation, maudlin drouth. They seem important to the speaker, but they are closed books to the rest of us. The important “His” in the fifth tercet is unidentified.

    “Serenity” shows great skill in diction, and the metrics are careful. But I think there is a disconnect from what the poem is trying to say. Even the most allusive and mysterious poem needs to have a connective thread to follow. The poem seems to be a meditation coming out of a serious personal experience, but that experience remains just too personal for outside readers.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Joe, you’re quite right to find no connective thread of logic or narrative or drama in “Serenity.” It’s six separate “Epigrams and Proverbs,” as Evan categorized them. They are connected only as six perspectives on the theme of serenity. The group reflects no personal experience except the wish for serenity; the thoughts come from several different wisdom traditions. Try one at a time! In the second one, which is a Confucian maxim from Ming China, I did put in my own choice for the least palatable of root vegetables, but maybe you like scorzonera. I am most grateful for your praise of the diction and metrics, and for your appreciation of sonic details in “Serenade.”

      Reply
      • Joseph S. Salemi

        Margaret, thanks. I did not know about Evan’s categorization, so I assumed it was to be read as a single connected poem.

    • Margaret Coats

      About the alexandrines, I will add that using longer words seemed to ease the composition in English. Of these six tercets, only the fifth breaks into shorter lines, and that is largely due to its source in the Ecclesiasticus praise for King Josias, a text featuring synthetic parallelism. It’s not necessary to know his identity for the poem to suggest serenity in the satisfying remembrance of an admirable man.

      Reply
  6. James A. Tweedie

    Margaret,

    I delight in Serenade insofar as it carries a triple scenario for me, First is the musical serenade of the storm, itself, as, from inside the house, it conjures the sounds of a multitude of voices and instruments. Second, the storm accompanies the sounds from inside the house as the clock, the kettle and the fireplace add their music to the assembly. And third, there is the addition of an actual musical gathering inside the house, a soiree, perhaps, with actual voices singing and actual instruments playing as they raise the entire scene to a harmonious cacophony in which both nature and humanity join in praise to God, perhaps, or simply in sheer celebration of creating a symphony of sound!

    In Serenity a series of aphoristic proverbs join, in the end, to point beyond themselves to the source of all true and lasting peace, the One who hosts the Heavenly Banquet and whose living water and light are offered freely to all.

    Two beautifully crafted poems. The first as alliterative as a rhythmic dance and the second as calm as the still waters which restore our souls.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      James, thank you very much for your appreciation of the transcendent quality of these poems. This, of course, is not something I give them; it belongs to the nature of the work we do with language, and shows through more or less in different kinds of poetry as fashioned by different authors and perceived by different readers. Your descriptive analysis of “Serenade” brings it out in a way that I can thoroughly agree with, though I might not have fashioned it myself. And I am very glad to obtain your perspective on how the “Serenity” poems work together.

      Reply
  7. Daniel Kemper

    Serenade is sublime, like programatic music, like Beethoven’s Sixth. For my nerdy obsessions, I liked trying to decide if I thought this was dactylic or anapestic. Doesn’t really matter in a sense, but fun to think about (for me anyway).

    It tempts me to call it dactylic because all lines open on the stressed syllable and because I’ve kindof gotten this dactylyic fetish going lately. But the lines end in a stress also and that makes them sound anapestic, too.

    One might consider the lines as having an extra stressed syllable (at either the end or beginning) or as missing two unstressed syllables. That won’t make a difference in the analysis, but might be useful later.

    All things being equal, English strongly prefers a rising cadence. That’s an awkard way to put it, and without providing justification for why that would be, but nonetheless I think it’s true and widely accepted. So I think I would call this anapestic.

    But here’s a cool thought to add. In music, they have this thing called a “pickup note.” These are notes that come before the first full measure. That’s what I’d call the first syllable in these lines, as a part of the anapestic construction argument. (See that bit about whether something is added or removed came in handy after all.) One other thing, in music they also call them … wait for it … the official name … wait for it … is “anacrusis,” the exact same term we poets use for headless lines. A pretty neat crossover.

    One more thing and then the real point. Still, even if my argument is accepted and these are considered anapestic lines, I’d have to agree that the stresses somehow don’t land exactly where you’d expect them to land. And that this is caused by that pickup note. And that there’s an extra, driving energy added because of it. Then *wham!* It hit me: this is syncopation imported cleanly and perfectly from the world of music into poetry.

    OK the real point is that the stressed beginning and ending of lines, for me, imparted a rocking motion that really, really set the serenity of the poem up for success. A stunning success. I’ll be reading and re-reading this one often.

    I loved that so many of the sonic choices had sound characteristics like the things they described–maintaining that at length you made look easy and it’s not. From dash/splashes (double-word score on “dash” for break and run) to the “rhYthmIcally tIcking at In…” (and the CK too) it’s just a delight all the way through. I’m not sure whether to eat all the topings or the ice cream! Oh, and each feature when looked at, seems to yield more. Example: when appreciating the sonics of the clock, I also noticed how effective it is to place the “time teller” at the end as time is running out. So much stuff. Just wonderful.

    Reply
    • C.B. Anderson

      In the situation you describe, Daniel, with stresses at both ends of the line, you have a choice. You can call it headless anapestic or catalectic dactylic. The ambiguity arises from the fact that anapests & dactyls, just as iambs & trochees, can morph into one another, depending on where you start counting metrical feet.

      Reply
      • Margaret Coats

        C. B., you confirm the independence of the knowledgeable critic. I like either “catalectic dactylic” or “anapestic with a pick-up note” for the meter of this poem.

    • Margaret Coats

      Daniel, I very much appreciate your comment that rocks from metrical and musical analysis toward authentic literary criticism. It’s clever to think of this serenade poem as programmatic music, because it attends principally to sound, rhythm, and timing, as you perceive. I chose dactyls but added a syllable at the end of the line, because as you say, English prefers a rising inflection. And strictly speaking, perfect rhymes in a dactylic poem are triple rhymes like “history” and “mystery,” because rhyming begins with the final accented syllable. Still, it’s legitimate to call this anapestic, because my intent as author does not override well-argued interpretations of the critic. Language and music have their own natures and laws that I use, but can’t claim to control. I’m impressed by your careful study and discovery of features that I may have known but might not have emphasized. Thank you for such a wonderfully worthy discussion!

      Reply
  8. Brian A. Yapko

    “Serenade” is such a splendid poem, Margaret! It is sheer delight as the speaker stops and hushes so she can hear all the little sounds that make up they music of life. It’s a gentle poem for you could have chosen “Symphony” or “Fugue” or “Chorus” but you chose the romantic and peaceful “Serenade” instead. You do not discriminate between man-made and nature sounds and this has the effect of making the reader slip into a meditative space of feeling truly one with all that is. I take this poem as a call for being more observant (whether sight or sound.) We are surrounded by poetry if we could but notice it!

    This focus on perception fits in nicely with your “Epigrams and Proverbs” in which you further issue a call to readers to NOTICE things and contemplate them. Your work strikes me as something of a hybrid form somewhere in between the proverbs of the Bible and Japanese haiku. Your work is infused with the former’s homely wisdom and the latter’s cryptically meditative observations offered in spare but revealing words. I could imagine you composing more of these and offering them in an inspirational book.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thanks, Brian, for being such a careful listener to my “Serenade.” I didn’t think of asking readers for more meditative observation of all around them, but the practice does take us out of ourselves, and thus enrich our minds and hearts with many things we might not have noticed or studied. As you say, someone who is “truly one with all that is,” lets it feed his imagination and empowers him to discover and create poetry.

      Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      It’s interesting that you notice a similarity of Serenity poems to Hebrew proverbs and Japanese haiku. To me, that’s a difference between two-line and three-line forms (although many of the Biblical proverbs do have three elements, and therefore run longer). I chose the tercet rather than the English couplet (in which so many bits of wisdom have been expressed), because many meditations need expansion into three parts. Especially when serenity is the overall topic, it seems good to have a “settling” line. The difference between two lines and three was shown in Edward Seidensticker’s 1976 translation of the Japanese classic, “The Tale of Genji.” Seidensticker felt that English readers would be unfamiliar with haiku, and he therefore translated the many haiku that occur within the narrative as couplets. He thought of them simply as a widely used brief poetic form. The decision nearly wrecked the essential contribution of the haiku to the story. Three lines of poetry (even very brief ones) do not easily re-work into two. I am, therefore, trying out three long rhymed lines as a meditative form in English. I have written a number of others already, and hope to do more. The examples here show they can have considerable variety in style and ease of comprehension.

      Reply
  9. C.B. Anderson

    I liked both of these poems very much. Yes, the meaning is elusive at times, but the feelings evoked and the subtle connectivity of the images are never lost on me. Someone should translate these into another language, but I am happy that the text in front of me is in English.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thank you, C. B. Images and their power to evoke feeling (and further images) achieve what poetry can do beyond words which are the poet’s fundamental material. Your comment may be brief, but it touches the essence of good reading and good criticism.

      Reply
  10. Jeff Eardley

    Margaret, I love the dancing musicality of “Serenade.” That must have been a hell of a party with those wallflowers bopping away to the harmonious dulcimers. I found “Serenity” a little more challenging, but I am sure a few re-reads will enlighten me. Your words have brightened up a dreary day over here. Thank you.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thank you, Jeff. I’m glad you enjoyed the “Serenade” evening, and hope “Serenity” is forthcoming from those poems. Since peace is not necessarily synonymous with sleep, I imagine it can be approached without solving all the issues one contemplates. The contemplation itself can become a serene practice.

      Reply
  11. Cynthia Erlandson

    Like many of the commenters above, I am delighted with the musicality of “Serenade”! Describing the sounds of the many things happening in the poem, by using words that have similar sounds, is magical.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      I’m very glad you enjoyed it, Cynthia, and I have been pleased and moved by your works concerning contemplative time.

      Reply
      • Cynthia Erlandson

        Thank you very much, Margaret! I’m honored to know you’ve been moved by my time poems.

  12. Nicole Hofmans

    Serenade is a delightful poem that effortlessly captures the beauty of sound and atmosphere. From the rhythmic dash of rain to the lyrical echoes of a night filled with music, each line weaves together a rich tapestry of sensory experiences. The imagery is vivid, inviting readers into a cozy, celebratory gathering where every sound—from the clinking of porcelain cups to the chiming of the grandfather clock—feels alive and full of energy.

    The poem has an almost musical quality, with its melodic flow and seamless transitions between the different sounds that fill the scene. It captures the warmth of companionship and the simple yet profound joy of sharing music, tea, and moments by the fire during a storm. There’s a sense of harmony throughout, making it a heartwarming ode to life’s quiet, beautiful moments.

    Every stanza feels like a verse in a larger symphony, building on the emotions of anticipation, joy, and the eventual calm after the storm. It’s the kind of poem that wraps around you like a comforting song, leaving a lasting, serene impression.

    Serenity is a beautifully contemplative poem that delves into the deeper meaning of courage, wisdom, and the quiet power of subtle virtues. The poem artfully challenges conventional ideas of victory and bravery, offering instead a more profound understanding of what it means to achieve through introspection, growth, and self-awareness. It speaks to the value of appreciation—whether for the humble black salsify or the strength found in silent sacrifice.

    What makes Serenity particularly moving is the way it intertwines nature and human experience. The imagery of selecting a posy from “sweet morning meditation” and the allusion to sacred springs and moonbeams evoke a sense of peace and unity. Every metaphor feels carefully chosen, creating an atmosphere of calm and wisdom. The lines encourage readers to reflect on the beauty of simple, quiet moments and to find greatness in personal growth and self-sacrifice.

    The poem also offers a vision of serenity that transcends class and circumstance, suggesting that true peace comes from within, regardless of whether one is a “peasant, sage, or king.” This universality, coupled with the gentle yet powerful tone, leaves the reader with a sense of inner calm and a desire to live with greater mindfulness and purpose.

    Thank you so much for sharing—what a wonderful way to start my day! Your words have such a beautiful way of making me feel, truly a gift.

    Reply
  13. Margaret Coats

    Thank you so very much, Nicole. This is poetic response at its fullest! I most especially like your description of “Serenade” as a poem that “wraps around you like a comforting song,” leaving a lasting impression. “Serenity” is a series of individual pieces, all meant to speak of that peace within that comes from the “desire to live with greater mindfulness and purpose.” Your comment today helps me withdraw from distractions and renew that desire. I’m glad we met again, and very glad to re-connect so fruitfully.

    Reply

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