I'll hang myself, O Satan, with the self-same rope. They also reveal Carson as a poet not just of rapier wit but also of razor-sharp subtlety, part of which relates to his ongoing adherence to the alexandrine line. But Carson's alexandrines have other telling effects as well. Obviously allowing greater flexibility of expression within the metrical contract of the poem, in the hands of Carson, an accomplished player of Irish traditional music, the extended line of the alexandrine at times also replicates the whimsical rhythmic improvisations of an Irish melody. Appropriately so, perhaps, for The Twelfth of Never reads both literally and figuratively like a wonderfully irregular air.
Words alone are certain good, indeed.
Fourteen troopers rode beside, all dressed in red. It took them a minute to string him up from the oak tree. I watched him swing in his Derry green for hours and hours, His popping eyes of apoplectic liberty That blindly scanned the blue and white pota- to flowers. Originally published in the Summer 1999 issue of Boston Review Copyright Boston Review , 1993-2000. All rights reserved.