Perspective, Part Six: "A Lover Of Mere Privacy"

From Oklahoma to Woolwich, the World has gone about its usual business the past week.  It has ever been thus.  But the genius of our age is that we are able to view each new horror in "real time" via cell phone cameras, and then have each horror "explained" to us -- with an eye toward "preventing" such occurrences in the future -- by the usual cast of media, political, and social scientific "experts."

From these "experts," one learns that tornadoes are caused by "global warming," and that we can be rid of them by solving that particular "crisis." Yes.  Of course.  One also learns that adequately-funded educational and social programs will put an end to murder in the name of religion (which is, we are told, provoked by cultural misunderstanding on our part, which is in turn a product of our own obdurate intolerance).  Yes.  Of course.

All of this makes one yearn for a quiet, cant-free, ingenuous life.  A life far away from the explainers.

Bernard Ninnes (1899-1971), "Nancledra"

                             The Hermit

What moves that lonely man is not the boom
     Of waves that break against the cliff so strong;
Nor roar of thunder, when that travelling voice
     Is caught by rocks that carry far along.

'Tis not the groan of oak tree in its prime,
     When lightning strikes its solid heart to dust;
Nor frozen pond when, melted by the sun,
     It suddenly doth break its sparkling crust.

What moves that man is when the blind bat taps
     His window when he sits alone at night;
Or when the small bird sounds like some great beast
     Among the dead, dry leaves so frail and light;

Or when the moths on his night-pillow beat
     Such heavy blows he fears they'll break his bones;
Or when a mouse inside the papered walls,
     Comes like a tiger crunching through the stones.

W. H. Davies, The Bird of Paradise and Other Poems (1914).

Raymond James Coxon (1896-1997), "Penrhyndeudraeth"

                    A Recluse

Here lies (where all at peace may be)
A lover of mere privacy.
Graces and gifts were his; now none
Will keep him from oblivion;
How well they served his hidden ends
Ask those who knew him best, his friends.

He is dead; but even among the quick
This world was never his candlestick.
He envied none; he was content
With self-inflicted banishment.
'Let your light shine!' was never his way:
What then remains but, Welladay!

And yet his very silence proved
How much he valued what he loved.
There peered from his hazed, hazel eyes
A self in solitude made wise;
As if within the heart may be
All the soul needs for company:
And, having that in safety there,
Finds its reflection everywhere.

Life's tempests must have waxed and waned:
The deep beneath at peace remained.
Full tides that silent well may be
Mark of no less profound a sea.
Age proved his blessing.  It had given
The all that earth implies of heaven;
And found an old man reconciled
To die, as he had lived, a child.

Walter de la Mare, The Burning-Glass and Other Poems (1945).

Roger Fry, "Village in the Valley" (1926)