Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

"Interlude" by Richard Aldington is a poem that vividly captures a fleeting moment of enchantment and surprise in an otherwise ordinary setting. Known for his Imagist poetry, Aldington uses concise and vivid imagery to evoke complex emotions and scenes, as is evident in this piece.

The poem opens with a call to action, "Blow your tin squeals / On your reedy whistle." This line introduces a street musician, possibly a beggar, playing a simple instrument. The sound of the whistle is the catalyst for the ensuing vision, transforming the environment around the speaker.

Suddenly, the speaker envisions "White girls, / lithe girls / In linked dance / From Attica!" This image conjures up a scene of graceful, classical dancers, reminiscent of ancient Greece. The girls are described as "Gay girls dancing / in the frozen street," suggesting a stark contrast between the vibrancy of their dance and the cold, perhaps bleak, reality of the street setting.

The imagery of "Hair streaming, and white raiment / Flying, / Red lips that first were / Red in Ephesus" further enhances the classical and exotic nature of this vision. Ephesus, an ancient city known for its rich history and cultural significance, adds a touch of the ancient and the mystical to the scene.

However, this enchanting vision is fleeting, as indicated by the word "Gone!" The sudden disappearance of the dancers leaves the speaker back in reality, confronted with the street musician by the Red Lion, a common name for pubs in England. The contrast between the ethereal vision of the dancers and the mundane reality of the street musician is striking.

The speaker's reaction to this experience is to offer the musician pennies, acknowledging their shared humanity with the phrase "Mon semblable, mon frère!" meaning "My likeness, my brother!" in French. This line, borrowed from Charles Baudelaire's "The Flowers of Evil," suggests a sense of kinship and shared experience, recognizing the musician's role in conjuring this brief, magical interlude.

In summary, "Interlude" by Richard Aldington is a poem that vividly contrasts the mundane with the magical, the ordinary with the extraordinary. Through sharp imagery and a brief narrative, Aldington captures a moment where the boundaries between reality and fantasy blur, highlighting the power of imagination and the beauty that can be found in unexpected places.

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