1995 ‘Excalibur’

Clark is an American poet, editor, and biographer who studied in England and lived in Europe for over a decade. Clark begins ‘Excalibur’:

While the new moon winter bright swimming
Up overhead holds the old moon cradled

He then paints the colors and movement of an evening sky, a scene very similar to that in ‘Dejection’. Clark uses some of the same words and phrases, yet twists the ‘Spens’ image of the old moon by turning the waning sliver into a baby’s ‘coy smile’ with ‘darkening hints of menace in its eyes’. To begin the poem’s second half, Clark repeats Coleridge’s lines and extends them into his:

Well!
If the bard was weatherwise who made
That grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spens
A meteorological talisman,
We’ll wake up to a storm before morning.

Clark, in the same way as Coleridge, Shelley, and Longfellow, uses the description of the moon in ‘Spens’ as a memorable image, but also as a way to explore omen and supernatural belief. In ‘Excalibur’ Clark uses this new moon before a storm as a parallel to a moment of suspense. The moon is like the moment before King Arthur pulls the sword out of the stone. Unlike the original ‘Spens’, Clark’s ‘Excalibur’ ends with the realization that the storm is never as significant as it is built up to be. Clark’s new moon seems to reflect a more modern, cynical sensibility.

[Excerpt from ‘Excalibur.’ Like Real People. (Santa Rosa: Black Sparrow Press, 1995), p. 153.]