tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50101703809675192302024-03-15T18:09:12.538-07:00First Known When LostStephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comBlogger1043125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-3515873807387958652024-01-01T03:10:00.000-08:002024-01-03T20:14:01.599-08:00At the Turning of the YearSolely by happenstance, this observation surfaced out of my memory during the past week: "The future's uncertain and the end is always near." An unexpected message for the New Year? And who might be the source of this thought? Perhaps Schopenhauer or Leopardi, those cheerful, happy-go-lucky characters? Or, further back in time, should we look to Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius? And what of the poets? For instance, one might imagine Thomas Hardy, Philip Larkin, or R. S. Thomas arriving at such a conclusion. (Although I do think that all three of them have been unfairly and inaccurately caricatured as hopeless pessimists.)<div><br /></div><div>The answer is: "None of the above." Instead, as a member of the baby boom generation (born during the first term of the Eisenhower administration), I am proud to report that Jim Morrison and The Doors permanently planted this unforgettable line in my brain around 1970 or so. The source (as many of you no doubt already know) is "Roadhouse Blues" from the album (which is what we called those circular vinyl artifacts back then) <i>Morrison Hotel</i>. And a fine album it was, and remains. But, have no fear, I don't intend to embark upon one of those by now tiresome baby boomer paeans to the wondrous music of my youth. (Well, it <i>was </i>wondrous.)</div><div><br /></div><div>I will, however, say this: "After all, it's true. <i>The future's uncertain and the end is always near</i>. And, although it is a truism -- the substance of which has been repeated many times in many ways over many centuries -- there is a certain <i>frisson</i> in having it suddenly arrive near the end of "Roadhouse Blues." You never know in what guise Beauty and Truth will present themselves. Be grateful for small and unexpected gifts."</div><div><br /></div><div>Having listened to "Roadhouse Blues" numerous times this past week, I found myself remembering a lovely poem (which has appeared here in the past):</div><div><br /></div><div> Garramor Bay</div><div><br /></div><div>Now the long wave unfolded falls from the West,</div><div>The sandbirds run upon twittering, twinkling feet:</div><div>Life is perilous, poised on the lip of a wave,</div><div>And the weed that lay yesterday here is clean gone.</div><div><br /></div><div>O visitor, fugitive creature, thing of a tide,</div><div>Make music, my heart, before the long silence.</div><div><br /></div><div>L. A. G. Strong, <i>Northern Light </i>(Victor Gollancz 1930).</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nI21l5UVlIApJTjuaq_X6ccgfgqSf6PBiEEiS4iOSCXj44MsSj0f4-Q8ZLDxT3OmSxDI2uw69QWline5VZz9SycZ-suV5pJFnu8O9i_2ESIZkzqwQOwiK8ezOKNrD9oqd6LqTihGOP4k7ajn5j8_OSTzMch2Mt2CnOim0sCJLrYd1Ne2xmXk-yZqKUOe/s600/harald%20sohlberg%201869-1935%20flower%20meadow%20in%20the%20north%201905%202.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="502" data-original-width="600" height="335" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nI21l5UVlIApJTjuaq_X6ccgfgqSf6PBiEEiS4iOSCXj44MsSj0f4-Q8ZLDxT3OmSxDI2uw69QWline5VZz9SycZ-suV5pJFnu8O9i_2ESIZkzqwQOwiK8ezOKNrD9oqd6LqTihGOP4k7ajn5j8_OSTzMch2Mt2CnOim0sCJLrYd1Ne2xmXk-yZqKUOe/w400-h335/harald%20sohlberg%201869-1935%20flower%20meadow%20in%20the%20north%201905%202.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Harald Sohlberg (1869-1935), "Flower Meadow in the North" (1905)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>"Garramor Bay" in turn led me to this (which has also appeared here on more than one occasion):</div><div><br /></div><div> Out There</div><div><br /></div><div>Do they ever meet out there,</div><div>The dolphins I counted,</div><div>The otter I wait for?</div><div>I should have spent my life</div><div>Listening to the waves.</div><div><br /></div><div>Michael Longley, <i>The Ghost Orchid </i>(Jonathan Cape 1995).</div><div><br /></div><div>"Roadhouse Blues," followed by "Garramor Bay," followed by "Out There": such has been the turning of the year for me. </div><div><br /></div><div>Happy New Year, dear readers!</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjL430kPXJLQNZAalhiM69cdyfm0BhcjmvnMXVP5kMEcEqMWaLdsXvyJOOJlxjhS-reacqA9tRVuWp2Ooh-DxHYL88APUbQJ3cQQhce_MQtuwLv7u0XP7ViyfLos4wyxdsJr75_bvWLjFLyszoqSbKnkBvsJIMOtX1PqQPZQT_vvt_J35t77VBSf3zxGP1/s1024/2011_CSK_05449_0033_000(richard_eurich_ra_the_road_to_grassington).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="812" data-original-width="1024" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjL430kPXJLQNZAalhiM69cdyfm0BhcjmvnMXVP5kMEcEqMWaLdsXvyJOOJlxjhS-reacqA9tRVuWp2Ooh-DxHYL88APUbQJ3cQQhce_MQtuwLv7u0XP7ViyfLos4wyxdsJr75_bvWLjFLyszoqSbKnkBvsJIMOtX1PqQPZQT_vvt_J35t77VBSf3zxGP1/w400-h318/2011_CSK_05449_0033_000(richard_eurich_ra_the_road_to_grassington).jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Richard Eurich (1903-1992), "The Road to Grassington" (1971)</span></div>Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-24304156686055630002023-12-25T01:25:00.000-08:002023-12-25T01:25:11.447-08:00Christmastide<div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">At Christmas, I turn to Thomas Hardy. (As well as to <a href="https://firstknownwhenlost.blogspot.com/2017/12/light.html" target="_blank">George Mackay Brown</a> (for instance, "<a href="http://firstknownwhenlost.blogspot.com/2012/12/christmas-part-one-we-are-folded-all-in.html" target="_blank">Christmas Poem</a>": "We are folded all/In a green fable . . .") and <a href="https://firstknownwhenlost.blogspot.com/2011/12/r-s-thomas-on-christmas-part-two.html" target="_blank">R. S. Thomas</a> (a bit astringent, as one might expect, but lovely; for instance, "<a href="https://firstknownwhenlost.blogspot.com/2011/12/r-s-thomas-on-christmas.html" target="_blank">Blind Noel</a>": "Yet there is always room/on the heart for another/snowflake to reveal a pattern").) When it comes to Hardy, I invariably visit this:</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> The Oxen</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> "Now they are all on their knees,"</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">An elder said as we sat in a flock</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> By the embers in hearthside ease.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">We pictured the meek mild creatures where</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> They dwelt in their strawy pen,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Nor did it occur to one of us there</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> To doubt they were kneeling then.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">So fair a fancy few would weave</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> In these years! Yet, I feel,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">If someone said on Christmas Eve,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> "Come; see the oxen kneel</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">"In the lonely barton by yonder coomb</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> Our childhood used to know,"</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">I should go with him in the gloom,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> Hoping it might be so.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Thomas Hardy, <i>Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses</i> (Macmillan 1917). A "barton" is a farmyard. The poem was first published in <i>The Times </i>on December 24, 1915. (J. O. Bailey, <i>The Poetry of Thomas Hardy: A Handbook and Commentary </i>(University of North Carolina Press 1970), page 370.)</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">At some point in his life, Hardy lost his faith. But he wrote "The Oxen" without irony. This may be difficult for most irony-afflicted moderns to believe (in the unlikely event they should ever come across the poem). But I take Hardy at his word. And I would do as he says he would do.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Edmund Blunden writes this of "The Oxen":</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">"Like so many of his poems, this one sprang from lonely musing on scenes of the past and their application to the present. . . . The picture is one to delight us still in troubled times. A quiet Christmas Eve almost a hundred years ago, in a Dorset cottage, by firelight, and an old man, unaware of anything remarkable in his talk, says that the cattle in the shed are on their knees now. Everyone agrees silently. A boy looks especially attentive. The years run by, and there is the attentive boy Hardy himself grown an old man, realizing the universal appeal in that local superstition, the reviving life in it."</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Edmund Blunden, <i>Thomas Hardy </i>(Macmillan 1941), page 153.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Blunden was a friend of Hardy's, and was quite fond of him. One senses respect, but also a bit of skepticism, in his discussion of "The Oxen." Given Blunden's experiences in the trenches during the First World War, and the date on which the poem was published, this is understandable. But, again, I take Hardy on his word.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">"Reason is great, but it is not everything. There are in the world things not of reason, but both below and above it; causes of emotion, which we cannot express, which we tend to worship, which we feel, perhaps, to be the precious elements in life." (Gilbert Murray, <i>A History of Ancient Greek Literature </i>(Heinemann 1897), page 272.)</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2ot4u054ic6N1cnrZv5NatJHL3QJ2Gqh58hfdqJtyZmbXVAHHBt8UatAJCdoMA8hpBnemqg4LBnUFgZeMrsEa3zJbgkQoc_hpsfLq-d0ha5J_h7rA6mNqPJ8X3L6dlPm6cGKcrOiGvt2S63TcSepMvCEM_kGSK1vJ8TOGRBOcbAl4A8lOghPKye9l4t-X/s944/CU_KY_BN45-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="647" data-original-width="944" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2ot4u054ic6N1cnrZv5NatJHL3QJ2Gqh58hfdqJtyZmbXVAHHBt8UatAJCdoMA8hpBnemqg4LBnUFgZeMrsEa3zJbgkQoc_hpsfLq-d0ha5J_h7rA6mNqPJ8X3L6dlPm6cGKcrOiGvt2S63TcSepMvCEM_kGSK1vJ8TOGRBOcbAl4A8lOghPKye9l4t-X/w400-h274/CU_KY_BN45-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Ben Nicholson (1894-1982), "1930 (Christmas Night)" (1930)</span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">In writing of his admiration for Hardy's poetry, Thom Gunn notes that, in reading the poetry, he has a "feeling of contact with an honest man who will never lie to me." (Thom Gunn, "Hardy and the Ballads," in <i>The Occasions of Poetry: Essays in Criticism and Autobiography </i>(North Point Press 1985), page 105.) Kingsley Amis says something uncannily similar about Edward Thomas: "How a poet convinces you he will not tell you anything he does not think or feel, since you have only his word for it, is hard to discover, but Edward Thomas is one of those who do it." (Kingsley Amis, <i>The Amis Anthology </i>(Arena 1989), page 339.) I completely agree with what Amis says of Edward Thomas, and I believe it is true of Thomas Hardy as well. </div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">These comments about poetic honesty are complemented quite well by this fine observation about Hardy and his poetry by F. L. Lucas: "He deliberately took for his subjects the commonest and most natural feelings; but by an unfamiliar side, and with that insight which only sensitiveness and sympathy can possess. This sympathy is important; for, as I have said, if truthfulness is one main feature of Hardy's work, its compassion is another." (F. L. Lucas, <i>Ten Victorian Poets </i>(Cambridge University Press 1940), page 192.)</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">All of this leads us in a roundabout way back to Hardy's Christmas poetry, which is where we ought to be: </div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> Christmastide</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">The rain-shafts splintered on me</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> As despondently I strode;</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">The twilight gloomed upon me</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> And bleared the blank high-road.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Each bush gave forth, when blown on</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> By gusts in shower and shower,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">A sigh, as it were sown on</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> In handfuls by a sower.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">A cheerful voice called, nigh me,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> "A merry Christmas, friend!" --</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">There rose a figure by me,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> Walking with townward trend,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">A sodden tramp's, who, breaking</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> Into thin song, bore straight</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Ahead, direction taking </div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> Toward the Casuals' gate.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Thomas Hardy, <i>Winter Words in Various Moods and Metres </i>(Macmillan 1928). "The Casuals' gate" refers to a gate at the Union House, a workhouse in Dorchester, Dorset. (J. O. Bailey, <i>The Poetry of Thomas Hardy: A Handbook and Commentary</i>, page 581.) "In Hardy's time any 'casual' (pauper or tramp) could apply to the police for a ticket, with which he would be admitted for supper, a bed, and breakfast." (<i>Ibid</i>.)</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">With that (and with a grateful thank you to Thomas Hardy): "A merry Christmas, friend!"</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsRBiLla5jbSWXgfAlRKyuKB95AYmOl-t-804by-A8NWF3No6jDNp8INCPap-RSxsvku0gKW2FVqKTl3GGZwbiRWlgWzyCtHZrOZAeoeOwyBN3eliJZVl6S-GC-Za-qZqQlhx1mi_p0ArjxPxaYoYDzEki1oxHDVmHbR02I7ef2VAFFF7i2oUYdmll1bhyphenhyphen/s600/tanner%202.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="490" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsRBiLla5jbSWXgfAlRKyuKB95AYmOl-t-804by-A8NWF3No6jDNp8INCPap-RSxsvku0gKW2FVqKTl3GGZwbiRWlgWzyCtHZrOZAeoeOwyBN3eliJZVl6S-GC-Za-qZqQlhx1mi_p0ArjxPxaYoYDzEki1oxHDVmHbR02I7ef2VAFFF7i2oUYdmll1bhyphenhyphen/w326-h400/tanner%202.jpg" width="326" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Robin Tanner (1904-1988) "Christmas" (1929)</span></div></div>Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-43517988224469268392023-11-28T02:35:00.000-08:002023-11-28T09:00:49.026-08:00No GrievingMost of the leaves have fallen. One day last week -- a proverbial "brilliant autumn day" -- I walked past a grove of big-leaf maples bordering a small glade. The ground beneath the maples was covered with red, russet, and yellow leaves. There was no wind. Now and then, a few of the remaining leaves drifted down. Each one made a soft <i>tick</i> as it landed on the dry, deep leaf-carpet.<div><br /></div><div> People are few;</div><div>A leaf falls here,</div><div> Falls there.</div><div><br /></div><div>Issa (1763-1828) (translated by R. H. Blyth), in R. H. Blyth, <i>Haiku, Volume 4: Autumn-Winter </i>(Hokuseido Press 1952), page 364.</div><div><br /></div><div>A single leaf falls in a sunlight-pierced, shadowed grove, joining its predecessors. I cannot help but return to the lines from Yeats which appeared in my most recent post: ". . . and the yellow leaves/Fell like faint meteors in the gloom." (W. B. Yeats, "Ephemera.") There is something to be said for waning autumn.</div><div><br /></div><div> Leaves falling,</div><div>Lie one on another;</div><div> The rain beats on the rain.</div><div><br /></div><div>Gyōdai (1732-1793) (translated by R. H. Blyth), in R. H. Blyth, <i>Haiku, Volume 4: Autumn-Winter</i>, page 365.</div><div><br /></div><div>The <i>haiku </i>by Issa and Gyōdai are statements of fact. Lovely statements of fact. Records of two evanescent moments made by two evanescent human beings. But there is much more afoot. "The real nature of each thing, and more so, of all things, is a poetical one. . . . <i>Haiku</i> shows us what we knew all the time, but did not know we knew; it shows us that we are poets in so far as we live at all." (R. H. Blyth, <i>Haiku, Volume 1: Eastern Culture </i>(Hokuseido Press 1949), page x.) </div><div><br /></div><div>And this:</div><div><br /></div><div>"In old-fashioned novels, we often have the situation of a man or a woman who realizes only at the end of the book, and usually when it is too late, who it was that he or she had loved for many years without knowing it. So a great many <i>haiku</i> tell us something that we have seen but not <i>seen</i>. They do not give us a <i>satori</i>, an enlightenment; they show us that we have had an enlightenment, had it often, -- and not recognized it."</div><div><br /></div><div>R. H. Blyth, <i>Haiku, Volume 3: Summer-Autumn </i>(Hokuseido Press 1952), page 322 (the italics are in the original text).</div><div><br /></div><div>In noting that Issa's and Gyōdai's <i>haiku</i> are "statements of fact," I am not suggesting that the poems<i> </i>are emotionless observations, devoid of feeling. Any fine <i>haiku </i>is an embodiment of <i>kokoro</i>,<i> </i>a Japanese word (based on the Chinese character for the Chinese word <i>xin</i>) which can mean "heart," "mind," or "spirit" or, in certain contexts, all three of them at once: heart-mind-spirit. Thus, the distinctive melancholy of autumn inhabits both of the two <i>haiku</i>: that combination of heartbreaking beauty and resigned acceptance each of us knows so well. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3IxeRaktBYpMzIiGXp7OJRgTcy2oMpoI0KQpjpSNAt06RxWImA0MHVJB6lrj1f3iEwgq9XcC-auQHde_YaHLnoaJVQ8TSgxS3YQtp3HJvRVIPJS5NitbuEqstbJBgAGqwr9sWHTahQGw1WbOSHUiuQeZPnTWHDJDphaSJ5toXBUCypwJ2g8QLEs3TBOYR/s1200/GMII_SAHS_1941_7-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="957" data-original-width="1200" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3IxeRaktBYpMzIiGXp7OJRgTcy2oMpoI0KQpjpSNAt06RxWImA0MHVJB6lrj1f3iEwgq9XcC-auQHde_YaHLnoaJVQ8TSgxS3YQtp3HJvRVIPJS5NitbuEqstbJBgAGqwr9sWHTahQGw1WbOSHUiuQeZPnTWHDJDphaSJ5toXBUCypwJ2g8QLEs3TBOYR/w400-h319/GMII_SAHS_1941_7-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Alexander Jamieson (1873-1937)</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">"The Old Mill, Weston Turville" (1927)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Autumn's particular form of melancholy is, not surprisingly, present in my favorite autumnal poem by Thomas Hardy. As is so often the case (at least for me) when reading Hardy's poetry, the poem contains a line which, once encountered, stays with you for a lifetime.</div><div><div><br /></div><div> Autumn in King's Hintock Park</div><div><br /></div><div>Here by the baring bough</div><div> Raking up leaves,</div><div>Often I ponder how</div><div> Springtime deceives, --</div><div>I, an old woman now,</div><div> Raking up leaves.</div><div><br /></div><div>Here in the avenue</div><div> Raking up leaves,</div><div>Lords' ladies pass in view,</div><div> Until one heaves</div><div>Sighs at life's russet hue,</div><div> Raking up leaves!</div><div><br /></div><div>Just as my shape you see</div><div> Raking up leaves,</div><div>I saw, when fresh and free,</div><div> Those memory weaves</div><div>Into grey ghosts by me,</div><div> Raking up leaves.</div><div><br /></div><div>Yet, Dear, though one may sigh,</div><div> Raking up leaves,</div><div>New leaves will dance on high --</div><div> Earth never grieves! --</div><div>Will not, when missed am I</div><div> Raking up leaves.</div><div><br /></div><div>Thomas Hardy, <i>Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses </i>(Macmillan 1909). Hardy added the subscript "1901" at the bottom of the poem. The date may be put into context by Hardy's comment on the poem in a letter he wrote to a friend in December of 1906: "I happened to be walking, or cycling, through [the park] years ago, when the incident occurred on which the verses are based." (J. O. Bailey, <i>The Poetry of Thomas Hardy: A Handbook and Commentary </i>(University of North Carolina Press 1970), page 207.) </div><div><br /></div><div>"Earth never grieves!" This is the line that has stayed with me for several decades. Years after having first come across it, I was delighted to discover this passage in a letter written by Philip Larkin to Monica Jones, his long-time companion: "Earth never grieves, I thought, walking across the park, watching seagulls cruising greedily above the ground looking for heaven knows what. Don't you think it's a good line? A very good line." (Philip Larkin, letter to Monica Jones (January 29, 1958), in Philip Larkin, <i>Letters to Monica </i>(edited by Anthony Thwaite) (Faber and Faber 2010), page 235.) I also heartily agree with another comment made by Larkin relating to Hardy (which has appeared here on more than one occasion): "[M]ay I trumpet the assurance that one reader at least would not wish Hardy's <i>Collected Poems</i> a single page shorter, and regards it as many times over the best body of poetic work this century so far has to show?" (Philip Larkin, "Wanted: Good Hardy Critic" (1966), in Philip Larkin, <i>Required Writing: Miscellaneous Pieces 1955-1982 </i>(Faber and Faber 1983), page 174.) Larkin's comment was correct at the time he wrote it in 1966. It remains correct.</div><div><br /></div><div>[A side-note. Hardy's comment on the source of "Autumn in King's Hintock Park" brings to mind a statement attributed to him in <i>The Life and Work of Thomas Hardy </i>(a biography which was ascribed to his wife, Florence Hardy, when it was first published, but which was actually written mostly by Hardy): "I believe it would be said by people who knew me well that I have a faculty (possibly not uncommon) for burying an emotion in my heart or brain for forty years, and exhuming it at the end of that time as fresh as when interred." (Thomas Hardy and Florence Hardy, <i>The Life and Work of Thomas Hardy </i>(edited by Michael Millgate) (Macmillan 1985), page 408.) These lines from one of Hardy's poems come to mind: "O the regrettings infinite/When the night-processions flit/Through the mind!" (Thomas Hardy, "The Peace-Offering.") We each have our own "regrettings infinite" and flitting "night-processions," don't we?</div><div><br /></div><div>A poem about Hardy by Siegfried Sassoon, who often visited Hardy at his home in Dorset, provides an evocative glimpse of Hardy and his haunting, ever-present past.</div><div><br /></div><div> At Max Gate</div><div><br /></div><div>Old Mr. Hardy, upright in his chair,</div><div>Courteous to visiting acquaintance chatted</div><div>With unaloof alertness while he patted</div><div>The sheep dog whose society he preferred.</div><div>He wore an air of never having heard</div><div>That there was much that needed putting right.</div><div>Hardy, the Wessex wizard, wasn't there.</div><div>Good care was taken to keep him out of sight.</div><div><br /></div><div>Head propped on hand, he sat with me alone,</div><div>Silent, the log fire flickering on his face.</div><div>Here was the seer whose words the world had known.</div><div>Someone had taken Mr. Hardy's place.</div><div><br /></div><div>Siegfried Sassoon, <i>Collected Poems: 1908-1956 </i>(Faber and Faber 1961). "Max Gate" was the name of Hardy's home in Dorchester. The younger poets of Hardy's time often tended to make their way to Hardy in his later years. For instance, in addition to Sassoon, Walter de la Mare and Edmund Blunden became his friends, and were invited for visits. Like Sassoon, both of them wrote poems about Hardy.]</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE6bjijKMX0z0LeW9OV628CR32JArkZfgnC8KY_BTClBxCWX_iN1AtqmaWxs4Qcm4LHCNUgaBaZiWhuOWDDj0ZAQXh1r7q1nu1RNi4r7hyy03BPdztH1G675jTEvfqgOvDRLDj2yBvpw0A5EvJxJyaHEdh7ovqmUFOjAtaby_Cnow6OK1okMoaQjj_Vg6D/s944/DUN_DAGM_2_1940.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="751" data-original-width="944" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE6bjijKMX0z0LeW9OV628CR32JArkZfgnC8KY_BTClBxCWX_iN1AtqmaWxs4Qcm4LHCNUgaBaZiWhuOWDDj0ZAQXh1r7q1nu1RNi4r7hyy03BPdztH1G675jTEvfqgOvDRLDj2yBvpw0A5EvJxJyaHEdh7ovqmUFOjAtaby_Cnow6OK1okMoaQjj_Vg6D/w400-h319/DUN_DAGM_2_1940.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">James McIntosh Patrick (1907-1998), "A City Garden" (1940)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>"Earth never grieves!" As for us, there is no escape from grief and grieving, is there? This is neither a complaint nor a lament. Grief and grieving are part and parcel of the beauty of the World. What can one do? Continue to pay attention to the beautiful particulars of the World. Above all else, remain grateful.</div><div><br /></div><div>When I was young, not knowing the taste of grief,</div><div>I loved to climb the storied tower,</div><div>loved to climb the storied tower,</div><div>and in my new songs I'd make it a point to speak of grief.</div><div><br /></div><div>But now I know all about the taste of grief.</div><div>About to speak of it, I stop;</div><div>about to speak of it, I stop</div><div>and say instead, "Days so cool -- what a lovely autumn!"</div><div><br /></div><div>Hsin Ch'i-chi (1140-1207) (translated by Burton Watson), in Burton Watson, <i>The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry: From Early Times to the Thirteenth Century </i>(Columbia University Press 1984), page 371. The poem is untitled.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Days so cool -- what a lovely autumn!" One can only hope to find the equanimity of Hsin Ch'i-chi. Or the equanimity (and the beauty and truth) of this:</div><div><br /></div><div>"Are we to look at cherry blossoms only in full bloom, the moon only when it is cloudless? To long for the moon while looking on the rain, to lower the blinds and be unaware of the passing of the spring -- these are even more deeply moving. Branches about to blossom or gardens strewn with faded flowers are worthier of our admiration. Are poems written on such themes as 'Going to view the cherry blossoms only to find they had scattered' or 'On being prevented from visiting the blossoms' inferior to those on 'Seeing the blossoms'? People commonly regret that the cherry blossoms scatter or that the moon sinks in the sky, and this is natural; but only an exceptionally insensitive man would say, 'This branch and that branch have lost their blossoms. There is nothing worth seeing now.'</div><div><br /></div><div>"In all things, it is the beginnings and ends that are interesting. Does the love between men and women refer only to the moments when they are in each other's arms? The man who grieves over a love affair broken off before it was fulfilled, who bewails empty vows, who spends long autumn nights alone, who lets his thoughts wander to distant skies, who yearns for the past in a dilapidated house -- such a man truly knows what love means."</div><div><br /></div><div>Kenkō (1283-1350) (translated by Donald Keene), <i>Tsurezuregusa</i>, Chapter 137, in Donald Keene (editor), <i>Essays in Idleness: The Tsurezuregusa of Kenkō </i>(Columbia University Press 1967), pages 115 and 118.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs3mpSG_2iwQ_muAtm_ku1Zqd7_hxuMcEe7genZSi6QFNryGR5w8vPkIKSgP1uFq_IXyoUDJvL2aJbhqg2iuEnEcQoTSI9uonk9HyHA5qCYXmtk7EmYXQ68aRLRb4eXbvV5q1kVuBDZR1IP_Z53pS4_BcjdPn-rzAC8_Md847MQY237ArO-MPfnbFhLmDH/s1200/GLA_HAG_51914-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="860" data-original-width="1200" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs3mpSG_2iwQ_muAtm_ku1Zqd7_hxuMcEe7genZSi6QFNryGR5w8vPkIKSgP1uFq_IXyoUDJvL2aJbhqg2iuEnEcQoTSI9uonk9HyHA5qCYXmtk7EmYXQ68aRLRb4eXbvV5q1kVuBDZR1IP_Z53pS4_BcjdPn-rzAC8_Md847MQY237ArO-MPfnbFhLmDH/w400-h286/GLA_HAG_51914-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">James Paterson (1854-1932), "Moniaive" (1885)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>After all my long-windedness, I find myself returning once again to my favorite poem of autumn. (For which I beg the forbearance of long-time -- and much-appreciated! -- readers of this blog.)</div><div><br /></div><div> Leaves</div><div><br /></div><div>The prisoners of infinite choice</div><div>Have built their house</div><div>In a field below the wood</div><div>And are at peace.</div><div><br /></div><div>It is autumn, and dead leaves</div><div>On their way to the river</div><div>Scratch like birds at the windows</div><div>Or tick on the road.</div><div><br /></div><div>Somewhere there is an afterlife</div><div>Of dead leaves,</div><div>A stadium filled with an infinite</div><div>Rustling and sighing.</div><div><br /></div><div>Somewhere in the heaven</div><div>Of lost futures</div><div>The lives we might have led</div><div>Have found their own fulfilment</div><div><br /></div><div>Derek Mahon, <i>The Snow Party </i>(Oxford University Press 1975).</div><div><br /></div><div>Come to think of it, "Leaves" has something to say about grieving, equanimity, and beauty.</div><div><br /></div><div>As does this:</div><div><br /></div><div>The wind has brought</div><div> enough fallen leaves</div><div>To make a fire.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ryōkan (translated by John Stevens), in John Stevens, <i>One Robe, One Bowl: The Zen Poetry of Ryōkan </i>(Weatherhill 1977), page 67.</div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizezm_4yIoidAOQ7N-BaoGRDke90i2eWj3JvRS7Nnp1kqo6v0ZLTz2WPOwlWCK-gS9ldj-D6pg13P2MBasynsOwU6Jov1ct3SyV6H4D42vLZzmWLU-66kHZ4G1VZgpgQcJtLUH019vzez_8OU8VAU7B74SZIzn4isY1q_NMrHvIIo91xDXq7bXQP4X3k0y/s800/GMIII_MCAG_1943_41-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="800" height="338" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizezm_4yIoidAOQ7N-BaoGRDke90i2eWj3JvRS7Nnp1kqo6v0ZLTz2WPOwlWCK-gS9ldj-D6pg13P2MBasynsOwU6Jov1ct3SyV6H4D42vLZzmWLU-66kHZ4G1VZgpgQcJtLUH019vzez_8OU8VAU7B74SZIzn4isY1q_NMrHvIIo91xDXq7bXQP4X3k0y/w400-h338/GMIII_MCAG_1943_41-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Gilbert Spencer (1892-1979)</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">"Burdens Farm, with Melbury Beacon" (1943)</span></div>Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-16708320552685935492023-10-18T02:05:00.000-07:002023-10-18T02:05:08.393-07:00BirdlifeHas any poet written as many beautiful and memorable lines as Yeats? I confess that I am biased by circumstances. I discovered the poetry of Yeats at an impressionable age: in my sophomore year of college, in a course titled "Yeats, Pound, and Eliot." I was smitten from the start. Imagine a melancholic, romantic lad, 19 years of age, reading this: "A pity beyond all telling/Is hid in the heart of love." ("The Pity of Love.") Or this: "And bending down beside the glowing bars,/Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled/And paced upon the mountains overhead/And hid his face amid a crowd of stars." ("When You Are Old.") Or this: "She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;/But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears." ("Down by the Salley Gardens.") Or this: "I have spread my dreams under your feet;/Tread softly because you tread on my dreams." ("He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven.") Prior to taking the course, I had a fitful interest in poetry. But, when I came upon Yeats, that was it: my life changed.<div><br /></div><div>As I have noted here in the past, I am fondest of the fin de siècle Yeats, the Yeats of the Celtic Twilight. This no doubt suggests that I have failed to progress emotionally over the past five decades. The "critical consensus" favors middle and late Yeats: the "mature" Yeats. But I don't find these sorts of critical assessments to be helpful. (Am I to look askance at "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" because Yeats wrote it at the age of 25?) There is great beauty to be found in all of Yeats -- early, middle, or late. Best to just read the poems.</div><div><br /></div><div>Thinking of poems by Yeats set in autumn, this comes first to mind: "Autumn is over the long leaves that love us,/And over the mice in the barley sheaves . . ." ("The Falling of the Leaves.") And then this: "The woods were round them, and the yellow leaves/Fell like faint meteors in the gloom, and once/A rabbit old and lame limped down the path;/Autumn was over him . . ." ("Ephemera.") These two poems appear beside each other in <i>The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems</i>, which was published in 1889, the heart of Yeats's Celtic Twilight period.<br /><div><br /></div></div><div>Still, despite my fondness for the younger Yeats, I am more than willing to concede that, when it comes to his autumn poems, this (from his middle years) is the finest:</div><div><br /></div><div> The Wild Swans at Coole</div><div><br /></div><div>The trees are in their autumn beauty,</div><div>The woodland paths are dry,</div><div>Under the October twilight the water</div><div>Mirrors a still sky;</div><div>Upon the brimming water among the stones</div><div>Are nine-and-fifty swans.</div><div><br /></div><div>The nineteenth autumn has come upon me</div><div>Since I first made my count;</div><div>I saw, before I had well finished,</div><div>All suddenly mount </div><div>And scatter wheeling in great broken rings</div><div>Upon their clamorous wings.</div><div><br /></div><div>I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,</div><div>And now my heart is sore.</div><div>All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,</div><div>The first time on this shore,</div><div>The bell-beat of their wings above my head,</div><div>Trod with a lighter tread.</div><div><br /></div><div>Unwearied still, lover by lover,</div><div>They paddle in the cold</div><div>Companionable streams or climb the air;</div><div>Their hearts have not grown old;</div><div>Passion or conquest, wander where they will,</div><div>Attend upon them still.</div><div><br /></div><div>But now they drift on the still water,</div><div>Mysterious, beautiful;</div><div>Among what rushes will they build,</div><div>By what lake's edge or pool</div><div>Delight men's eyes when I awake some day</div><div>To find they have flown away?</div><div><br /></div><div>W. B. Yeats, <i>The Wild Swans at Coole </i>(Macmillan 1919).</div><div><br /></div><div>As I asked at the outset: has any poet written as many beautiful and memorable lines as Yeats? Each stanza of "The Wild Swans at Coole" has lines that one is unlikely to forget, having read them but once.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqHu60OHL7e2jeA9ogjcSAOpQ0cHCFA0k3ysmxsC843qrWxH-IH2ulXbKNHTljPpVG3AEA_sovqWX0-9BCMRywtqhRwFSh-6OF6sYHqJDBQru3pRXhyJP_sJj508nkXCGbn8m5_jJIFi-iHJZEIHwXKPc7HufYlSw-sy8eASgURt_zd_CmH015ae9jwSQ2/s944/EDI_CITY_CAC_205_1964-001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="778" data-original-width="944" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqHu60OHL7e2jeA9ogjcSAOpQ0cHCFA0k3ysmxsC843qrWxH-IH2ulXbKNHTljPpVG3AEA_sovqWX0-9BCMRywtqhRwFSh-6OF6sYHqJDBQru3pRXhyJP_sJj508nkXCGbn8m5_jJIFi-iHJZEIHwXKPc7HufYlSw-sy8eASgURt_zd_CmH015ae9jwSQ2/w400-h330/EDI_CITY_CAC_205_1964-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">James McIntosh Patrick (1907-1998)</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">"Stobo Kirk, Peeblesshire" (1936)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>The autumn mood is the autumn mood at all times and in all places. Thus, reading "The trees are in their autumn beauty,/The woodland paths are dry," I think of this, from China in the Ninth Century, during the great T'ang Dynasty period of poetry:</div><div><br /></div><div> The Cranes</div><div><br /></div><div>The western wind has blown but a few days;</div><div>Yet the first leaf already flies from the bough.</div><div>On the drying paths I walk in my thin shoes;</div><div>In the first cold I have donned my quilted coat.</div><div>Through shallow ditches the floods are clearing away;</div><div>Through sparse bamboos trickles a slanting light.</div><div>In the early dusk, down an alley of green moss,</div><div>The garden-boy is leading the cranes home.</div><div><br /></div><div>Po Chü-i (772-846) (translated by Arthur Waley), in Arthur Waley, <i>More Translations from the Chinese </i>(George Allen & Unwin 1919), page 57. The poem is written in the eight-line <i>lü-shih </i>("regulated verse") form, which, in addition to having tonal and rhyming requirements, calls for verbal parallelism in the second and third couplets. (<i>See </i>Burton Watson, <i>The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry: From Early Times to the Thirteenth Century </i>(Columbia University Press 1984), pages 8-12, 374.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Waley's <i>More Translations from the Chinese </i>and Yeats's collection <i>The Wild Swans at Coole </i>were both published in 1919. It is lovely to think that the two of them may have been working on "The Cranes" and "The Wild Swans at Coole" during the same period of time. Po Chü-i had written "The Cranes" ten centuries earlier. Twilight. Bright leaves. Dry paths. Swans and cranes. Nothing had changed. Nothing has changed.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwTVvyrHRyvTw-l6Zt6ioUCh7v-AuVS0oWkGN5Ws07ytZLBbBxFwkBM2ot3kBTcD3x4ZRts_Mrusn_rvYPWNKxiXfU5XLQ0brEPG346l_2Q_ov2hs08v7rl13qX2On0Kg6epQTt5RUDmDBvJUseYQcyxYVIN89VlMnXSTmyyLksi2cO2N1IOhSv0mubXPb/s1200/GMII_SAHS_1943_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="955" data-original-width="1200" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwTVvyrHRyvTw-l6Zt6ioUCh7v-AuVS0oWkGN5Ws07ytZLBbBxFwkBM2ot3kBTcD3x4ZRts_Mrusn_rvYPWNKxiXfU5XLQ0brEPG346l_2Q_ov2hs08v7rl13qX2On0Kg6epQTt5RUDmDBvJUseYQcyxYVIN89VlMnXSTmyyLksi2cO2N1IOhSv0mubXPb/w400-h319/GMII_SAHS_1943_1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Malcolm Midwood Milne (1887-1954), "Barrow Hill" (1939)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>In February of 1694, Matsuo Bashō wrote to a friend in Ueno (the town in which Bashō had been born and raised): "I feel my end is drawing near." (Makoto Ueda, <i>Bashō and His Interpreters: Selected Hokku with Commentary </i>(Stanford University Press 1991), page 370.) In June of that year, he made the long journey from Edo (now known as Tokyo) to Ueno (which is located near Kyoto). In November, Bashō was still in Ueno, staying in a small cottage located behind his brother's house. On November 13, he wrote this <i>haiku</i>:</div><div><br /></div><div> Along this road</div><div>Goes no one,</div><div> This autumn eve.</div><div><br /></div><div>Bashō (translated by R. H. Blyth), in R. H. Blyth, <i>Haiku, Volume 3: Summer-Autumn </i>(Hokuseido Press 1952), page 342. <i> </i>Bashō included this headnote to the <i>haiku</i>: "Expressing how I feel." (Makoto Ueda, <i>Bashō and His Interpreters</i>, page 406.) The Japanese word which Blyth translates as "eve" is <i>kure</i>. <i>Kure </i>can mean "sunset," "dusk," or "evening;" it<i> </i>can also mean "end" or "close." Hence, the final line of the <i>haiku</i> has sometimes been translated as, for instance, "the end of autumn" or "autumn's close."</div><div><br /></div><div>On the same day, Bashō wrote this:</div><div><br /></div><div>this autumn</div><div>why am I aging so?</div><div>to the clouds, a bird</div><div><br /></div><div>Bashō (translated by Makoto Ueda), in Makoto Ueda, <i>Bashō and His Interpreters</i>, page 407. The poem is prefaced by this headnote: "A wanderer's thought." (<i>Ibid</i>, page 407.) Bashō does not identify the type of bird.</div><div><br /></div><div>Swans and cranes. And, finally: "to the clouds, a bird." Autumn.</div><div><br /></div><div>[A postscript. Bashō died on November 25. This is his final <i>haiku</i>:</div><div><br /></div><div>on a journey, ailing --</div><div>my dreams roam about</div><div>on a withered moor</div><div><br /></div><div>Bashō (translated by Makoto Ueda), <i>Ibid</i>, page 413.]</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVhuGNQjSkutKkZQer9GBm4O8W8FnqtzbjtUOSWUBZaurK86Vx2t6XOMvVfJXcDVeh5IkrPNfl6wfbpBDdhblyFlhr2HsopTccAakQVNMIxTtyn98guOG3I3MTQGk6CeQAb1B8OJPgBdX2bye1GN7U2iScecND0TyWg2GFas2T9NoWgWJ3uWG0WC5dxgA8/s1200/SW_NPMAG_1947_52-001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="945" data-original-width="1200" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVhuGNQjSkutKkZQer9GBm4O8W8FnqtzbjtUOSWUBZaurK86Vx2t6XOMvVfJXcDVeh5IkrPNfl6wfbpBDdhblyFlhr2HsopTccAakQVNMIxTtyn98guOG3I3MTQGk6CeQAb1B8OJPgBdX2bye1GN7U2iScecND0TyWg2GFas2T9NoWgWJ3uWG0WC5dxgA8/w400-h315/SW_NPMAG_1947_52-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Alexander Sillars Burns (1911-1987), "Afternoon, Wester Ross"</span></div>Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-90971957577177388632023-09-26T00:35:00.003-07:002023-09-26T10:02:52.904-07:00SeptemberOnce again, September. The past few weeks, the afternoons have sometimes been as warm as midsummer. But the leaves -- ah, the leaves: green going to gold, and to brown, amber, orange, and red. Fallen, falling, ready to fall. Before long, they will "Scratch like birds at the windows/Or tick on the road." (Derek Mahon, "<a href="https://firstknownwhenlost.blogspot.com/2020/10/leaves.html" target="_blank">Leaves.</a>") Not quite yet. And where have the swallows gone?<div><br /></div><div>Speaking of Derek Mahon, I recently realized that I have been remiss: it has been a few years since we last visited my favorite September poem.</div><div><br /></div><div> September in Great Yarmouth</div><div><br /></div><div>The woodwind whistles down the shore</div><div>Piping the stragglers home; the gulls</div><div>Snaffle and bolt their final mouthfuls.</div><div>Only the youngsters call for more.</div><div><br /></div><div>Chimneys breathe and beaches empty,</div><div>Everyone queues for the inland cold --</div><div>Middle-aged parents growing old</div><div>And teenage kids becoming twenty.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now the first few spots of rain </div><div>Spatter the sports page in the gutter.</div><div>Council workmen stab the litter.</div><div>You have sown and reaped; now sow again.</div><div><br /></div><div>The band packs in, the banners drop,</div><div>The ice-cream stiffens in its cone.</div><div>The boatman lifts his megaphone:</div><div>'Come in, fifteen, your time is up.'</div><div><br /></div><div>Derek Mahon, <i>Poems, 1962-1978 </i>(Oxford University Press 1979).</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghv0-1pDFAOI1WAJRM0r8S2iYY65SVYfJcoTw7UZUAK-olEsE5pXKew-SWTePosKOhqGo_3_5rEpZU13YfaoTC0olYMjtmkyWye2U2jCaYFZZo9ltSwEZSNj7ZpJR1LSZwEJKVwT46JAgGMns7s92pzwPQ_PQcAeDjuZ78fp0YyuxcYRLS_QSTUQ5JMxuh/s1200/WYR_BMGH_1925_056.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="942" data-original-width="1200" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghv0-1pDFAOI1WAJRM0r8S2iYY65SVYfJcoTw7UZUAK-olEsE5pXKew-SWTePosKOhqGo_3_5rEpZU13YfaoTC0olYMjtmkyWye2U2jCaYFZZo9ltSwEZSNj7ZpJR1LSZwEJKVwT46JAgGMns7s92pzwPQ_PQcAeDjuZ78fp0YyuxcYRLS_QSTUQ5JMxuh/w400-h314/WYR_BMGH_1925_056.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Reginald Brundrit (1883-1960), </span><span style="text-align: left;">"The River" (c. 1924)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Late September, and the green leaves still outnumber those that have turned. As the boughs sway in a breeze, one hears a susurration, a sea-sound, not a rattling. On a clear day, leaf-shadows and patches of sunlight continue to revolve on the ground, kaleidoscopic, unceasing.</div><div><br /></div><div>But yesterday afternoon I noticed dry yellow leaves gathering in the gutters as I walked through what was otherwise a green tunnel of trees. A group of three maples I have come to know as the earliest heralds of autumn began their transformation at the beginning of the month: the highest boughs and the leaves out at the tips of the lower branches are scarlet; only a dwindling inner core of summer green remains. "Now it is September and the web is woven./The web is woven and you have to wear it." (Wallace Stevens, "<a href="https://firstknownwhenlost.blogspot.com/2011/09/now-it-is-september-and-web-is-woven.html" target="_blank">The Dwarf.</a>")</div><div><br /></div><div> The Crossing</div><div><br /></div><div>September, and the butterflies are drifting</div><div>Across the sky again, the monarchs in</div><div>Their myriads, delicate lenses for the light</div><div>To fall through and be mandarin-transformed.</div><div><br /></div><div>I guess they are flying southward, or anyhow</div><div>That seems to be the average of their drift,</div><div>Though what you mostly see is a random light</div><div>Meandering, a Brownian movement to the wind,</div><div><br /></div><div>Which is one of Nature's ways of getting it done,</div><div>Whatever it may be, the rise of hills</div><div>And settling of seas, the fall of leaf</div><div>Across the shoulder of the northern world,</div><div><br /></div><div>The snowflakes one by one that silt the field . . .</div><div>All that's preparing now behind the scene,</div><div>As the ecliptic and equator cross,</div><div>Through which the light butterflies are flying.</div><div><br /></div><div>Howard Nemerov, <i>Gnomes & Occasions </i>(University of Chicago Press 1973).</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG9pB7LjIi8LcnANj3PipHd3iyV0cQn6U3ztGK8k1BP5XowVZtf0zYyUJn9Z9IQi6lABnOxCc9iDnUyr9pcMA806oFIFJX0uUeICD0bxJX3eO9fcRK-dj8D0uQKN_AT28Og22JVja3T0lAoK9iPFOWqyllxVzG3YvCK-F_F-QjNfoLkLYraNIHuHddsy-X/s800/GL_GM_2815.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="681" data-original-width="800" height="340" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG9pB7LjIi8LcnANj3PipHd3iyV0cQn6U3ztGK8k1BP5XowVZtf0zYyUJn9Z9IQi6lABnOxCc9iDnUyr9pcMA806oFIFJX0uUeICD0bxJX3eO9fcRK-dj8D0uQKN_AT28Og22JVja3T0lAoK9iPFOWqyllxVzG3YvCK-F_F-QjNfoLkLYraNIHuHddsy-X/w400-h340/GL_GM_2815.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">John Lawson (1868-1909), "An Ayrshire Stream" (1893)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>I have a vague notion of what occurs when "the ecliptic and equator cross." Something to do with the movement of spheres, I suspect. But I'm reminded of my oft-repeated first principle of poetry: <i>Explanation and explication are the death of poetry</i>. Here is a wider principle I have adopted at this moment: <i>Explanation and explication are the death of enchantment</i>. The enchantment of the World, of course. Mind you, I accept the existence of the ecliptic and the equator. This is not an anti-scientific manifesto. I simply prefer, for instance, a single butterfly or a single leaf, with no explanations attached.</div><div><br /></div><div>In a headnote to a <i>haiku</i>, Bashō (1644-1694) writes: "As we look calmly, we see everything is content with itself." (Bashō (translated by Makoto Ueda), in Makoto Ueda, <i>Bashō and His Interpreters: Selected Hokku with Commentary </i>(Stanford University Press 1991), page 153.) The <i>haiku </i>is: "Playing in the blossoms/a horsefly . . . don't eat it,/friendly sparrows!" (Bashō (translated by Makoto Ueda), <i>Ibid</i>, page 153.) Ueda provides this annotation: "The headnote is a sentence that often appears in Taoist classics, although Bashō probably took it from a poem by the Confucian philosopher Ch'eng Ming-tao." (<i>Ibid</i>, p. 153.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Bashō's headnote brings to mind a notebook entry written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge: "September 1 -- the beards of Thistle & dandelions flying above the lonely mountains like life, & I saw them thro' the Trees skimming the lake like Swallows --." (Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in Kathleen Coburn (editor), <i>The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume 1: 1794-1804 </i>(Pantheon 1957), Notebook Entry 799 (September 1, 1800). The text is as it appears in the notebook.)</div><div><br /></div><div>All of which leads us to a single leaf:</div><div><br /></div><div> Threshold</div><div><br /></div><div>When in still air and still in summertime</div><div>A leaf has had enough of this, it seems</div><div>To make up its mind to go; fine as a sage</div><div>Its drifting in detachment down the road.</div><div><br /></div><div>Howard Nemerov, <i>Gnomes & Occasions</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div>A single leaf. Or a single butterfly. No explanations required, or necessary.</div><div><br /></div><div>A butterfly flits</div><div>All alone -- and on the field,</div><div>A shadow in the sunlight.</div><div><br /></div><div>Bashō (translated by Makoto Ueda), in Makoto Ueda, <i>Matsuo Bashō </i>(Twayne 1970), page 50.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqcTor9mp7aw1NT0t5jRMueZ0drsSh2-4HNzTtbmKx8Nrm6jFzaEvRsXMHm3-G4DqApaBvgZbfzjg3dXremmCJSrq2h8SKuS28LxU1oY6hPeUXCnolnzx4ZrxWaVoLK9qqz_VzF1iK2USiXSV0W0hkAYLj0T2rQ6OzQ4Dnr-v1KHlHk8ILkC5yDkLY0JeC/s800/DOR_SWTC_PCF9-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="527" data-original-width="800" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqcTor9mp7aw1NT0t5jRMueZ0drsSh2-4HNzTtbmKx8Nrm6jFzaEvRsXMHm3-G4DqApaBvgZbfzjg3dXremmCJSrq2h8SKuS28LxU1oY6hPeUXCnolnzx4ZrxWaVoLK9qqz_VzF1iK2USiXSV0W0hkAYLj0T2rQ6OzQ4Dnr-v1KHlHk8ILkC5yDkLY0JeC/w400-h264/DOR_SWTC_PCF9-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Henry Justice Ford (1860-1941)</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">"A View of Church Hill from the Mill Pond, Old Swanage</span><span style="text-align: left;">" (1931)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>[A coda. "The boatman" calling in someone out on the water whose "time is up" in Derek Mahon's "September in Great Yarmouth" makes an appearance in another poem:</div><div><br /></div><div> Yorkshiremen in Pub Gardens</div><div><br /></div><div> As they sit there, happily drinking,</div><div>their strokes, cancers, and so forth are not in their minds.</div><div> Indeed, what earthly good would thinking</div><div>about the future (which is Death) do? Each summer finds</div><div> beer in their hands in big pint glasses.</div><div> And so their leisure passes.</div><div><br /></div><div> Perhaps the older ones allow some inkling</div><div>into their thoughts. Being hauled, as a kid, upstairs to bed</div><div> screaming for a teddy or a tinkling</div><div>musical box, against their will. Each Joe or Fred</div><div> wants longer with the life and lasses.</div><div> And so their time passes.</div><div><br /></div><div> Second childhood; and 'Come in, number 80!'</div><div>shouts inexorably the man in charge of the boating pool.</div><div> When you're called you must go, matey,</div><div>so don't complain, keep it all calm and cool,</div><div> there's masses of time yet, masses, masses . . .</div><div> And so their life passes.</div><div><br /></div><div>Gavin Ewart, in Philip Larkin (editor), <i>Poetry Supplement Compiled by Philip Larkin for the Poetry Book Society </i>(Poetry Book Society 1974). Ewart and Larkin were friends. The poem has a Larkinesque feel to it, doesn't it? It's not surprising that Larkin chose to include it in the Poetry Book Society's annual Christmas anthology.</div><div><br /></div><div>But I like to think that if Larkin had written the poem he would have softened it a bit, and made beautifully clear that we are all Yorkshiremen in pub gardens, each in our own way. He likely would have done so in the final stanza: one long, lovely sentence hedged with one or two qualifications and perhaps containing a reversal -- but absolutely, humanly true. He is not the misanthropic, dour caricature he is often incorrectly made out to be by the inattentive. For example: "Something is pushing them/To the side of their own lives." (Philip Larkin, "<a href="https://firstknownwhenlost.blogspot.com/2012/09/summer-is-fading.html" target="_blank">Afternoons.</a>") Or: "As they wend away/A voice is heard singing/Of Kitty, or Katy,/As if the name meant once/All love, all beauty." (Philip Larkin, "Dublinesque.") And this: "we should be careful//Of each other, we should be kind/While there is still time." (Philip Larkin, "<a href="https://firstknownwhenlost.blogspot.com/2012/03/we-should-be-careful-of-each-other-we.html" target="_blank">The Mower.</a>")</div><div><br /></div><div>For some reason, I find myself reminded of a poem by Su Tung-p'o. It is a poem of spring, and thus may seem out of season. But the final line is apt in any season, and at any time, in any place.</div><div><br /></div><div> Pear Blossoms by the Eastern Palisade</div><div><br /></div><div>Pear blossoms pale white, willows deep green --</div><div>when willow fluff scatters, falling blossoms will fill the town.</div><div>Snowy boughs by the eastern palisade set me pondering --</div><div>in a lifetime how many springs do we see?</div><div><br /></div><div>Su Tung-p'o (1036-1101) (translated by Burton Watson), in Burton Watson, <i>Selected Poems of Su Tung-p'o </i>(Copper Canyon Press 1994), page 68.</div><div><br /></div><div>In a lifetime, how many Septembers do we see?]</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRCHI2Rv20jPnEvhvIuyP66E-cX6YB02UJ4yLwFo4NOwxggk1VyPHYztkLYgH3P9jmc15plMC8WCDecFKx7SDiebE9-CBIUv75EtftRrX4hBQk9UpdAHHcOScx3Cx4D6A6RJ2fdUUjpdC-fxdmPNwY3StGGnK_ia-LCEmQtWxNEfM4QfvIm6zwFZGvrqAf/s1200/SW_NPMAG_1937_63-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="827" data-original-width="1200" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRCHI2Rv20jPnEvhvIuyP66E-cX6YB02UJ4yLwFo4NOwxggk1VyPHYztkLYgH3P9jmc15plMC8WCDecFKx7SDiebE9-CBIUv75EtftRrX4hBQk9UpdAHHcOScx3Cx4D6A6RJ2fdUUjpdC-fxdmPNwY3StGGnK_ia-LCEmQtWxNEfM4QfvIm6zwFZGvrqAf/w400-h276/SW_NPMAG_1937_63-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Alexander Jamieson (1873-1937)</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">"Halton Lake, Wendover, Buckinghamshire"</span></div>Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-49244478520200038692023-08-26T01:15:00.000-07:002023-08-26T01:15:07.833-07:00Life and Art. Art and Life.One morning this week, as I walked along a shadowy but sun-dappled path through a grove of trees, I came upon a single golden pine needle hovering vertically in mid-air, at eye-level, above the path. The needle was suspended on a single gossamer thread. Unmoving, it captured the angled morning sunlight of late August.<div><br /></div><div>I walked on. A few minutes later, I remembered this (which has appeared here in the past):</div><div><br /></div><div> On Something Observed</div><div><br /></div><div>Torn remains of a cobweb,</div><div> one strand dangling down --</div><div>a stray petal fluttering by</div><div> has been tangled, caught in its skein,</div><div>all day to dance and turn,</div><div> never once resting --</div><div>elsewhere in my garden,</div><div> no breeze stirs.</div><div><br /></div><div>Kokan Shiren (1278-1346) (translated by Burton Watson), in Burton Watson, <i>Japanese Literature in Chinese, Volume II: Poetry and Prose in Chinese by Japanese Writers of the Later Period </i>(Columbia University Press 1976), page 27. Kokan Shiren was a Zen Buddhist monk.</div><div><br /></div><div>So goes our brief stay in Paradise.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSBcTC9uCcc0oRs2IShTQLIB1HY5wU-Oj7XQlhGk95Xlnfh53NwP8r1TB-YTfqjPUEscnlSPFKTpwi840TD77sBJHYL1cXKv-SejXPnU6ycCKoOs5Ikifzuf_0NrQiPV8a5XJgBouF2nJlQhj_XrKbZtdQXqAF0DNLsC1vL--8KejXjHTuIgRGOaw9AY7u/s559/image.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="559" height="344" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSBcTC9uCcc0oRs2IShTQLIB1HY5wU-Oj7XQlhGk95Xlnfh53NwP8r1TB-YTfqjPUEscnlSPFKTpwi840TD77sBJHYL1cXKv-SejXPnU6ycCKoOs5Ikifzuf_0NrQiPV8a5XJgBouF2nJlQhj_XrKbZtdQXqAF0DNLsC1vL--8KejXjHTuIgRGOaw9AY7u/w400-h344/image.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Josephine Haswell Miller (1890-1975), "Studio Window" (1934)</span></div>Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-45769622432355707832023-07-31T01:50:00.000-07:002023-07-31T01:50:13.694-07:00One Thing Leads To Another, Part One: BellsAs I am wont to do several times a year, I recently returned to the poetry of Walter de la Mare. At the beginning of last week, I revisited an old favorite:<div><br /></div><div> The Bells</div><div><br /></div><div>Shadow and light both strove to be</div><div>The eight bell-ringers' company,</div><div>As with his gliding rope in hand,</div><div>Counting his changes, each did stand;</div><div>While rang and trembled every stone,</div><div>To music by the bell-mouths blown:</div><div>Till the bright clouds that towered on high</div><div>Seemed to re-echo cry with cry.</div><div>Still swang the clappers to and fro,</div><div>When, in the far-spread fields below,</div><div>I saw a ploughman with his team</div><div>Lift to the bells and fix on them</div><div>His distant eyes, as if he would</div><div>Drink in the utmost sound he could;</div><div>While near him sat his children three,</div><div>And in the green grass placidly</div><div>Played undistracted on: as if</div><div>What music earthly bells might give</div><div>Could only faintly stir their dream,</div><div>And stillness make more lovely seem.</div><div>Soon night hid horses, children, all,</div><div>In sleep deep and ambrosial.</div><div>Yet, yet, it seemed, from star to star,</div><div>Welling now near, now faint and far,</div><div>Those echoing bells rang on in dream,</div><div>And stillness made even lovelier seem.</div><div><br /></div><div>Walter de la Mare, <i>The Listeners and Other Poems </i>(Constable 1912).</div><div><br /></div><div>As is often the case in de la Mare's poetry, the poem is an evocation of Beauty, coupled with a meditation upon how each moment of Beauty we experience can continue to resonate -- and remain -- in our lives in ways we can never anticipate. This coarse description of the poem is the sort of thing I always counsel against. To wit: <i>Explanation and explication are the death of poetry</i>. I should follow my own advice. Best to read the poem, keep silent, and rejoice in the particulars. </div><div><br /></div><div>For instance, consider the repetition of the "dream"/"seem" rhymes in lines 19 and 20 and in lines 25 and 26, with the accompanying repetition of line 20 ("And stillness make more lovely seem") -- with slight modifications -- in line 26 ("And stillness made even lovelier seem"). And, of course, where would we be without de la Mare's fondness for the word "lovely"? "Look thy last on all things lovely,/Every hour." ("Fare Well.") "<i>Now </i>is the all-sufficing all/Wherein to love the lovely well,/Whate'er befall." ("Now.") The "modernists" of de la Mare's day and the moderns of our own day (with their own fondness for supercilious irony) have no use for a word such as "lovely." No surprise there.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7vGm92TuG1-rVaEVTakv6N3jMDHIABYUG73Gldl2XmZrqEzJZdWd9RvJsXAzEW5Yd2Dn2utnrS9AXLp5j5TUnxTDxKeClxgOh_02s0b0S2oYGY9XMK7-34Mjo7vnhukDd6UwytUPOXu-KcZMwzCBr2r3TYCiSHWQ_A6o1AFAiINoXx2KhFj_VvGO9toIf/s800/BRM_BMAG_1906P33.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7vGm92TuG1-rVaEVTakv6N3jMDHIABYUG73Gldl2XmZrqEzJZdWd9RvJsXAzEW5Yd2Dn2utnrS9AXLp5j5TUnxTDxKeClxgOh_02s0b0S2oYGY9XMK7-34Mjo7vnhukDd6UwytUPOXu-KcZMwzCBr2r3TYCiSHWQ_A6o1AFAiINoXx2KhFj_VvGO9toIf/w400-h300/BRM_BMAG_1906P33.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Bertram Priestman (1868-1951), "Suffolk Water Meadows" (1906)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Philippe Jaccottet died on February 24, 2021 at the age of 95. On March 4 of that year, his two final works were published in France: an essay (although "essay" seems too prosaic a word) (<i>La Clarté Notre-Dame</i>) and a collection of poems (<i>Le Dernier Livre de Madrigaux</i>). The two works have been translated into English by John Taylor and have been published together in a single volume. I ordered a copy of the book, and it arrived last Friday.</div><div><br /></div><div>That evening I started to read <i>La Clarté Notre-Dame</i>. It begins:</div><div><br /></div><div>"Note dated 19 September 2012: 'This spring, don't forget the little vesper bell of La Clarté Notre-Dame, which sounds incredibly clear in the vast, grey, silent landscape -- truly like a kind of speech, call or reminder, a pure, weightless, fragile, yet crystal-clear tinkling -- in the grey distance of the air.'</div><div><br /></div><div>"(Indeed, <i>this</i>: I must keep it alive like a bird in the palm of my hand, preserved for a flight that is still possible if one is not too clumsy, or too weary, or if the distrust of words doesn't prevail over it.)" </div><div><br /></div><div>Philippe Jaccottet (translated by John Taylor), in Philippe Jaccottet, <i>'La Clarté Notre-Dame' and 'The Last Book of the Madrigals' </i>(Seagull Books 2022), page 5. The italics appear in the original text.</div><div><br /></div><div>After this two-sentence introduction, Jaccottet continues:</div><div><br /></div><div>"On a day perhaps at the end of winter (after checking it was 4th of March, thus about a year ago), while walking with friends and barely talking in a vast landscape heading down a gentle slope to a remote valley, under a grey sky, and it's another kind of greyness that predominates in such a season in these otherwise empty fields where no one is working yet, where we're the only ones walking, with no haste and no other goal than getting some fresh air.</div><div> * * * * * *</div><div>"Up until then, nothing particularly strange, or that might have moved us. At best, perhaps, a kind of prelude to something we didn't know. Until the little vesper bell of La Clarté Notre-Dame Convent, which we still couldn't see at the bottom of the valley, began to ring far below us, at the heart of all this almost-dull greyness. I then said to myself, reacting in a way that was both intense and confusing (and so many times in similar moments I'd been forced to bring together the two epithets), that I'd never heard a tinkling -- prolonged, almost persistent, repeated several times -- as pure in its weightlessness, in its extreme fragility, as genuinely <i>crystalline. </i>. . . Yet which I couldn't listen to as if it were a kind of speech -- emerging from some mouth. . . . A tinkling so crystalline that it seemed, as it appeared, oddly, almost tender. . . . Ah, this was obviously something that resisted grasping, defied language, like so many other seeming messages from afar -- and this frail tinkling lasted, persisted, truly like an appeal, or a reminder . . ."</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Ibid</i>, pages 5-7. The italics and ellipses appear in the original text.</div><div><br /></div><div>Reading the passages above, I am reminded of this: "A thing is beautiful to the extent that it does not let itself be caught." (Philippe Jaccottet (translated by John Taylor), "Blazon in Green and White," in Philippe Jaccottet, <i>And, Nonetheless: Selected Prose and Poetry, 1990-2009 </i>(Chelsea Editions 2011), page 53.)</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixE-1O7mGF2n0GXWyS0_7Lr6jd49oPkDbBw1lFhWrPVdwgDovUpXClTNVt-ptnc8rAlH4zmOhnp3NSnsS31lsA1Ua63hw2xGmMyW5nexY_Hdqp1WLoa0MaDa3qbrlnIbLzY7cM2K6XTi_vGQTYVG351Qwt7ClpLjeeu-Y7Xij8EZmRXKCLYT9yitfMEGK2/s1200/BST_BMAGG_K511.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="735" data-original-width="1200" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixE-1O7mGF2n0GXWyS0_7Lr6jd49oPkDbBw1lFhWrPVdwgDovUpXClTNVt-ptnc8rAlH4zmOhnp3NSnsS31lsA1Ua63hw2xGmMyW5nexY_Hdqp1WLoa0MaDa3qbrlnIbLzY7cM2K6XTi_vGQTYVG351Qwt7ClpLjeeu-Y7Xij8EZmRXKCLYT9yitfMEGK2/w400-h245/BST_BMAGG_K511.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Bertram Priestman, "The Sun-Veiled Hills of Wharfedale" (1917)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Having the vesper bell of the convent of La Clarté Notre-Dame arrive unexpectedly just a few days after reading "The Bells" was a nice bit of serendipity. I know nothing about how to live, and I possess no wisdom, but age has taught me that, when it comes to Beauty, one thing leads to another. Whether this happens by chance, or by placing oneself in the way of Beauty, or by a combination of both, I don't know. But I do know that, when the stepping stones of Beauty appear, one ought to follow their path.</div><div><br /></div><div>Thus, the bells of the English countryside and a vesper bell chiming from a valley in France set me to thinking about the sound of bells. Eventually, again by way of Walter de la Mare -- this time through <i>Come Hither</i>, his wonderful anthology of poetry -- this came to mind:</div><div><br /></div><div> Against Oblivion</div><div><br /></div><div>Cities drowned in olden time</div><div>Keep, they say, a magic chime</div><div>Rolling up from far below</div><div>When the moon-led waters flow.</div><div><br /></div><div>So within me, ocean deep,</div><div>Lies a sunken world asleep.</div><div>Lest its bells forget to ring,</div><div>Memory! set the tide a-swing!</div><div><br /></div><div>Henry Newbolt (1862-1938), in Walter de la Mare (editor), <i>Come Hither: A Collection of Rhymes and Poems for the Young of All Ages </i>(Constable 1923), page 214. In <i>Come Hither</i>, de la Mare gives the poem the title "Cities Drowned." However, when the poem was originally published, Newbolt titled it "Against Oblivion." (Henry Newbolt, <i>Songs of Memory and Hope </i>(John Murray 1909), page 50.) Newbolt and de la Mare were close friends, and Newbolt encouraged de la Mare when he embarked upon his literary career. "Against Oblivion" in fact sounds like something de la Mare himself could have written.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Against Oblivion" is the penultimate poem in the section of <i>Come Hither</i> titled "Dance, Music and Bells." I proceeded to the poem which follows it:</div><div><br /></div><div> The Bell-man</div><div><br /></div><div>From noise of Scare-fires rest ye free,</div><div>From Murders -- <i>Benedicite</i>.</div><div>From all mischances, that may fright</div><div>Your pleasing slumbers in the night:</div><div>Mercie secure ye all, and keep</div><div>The Goblin from ye, while ye sleep.</div><div>Past one aclock, and almost two,</div><div>My Masters all, <i>Good day to you!</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Robert Herrick, in Walter de la Mare (editor), <i>Come Hither: A Collection of Rhymes and Poems for the Young of All Ages</i>, page 215. "<i>Benedicite</i>" is "an expletive of good omen, used after the mention of some evil word or thing." (Tom Cain and Ruth Connolly (editors), <i>The Complete Poetry of Robert Herrick, Volume II </i>(Oxford University Press 2013), page 611 (quoting the Reverend Charles Percival Phinn).) The Reverend Phinn (who died in 1906) was an indefatigable and thorough annotator of Herrick's poetry. His annotations were never published, but were preserved in the margins of his copy of Herrick's poems. (<i>Ibid</i>, Volume I, page 432.) The annotations have been praised, and relied upon, by modern editors of Herrick's poetry.</div><div><br /></div><div>Herrick's poem provided another stepping stone, leading once again to Walter de la Mare:</div><div><br /></div><div> Then</div><div><br /></div><div>Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty,</div><div> A hundred years ago,</div><div>All through the night with lantern bright</div><div> The Watch trudged to and fro.</div><div>And little boys tucked snug abed</div><div> Would wake from dreams to hear --</div><div>'Two o' the morning by the clock,</div><div> And the stars a-shining clear!'</div><div>Or, when across the chimney-tops</div><div> Screamed shrill a North-East gale,</div><div>A faint and shaken voice would shout,</div><div> 'Three! -- and a storm of hail!'</div><div><br /></div><div>Walter de la Mare, <i>Peacock Pie: A Book of Rhymes </i>(Constable 1913).</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrk5MFjP2VqscNrOQmHSQ3CqchhluSlaAlxwqwy8KGYmSrXm3EXgkcNbmw-ZWbv3EerWG2k_nqYBouRGA47Pua_inXqcouOnBeA8U20VeyQpUY53svksXexRo9dwpP5nWASBKLyCvqEoo-_UI5m_w4HL9jrs_dyJiu49bRmchGlm8roKsKRLJ_g285qZrY/s1200/NI_NMNI_BELUM_U127.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="844" data-original-width="1200" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrk5MFjP2VqscNrOQmHSQ3CqchhluSlaAlxwqwy8KGYmSrXm3EXgkcNbmw-ZWbv3EerWG2k_nqYBouRGA47Pua_inXqcouOnBeA8U20VeyQpUY53svksXexRo9dwpP5nWASBKLyCvqEoo-_UI5m_w4HL9jrs_dyJiu49bRmchGlm8roKsKRLJ_g285qZrY/w400-h281/NI_NMNI_BELUM_U127.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Bertram Priestman, "Wooded Hillside" (1910)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>One thing leads to another: from the bells of sunken cities and of night watchmen my thoughts turned, for no apparent reason, to the sound of bells in Japanese poetry. A set of two <i>haiku</i> written by Issa (1763-1828) provided the next stepping stones.</div><div><br /></div><div> The evening cool;</div><div>Not knowing the bell</div><div> Is tolling our life away.</div><div><br /></div><div>Issa (translated by R. H. Blyth), in R. H. Blyth, <i>Haiku, Volume III: Summer-Autumn </i>(Hokuseido Press 1952), page 124.</div><div><br /></div><div> The evening cool;</div><div>Knowing the bell</div><div> Is tolling our life away.</div><div><br /></div><div>Issa (translated by R. H. Blyth), <i>Ibid</i>, page 125.</div><div><br /></div><div>Of the "four masters" of <i>haiku</i> (the other three being Bashō, Buson, and Shiki), Issa is the most down-to-earth and playful, and is by turns tragic and comic. Commenting on the two <i>haiku</i>, R. H. Blyth writes: "only the enlightened man <i>knows</i>, as part of his hearing the bell, as part of every breath he draws, as part of the coolness, that all is fleeting and evanescent." (<i>Ibid</i>, page 125; the italics appear in the original text.) But who would presume to describe himself or herself as "enlightened"? We know, but we don't know, isn't that the case? It depends on the moment.</div><div><br /></div><div>I can't imagine that Walter de la Mare would have ever referred to himself as being "enlightened." But he was well aware "that all is fleeting and evanescent." Two days prior to his death, he "wrote to a friend of the midsummer leaf and blossom: 'One looks at it partly with amazed delight and partly with anticipatory regret at its transitoriness'." (Theresa Whistler, <i>Imagination of the Heart: The Life of Walter de la Mare </i>(Duckworth 1993), page 445 and page 459 (footnote 13).) De la Mare's comment in the letter articulates the essence of much of his poetry.</div><div> </div><div>Issa's complementary and provocative <i>haiku </i>were not the stopping point. At a certain stage in your life, you learn to be patient and wait for things to float up. In time, two beloved treasures arrived.</div><div><br /></div><div>The first treasure:</div><div><br /></div><div>A quiet bell sounds --</div><div>and reveals a village</div><div>waiting for the moon.</div><div><br /></div><div>Sōgi (1421-1502) (translated by Steven Carter), in Steven Carter, <i>The Road to Komatsubara: A Classical Reading of the Renga Hyakuin </i>(Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University 1987), page 96. The poem is a link in a <i>renga hyakuin</i> (a sequence of one hundred linked verses). <i>Renga </i>consist of alternating three-line and two-line verses (links). The three-line verses/links in <i>renga </i>were the precursors of what eventually became a new poetic form: free-standing <i>haiku</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div>The second treasure:</div><div><br /></div><div>To a mountain village</div><div> at nightfall on a spring day</div><div> I came and saw this:</div><div>blossoms scattering on echoes</div><div> from the vespers bell.</div><div><br /></div><div>Nōin (988-1050) (translated by Steven Carter), in Steven Carter, <i>Traditional Japanese Poetry: An Anthology </i>(Stanford University Press 1991), page 134. The poem is a <i>waka</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Both of these poems have appeared here before (the latter on several occasions). They are two of my favorite poems. They speak for themselves. </div><div><br /></div><div>The sound of bells. Yes, when it comes to Beauty, one thing leads to another.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNPXq84NN5GcEx00QedVYFF3Al9EW2Ra5kPfUWvMytqFlnEH5hbDZ7nIOmyvStfyqXgSAwDHsVScvGCNcEzYId2RZff3PR7CSMKD5RkZsBLElXC60rtLCrwXE4cQWVVX8w-hPXlXhT_c7qvAR2jrZ28W2CnvfR3d0MTyVW1Bfg2GnKRGKcEpWKMU09aSUT/s800/GMIII_MCAG_1913_18-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="572" data-original-width="800" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNPXq84NN5GcEx00QedVYFF3Al9EW2Ra5kPfUWvMytqFlnEH5hbDZ7nIOmyvStfyqXgSAwDHsVScvGCNcEzYId2RZff3PR7CSMKD5RkZsBLElXC60rtLCrwXE4cQWVVX8w-hPXlXhT_c7qvAR2jrZ28W2CnvfR3d0MTyVW1Bfg2GnKRGKcEpWKMU09aSUT/w400-h286/GMIII_MCAG_1913_18-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Bertram Priestman, "The Great Green Hills of Yorkshire" (1913)</span></div>Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-40661866772594693792023-06-30T02:40:00.000-07:002023-06-30T02:40:08.096-07:00Haiku<div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Over the past two months I have spent much of my reading time moving back and forth within the <i>Spring </i>volume of R. H. Blyth's four-volume <i>Haiku</i>. The set has been with me for more than 40 years. I bought it in a used bookstore in Seattle when I was attending law school. I had discovered Blyth's <i>haiku </i>translations a few years earlier, but finding copies of <i>Haiku</i> to purchase in those pre-internet days was difficult: the four volumes had been published in small quantities in Tokyo between 1949 and 1952, and thus were scarce. I was surprised and delighted to finally come across a lovely full set as I idly browsed one afternoon in the Asian literature section of one of my favorite bookstores. The back endpaper of Volume I (<i>Eastern Culture</i>) still bears the bookseller's pencilled notation: "$65 for 4 volumes." In my law student days, $65 was an exorbitant sum to spend on a book purchase, but I felt I had no choice. Now, four decades later, the volumes sit beside me as I write this.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Given the number of times I have posted <i>haiku </i>translated by him, I suspect that the name "R. H. Blyth" appears in First Known When Lost more often than any other name. Blyth, who was born in England in 1898 and died in Japan in 1964, was a remarkable man, with wide-ranging interests (which included, in addition to <i>haiku</i>, Zen Buddhism, and English poetry, a passion for the music of Bach). He travelled to Seoul in 1924 to teach in a Japanese-operated university, and then moved to Japan in 1940, where he taught in various schools and universities. By the time he moved to Japan, he had learned both Japanese and Chinese, and had made his first attempts at translating Japanese and Chinese poetry. He had also begun to study and practice Zen Buddhism. </div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">He was still residing in Japan when the Second World War began. As was the case with all foreign residents who were citizens of nations at war with Japan, he was confined in an internment camp throughout the War. After the War ended, he served as a "counselor" to the Imperial Household, and, in that role, provided advice to General Douglas MacArthur during the occupation period. He also began to act as a private tutor to the Crown Prince (and future Emperor), Akihito. He was well-known and respected in Japan in the pre-War period for his knowledge of, and admiration for, Japanese culture. This respect deepened as a result of the wise and practical advice he provided to MacArthur and other occupation officials during the post-War period. His advice was driven by his love for Japan: his goal was to help protect and preserve the Japanese cultural heritage. [This outline of Blyth's life is based upon the excellent biographical "Introduction" in Norman Waddell's <i>Poetry and Zen: Letters and Uncollected Writings of R. H. Blyth </i>(Shambhala 2022), pages 1-51. The book is an invaluable collection, and I highly recommend it.]</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT0Bj_mTp3y0wx5lv1EePsZwEyNb9w1mQklS7yKQ_vR5_gtIE_BX4jE6IYnIJegeFAvQuP7lVcLQV7tW522occfVU9sX4-vrcKmeAtlEzvcb7bpW_sgGakhmkZTBOasRHvBLI3Lq-bIXtpvhtPoeRfriah97CWY7yc1oBizMCK6TsWIAb8gj7U5xpk5UmV/s944/DUN_DAGM_7_1950-001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="711" data-original-width="944" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT0Bj_mTp3y0wx5lv1EePsZwEyNb9w1mQklS7yKQ_vR5_gtIE_BX4jE6IYnIJegeFAvQuP7lVcLQV7tW522occfVU9sX4-vrcKmeAtlEzvcb7bpW_sgGakhmkZTBOasRHvBLI3Lq-bIXtpvhtPoeRfriah97CWY7yc1oBizMCK6TsWIAb8gj7U5xpk5UmV/w400-h301/DUN_DAGM_7_1950-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Stanley Spencer (1891-1959)</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">"The Ferry Hotel Lawn, Cookham" (1936)</span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">All of this is by way of introduction to Blyth's <i>Haiku</i>. As you have likely deduced, dear readers, I am not in the least neutral about <i>Haiku</i>. I sometimes wonder whether my judgment about it is clouded by having encountered it at a relatively young age: am I still caught up in a youthful romantic daydream? But I have discovered over the years that others have been equally entranced by the four volumes.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">For instance, a few years ago I came across this notebook entry by Philippe Jaccottet, written in 1960 (when he was 35): "R. H. Blyth's <i>Haiku</i>, essential. . . . I could quote pages. While reading these four volumes, it occurred to me more than once that they contained, of all the words I have ever managed to decipher, those closest to the truth." (Philippe Jaccottet (notebook entry, August of 1960) (translated by Tess Lewis), in Philippe Jaccottet, <i>Seedtime: Notebooks, 1954-1979 </i>(Seagull Books 2013), pages 52-53.) I was astounded and gratified to happen upon these comments by Jaccottet. He articulates (far better than I can) exactly how I have felt when reading <i>Haiku </i>over the past forty or so years.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">This spring I once again returned to Blyth's wondrous creation: revisiting old favorites, being reminded of <i>haiku </i>I had once read but had forgotten, and making new discoveries.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> A pear tree in bloom:</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">In the moonlight,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> A woman reading a letter.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Buson (1716-1784) (translated by R. H. Blyth), in Blyth, <i>Haiku, Volume II: Spring </i>(Hokuseido Press 1950), page 323.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> A night of stars;</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">The cherry blossoms are falling</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> On the water of the rice seedlings.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Buson (translated by R. H. Blyth), <i>Ibid</i>, page 170. Please bear with me: this <i>haiku</i> appeared in my post of May 24, but I think it goes well with Buson's pear tree <i>haiku</i>, so I repeat myself. It has long been one of my favorite <i>haiku</i>: three lovely images in succession, and a fourth unstated image -- the stars reflected in the water, floating on the dark surface with the cherry blossom petals, both amidst the green shoots of the rice seedlings.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> The cherry blossoms blooming,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Those I remember</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> All far away.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Shiki (1867-1902) (translated by R. H. Blyth), <i>Ibid</i>, page 348.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> How many, many things</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">They call to mind,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> These cherry blossoms!</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Bashō (1644-1694) (translated by R. H. Blyth), <i>Ibid</i>, page 347.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Further thoughts by Philippe Jaccottet on <i>haiku</i>:</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">"Japanese <i>haiku </i>masters, who grasp in passing a shimmer in its impermanence and consider the frailest things to have the greatest value and the most power, are not mystics. You could not imagine calling them 'ardent,' or even that they climbed mountain peaks. They remind me more of those servants, in André Dhôtel's <i>The Man of the Lumber Mill</i>, who suddenly see the pure gleam of a garden reflected in the silverware or crystal glasses that they are cleaning."</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Philippe Jaccottet (translated by John Taylor), "Notes from the Ravine," in Philippe Jaccottet, <i>And, Nonetheless: Selected Prose and Poetry, 1990-2009 </i>(Chelsea Editions 2011), page 303.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqwT32ZvpBAm3vhoVgfTV8B8-1Wm48BDFJH5EFleETJNqVvp0thYUJvQKrvur8hZjweArfnphpkHXfNf_uYN1WZXJANP42qa6ZyS07booOBH8763Lx40gmvfEZcJObfPcOnqKXOQ7N5E3xGqvHxfMy8qqlH7reECeAOyKohFpcqquC1LgTQxqRLAzd_3rl/s800/CAM_CCF_2452-001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="800" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqwT32ZvpBAm3vhoVgfTV8B8-1Wm48BDFJH5EFleETJNqVvp0thYUJvQKrvur8hZjweArfnphpkHXfNf_uYN1WZXJANP42qa6ZyS07booOBH8763Lx40gmvfEZcJObfPcOnqKXOQ7N5E3xGqvHxfMy8qqlH7reECeAOyKohFpcqquC1LgTQxqRLAzd_3rl/w400-h315/CAM_CCF_2452-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Stanley Spencer, "Landscape in North Wales" (1938)</span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">The three seasonal volumes of <i>Haiku </i>(Volume II: <i>Spring</i>; Volume III: <i>Summer-Autumn</i>; Volume IV: <i>Autumn-Winter</i>) consist of collections of <i>haiku </i>organized according to general seasonal categories that are used in all three volumes: "The Season," "Sky and Elements," "Fields and Mountains," "Gods and Buddhas," "Human Affairs," "Birds and Beasts," and "Trees and Flowers." In addition, within each of the general categories, Blyth collects <i>haiku </i>based upon their particular seasonal word or phrase. Thus, for example, in the "Trees and Flowers" chapter of the <i>Spring </i>volume there are groups of <i>haiku </i>relating to cherry blossoms, plum blossoms, pear blossoms, willow trees, camellias, "grasses of spring," and ten other seasonal words or phrases. The result of Blyth's knowledge and labor is astonishing, and a gift to us all: <i>Spring</i> consists of 382 pages; usually, at least two to three <i>haiku </i>(often more)<i> </i>appear on each page; hence, the volume likely contains more than a thousand <i>haiku</i>.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">The sheer volume may seem forbidding, but it is not. Or so it seems to me. Something that Philip Larkin wrote about Thomas Hardy's <i>Collected Poems </i>applies to how I feel about Blyth's <i>Haiku</i>: "may I trumpet the assurance that one reader at least would not wish Hardy's <i>Collected Poems </i>a single page shorter." (Philip Larkin, "Wanted: Good Hardy Critic," in Larkin, <i>Required Writing: Miscellaneous Pieces, 1955-1982 </i>(Faber and Faber 1983), page 174.) (An aside: I completely agree with Larkin's assessment of Hardy's <i>Collected Poems </i>as well.) </div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">To return, then, to spring:</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> The soft breeze,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">And in the green of a thousand hills,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> A single temple.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Shiki (translated by R. H. Blyth), in Blyth, <i>Haiku, Volume II: Spring</i>, page 100.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> In the midst of the plain</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Sings the skylark,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> Free of all things.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Bashō (translated by R. H. Blyth), <i>Ibid</i>, page 198.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> The sea of spring,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Rising and falling,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> All the day long.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Buson (translated by R. H. Blyth), <i>Ibid</i>, page 135.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> The lights are lit</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">On the islands far and near:</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> The spring sea.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Shiki (translated by R. H. Blyth), <i>Ibid</i>, page 135.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> Tilling the field;</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">From the temple among the trees,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> The funeral bell tolls.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Buson (translated by R. H. Blyth), <i>Ibid</i>, page 161.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> Tilling the field:</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">The man who asked the way</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> Has disappeared.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Buson (translated by R. H. Blyth), <i>Ibid</i>, page 165.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheuxICJVbolFCwIeAiEXGxeoWC6xP5CgLRX2PPBf2ag_7TCN8DCO7yix8dVtnIy_MQiWpE7P4GK-1Y_YdwWkwtgTmqBv0_fgT5bPz8s_1GH08lxM-8pYQQ95ifeyuuWpJSAwbc3ab4dbmtBQ1f23_7nmbjh6Bq0_BrGmjen7uOxzRMkNNOpOzijEgEDaLd/s800/BRM_BMAG_1947P1-001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="610" data-original-width="800" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheuxICJVbolFCwIeAiEXGxeoWC6xP5CgLRX2PPBf2ag_7TCN8DCO7yix8dVtnIy_MQiWpE7P4GK-1Y_YdwWkwtgTmqBv0_fgT5bPz8s_1GH08lxM-8pYQQ95ifeyuuWpJSAwbc3ab4dbmtBQ1f23_7nmbjh6Bq0_BrGmjen7uOxzRMkNNOpOzijEgEDaLd/w400-h305/BRM_BMAG_1947P1-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Stanley Spencer, "Rock Gardens, Cookham Dene" (1947)</span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">To repeat Philippe Jaccottet's thoughts about Blyth's <i>Haiku</i>: "While reading these four volumes, it occurred to me more than once that they contained, of all the words I have ever managed to decipher, those closest to the truth." Blyth has brought these words to us. Something that Jaccottet wrote at another time, but not about Blyth, and not about <i>haiku</i>, also comes to mind:</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">"Attachment to the self renders life more opaque. One moment of complete forgetting and all the screens, one behind the other, become transparent so that you can perceive clarity to its very depths, as far as the eye can see; and at the same time everything becomes weightless. Thus does the soul truly become a bird."</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Philippe Jaccottet (notebook entry, May of 1954) (translated by Tess Lewis), in Jaccottet, <i>Seedtime: Notebooks, 1954-1979</i>, page 1.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> Simply trust:</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Do not also the petals flutter down,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> Just like that?</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Issa (1763-1828) (translated by R. H. Blyth), in Blyth, <i>Haiku, Volume II: Spring</i>, page 363.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc49ZsGW-esHWsITkWD8O96apURZzKuB4sBys0U_cKA3YV4YS1Wm8H8N6UfoKv7PBVROsDTz7mNhbcsXLtJZ1k6Atbeiqt9Af1YJ9p2Fs01BHn5_SY2B9Etz6uu_o6O421xiDpGFMtbav3BJ4Ob1Bq0JU89h0LTlzZQomIXKcREuQ6f64UhvD1GSkI2_17/s596/bbo_ssga_22_624x544.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="544" data-original-width="596" height="365" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc49ZsGW-esHWsITkWD8O96apURZzKuB4sBys0U_cKA3YV4YS1Wm8H8N6UfoKv7PBVROsDTz7mNhbcsXLtJZ1k6Atbeiqt9Af1YJ9p2Fs01BHn5_SY2B9Etz6uu_o6O421xiDpGFMtbav3BJ4Ob1Bq0JU89h0LTlzZQomIXKcREuQ6f64UhvD1GSkI2_17/w400-h365/bbo_ssga_22_624x544.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Stanley Spencer, "Scarecrow, Cookham" (1934)</span></div></div>Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-21253656548253708832023-05-24T02:10:00.001-07:002023-05-24T02:10:36.232-07:00Presences<div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">It is that time of year once again: I step out the front door, walk for an hour or so, and return, all the while accompanied by birdsong (occasionally punctuated by a crow's <i>caw-caw-caw </i>from off in the distance, or from directly above -- out of the blue). In the meadows, solitary birds now and then fly up out of the wild grass or hop down a path, voiceless. But the surrounding woods are full of unseen, unceasing choristers.<br /><div><br /></div><div> For Their Own Sake</div><div><br /></div><div>Come down to the woods where the buds burst</div><div>Into fragrances, where the leaves make havoc</div><div>Of cloudy skies. Listen to birds</div><div>Obeying their instincts but also singing</div><div>For singing's sake. By the same token</div><div>Let us be silent for silence's sake,</div><div>Watching the buds, hearing the break</div><div>Free of fledgelings, the branches swinging</div><div>The sun, and never a word need be spoken.</div><div><br /></div><div>Elizabeth Jennings, <i>Consequently I Rejoice </i>(Carcanet 1977).</div><div><br /></div><div>This comes to mind: "the calm oblivious tendencies/Of Nature." (William Wordsworth, <i>The Excursion</i>, Book I ("The Wanderer"), lines 963-964 (1814).) One of those gnomic utterances found so often in the younger Wordsworth (of whom I am fond, although I recognize that others may find him tiresome). "Oblivious" has always given me pause. For instance, how does one reconcile it with immanence? One can lose one's way in trying to unravel the euphoria and contradictions of the marvelous Wordsworthian-Coleridgean pantheism that emerged in 1797, and flourished for a few charmed years.</div><div><br /></div><div>Jennings' poem suggests a reasonable approach: "oblivious" or not, the beautiful particulars of the World are enough in themselves, "for their own sake." Her final words are exactly right: ". . . and never a word need be spoken." For another perspective, we can turn to a lovely poem that has appeared here on more than one occasion: a different note, but in the same neighborhood.</div><div><br /></div><div> Reciprocity</div><div><br /></div><div>I do not think that skies and meadows are</div><div>Moral, or that the fixture of a star</div><div>Comes of a quiet spirit, or that trees</div><div>Have wisdom in their windless silences.</div><div>Yet these are things invested in my mood</div><div>With constancy, and peace, and fortitude,</div><div>That in my troubled season I can cry</div><div>Upon the wide composure of the sky,</div><div>And envy fields, and wish that I might be</div><div>As little daunted as a star or tree.</div><div><br /></div><div>John Drinkwater, <i>Tides </i>(Sidgwick & Jackson 1917).</div><div><br /></div><div>Winter over, the robins no longer gather in flocks. Leaving a meadow and passing through a dark grove of pines, one hears them singing high overhead, each in its own tree.</div><div> </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBpvh8Il7nDi1TRo9mCYuPAEuAKHcozk0WAuBQuYUkNqe6LWo_v0H-0zRSqHNDsUY74Gef-qEisXC5SsJSjk2wsLfVck3faQjAY0k_lWSZ8lYzVxq0VxR_CKc6DCPRHMQooVTDmf06aTnEi--e5-4Mxm1sHgiv524uEL5SI4iEgIINDRwWteBGUfMBNA/s800/CAM_CCF_PD_5_1982.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="671" data-original-width="800" height="335" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBpvh8Il7nDi1TRo9mCYuPAEuAKHcozk0WAuBQuYUkNqe6LWo_v0H-0zRSqHNDsUY74Gef-qEisXC5SsJSjk2wsLfVck3faQjAY0k_lWSZ8lYzVxq0VxR_CKc6DCPRHMQooVTDmf06aTnEi--e5-4Mxm1sHgiv524uEL5SI4iEgIINDRwWteBGUfMBNA/w400-h335/CAM_CCF_PD_5_1982.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">George Mackley (1900-1983), "Brackie's Burn, Northumberland"</span></div></div><div><br /></div><div>On a breezy day, the new deep-green grass in the meadows turns silver as it sways and flows in the morning or afternoon sunlight. And the sound of the rising and falling and threshing silver-green waves, how does one describe that? A rustling? A whispering? A sighing? A soughing? A susurration? All of the above. But words ultimately fail, don't they? Elizabeth Jennings is correct: ". . . and never a word need be spoken." You simply have to be there. No words are necessary. No words are sufficient.</div><div><br /></div><div>My favorite poem of May is Philip Larkin's "<a href="https://firstknownwhenlost.blogspot.com/2012/05/begin-afresh-afresh-afresh.html" target="_blank">The Trees</a>," to which I owe "threshing" in the paragraph immediately above. The source is the poem's final stanza: "Yet still the unresting castles thresh/In fullgrown thickness every May./Last year is dead, they seem to say,/Begin afresh, afresh, afresh." (Philip Larkin, <i>High Windows </i>(Faber and Faber 1974).) However, when it comes to the grass of the meadows in May, I return each year to this:</div><div><br /></div><div> Consider the Grass Growing</div><div><br /></div><div>Consider the grass growing</div><div>As it grew last year and the year before,</div><div>Cool about the ankles like summer rivers,</div><div>When we walked on a May evening through the meadows</div><div>To watch the mare that was going to foal.</div><div><br /></div><div>Patrick Kavanagh, <i>Collected Poems </i>(edited by Antoinette Quinn) (Penguin 2005). The poem was first published in <i>The Irish Press</i> on May 21, 1943. <i>Ibid</i>, page 271.</div><div><br /></div><div>May is an effulgent yet wistful month. It does not have the wistful bittersweetness, or the bittersweet wistfulness, of, say, September or October: Spring continues to burgeon. But the fallen cherry, plum, and magnolia petals lay scattered on the sidewalks, strewn across the grass. On the other hand, along the paths and in the glades five-petaled pink wild roses (called the "Nootka rose" in this part of the world) and purple lupines are in bloom. The "unresting castles" soon will be in their "fullgrown thickness" of green. Ah, yes: "The paradise of Flowers' and Butterflies' Spirits." (Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in Kathleen Coburn (editor), <i>The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume 1: 1794-1804 </i>(Pantheon 1957), Notebook Entry 1736 (December 1803).)</div><div><br /></div><div> The One</div><div><br /></div><div>Green, blue, yellow and red --</div><div>God is down in the swamps and marshes,</div><div>Sensational as April and almost incred-</div><div> ible the flowering of our catharsis.</div><div>A humble scene in a backward place</div><div>Where no one important ever looked;</div><div>The raving flowers looked up in the face</div><div>Of the One and the Endless, the Mind that has baulked</div><div>The profoundest of mortals. A primrose, a violet,</div><div>A violent wild iris -- but mostly anonymous performers,</div><div>Yet an important occasion as the Muse at her toilet</div><div>Prepared to inform the local farmers</div><div>That beautiful, beautiful, beautiful God</div><div>Was breathing His love by a cut-away bog.</div><div><br /></div><div>Patrick Kavanagh, <i>Collected Poems</i>. By splitting "incredible" in lines three and four, Kavanagh is able to contrive a sonnet. (And the rhyming of "marshes" and "catharsis" in lines two and four is no mean feat either.) "The One" was written during Kavanagh's ecstatic "Canal Bank period" of 1955 through 1958, which was prompted by his survival after a brush with lung cancer (with accompanying surgery) in March and April of 1955. <i>Ibid</i>, page 284. The poem was first published in the journal <i>Nonplus </i>in October of 1959. <i>Ibid</i>, page 286.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8t87jdhWZknr0Imguwce3WnUgMUbRL-IhidFyYi4ierX7a6hYD0yuST0R0qFZWVhTWVsDhtGhQ0t1UBSqmdI-NdEVqxWzNnhRBfCf5NXUwD7AdGF_JImadh7nK81Y_w9SXhlzH3mGgZ1ufTF_T2xOdG89iqVkExcmO_t1FFW_GKkuLxsr8uhYMHmgbg/s1200/CBR_AHK_AH_694_68-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="954" data-original-width="1200" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8t87jdhWZknr0Imguwce3WnUgMUbRL-IhidFyYi4ierX7a6hYD0yuST0R0qFZWVhTWVsDhtGhQ0t1UBSqmdI-NdEVqxWzNnhRBfCf5NXUwD7AdGF_JImadh7nK81Y_w9SXhlzH3mGgZ1ufTF_T2xOdG89iqVkExcmO_t1FFW_GKkuLxsr8uhYMHmgbg/w400-h318/CBR_AHK_AH_694_68-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Anne Isabella Brooke (1916-2002)</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">"Wharfedale From Above Bolton Abbey" (c. 1954)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>"All things around us are asking for our apprehension, working for our enlightenment. But our thoughts are of folly. What is worse, every day, and many times in the day, we are enlightened, we are Buddha, a poet, -- but do not know it, and remain an ordinary man. For our sake <i>haiku</i> isolate, as far as it is possible, significance from the mere brute fact or circumstance. It is a single finger pointing to the moon. If you say it is only a finger, and often not a very beautiful one at that, this is so. If the hand is beautiful and bejeweled, we may forget what it is pointing at. Recording a conversation with Blake, [Henry] Crabb Robinson gives us an example of the indifference, or rather the cowardice, of average human nature, in its failure to recognize truth, poetry, when confronted with it in its unornamented form; the lines he quotes from Wordsworth are a "<i>haiku." </i>'I had been in the habit, when reading this marvellous Ode to friends, to omit one or two passages, especially that beginning,</div><div> <i>But there's a Tree, of many, one,</i></div><div><i> A single field</i></div><div><i> That I have looked upon</i>, </div><div>lest I should be rendered ridiculous, being unable to explain precisely <i>what</i> I admired. Not that I acknowledged this to be a fair test. But with Blake I could fear nothing of the kind. And it was this very stanza which threw him almost into a hysterical rapture'."</div><div><br /></div><div>R. H. Blyth, <i>Haiku, Volume III: Summer-Autumn </i>(Hokuseido Press 1952), pages i-ii. The passage quoted by Blyth from Henry Crabb Robinson's papers may be found in Arthur Symons, <i>William Blake </i>(Archibald Constable and Company 1907), pages 296-297 ("Extracts from the Diary, Letters, and Reminiscences of Henry Crabb Robinson"). The "Ode" referred to by Crabb Robinson is "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood."</div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, Blyth's intention is to make a case for the unique beauty and power of <i>haiku</i>. This was, in fact, his mission in life. In my humble opinion, Blyth is entirely correct in his assessment of the Beauty and Truth that may be found in the best <i>haiku</i>, and of the ability of <i>haiku </i>to provide enlightenment (regardless of whether or not such enlightenment occurs within the context of Buddhism). However, as Blyth suggests in this passage (and as he makes clear throughout his writings), the best poetry, in all places and at all times, "is a single finger pointing to the moon." Thus, his observations on <i>haiku</i> are intertwined with references to, and comparisons with, English poetry and Chinese poetry in particular, and world literature and philosophy in general. This catholic approach is one of the features which (again, in my humble opinion) makes his works so interesting, provocative, and, yes, wise, and gives them such charm.</div><div><br /></div><div>All of which leads me (lengthily) to this:</div><div><br /></div><div> Now</div><div><br /></div><div>The longed-for summer goes;</div><div>Dwindles away</div><div>To its last rose,</div><div>Its narrowest day.</div><div><br /></div><div>No heaven-sweet air but must die;</div><div>Softlier float,</div><div>Breathe lingeringly</div><div>Its final note.</div><div><br /></div><div>Oh, what dull truths to tell!</div><div><i>Now </i>is the all-sufficing all</div><div>Wherein to love the lovely well,</div><div>Whate'er befall.</div><div><br /></div><div>Walter de la Mare, <i>O Lovely England and Other Poems </i>(Faber and Faber 1953).</div><div><br /></div><div>"Now" perfectly complements the observations made by Blyth in the passage quoted above. "<i>Now </i>is the all-sufficing all/Wherein to love the lovely well,/Whate'er befall." Consider this from Blyth: "All things around us are asking for our apprehension, working for our enlightenment." Or this: "every day, and many times in the day, we are enlightened, we are Buddha, a poet, -- but do not know it, and remain an ordinary man." As I noted above, although Blyth is making a case for the beauty and power of <i>haiku</i>, his observations are arguably applicable to all of the best poetry (although I certainly agree that <i>haiku </i>does have a special beauty and power that is the product of a unique and wonderful culture and language).</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF2IVQQSOBd54pMXICoxV547oD4xBNH8xq4T6_JJUD0vT36ieH43m1I-1PdqorJvJC6U9pUM3qmPOcAQPFI0BgSybgKJhKCG1oE9064wMnKBkzqHbtEyTKg1zhBeMeEZJODBdoprylcd9O-wapg7AA5ULvbzgSOI1o_eU87FwhUKOw0yp5IhDI0wSbzQ/s714/HSW_WMAG_FA0287-001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="685" data-original-width="714" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF2IVQQSOBd54pMXICoxV547oD4xBNH8xq4T6_JJUD0vT36ieH43m1I-1PdqorJvJC6U9pUM3qmPOcAQPFI0BgSybgKJhKCG1oE9064wMnKBkzqHbtEyTKg1zhBeMeEZJODBdoprylcd9O-wapg7AA5ULvbzgSOI1o_eU87FwhUKOw0yp5IhDI0wSbzQ/w400-h384/HSW_WMAG_FA0287-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Leonard Pike (1887-1959), "The Chasing Shadows"</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Who knows why we are here in this "paradise of Flowers' and Butterflies' Spirits." During the short time we have, we should pay attention, and -- above all -- be grateful. Speaking for myself, I fail each day. But the poets daily remind me to attend to the World.</div><div><br /></div><div> Night</div><div><br /></div><div>That shining moon -- watched by that one faint star:</div><div>Sure now am I, beyond the fear of change,</div><div>The lovely in life is the familiar,</div><div>And only the lovelier for continuing strange.</div><div><br /></div><div>Walter de la Mare, <i>Memory and Other Poems </i>(Constable 1938).</div><div><br /></div><div>One sometimes feels at a loss. But then you happen upon something like this:</div><div><br /></div><div> A night of stars;</div><div>The cherry blossoms are falling</div><div> On the water of the rice seedlings.</div><div><br /></div><div>Buson (1716-1784) (translated by R. H. Blyth), in R. H. Blyth, <i>Haiku, Volume II: Spring </i>(Hokuseido Press 1950), page 170.</div><div><br /></div><div>And the reflections of the stars float with the fallen cherry petals on the water, among the rice seedlings.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV9SpfhUuqAS3pTkkEFhuWpj1DEWCfzmMnuKrmZKVt2S2Hxgb0PTmzhzVG6GFHYIE2dzIYimtZ5eebj87F9eIqitRchHWF3MeJc8Vyx1H0hpncZcUb98_QA5p5bBCIkl0637q-gFatIQtOkhGmqAp4BKfLmrzaemN8JQmiKi3KrLJ9h6kejX_RESMqPQ/s1200/GMII_SAHS_1929_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="922" data-original-width="1200" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV9SpfhUuqAS3pTkkEFhuWpj1DEWCfzmMnuKrmZKVt2S2Hxgb0PTmzhzVG6GFHYIE2dzIYimtZ5eebj87F9eIqitRchHWF3MeJc8Vyx1H0hpncZcUb98_QA5p5bBCIkl0637q-gFatIQtOkhGmqAp4BKfLmrzaemN8JQmiKi3KrLJ9h6kejX_RESMqPQ/w400-h308/GMII_SAHS_1929_2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"> Herbert Hughes-Stanton (1870-1937)</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">"The Mill in the Valley" (1892)</span></div></div>Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-28013173617347281952023-04-05T03:00:00.000-07:002023-04-05T03:00:07.311-07:00Peace and Quiet<div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">All I ask for in life is peace and quiet, accompanied by an occasional fugitive encounter with Beauty and Truth. How does one go about pursuing these elusive will-o'-the-wisps? I have no wisdom to impart on this score. What do I know? I go for a daily walk in the green and blue and parti-colored World. Each day I read one or two poems. I try to pay attention. Above all, I try to be grateful. But failure is an everyday occurrence. </div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">This course of action is no doubt simplistic and unambitious (and, some might argue, solipsistic). But I have wise and reliable guides. This entails looking backwards. How presumptuous and narrow-minded it is to imagine that we inhabitants of the contemporary world know more about life than those who have preceded us. Everything we need to know about how to live can be found in the past. We moderns have nothing to add.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><div><br /></div><div>From early days I have been at odds with the world;</div><div>My instinctive love is hills and mountains.</div><div>By mischance I fell into the dusty net</div><div>And was thirteen years away from home.</div><div>The migrant bird longs for its native grove.</div><div>The fish in the pond recalls the former depths.</div><div>Now I have cleared some land to the south of town;</div><div>Simplicity intact, I have returned to farm.</div><div>The land I own amounts to a couple of acres.</div><div>The thatched-roof house has four or five rooms.</div><div>Elms and willows shade the eaves in back,</div><div>Peach and plum stretch out before the hall.</div><div>Distant villages are lost in haze,</div><div>Above the houses smoke hangs in the air.</div><div>A dog is barking somewhere in a hidden lane,</div><div>A cock crows from the top of a mulberry tree.</div><div>My home remains unsoiled by worldly dust;</div><div>Within bare rooms I have my peace of mind.</div><div>For long I was a prisoner in a cage,</div><div>And now I have my freedom back again.</div><div><br /></div><div>T'ao Ch'ien (365-427) (translated by James Hightower), in James Hightower, <i>The Poetry of T'ao Ch'ien</i> (Oxford University Press 1970), page 50. The poem (which is untitled) is the first poem in a five-poem sequence titled "Returning to the Farm to Dwell." <i>Ibid</i>, page 50.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Thirteen years away from home" refers to T'ao Ch'ien's career as a government official, a position he qualified for by passing a rigorous series of civil service examinations (which required extensive knowledge of, and the ability to skillfully write, poetry). (I described these examinations, as well as the typical course of a governmental career in China, in <a href="http://firstknownwhenlost.blogspot.com/2022/11/passers-by.html" target="_blank">a previous post</a>.) It is fortunate that T'ao Ch'ien escaped "the dusty net" of the world. He is arguably the finest Chinese lyrical (<i>shih</i>) poet prior to the well-known poets of the T'ang Dynasty three to four centuries later (Li Po, Tu Fu, Wang Wei, Po Chü-i, and Han-shan). But he is perhaps equally revered in China for the decision he made to abandon his bureaucratic career in order to return to the country to become a farmer. He was not a wealthy gentleman-farmer. He farmed to make a living, and he and his family suffered failed crops and the loss of a home to fire. The vicissitudes and joys of this life are documented in his poems, and, although occasional misgivings and laments may be found in the poetry, he remained true to his commitment.</div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, poets at all times and in all places have longed for what T'ao Ch'ien longed for in Fourth and Fifth Century China: to be free of "the dusty net" and of "worldly dust."</div><div><br /></div><div>Happy were he could finish forth his fate</div><div> In some unhaunted desert, most obscure</div><div>From all societies, from love and hate</div><div> Of worldly folk; then might he sleep secure;</div><div>Then wake again, and give God ever praise,</div><div> Content with hips and haws and bramble-berry;</div><div>In contemplation spending all his days,</div><div> And change of holy thoughts to make him merry;</div><div>Where, when he dies, his tomb may be a bush,</div><div>Where harmless robin dwells with gentle thrush.</div><div><br /></div><div>Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex (1566-1601), in Norman Ault (editor), <i>Elizabethan Lyrics, From the Original Texts </i>(Longmans, Green and Co. 1928), page 270. Alas, I fear that Devereux never found his "unhaunted desert": his short and tempestuous life ended with a beheading for a plot against Queen Elizabeth I. But perhaps he at least now lies "where harmless robin dwells with gentle thrush."</div><div><br /></div><div>The pursuit of "content" is a recurring theme in Elizabethan poetry (together with love and death). This makes sense: "content" seems to be more attainable, and less transitory, than the fickle, ever-changing chimera of "happiness" (whatever that is).</div><div><br /></div><div>Were I a king, I could command content.</div><div> Were I obscure, unknown should be my cares.</div><div>And were I dead, no thoughts should me torment,</div><div> Nor words, nor wrongs, nor loves, nor hopes, nor fears.</div><div>A doubtful choice, of three things one to crave,</div><div>A kingdom, or a cottage, or a grave.</div><div><br /></div><div>Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford (1550-1604), <i>Ibid</i>, page 110.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo7Kv5Bm7EOuKBPbdN3adV3cI60o7RA_LY83vBMPWSTiMJHtA_dPdSwnoL-1xwIeJ3tROUdIuxiv-89WqkiWdCw3uP9VhUsvlMDo3H3s7Ue9JUJ0-zWnS06FUzwM3g-tsAGigO5ImSh_td25yyYOkCaBaS-roBeU7YE5kIeqHFrK8JV1kmv95q_TyMVQ/s1200/PKA_ACO_F2022_45-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="986" data-original-width="1200" height="329" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo7Kv5Bm7EOuKBPbdN3adV3cI60o7RA_LY83vBMPWSTiMJHtA_dPdSwnoL-1xwIeJ3tROUdIuxiv-89WqkiWdCw3uP9VhUsvlMDo3H3s7Ue9JUJ0-zWnS06FUzwM3g-tsAGigO5ImSh_td25yyYOkCaBaS-roBeU7YE5kIeqHFrK8JV1kmv95q_TyMVQ/w400-h329/PKA_ACO_F2022_45-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">James Torrington Bell (1892-1970), "Hatton Farm, Inverarity"</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Although T'ao Ch'ien was certainly influenced by Taoism, Confucianism, and, to a lesser extent, Buddhism, his decision to escape "the dusty net" was ultimately based upon his own sense of what was right for him, not upon philosophical or religious principles. His reasons are articulated in the poem above, and we should take him at his word, for he was never one to equivocate or dissemble: he had always been "at odds with the world;" he wished to keep his "simplicity intact;" he sought "peace of mind" and "freedom." Near the end of his life, he wrote his own prose "Elegy." In it, he states: "There was little enough reward for my labor, but my mind enjoyed a constant leisure. Content with Heaven and accepting my lot, I have lived out the years of my life. . . . Aware of my destined end, of which one cannot be ignorant, I find no cause for regret in this present transformation. I have lived out my lifespan, and all my life I have desired quiet retirement. Now that I am dying, an old man, what have I left to wish for?" (Translated by James Hightower, in James Hightower, <i>The Poetry of T'ao Ch'ien</i>, page 6.) He returns to these essential themes in nearly every poem he wrote.</div><div><br /></div><div>Fall chrysanthemums have beautiful colors:</div><div>dew still on them, I pick the blossoms,</div><div>float them on this drowner of care --</div><div>it makes me feel farther than ever from the world.</div><div>Though I'm alone as I pour my wine,</div><div>when the cup's empty, somehow the jar tips itself.</div><div>The sun has set, all moving things stilled;</div><div>homing birds hurry to the woods, singing,</div><div>and I whistle jauntily by the eastern eaves --</div><div>another day I get to live this life.</div><div><br /></div><div>T'ao Ch'ien (translated by Burton Watson), in Burton Watson, <i>The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry: From Early Times to the Thirteenth Century </i>(Columbia University Press 1984), page 136. The poem is untitled. It is the seventh poem in a sequence of twenty poems titled "Drinking Wine." <i>Ibid</i>, page 134. Watson provides this note to the phrase "this drowner of care" in the third line: "Literally, 'the thing for forgetting care,' one of T'ao's terms for wine. The chrysanthemum was believed to have medicinal properties." <i>Ibid</i>, page 136.</div><div><br /></div><div>As I noted above, those who have preceded us have provided us with all we need to know about how to live. Thus, for instance, approximately two centuries prior to T'ao Ch'ien's time, a Roman emperor wrote this (in Greek, the language of his Stoic teachers):</div><div><br /></div><div>"A man may any hour he pleases retire into himself; and nowhere will he find a place of more quiet and leisure than in his own soul: especially if he has that furniture within, the view of which immediately gives him the fullest tranquillity. By tranquillity, I mean the most graceful order. Allow yourself continually this retirement, and refresh and renew your self. . . . For the future, then, remember to retire into this little part of yourself. Above all things, keep yourself from distraction, and intense desires. . . . Have these two thoughts ever the readiest in all emergencies: one, that 'the things themselves reach not to the soul, but stand without, still and motionless. All your perturbation comes from inward opinions about them.' The other, that 'all these things presently change, and shall be no more.' Frequently recollect what changes thou hast observed. The world is a continual change; life is opinion."</div><div><br /></div><div>Marcus Aurelius, <i>Meditations</i>, Book IV, Section 3, in Francis Hutcheson and James Moor (translators), <i>The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus </i>(1742).</div><div><br /></div><div>Given the sad and harrowing circumstances of his life, Ivor Gurney was not able to fashion a path to peace and quiet similar to that embodied in the lives and words of T'ao Ch'ien and Marcus Aurelius (who each, it should be said, had their own struggles and doubts). And yet Gurney's poetry comes to mind as I think about the pursuit of peace and quiet, Beauty and Truth. He did pursue them, and he sometimes -- albeit fitfully and briefly -- found them.</div><div><br /></div><div>Soft rain beats upon my windows</div><div>Hardly hammering.</div><div>But by the great gusts guessed further off</div><div>Up by the bare moor and brambly headland</div><div>Heaven and earth make war.</div><div><br /></div><div>That savage toss of the pine boughs past music</div><div>And the roar of the elms. . . .</div><div>Here come, in the candle light, soft reminder</div><div>Of poetry's truth, while rain beats as softly here</div><div>As sleep, or shelter of farms.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ivor Gurney, <i>Selected Poems </i>(edited by George Walter) (J. M. Dent 1996), page 97. The poem is untitled. It was not published during Gurney's lifetime. George Walter provides this note to the text of the poem: "undated manuscript on loose sheet. A typescript version notes that this was 'written at Dartford, probably about 1926 or 1927'." <i>Ibid</i>, page 105. Gurney was confined in the City of London Mental Hospital (known as "Stone House") at Dartford (in Kent) from December of 1922 until his death in December of 1937. The ellipses in line 7 appear in the manuscript.</div><div><br /></div><div>Knowing what Gurney went through in his life, reading a poem such as this breaks one's heart. The phrase "shelter of farms" in the last line leads naturally to this:</div><div><br /></div><div> The Shelter from the Storm</div><div><br /></div><div>And meantime fearing snow the flocks are brought in,</div><div>They are in the barn where stone tiles and wood shelter</div><div>From the harm shield; where the rosy-faced farmer's daughter</div><div>Goes to visit them.</div><div><br /></div><div>She pats and fondles all her most favourite first.</div><div>then after that the shivering and unhappy ones --</div><div>Spreads hay, looks up at the noble and gray roof vast</div><div>And says 'This will stop storms.'</div><div><br /></div><div>Her mind is with her books in the low-ceilinged kitchen</div><div>Where the twigs blaze. -- and she sees not sheep alone</div><div>of the Cotswold, but in the Italian shelters songs repeating</div><div>Herdsmen kind, from the blast gone.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ivor Gurney, <i>Selected Poems</i>, page 92. George Walter notes that the poem is found in a "group of manuscripts on loose sheets," with some of the sheets "dated September 1926." <i>Ibid</i>, page 105. The punctuation is as it appears in the manuscript. The poem was not published during Gurney's lifetime.</div><div><br /></div><div>[A side-note: I recommend Kate Kennedy's recent biography of Gurney: <i>Dweller in Shadows: A Life of Ivor Gurney </i>(Princeton University Press 2021). I also recommend <i>Ivor Gurney: The Complete Poetical Works </i>(Oxford University Press), the ongoing multi-volume edition of Gurney's poetry which is being wonderfully presented and edited by Philip Lancaster and Tim Kendall. <i>Volume I: March 1907-December 1918 </i>was published in 2020, and four additional volumes are forthcoming. Gurney deserves this attention.]</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuZKUbt6nJIJ6BGyYW2BvHOFuxeI6Jep01PL3T1CsKP801nmJUlRT4oFtI3wQVPi3Q-uIF5rcsuhg-UR_u9MdPLZ-s5fbqtIkYGpLJx5DPHVoeERqRKT_Jq-h-njc4OG5ccD39F60uhRizgnH8lnr73TqpnMqgm0xv0-RIPp9q9PV9Hcv0K7_17dYbGQ/s1200/PKA_ACO_F2022_94-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="966" data-original-width="1200" height="323" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuZKUbt6nJIJ6BGyYW2BvHOFuxeI6Jep01PL3T1CsKP801nmJUlRT4oFtI3wQVPi3Q-uIF5rcsuhg-UR_u9MdPLZ-s5fbqtIkYGpLJx5DPHVoeERqRKT_Jq-h-njc4OG5ccD39F60uhRizgnH8lnr73TqpnMqgm0xv0-RIPp9q9PV9Hcv0K7_17dYbGQ/w400-h323/PKA_ACO_F2022_94-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">James Torrington Bell, "Farmhand Stacking Hay Stooks"</span></div><div><br /></div><div>T'ao Ch'ien returns to his chrysanthemums beneath the eastern hedge and to homing birds at dusk in the following serene and simple poem, which captures the essence of the life he sought to live, yet reminds us that, in the end, words are -- quite rightly -- of no use.</div><div><br /></div><div>I built my hut in a zone of human habitation,</div><div>Yet near me there sounds no noise of horse or coach.</div><div> Would you know how that is possible?</div><div>A heart that is distant creates a wilderness round it.</div><div>I pluck chrysanthemums under the eastern hedge,</div><div>Then gaze long at the distant summer hills.</div><div>The mountain air is fresh at the dusk of day;</div><div>The flying birds two by two return.</div><div>In these things there lies a deep meaning;</div><div>Yet when we would express it, words suddenly fail us.</div><div><br /></div><div>T'ao Ch'ien (translated by Arthur Waley), in Arthur Waley, <i>One Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems </i>(Constable 1918), page 76. This is the fifth poem in the twenty-poem "Drinking Wine" sequence.</div><div><br /></div><div>The final two lines of the poem bring to mind a statement by Ludwig Wittgenstein which has appeared here on more than one occasion: "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence." (Ludwig Wittgenstein (translated by David Pears and Brian McGuinness), Proposition 7, <i>Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus </i>(1921).) An alternative translation (by C. K. Ogden) is: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."</div><div><br /></div><div>Last week, I came across these words by Petrarch: "a soul serene and tranquil in itself fears not the coming of any shadow from without and is deaf to all the thunder of the world." (Petrarch, <i>De Secreto Conflictu Curarum Mearum </i>(often referred to simply as "<i>Secretum</i>"), in William Draper (editor and translator), <i>Petrarch's Secret, or The Soul's Conflict with Passion </i>(Chatto & Windus 1911), page 104.) <i>Secretum </i>is structured as three imaginary dialogues between Petrarch and Saint Augustine. The words quoted above are spoken by Saint Augustine in the second dialogue. A few pages prior to the passage, Petrarch has Saint Augustine say this: "If, however, the tumult of your mind within should once learn to calm itself down, believe me, this din and bustle around you, though it will strike upon your senses, will not touch your soul." <i>Ibid</i>, page 98. Petrarch's words and thoughts (put by him into the mouth of Saint Augustine) are a remarkable echo of the passage from the <i>Meditations </i>of Marcus Aurelius which I quoted above.</div><div><br /></div><div> Heaven-Haven</div><div> <i>A nun takes the veil</i></div><div><br /></div><div> I have desired to go</div><div> Where springs not fail,</div><div>To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail</div><div> And a few lilies blow.</div><div><br /></div><div> And I have asked to be</div><div> Where no storms come,</div><div>Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,</div><div> And out of the swing of the sea.</div><div><br /></div><div>Gerard Manley Hopkins, in W. H. Gardner and N. H. MacKenzie (editors), <i>The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins </i>(Oxford University Press 1967), page 19. "Blow" (line 4) is used in the now, alas, "archaic" sense of "to bloom."</div><div><br /></div><div>The wisdom of the past is ever-present and ever-alive, a winding but continuous thread that is there for the finding and tracing, if we so choose.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLI1W8g9LAgAx61c2wb_9yhYsPqHBUScxA3yMUYjK5eskMED9-ry1czle0fTlW0jAVMTpkiBOJjlZUC5d04Kn_1tqM2K23chbbsEli1OU6RhgOkW6dOxMe2r9ih3ajdAsRBrTkx_-oGc-LPNwh-YYX_iXZS-TvnBVzdYoZTpvVxIREAmF31CS4W7JSJw/s1200/PKA_ACO_F2022_79-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="794" data-original-width="1200" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLI1W8g9LAgAx61c2wb_9yhYsPqHBUScxA3yMUYjK5eskMED9-ry1czle0fTlW0jAVMTpkiBOJjlZUC5d04Kn_1tqM2K23chbbsEli1OU6RhgOkW6dOxMe2r9ih3ajdAsRBrTkx_-oGc-LPNwh-YYX_iXZS-TvnBVzdYoZTpvVxIREAmF31CS4W7JSJw/w400-h265/PKA_ACO_F2022_79-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">James Torrington Bell, "Landscape"</span></div></div></div>Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-49868639367920860332023-03-03T01:20:00.000-08:002023-03-03T01:20:07.764-08:00DreamsEach year I grow fonder of the robins who spend the winter here, gathering into small flocks, making their way across the meadows and through the woodlands. I suspect this fondness is partly a product of aging. Growing up in Minnesota, I was always on the lookout for rarer, more colorful birds: cardinals and Baltimore orioles, for instance. Robins were generally regarded as being lovable, but commonplace, with one exception: in the dark, cold, snowbound, and legendary Minnesota winters of yesteryear we all awaited "the first robin of Spring."<div><br /></div><div>Ah, what an inattentive, distracted, and somnolent life I have lived! The robins stroll and peck and chatter with one another, the flock spread out widely across a bright green field on a sunny late winter afternoon: alone, but together; each one of them catching the slanting yellow light, each one of them unlike anything else in the World. Agleam. I have been fast asleep.<br /><div><br /></div><div> In the Fields</div><div><br /></div><div>Lord, when I look at lovely things which pass,</div><div> Under old trees the shadows of young leaves</div><div>Dancing to please the wind along the grass,</div><div> Or the gold stillness of the August sun on the August sheaves,</div><div>Can I believe there is a heavenlier world than this?</div><div> And if there is</div><div>Will the strange heart of any everlasting thing</div><div> Bring me these dreams that take my breath away?</div><div>They come at evening with the home-flying rooks and the scent of hay,</div><div> Over the fields. They come in Spring.</div><div><br /></div><div>Charlotte Mew, <i>Complete Poems </i>(edited by John Newton) (Penguin 2000), page 71. The poem was first published in March of 1923. <i>Ibid</i>, page 121.</div><div><br /></div><div>"These dreams that take my breath away." More on this anon. But, in the meantime, here is something complementary to put beside "In the Fields":</div><div><br /></div><div>"Lessons from the world around us: certain localities, certain moments, 'incline' us towards them; there seems to be the pressure of a hand, an invisible hand, urging a change of direction (of the footsteps, the gaze, or the thoughts); the hand could also be a breath, like the breath behind leaves, clouds, sailing boats. An insinuation, in an undertone like someone whispering 'look,' 'listen,' or merely 'wait.' But is there still the time, the patience to wait? And is 'waiting' really the right word?"</div><div><br /></div><div>Philippe Jaccottet (translated by Mark Treharne), <i>Cherry Tree (Le Cerisier) </i>(The Delos Press 1991), pages 13-14.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEget-087_cRi45CpXoyD2wC4JI4Mm3BIdMHaDBiZN8eMSNTgG-5MP1VNjpfIqJBZPChKchg51GlwqV-_A6FpWjeThZ4b2P2NZBcoGSUX-cIp1CuTkRtD4QPw8mmi0Re-wMU-HzSpIYdgNQaLhFGASz38eXUsMTH477YNMtRi6hAFPsIOZRibRnXqBqO_A/s944/PTB_PLM_PLYMG_1965_41-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="704" data-original-width="944" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEget-087_cRi45CpXoyD2wC4JI4Mm3BIdMHaDBiZN8eMSNTgG-5MP1VNjpfIqJBZPChKchg51GlwqV-_A6FpWjeThZ4b2P2NZBcoGSUX-cIp1CuTkRtD4QPw8mmi0Re-wMU-HzSpIYdgNQaLhFGASz38eXUsMTH477YNMtRi6hAFPsIOZRibRnXqBqO_A/w400-h299/PTB_PLM_PLYMG_1965_41-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Gilbert Spencer (1892-1979), "Little Park, Lyme Regis" (1956)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>At times, Charlotte Mew's poetry seems to echo the religious concerns found throughout Christina Rossetti's poetry. However, there is a hesitation, a questioning, in Mew's poems which is seldom present in Rossetti's work (which can perhaps be described as devotional). Thus, "In the Fields" begins with a query to God: "Can I believe there is a heavenlier world than this?" Mew continues: "And if there is/Will the strange heart of any everlasting thing/Bring me these dreams that take my breath away?" What might have seemed a straightforward hymn to Nature and Creation is transformed into something else entirely by those four lovely and remarkable lines. (By the way, "the strange heart of any everlasting thing" deserves a great deal of attention in itself. "Strange heart"? Wonderful.)</div><div><br /></div><div>But I fear I am wandering too far into the much-to-be-avoided territory of explanation and explication. It is the beguiling beauty of "these dreams that take my breath away" which captures me, and which in turn leads to this:</div><div><br /></div><div> Do Dreams Lie Deeper?</div><div><br /></div><div> His dust looks up to the changing sky</div><div> Through daisies' eyes;</div><div> And when a swallow flies</div><div> Only so high</div><div> He hears her going by</div><div> As daisies do. He does not die</div><div>In this brown earth where he was glad enough to lie.</div><div> But looking up from that other bed,</div><div> "There is something more my own," he said,</div><div> "Than hands or feet or this restless head</div><div> That must be buried when I am dead.</div><div> The Trumpet may wake every other sleeper.</div><div> Do dreams lie deeper --?</div><div> And what sunrise</div><div> When these are shut shall open their little eyes?</div><div> They are my children, they have very lovely faces --</div><div> And how does one bury the breathless dreams?</div><div> They are not of the earth and not of the sea,</div><div>They have no friends here but the flakes of the falling snow;</div><div> You and I will go down two paces --</div><div> Where do they go?"</div><div><br /></div><div>Charlotte Mew, <i>Complete Poems</i>, pages 73-74. The poem was first published in <i>The Rambling Sailor </i>(Poetry Bookshop 1929) after Mew's death in 1928. </div><div><br /></div><div>I confess that I have never known quite what to make of this, other than to say that I love it. I do not propose to pick apart its many wonders. But please compare "Will the strange heart of any everlasting thing/Bring me these dreams that take my breath away?" with this: "And how does one bury the breathless dreams?" One senses the hesitation and questioning that I mentioned above. But, again, it is the beauty which captures me. "And how does one bury the breathless dreams?" As well as this: "Do dreams lie deeper --?" And this: "You and I will go down two paces --/Where do they go?"</div><div><br /></div><div>Once more, some thoughts by Philippe Jaccottet may be apt, not as a direct commentary on Mew's two poems, but as a kindred exploration of the World:</div><div><br /></div><div>"Of all my uncertainties, the least uncertain (the one least removed from the first glimmers of a belief) is the one given to me by poetic experience: the thought that there <i>is </i>something unknown, something evasive, at the origin of things, at the very centre of our being. But I am incapable of attributing to this unknown, to <i>that</i>, any of the names allotted to it in turn by history. Can it therefore teach me no lesson -- outside the poetry in which it speaks --, offer me no directive in the way I conduct my life?</div><div><br /></div><div>"As I reflect on all this I begin to see nonetheless that the poetic experience does give me direction, at least towards a sense of the <i>high</i>; and this is because I am quite naturally led to see poetry as a glimpse of the Highest and to regard it in a sense (and why not?) as it has been regarded from its very beginnings, as a <i>mirror of the heavens</i>."</div><div><br /></div><div>Philippe Jaccottet (translated by Mark Treharne), <i>Landscapes with Absent Figures </i>(The Delos Press/The Menard Press 1997), page 157. The italics appear in the original text.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxU7cbHJBaa1CU1uekngIrMhJlrJ4kozUOMD25-WGeTqMsRaHNTfAyfi3-geOL8ANrGWEdTxiAHw-syFvpP1MmQEVd77Nk1WaIgpw3FBjQ_s0XEpBA1LU3e2Vg0FC7Clv-4QkGiI5X8lP9EX9TCj7rm6y9JWId30Ig2HOtuocU9CuphkTqUwL61ZS_cA/s1200/WMR_RAA_PL003011-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1014" data-original-width="1200" height="338" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxU7cbHJBaa1CU1uekngIrMhJlrJ4kozUOMD25-WGeTqMsRaHNTfAyfi3-geOL8ANrGWEdTxiAHw-syFvpP1MmQEVd77Nk1WaIgpw3FBjQ_s0XEpBA1LU3e2Vg0FC7Clv-4QkGiI5X8lP9EX9TCj7rm6y9JWId30Ig2HOtuocU9CuphkTqUwL61ZS_cA/w400-h338/WMR_RAA_PL003011-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Gilbert Spencer, "From My Studio" (1959)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>"There <i>is</i> something unknown, something evasive, at the origin of things, at the very centre of our being." In his poetry and prose, Philippe Jaccottet is an eloquent, patient, and painstaking observer of the beautiful particulars of the World, but a key feature of his work is his continual recognition of the ineffable mystery that lies at the heart of the World. Words will always fail us.</div><div><br /></div><div>Dreams: absolute clarity coupled with evanescence. Gone in an instant, never to be recalled. "These dreams that take my breath away." "And how does one bury the breathless dreams?" Charlotte Mew was onto something. But the mystery remains.</div><div><br /></div><div> The Sunlit House</div><div><br /></div><div>White through the gate it gleamed and slept</div><div> In shuttered sunshine: the parched garden flowers,</div><div>Their fallen petals from the beds unswept,</div><div> Like children unloved and ill-kept</div><div> Dreamed through the hours.</div><div>Two blue hydrangeas by the blistered door, burned brown,</div><div> Watched there and no one in the town</div><div> Cared to go past it, night or day,</div><div> Though why this was they wouldn't say.</div><div>But I, the stranger, knew that I must stay,</div><div> Pace up the weed-grown paths and down,</div><div> Till one afternoon -- there is just a doubt --</div><div> But I fancy I heard a tiny shout --</div><div> From an upper window a bird flew out --</div><div> And I went my way.</div><div><br /></div><div>Charlotte Mew, <i>Complete Poems</i>, page 55. The poem was written before July 29, 1913, and was first published in 1921. <i>Ibid</i>, page 117.</div><div><br /></div><div>Philippe Jaccottet has also written of a garden:</div><div><br /></div><div>"I should very much like to go beyond these meagre findings, to extract from these scattered signs an entire sentence which would act as a commandment. I cannot. I claimed in the past to be a 'servant of the visible world.' Yet what I do is more like the work of a gardener tending a garden and too often neglecting it: the weeds of time.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Where are the gods of this garden? I sometimes see my uncertainties as the snowflakes whirled by the wind, stirred, blown upwards, abandoned, or the birds half obeying the wind, half playing with it, and offering us the sight of wings which are sometimes as black as night, sometimes gleaming with the reflection of some strange light.</div><div><br /></div><div>"(So it would be possible to live without definite hopes, but not without help, with the thought -- so close to certainty -- that if there is a single hope, a single opening for man, it would not be refused to someone who had lived 'beneath this sky.')</div><div><br /></div><div>"(The highest hope would be that the whole sky were really a gaze.)"</div><div><br /></div><div>Philippe Jaccottet (translated by Mark Treharne), <i>Landscapes with Absent Figures</i>, page 159.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl9CXHFRopKrBO_CUb85yaF3jQMnGKPm6K06DdYp9IuaIYwewM2GXNx7cLKgWd5IlEP6DjW4wWLrWjjV8eftuXOhgIdq2uRI1VySyxGL1gzFQm30DdYoDQxmEYsItui1lu-qHk6H1d2t6X3OysOs8GzMLsIxYisloIYcuco-1BDojwJqfRVV2iXQntLA/s944/LAN_BLAG_990-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="676" data-original-width="944" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl9CXHFRopKrBO_CUb85yaF3jQMnGKPm6K06DdYp9IuaIYwewM2GXNx7cLKgWd5IlEP6DjW4wWLrWjjV8eftuXOhgIdq2uRI1VySyxGL1gzFQm30DdYoDQxmEYsItui1lu-qHk6H1d2t6X3OysOs8GzMLsIxYisloIYcuco-1BDojwJqfRVV2iXQntLA/w400-h286/LAN_BLAG_990-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Gilbert Spencer, "Wooded Landscape"</span></div><div><br /></div><div>"The most precious thing in life is its uncertainty. Consider living creatures -- none lives so long as man. The May fly waits not for the evening, the summer cicada knows neither spring nor autumn. What a wonderfully unhurried feeling it is to live even a single year in perfect serenity! If that is not enough for you, you might live a thousand years and still feel it was but a single night's dream."</div><div><br /></div><div>Kenkō (1283-1350) (translated by Donald Keene), <i>Tsurezuregusa</i>, Chapter 7, in Donald Keene (editor and translator), <i>Essays in Idleness: The Tsurezuregusa of Kenkō </i>(Columbia University Press 1967), pages 7-8.</div><div><br /></div><div>Perhaps we should think of this uncertain life as a series of dreams. If we are attentive -- and, above all else, grateful -- these dreams can take our breath away.</div><div><br /></div><div>To a mountain village</div><div> at nightfall on a spring day</div><div> I came and saw this:</div><div>blossoms scattering on echoes</div><div> from the vespers bell.</div><div><br /></div><div>Nōin (988-1050) (translated by Steven Carter), in Steven Carter (editor), <i>Traditional Japanese Poetry: An Anthology </i>(Stanford University Press 1991), page 134.</div><div><br /></div><div>All winter long, the robins have charmingly chattered amongst themselves about practical matters (the weather, the search for food, where to spend the night) as they walked and flitted across the meadows. But, at this time of year, by ones and twos they fly up into the bare branches of the bordering trees and begin to sing.</div><div><br /></div><div> On the Road on a Spring Day</div><div><br /></div><div>There is no coming, there is no going.</div><div>From what quarter departed? Toward what quarter bound?</div><div>Pity him! in the midst of his journey, journeying --</div><div>Flowers and willows in spring profusion, everywhere fragrance.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ryūsen Reisai (d. 1365) (translated by Marian Ury), in Marian Ury (editor), <i>Poems of the Five Mountains </i>(Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan 1992), page 33. Ury provides this note to the poem: "The poem begins with a Zen truism, which is expanded into a personal statement." <i>Ibid</i>, page 33.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxZKcMV12svP8pq-goAlne6BNl4q-5gtLFwCznwX7F-f0bxjFXQ02HIfus5ALQm5LW9OtFVktYetqeh-6t_s-CA9fGzFPp5to95YMNqs1WD4wfdClfRXLQfp679dev1Sr3itz0J3wAe5AaE7RH9z7ClBlANUJ5KXBl0G7RPhudfRwKygYL2QA8_lRrnA/s800/GMIII_MCAG_1937_674-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="800" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxZKcMV12svP8pq-goAlne6BNl4q-5gtLFwCznwX7F-f0bxjFXQ02HIfus5ALQm5LW9OtFVktYetqeh-6t_s-CA9fGzFPp5to95YMNqs1WD4wfdClfRXLQfp679dev1Sr3itz0J3wAe5AaE7RH9z7ClBlANUJ5KXBl0G7RPhudfRwKygYL2QA8_lRrnA/w400-h330/GMIII_MCAG_1937_674-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Gilbert Spencer, "The Cottage Window" (c. 1937)</span></div></div>Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-36802776970114486172023-02-05T01:50:00.000-08:002023-02-05T01:50:07.785-08:00In Passing"Life passes swiftly, hedged by sorrow;/how long before you've lost it -- a scene like this?" (Su Tung-p'o (1037-1101), "<a href="https://firstknownwhenlost.blogspot.com/2015/03/little-things.html" target="_blank">On a Boat, Awake at Night</a>.") One of the pleasures of reading classical Chinese lyric (<i>shih</i>) poetry is coming across lovely and evocative lines such as these. This happens frequently. Lines of this sort are not intended to be didactic, edifying, or admonitory. Instead, they arrive quite naturally, as part and parcel of a contemplative poem that may be about, for instance, the beautiful particulars of the World in any season, parting from a friend, or simply passing through an ordinary day.<div><div><br /></div><div>Interestingly, one sees the same thing occur in classical Japanese poetry and in the poems of <i>The Greek Anthology</i>. One also notices that the classical Chinese, Japanese, and Greek lyric forms share a common feature: brevity. The two predominant Chinese lyric forms are the <i>chüeh-chü </i>(four lines) and the <i>lü-shih </i>(eight lines). The two basic Japanese lyric forms are the <i>waka </i>(five lines and 31 syllables) and the <i>haiku</i> (three lines and 17 syllables). The poems in <i>The Greek Anthology </i>generally range between two, four, six, or eight lines. In addition, all of these short forms are governed by strict prosodic requirements. Does this concision and craft encourage pensive reflection?</div><div><br /></div><div>My thoughts are prompted by revisiting three poems by Shao Yung (1011-1077). In his day, he was perhaps best known as a Confucian scholar and philosopher. Yet he was also a fine poet.</div><div><div><br /></div><div> Arriving in Lo-yang Again</div><div><br /></div><div>Those years, I was a green-youthed wanderer;</div><div>today I come again, a white-haired old man.</div><div>From those years to today makes one whole lifetime,</div><div>and in between, how many things have had their day and gone!</div><div><br /></div><div>Shao Yung (translated by Burton Watson), in Burton Watson (editor), <i>The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry: From Early Times to the Thirteenth Century </i>(Columbia University Press 1984), page 335.</div><div><br /></div><div>This poem, and the two poems by Shao Yung which appear below, are all in the <i>chüeh-chü </i>quatrain form. This form requires rhyming of the second and fourth lines, as well as compliance with the complex rules of tonal parallelism that are an essential element of traditional Chinese lyric poetry. <i>Ibid</i>, pages 8-11, 373.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsBrGbFowWiFj35PfvTuxDE_vZCGZe0mh-W875E08icQSOORkl5gXHcDLoMIh7_2Gc9xhccjvXiueOaLCkVEnLy6flmr6WPnmfDZ2fnQHeuCA3rBdqjwF1vHOuGLx6iQlI8u5JGXUM23vTCoqxs-ASGHPw7a9FGYUkS_lJPKi26OzXO2kc7673vwtMeQ/s1200/NI_NMNI_BELUM_U505-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="995" data-original-width="1200" height="331" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsBrGbFowWiFj35PfvTuxDE_vZCGZe0mh-W875E08icQSOORkl5gXHcDLoMIh7_2Gc9xhccjvXiueOaLCkVEnLy6flmr6WPnmfDZ2fnQHeuCA3rBdqjwF1vHOuGLx6iQlI8u5JGXUM23vTCoqxs-ASGHPw7a9FGYUkS_lJPKi26OzXO2kc7673vwtMeQ/w400-h331/NI_NMNI_BELUM_U505-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Richard Wyndham (1896-1948), "Summer Landscape" (c. 1932)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>But, putting aside matters of form and prosody, it is the affecting and redolent character of these poetic reflections that is so beguiling. Although classical Chinese poetry is, of course, the product of a unique ancient culture and of three interacting philosophies (Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism), lines such as "Life passes swiftly, hedged by sorrow;/how long before you've lost it -- a scene like this?" and "From those years to today makes one whole lifetime,/and in between, how many things have had their day and gone!" do not move us because of their cultural origins or because they may arise out of a certain philosophical system. Rather, they move us because they are True and Beautiful articulations of what it means to be a human being, and to live in, and to be fated to depart from, a wondrous and mysterious World -- at any time and in any place.</div><div><br /></div><div> Thoughts on T'ien-chin Bridge</div><div><br /></div><div>The countless great lords and statesmen of past regimes --</div><div>later ages know them merely as a list of names.</div><div>Only the water under T'ien-chin Bridge</div><div>goes on year after year, making the same sound.</div><div><br /></div><div>Shao Yung (translated by Burton Watson), <i>Ibid</i>, page 336.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihkJn4uGihLbWS4l9L7HVfy6zJSO5_yRScVh-vrdaB5GrQpSl9LJ--8Hy2Ss6JurAagcjQXmaJj8ECP3o-mkmF4yBw5ZU_2Ya4v8-_6Ik6FIqa57N9IsQ2jeikD1oHCTX_Huu-G-fQSoQgB_zZUZn5wwNOrITbkRPUDQETjhj1LO4AWHYB-W9SUPg9-w/s1200/ES_BRHM_BNS_078_012-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="917" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihkJn4uGihLbWS4l9L7HVfy6zJSO5_yRScVh-vrdaB5GrQpSl9LJ--8Hy2Ss6JurAagcjQXmaJj8ECP3o-mkmF4yBw5ZU_2Ya4v8-_6Ik6FIqa57N9IsQ2jeikD1oHCTX_Huu-G-fQSoQgB_zZUZn5wwNOrITbkRPUDQETjhj1LO4AWHYB-W9SUPg9-w/w306-h400/ES_BRHM_BNS_078_012-001.jpg" width="306" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Richard Wyndham, "Tickerage Mill" (c. 1939)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>This past week Spring began to emerge, in a place where I have become accustomed to see it first arrive: in a group of small bushes beside a pathway that passes through a grove of tall pines. The bushes are sheltered within the dark, quiet, and windless grove, although sunlight and rain do filter through the deep canopy of pine boughs. One day this week, in the late afternoon yellow light that angled down through the boughs, I noticed bright green leaf buds shining at the tips of the branches of the bushes.</div><div><br /></div><div> Song of the Water Willow in Front of Comfortable Den</div><div><br /></div><div>In front of Comfortable Den, by a little crooked stream,</div><div>New rushes, a delicate willow, turn green year by year.</div><div>Before my eyes a procession of good sights pass --</div><div>Who says that life is so full of wants?</div><div><br /></div><div>Shao Yung (translated by Burton Watson), in Kōjirō Yoshikawa, <i>An Introduction to Sung Poetry </i>(translated and edited by Burton Watson) (Harvard University Press 1967), page 83. Shao Yung, who "lived all his life in semi-seclusion," gave his house the name "<i>An</i>-<i>lo</i>-<i>wo</i>," which may be translated as "Comfortable Den." <i>Ibid</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6o-gH7qB97TIoSAwoqdbBY40-EJUuUE4qye9_3IhvYAplVV9RGROB01_y9Bat3iSqjriBW4-bX3I28zHuRYNNaiXbY74woybpdDHRBRThCB80XqNMygC21jOP_ZPpIlXRggDjlUpj1_nIBvMptP50FRSDxgTXlRroZMsyMwxwO0BL6F1xfQaVOa4-UQ/s800/GMIII_MCAG_1937_211-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="665" data-original-width="800" height="333" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6o-gH7qB97TIoSAwoqdbBY40-EJUuUE4qye9_3IhvYAplVV9RGROB01_y9Bat3iSqjriBW4-bX3I28zHuRYNNaiXbY74woybpdDHRBRThCB80XqNMygC21jOP_ZPpIlXRggDjlUpj1_nIBvMptP50FRSDxgTXlRroZMsyMwxwO0BL6F1xfQaVOa4-UQ/w400-h333/GMIII_MCAG_1937_211-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Richard Wyndham, "The Medway near Tonbridge" (1936)</span></div></div></div>Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-17797026926179321302023-01-16T01:10:00.000-08:002023-01-16T01:10:06.533-08:00How to Live, Part Thirty-Two: RiverHuman nature being what it is, the world has always been, and will always be, beset with utopian busybodies who have taken leave of their senses. (As ever, I draw a strict distinction between the lower-case "world" in which we find ourselves by historical circumstance, and the upper-case "World" of Beauty, Truth, and Immanence. More on this crucial distinction anon.) I trust, dear readers, that you know of whom I speak: the new Puritans who, imagining themselves to have attained the highest stage of enlightenment, now presume to re-educate the rest of us, whether we like it or not. <div><br /></div><div>Because I am in the autumn (or is it, perhaps, winter?) of my life, I should be able to view this state of affairs from an Olympian height, having seen it all before -- to wit, yet another case study in human pathology and folly ("extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds"). Still, I confess that there are times when the effrontery, ignorance, bad faith, and mean-spiritedness of it all tries my patience. When this happens, one can always turn to poetry for perspective.<div><br /></div><div> Leave Them Alone</div><div><br /></div><div>There's nothing happening that you hate</div><div>That's really worthwhile slamming;</div><div>Be patient. If you only wait</div><div>You'll see time gently damning</div><div><br /></div><div>Newspaper bedlamites who raised</div><div>Each day the devil's howl,</div><div>Versifiers who had seized </div><div>The poet's begging bowl.</div><div><br /></div><div>The whole hysterical passing show </div><div>The hour apotheosized</div><div>Into a cul-de-sac will go</div><div>And be not even despised.</div><div><br /></div><div>Patrick Kavanagh, <i>Collected Poems </i>(edited by Antoinette Quinn) (Penguin 2005), page 158. The poem was first published in May of 1950. <i>Ibid</i>, page 277.</div><div><br /></div><div>But is Kavanagh being too sanguine? A poem by another Irish poet is worth considering as well.</div><div><br /></div><div> The Pier</div><div><br /></div><div>Only a placid sea, and</div><div>A pier where no boat comes,</div><div>But people stand at the end</div><div>And spit into the water,</div><div>Dimpling it, and watch a dog</div><div>That chins and churns back to land.</div><div><br /></div><div>I had come here to see</div><div>Humbug embark, deported,</div><div>Protected from the crowd.</div><div>But he has not come today.</div><div>And anyway there is no boat</div><div>To take him. And no one cares.</div><div>So Humbug still walks our land</div><div>On stilts, is still looked up to.</div><div><br /></div><div>W. R. Rodgers, <i>Awake! and Other Poems </i>(Secker & Warburg 1941), page 10.</div><div><br /></div><div>Yes, I'm afraid that Humbug will always be with us. On the other hand, leaving the purveyors of Humbug alone is sound advice. This is where the "World" versus "world" distinction comes in.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1-WoidRcIqPKJhjmKCjeL507lk_Q16zx4veUVbjIWQRFhDEAhlUUIMwJKIk-SY23WdDSA6636d3hTjHCNyNHdsfjVGYQTskS2Jf5Wg8mmz2P208QJVlQJJPTkmc6fpv0QzOZfYPglhuyIhUnXghbeB1ODrH4Nvgzt90KZ7W6b83hkdB2tC6_EsGNuPg/s800/GMIII_MCAG_1937_212-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="602" data-original-width="800" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1-WoidRcIqPKJhjmKCjeL507lk_Q16zx4veUVbjIWQRFhDEAhlUUIMwJKIk-SY23WdDSA6636d3hTjHCNyNHdsfjVGYQTskS2Jf5Wg8mmz2P208QJVlQJJPTkmc6fpv0QzOZfYPglhuyIhUnXghbeB1ODrH4Nvgzt90KZ7W6b83hkdB2tC6_EsGNuPg/w400-h301/GMIII_MCAG_1937_212-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">James McIntosh Patrick (1907-1998), "The Ettrick Shepherd" (1936)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>W. H. Auden devoted a great deal of attention to the Humbug that walks the modern world on stilts. This attention was always present in his poems, but it took a turn in the 1940s, as he moved away from the political preoccupations of his younger years, with religion taking on more importance in both his life and poetry. I don't intend to undertake an examination of Auden's complex views on the state in which humanity found itself in the 20th century. However, I do think that many of the poems he wrote in the latter half of his life (particularly in the 1950s) can help us to place into perspective the antics (or is "depredations" the better word?) of our current clan of self-anointed saviors and inquisitors.</div><div><br /></div><div> The History of Truth</div><div><br /></div><div>In that ago when being was believing,</div><div>Truth was the most of many credibles,</div><div>More first, more always, than a bat-winged lion,</div><div>A fish-tailed dog or eagle-headed fish,</div><div>The least like mortals, doubted by their deaths.</div><div><br /></div><div>Truth was their model as they strove to build</div><div>A world of lasting objects to believe in,</div><div>Without believing earthernware and legend,</div><div>Archway and song, were truthful or untruthful:</div><div>The Truth was there already to be true.</div><div><br /></div><div>This while when, practical like paper-dishes,</div><div>Truth is convertible to kilowatts,</div><div>Our last to do by is an anti-model,</div><div>Some untruth anyone can give the lie to,</div><div>A nothing no one need believe is there.</div><div><br /></div><div>W. H. Auden, <i>The Complete Works of W. H. Auden: Poems, Volume II: 1940-1973 </i>(edited by Edward Mendelson) (Princeton University Press 2022), pages 485-486. The poem was likely written in 1958. <i>Ibid</i>, page 987. Auden preferred "the uncommon alternative form 'earthernware' [line 8] to 'earthenware'." <i>Ibid</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div>An earlier poem by Auden complements "The History of Truth" quite well:</div><div><br /></div><div> The Chimeras</div><div><br /></div><div>Absence of heart -- as in public buildings,</div><div>Absence of mind -- as in public speeches,</div><div>Absence of worth -- as in goods intended for the public,</div><div><br /></div><div>Are telltale signs that a chimera has just dined</div><div>On someone else; of him, poor foolish fellow,</div><div>Not a scrap is left, not even his name.</div><div><br /></div><div>Indescribable -- being neither this nor that,</div><div>Uncountable -- being any number,</div><div>Unreal -- being anything but what they are,</div><div><br /></div><div>And ugly customers for someone to encounter,</div><div>It is our fault entirely if we do;</div><div>They cannot touch us; it is we who will touch them.</div><div><br /></div><div>Curious from wantonness -- to see what they are like,</div><div>Cruel from fear -- to put a stop to them,</div><div>Incredulous from conceit -- to prove they cannot be,</div><div><br /></div><div>We prod or kick or measure and are lost:</div><div>The stronger we are the sooner all is over;</div><div>It is our strength with which they gobble us up.</div><div><br /></div><div>If someone, being chaste, brave, humble,</div><div>Get by them safely, he is still in danger,</div><div>With pity remembering what once they were,</div><div><br /></div><div>Of turning back to help them. Don't.</div><div>What they were once was what they would not be;</div><div>Not liking what they are not is what now they are.</div><div><br /></div><div>No one can help them; walk on, keep on walking,</div><div>And do not let your goodness self-deceive you:</div><div>It is good that they are but not that they are thus.</div><div><br /></div><div>W. H. Auden, <i>Ibid</i>, pages 375-376. The poem was written in 1950 in Forio, on the island of Ischia. <i>Ibid</i>, p. 934. [As I have mentioned <a href="https://firstknownwhenlost.blogspot.com/2022/07/glimmers.html" target="_blank">in the past</a>, one of my two fundamental poetical principles is: <i>Explanation and explication are the death of poetry</i>. But I sometimes violate that principle. Hence, for anyone who may be interested, I recommend James F. G. Weldon's article "The Infernal Present: Auden's Use of <i>Inferno </i>III in 'The Chimeras,'" which appears in <i>Quaderni d'italianistica</i>, Volume V, No. 1 (1984), pages 97-109. Weldon persuasively argues that "The Chimeras" echoes Canto III of Dante's <i>Inferno </i>in both text and theme.]</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuhs5bOn7AIzWCVeeQ4KT5nzZTqixIyEz8pDGUXhPtJ9Vcj35KYOMpnl4d1vd1xLVq2IwR7oOuTVk81tXRUJsQL80HOkdXpyTZH3V-HqHu0SkZQ3SqlC_dSQ8pF3qlIJSIUz0FXL3aefrZjbIwu0h33AS32WmWXeNhfJ8rCN9n_9JTNfgy3SBQy1j4Ew/s944/TATE_TATE_N04818_10-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="702" data-original-width="944" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuhs5bOn7AIzWCVeeQ4KT5nzZTqixIyEz8pDGUXhPtJ9Vcj35KYOMpnl4d1vd1xLVq2IwR7oOuTVk81tXRUJsQL80HOkdXpyTZH3V-HqHu0SkZQ3SqlC_dSQ8pF3qlIJSIUz0FXL3aefrZjbIwu0h33AS32WmWXeNhfJ8rCN9n_9JTNfgy3SBQy1j4Ew/w400-h297/TATE_TATE_N04818_10-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">James McIntosh Patrick, "Winter in Angus" (1935)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>What, then, is one to do? As Auden suggests, we should "walk on, keep on walking." The chimeras -- having nothing to do with Truth (or with Beauty) -- are best left to their fate. As a baby boomer who grew up with the music of the Sixties and Seventies, these lines come to mind:</div><div><br /></div><div>It was then that I knew I'd had enough,</div><div>Burned my credit card for fuel,</div><div>Headed out to where the pavement turns to sand.</div><div>With the one-way ticket to the land of truth</div><div>And my suitcase in my hand,</div><div>How I lost my friends I still don't understand.</div><div><br /></div><div>Neil Young, "Thrasher," from Neil Young and Crazy Horse, <i>Rust Never Sleeps </i>(1979).</div><div><br /></div><div>The hermetic life does have a certain appeal. In my daydreams I can imagine nothing better than to spend my remaining days in a seacoast town or mountain village in Japan, watching the seasons come and go. But burning one's credit cards for fuel and leaving the pavement behind is not a practical alternative. Nor do I have the fortitude to become an eremite.</div><div><br /></div><div>But, most importantly, isn't what a hermit longingly seeks right in front of us at this moment?</div><div><br /></div><div>On the day after New Year's Day, I was startled to come upon a woolly bear caterpillar making its way across the pathway down which I walked. In the grey light of the January afternoon its black and dark burnt-orange colors were striking -- seeming more vivid and more beautiful than usual, given the circumstances. Because the pathway is frequented by both walkers and bicyclists, I picked the traveller up (it immediately rolled itself into a protective ball) and laid it among some fallen leaves beside the trunk of a nearby tree. (As I have noted here <a href="https://firstknownwhenlost.blogspot.com/2021/10/all-is-well-with-world.html" target="_blank">in the past</a>, I am not seeking credit for this: it is something we all do.) Woolly bears hibernate over the winter, so I wondered why it was out for a stroll at this time of year. But what do I know? </div><div><br /></div><div> The River</div><div><br /></div><div>Stir not, whisper not,</div><div>Trouble not the giver</div><div>Of quiet who gives</div><div>This calm-flowing river,</div><div><br /></div><div>Whose whispering willows,</div><div>Whose murmuring reeds</div><div>Make silence more still</div><div>Than the thought it breeds,</div><div><br /></div><div>Until thought drops down</div><div>From the motionless mind</div><div>Like a quiet brown leaf</div><div>Without any wind;</div><div><br /></div><div>It falls on the river</div><div>And floats with its flowing,</div><div>Unhurrying still</div><div>Past caring, past knowing.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ask not, answer not,</div><div>Trouble not the giver</div><div>Of quiet who gives</div><div>This calm-flowing river.</div><div><br /></div><div>Patrick MacDonogh, <i>Poems </i>(edited by Derek Mahon) (The Gallery Press 2001), page 86.</div><div><br /></div><div>"This calm-flowing river." A woolly bear caterpillar unexpectedly appears, bright and beautiful, in the midst of winter. The chimeras are nowhere to be found. Therein lies the distinction between the World and the world.</div><div><br /></div><div> The River</div><div><br /></div><div>And the cobbled water</div><div>Of the stream with the trout's indelible</div><div>Shadows that winter</div><div>Has not erased -- I walk it</div><div>Again under a clean</div><div>Sky with the fish, speckled like thrushes,</div><div>Silently singing among the weed's </div><div>Branches.</div><div> I bring the heart</div><div>Not the mind to the interpretation</div><div>Of their music, letting the stream</div><div>Comb me, feeling it fresh</div><div>In my veins, revisiting the sources</div><div>That are as near now</div><div>As on the morning I set out from them.</div><div><br /></div><div>R. S. Thomas, <i>H'm </i>(Macmillan 1972), page 23.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyOnfvVcFH6q7rfGx6tvJC2tecTR_gtTeT0wG4CoOtJ4vWs9opnTv2XFgl4myORlhWQjCtuGICXDmeugsOpnvCwNNGT6lXZC3REJ7m8djDud22itUeZKkgeU7oY2F-NoYZKSAq8OOynKIhN66Mjetkg_BtoI63IeCfKadSQD7ykjAlTKuj0uCbe33UBg/s800/ERY_FG_2005_5254-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="532" data-original-width="800" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyOnfvVcFH6q7rfGx6tvJC2tecTR_gtTeT0wG4CoOtJ4vWs9opnTv2XFgl4myORlhWQjCtuGICXDmeugsOpnvCwNNGT6lXZC3REJ7m8djDud22itUeZKkgeU7oY2F-NoYZKSAq8OOynKIhN66Mjetkg_BtoI63IeCfKadSQD7ykjAlTKuj0uCbe33UBg/w400-h266/ERY_FG_2005_5254-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">James Mcintosh Patrick, "An Exmoor Farm" (1938)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>One afternoon last week I walked down a different path, through a narrow meadow bordered on both sides by groves of pine trees. My bird companions in winter are small flocks of chattering robins and sparrows who make their accustomed rounds throughout the day. But the meadow and trees were silent as I walked. Suddenly, a single dove flew out of a bush to my left, landed on the path in front of me, hopped along the path for a few feet, and then flew off into the meadow.</div><div><br /></div><div> In the depths of night --</div><div>The sound of the river flowing on,</div><div> And the moonlight</div><div>Shining clear above the village</div><div>Of Mizuno in Yamashiro.</div><div><br /></div><div>Tonna (1289-1372) (translated by Robert Brower and Steven Carter), in Robert Brower and Steven Carter, <i>Conversations with Shōtetsu (Shōtetsu Monogatari)</i> (Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan 1992), page 120.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmTLJuZVssSuq5AbMIBddbzKm_rTs1orOEx-nt2PFMCkbB8V15fm-KHTb6R2ZVDUF59_QxXmiA0FWm-z4auLPnv0RwbTilGTSYIc3jyp4oEYETUDgGfyvtdctbq7Ha9_OR3d-cMHY5CXiNP3nfFO6PnAMTIxA44QId6s1zWvDsniXd_wgXdW9b2sus7g/s944/SS_DGG_DGET_219D-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="761" data-original-width="944" height="323" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmTLJuZVssSuq5AbMIBddbzKm_rTs1orOEx-nt2PFMCkbB8V15fm-KHTb6R2ZVDUF59_QxXmiA0FWm-z4auLPnv0RwbTilGTSYIc3jyp4oEYETUDgGfyvtdctbq7Ha9_OR3d-cMHY5CXiNP3nfFO6PnAMTIxA44QId6s1zWvDsniXd_wgXdW9b2sus7g/w400-h323/SS_DGG_DGET_219D-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">James McIntosh Patrick, "Arbirlot Mill, Near Arbroath"</span></div></div>Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-47555845804786974382022-12-22T03:30:00.001-08:002022-12-22T03:30:49.438-08:00Beauty<div dir="ltr"><meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="content-type"></meta><div dir="ltr">" . . . like a dove/That slants unswerving to its home and love."<div><br /></div><div>Earlier this week, about an hour before sunset, I was out for a walk, my attention drawn to the sky in the west. The waters of Puget Sound were a dark slate-grey, with a slight undertone of purple. Beyond the Sound, on the horizon, the Olympic Mountains stood in a row. The sky to the east was mostly clear. But directly overhead was the leading edge of a layer of cloud which extended across the water, ending in a long straight line above the mountains. </div><div><br /></div><div>The descending sun was hidden. Yet a glowing path of yellow sky ran from north to south between the silhouette of the mountain range and the far dark edge of the cloud layer. That band of changing golden light -- soon to vanish -- demanded one's attention: what would come of it between now and sunset?</div><div><br /></div><div>I kept walking, looking to the west. The twilit road passed through a meadow, a scattering of trees on either side. Suddenly, just ahead of me, an owl glided quickly and silently downward from left to right above the road, landing in a nearly leafless tree out in the meadow, beside a grove of pines.</div><div><br /></div><div>Last week, I read this:</div><div><br /></div><div> Beauty</div><div><br /></div><div>What does it mean? Tired, angry, and ill at ease,</div><div>No man, woman, or child alive could please</div><div>Me now. And yet I almost dare to laugh</div><div>Because I sit and frame an epitaph --</div><div>'Here lies all that no one loved of him</div><div>And that loved no one.' Then in a trice that whim</div><div>Has wearied. But, though I am like a river</div><div>At fall of evening while it seems that never</div><div>Has the sun lighted it or warmed it, while</div><div>Cross breezes cut the surface to a file,</div><div>This heart, some fraction of me, happily</div><div>Floats through the window even now to a tree</div><div>Down in the misting, dim-lit, quiet vale,</div><div>Not like a pewit that returns to wail</div><div>For something it has lost, but like a dove</div><div>That slants unswerving to its home and love.</div><div>There I find my rest, and through the dusk air</div><div>Flies what yet lives in me. Beauty is there.</div><div><br /></div><div>Edward Thomas, <i>The Annotated Collected Poems </i>(edited by Edna Longley) (Bloodaxe Books 2008), page 58. Thomas wrote the poem on January 21, 1915. <i>Ibid</i>, page 186.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKkhlFFf4iDmrzlNXc7RJRc9H8VX9zFLfQTmjMHhEgmEEUUUk23-7nv-G_XZ345XQOgYBao87w6lp3fw9R1VwxXN1NsCOV4iCQSjPSxJ1gVMs5-cYTROBpwHv01CLsPEdLREi9l1TTeAB-1A1FRYmR1M1ZzUVJ0S0GKyLlBAe1cu7L9chSC2E_T7Awmg/s800/ERY_HUAC_144-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="671" data-original-width="800" height="335" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKkhlFFf4iDmrzlNXc7RJRc9H8VX9zFLfQTmjMHhEgmEEUUUk23-7nv-G_XZ345XQOgYBao87w6lp3fw9R1VwxXN1NsCOV4iCQSjPSxJ1gVMs5-cYTROBpwHv01CLsPEdLREi9l1TTeAB-1A1FRYmR1M1ZzUVJ0S0GKyLlBAe1cu7L9chSC2E_T7Awmg/w400-h335/ERY_HUAC_144-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Ethelbert White (1891-1972), "Edge of the Village" (1924)</span></div><div><div><br /></div><div>Edward Thomas' life story tends to draw attention away from his poetry. This is not surprising. Born to be a poet, he married at a young age, left Oxford without taking a degree, and became a prolific writer of prose in order to support his family. He was beset with melancholy, misery, and dejection. Then, in the autumn of 1913, came the fated and wondrous meeting with Robert Frost. This friendship, coupled with the beginning of war in 1914 and his subsequent enlistment, led to a poetic flowering which lasted just over two years (the first of his poems was written on December 3, 1914; the final poem was written on January 13, 1917). The tragic end -- which cannot help but be in the back of our minds as we read his poems -- came at Arras in France on April 9, 1917.</div><div><br /></div><div>Yes, the short arc of his life is compelling and moving. But it is the 140 or so poems he wrote during those two charmed years that deserve our attention. "I may as well write poetry. Did anyone ever begin at 36 in the shade?" So he wrote in a letter to Eleanor Farjeon on August 2, 1914. (Eleanor Farjeon, <i>Edward Thomas: The Last Four Years </i>(Oxford University Press 1958), page 81.) We are fortunate that he began "at 36 in the shade." For he is in his poetry, and we are the better for it. "Beauty" is a perfect instance. The first ten lines are a harrowing and accurate account of who he was. And yet the final eight lines (which begin with the wonderful turn at "This heart . . .") are an affecting, lovely, and equally accurate account of who he was. He never dissembles or postures in his poetry.</div><div><br /></div><div>Kingsley Amis (who was not easy to please) recognized this quality: "How a poet convinces you he will not tell you anything he does not think or feel, since you have only his word for it, is hard to discover, but Edward Thomas is one of those who do it." (Kingsley Amis, <i>The Amis Anthology </i>(Hutchinson 1988), page 339.) Amis' comment is reminiscent of something which Thom Gunn wrote of Thomas Hardy: "And we never for a moment doubt that Hardy means what he says. . . . [Y]ou never feel, even in Hardy's most boring and ridiculous poetry, that he is pretending -- he is never rhetorical. And there are not many poets of whom this can be said. . . . Much of what sustains me through the flatter parts of the <i>Collected Poems </i>is this feeling of contact with an honest man who will never lie to me." (Thom Gunn, "Hardy and the Ballads," in Thom Gunn, <i>The Occasions of Poetry: Essays in Criticism and Autobiography </i>(North Point Press 1985), pages 104-105.) I believe that Gunn's comments apply equally well to Edward Thomas. (It is not surprising to discover that Hardy admired Thomas' poetry, which he became aware of only after Thomas' death.)</div></div><div><br /></div><div>As it happens, Amis' comment is in fact an echo of Thomas' own words about what it means to be a poet:</div><div><br /></div><div>"Here, I think, in [John Clare's] 'Love lives beyond the tomb,' in this unprejudiced singing voice that knows not what it sings, is some reason for us to believe that poets are not merely writing figuratively when they say, 'My love is like a red, red rose,' that they are to be taken more literally than they commonly are, that they do not invent or 'make things up' as grown people do when they condescend to a child's game. What they say is not chosen to represent what they feel or think, but is itself the very substance of what had before lain dark and unapparent, is itself all that survives of feeling and thought, and cannot be expanded or reduced without dulling or falsification. If this is not so, and if we do not believe it to be so, then poetry is of no greater importance than wallpaper, or a wayside drink to one who is not thirsty. But if it is so, then we are on the way to understand why poetry is mighty; for if what poets say is true and not feigning, then of how little account are our ordinary assumptions, our feigned interests, our playful and our serious pastimes spread out between birth and death."</div><div><br /></div><div>Edward Thomas, <i>Feminine Influence on the Poets </i>(Martin Secker 1910), page 86.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWAr8VBxIDcP83XsQj_gq4rdSbgWsV-syqv8rWvC-Yf5A8lBqxk9Z-YJNpGKE9EFALiMeYu3e9FIMQsNcs0POYyaqXMRkLk7eZvVFpI9Ze8C48ryKr4BtcL8883IrX5BavSjyfslQNi5TCgPnAZN-lBoR4axRGJKomucJh1r3h72hhi2fNWzgtMUfEww/s800/BRM_BMAG_1929P46-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="650" data-original-width="800" height="325" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWAr8VBxIDcP83XsQj_gq4rdSbgWsV-syqv8rWvC-Yf5A8lBqxk9Z-YJNpGKE9EFALiMeYu3e9FIMQsNcs0POYyaqXMRkLk7eZvVFpI9Ze8C48ryKr4BtcL8883IrX5BavSjyfslQNi5TCgPnAZN-lBoR4axRGJKomucJh1r3h72hhi2fNWzgtMUfEww/w400-h325/BRM_BMAG_1929P46-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Ethelbert White, "The Farm by the Brook" (1929)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>"What are days for?/Days are where we live. . . . Where can we live but days?" (Philip Larkin, "<a href="https://firstknownwhenlost.blogspot.com/2011/01/days-are-where-we-live-derek-mahon-and.html" target="_blank">Days.</a>") "For the days are long --/From the first milk van/To the last shout in the night,/An eternity." (Derek Mahon, "<a href="https://firstknownwhenlost.blogspot.com/2011/01/days-are-where-we-live-derek-mahon-and.html" target="_blank">Dream Days.</a>") Here is a further thought for consideration: days are where beauty dwells. "Beauty is there."</div><div><br /></div><div>Eleanor Farjeon writes that Thomas' "secret self pined for beauty." (Eleanor Farjeon, <i>Edward Thomas: The Last Four Years</i>, page 41.) Yet, as Larkin perceptively observes: "What a strange talent his was: the poetry of almost infinitely-qualified states of mind." (Philip Larkin, letter to Andrew Motion (May 16, 1979), in Anthony Thwaite (editor), <i>Selected Letters of Philip Larkin 1940-1985 </i>(Faber and Faber 1992), page 599.) These two characteristics often appear together in Thomas' poems. </div><div><br /></div><div>But perhaps this gets to the heart of the matter for Thomas (and indeed for us as well):</div><div><br /></div><div>"I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of Imagination -- What the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth -- whether it existed before or not -- for I have the same Idea of all our Passions as of Love[:] they are all[,] in their sublime, creative of essential Beauty."</div><div><br /></div><div>John Keats, letter to Benjamin Bailey (November 22, 1817), in Robert Gittings (editor), <i>Letters of John Keats </i>(Oxford University Press 1970), pages 36-37. </div><div><br /></div><div>As one might expect, Thomas was aware of the passage from Keats' letter. He wrote a literary biography of Keats. In a chapter titled "Keats and His Friends," Thomas mentions Benjamin Bailey, and then notes: "It was in a letter to Bailey that Keats said he was certain of nothing but 'the holiness of the Heart's affections, and the truth of imagination'." (Edward Thomas, <i>Keats </i>(T. C. & E. C. Jack 1916), page 30.)</div><div><br /></div><div> The Ash Grove</div><div><br /></div><div>Half of the grove stood dead, and those that yet lived made</div><div>Little more than the dead ones made of shade.</div><div>If they led to a house, long before they had seen its fall:</div><div>But they welcomed me; I was glad without cause and delayed.</div><div><br /></div><div>Scarce a hundred paces under the trees was the interval --</div><div>Paces each sweeter than sweetest miles -- but nothing at all,</div><div>Not even the spirits of memory and fear with restless wing,</div><div>Could climb down in to molest me over the wall</div><div><br /></div><div>That I passed through at either end without noticing.</div><div>And now an ash grove far from those hills can bring</div><div>The same tranquillity in which I wander a ghost</div><div>With a ghostly gladness, as if I heard a girl sing</div><div><br /></div><div>The song of the Ash Grove soft as love uncrossed,</div><div>And then in a crowd or in distance it were lost,</div><div>But the moment unveiled something unwilling to die</div><div>And I had what most I desired, without search or desert or cost.</div><div><br /></div><div>Edward Thomas, <i>The Annotated Collected Poems</i>, page 108. The poem was written on February 4 through February 9, 1916. <i>Ibid</i>, page 272.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkInYyB88HzgzcC259b4IbES2VG-GTsYOSMA9mei3qoESz-FAfkQbt-v4dgCDtZ2LeZ2tFntlMGpHJwmVVHHfS8wIWJPU5uq6v9msZAwY-xXZv2syZfuTy7vr2kQi9ILDy9nOiag-URrqz2LeiimzK48mS2a-cFEwS1BK8PSTf-ZUIw_lX-Qr8BJH-1g/s944/CU_KY_EWH1-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="779" data-original-width="944" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkInYyB88HzgzcC259b4IbES2VG-GTsYOSMA9mei3qoESz-FAfkQbt-v4dgCDtZ2LeZ2tFntlMGpHJwmVVHHfS8wIWJPU5uq6v9msZAwY-xXZv2syZfuTy7vr2kQi9ILDy9nOiag-URrqz2LeiimzK48mS2a-cFEwS1BK8PSTf-ZUIw_lX-Qr8BJH-1g/w400-h330/CU_KY_EWH1-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Ethelbert White, "Landscape with Cows and a Punt"</span></div><div><br /></div><div>We all pine for beauty, don't we? But, as Thomas reminds us in so many of his poems, beauty is not beauty without qualifications, without the contingency of evanescence. Perhaps evanescence is at the heart of beauty -- is its essence. "A thing is beautiful to the extent that it does not let itself be caught." (Philippe Jaccottet (translated by John Taylor), "Blazon in Green and White," in Philippe Jaccottet, <i>And, Nonetheless: Selected Prose and Poetry 1990-2009 </i>(Chelsea Editions 2011), page 53.)</div><div><br /></div><div> Over the Hills</div><div><br /></div><div>Often and often it came back again</div><div>To mind, the day I passed the horizon ridge</div><div>To a new country, the path I had to find</div><div>By half-gaps that were stiles once in the hedge,</div><div>The pack of scarlet clouds running across</div><div>The harvest evening that seemed endless then</div><div>And after, and the inn where all were kind,</div><div>All were strangers. I did not know my loss</div><div>Till one day twelve months later suddenly</div><div>I leaned upon my spade and saw it all,</div><div>Though far beyond the sky-line. It became</div><div>Almost a habit through the year for me</div><div>To lean and see it and think to do the same</div><div>Again for two days and a night. Recall</div><div>Was vain: no more could the restless brook</div><div>Ever turn back and climb the waterfall</div><div>To the lake that rests and stirs not in its nook,</div><div>As in the hollow of the collar-bone</div><div>Under the mountain's head of rush and stone.</div><div><br /></div><div>Edward Thomas, <i>The Annotated Collected Poems</i>, page 52. Thomas wrote the poem on January 9, 1915, the day after he wrote "Adelstrop," and twelve days before he wrote "Beauty." <i>Ibid</i>, pages 176, 179, and 186.</div><div><br /></div><div>Would that Edward Thomas had begun writing poetry earlier in his life. Would that he had not died at so young an age. How many more days in which he came upon beauty might he have given us in his poetry? But we should be grateful for what he was able to give us from the days he spent in the countryside of England and Wales. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5t18rCw305-50B57BjSRf9w95d0qfZEkn-4zoM2tEQQz3Fpwqf36DmBTnpn9vac4s8Pd6vjGSIZaqi7T0NWsKNNyGrUC9ywA4bfgwAolVNjPxhaIIEgPUCMF1em-OUH1kifeFajUe4vFxe1B9tMTUp4IIhdYoWZlz1jGHutCqQWnV8UoNZ7D8bbN5hA/s685/GLW_CBCA_1967_4-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="685" data-original-width="557" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5t18rCw305-50B57BjSRf9w95d0qfZEkn-4zoM2tEQQz3Fpwqf36DmBTnpn9vac4s8Pd6vjGSIZaqi7T0NWsKNNyGrUC9ywA4bfgwAolVNjPxhaIIEgPUCMF1em-OUH1kifeFajUe4vFxe1B9tMTUp4IIhdYoWZlz1jGHutCqQWnV8UoNZ7D8bbN5hA/w325-h400/GLW_CBCA_1967_4-001.jpg" width="325" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Ethelbert White, "Landscape" </span></div></div></div>Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-64867847265655635422022-11-25T01:25:00.001-08:002022-11-25T22:33:17.350-08:00Passers-byReading Chinese poetry of past centuries, one often encounters poems of parting, as well as poems of longing for a family member or friend who is far away in a distant corner of the kingdom, perhaps never to be seen again. This is attributable to the fact that nearly all of the Chinese poets whose poems have survived were governmental bureaucrats -- but bureaucrats of a sort unknown to us. They attained their positions only after years of rigorous study of literature and philosophy, culminating in a difficult series of civil service examinations, which many aspirants failed. One of the chief subjects of examination was poetry: this required knowledge of past poetry, and, importantly, the ability to write poems in accordance with the strict and complex rules of Chinese prosody. Imagine that.<div><br /></div><div>Over the course of their careers, it was the lot of most poet-civil servants to be suddenly and unexpectedly relocated by the government to obscure cities and provinces in the hinterlands. This was generally due to standard bureaucratic practice: periodic relocations prevented the accumulation of influence and power. Alternatively (and not uncommonly), the relocation was due to the imposition of exile as a punishment for running afoul of the ruling clique -- perhaps by writing a poem containing a too thinly veiled criticism of the clique. Either way, the life of a poet in governmental service was one of departures and separations.</div><div><br /></div><div>As but one example, here is one of the best-known, and most admired, poems of farewell:</div><div><br /></div><div> Seeing a Friend Off</div><div><br /></div><div>Green hills sloping from the northern wall,</div><div>white water rounding the eastern city:</div><div>once parted from this place</div><div>the lone weed tumbles ten thousand miles.</div><div>Drifting clouds -- a traveler's thoughts;</div><div>setting sun -- an old friend's heart.</div><div>Wave hands and let us take leave now,</div><div><i>hsiao-hsiao </i>our hesitant horses neighing.</div><div><br /></div><div>Li Po (701-762) (translated by Burton Watson), in Burton Watson, <i>The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry: From Early Times to the Thirteenth Century </i>(Columbia University Press 1984), page 212.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9uuSFHu2APtGY_XizjQ7pYF4-0V_Gc0ysHXr9OGMRouKVsYER5hIvoQKfP3ppbZFKjFX2XVbxVbh_niwpVn1OnQc1FTveygGW3zI4ULXmxhLdrG2FLxVuCQz0RID1sSPbfhFcdW9z4q4iBSfDMl9Z12iMZILmiFUrk9Gj8a4pnD_ZML4aaKwuzOZDuQ/s1200/WMR_RAA_PL000149.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="730" data-original-width="1200" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9uuSFHu2APtGY_XizjQ7pYF4-0V_Gc0ysHXr9OGMRouKVsYER5hIvoQKfP3ppbZFKjFX2XVbxVbh_niwpVn1OnQc1FTveygGW3zI4ULXmxhLdrG2FLxVuCQz0RID1sSPbfhFcdW9z4q4iBSfDMl9Z12iMZILmiFUrk9Gj8a4pnD_ZML4aaKwuzOZDuQ/w400-h244/WMR_RAA_PL000149.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">George Vicat Cole (1833-1893), "Autumn Morning" (1891)</div><div><br /></div><div>As is the case with "Seeing a Friend Off," the poems of parting and separation are often affecting and lovely: the sense of loss and sorrow is genuine, and is much more than a matter of poetic convention. Moreover, there is a wider context for the parting and separation, for the loss and sorrow.</div><div><br /></div><div> Dreaming that I Went with Li and Yü to Visit Yüan Chen</div><div><br /></div><div>At night I dreamt I was back in Ch'ang-an;</div><div>I saw again the faces of old friends.</div><div>And in my dreams, under an April sky,</div><div>They led me by the hand to wander in the spring winds.</div><div>Together we came to the ward of Peace and Quiet;</div><div>We stopped our horses at the gate of Yüan Chen.</div><div>Yüan Chen was sitting all alone;</div><div>When he saw me coming, a smile came to his face.</div><div>He pointed back at the flowers in the western court;</div><div>Then opened wine in the northern summer-house.</div><div>He seemed to be saying that neither of us had changed;</div><div>He seemed to be regretting that joy will not stay;</div><div>That our souls had met only for a little while,</div><div>To part again with hardly time for greeting.</div><div>I woke up and thought him still at my side;</div><div>I put out my hand; there was nothing there at all.</div><div><br /></div><div>Po Chü-i (772-846) (translated by Arthur Waley), in Arthur Waley, <i>More Translations from the Chinese </i>(George Allen & Unwin 1919), page 46. According to a note by Waley, the poem was "written in exile." Arthur Waley, <i>Chinese Poems </i>(George Allen & Unwin 1946), page 159.</div><div><br /></div><div>The phrase "a continual farewell" returned to me when I read Po Chü-i's poem a few days ago. It appears in the closing lines of W. B. Yeats' poem "Ephemera": "Before us lies eternity; our souls/Are love, and a continual farewell." "Ephemera" is an autumnal poem ("the yellow leaves/Fell like faint meteors in the gloom") about the pain of the loss of youthful love, written during Yeats' <i>fin de siècle </i>Celtic Twilight period. It has nothing to do with Chinese poetry. Yet I think the two lines -- and particularly the beautiful "a continual farewell" -- tell us something about why poems written centuries ago by poet-civil servants in another land continue to speak to us so movingly about our life and fate.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1DeYcsmKt4w4h4OnzOzRHjgiFx8Gr9GRaNqjSuvuH1n5gjYRXvEmBsxX9st5s-5eJNTl_DA4qqjfWIAFQP-pZwi1szpGxsZGgTSEKP_k38nkf5m4CGUQzq3U26Hebp4bE25gk5qJXmSQRWNzlgnRLI4gW9Gv_PwnyIB7QG-K5YcgdAylduPAQWHF_rg/s1000/WAR_LEAMG_12-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="776" data-original-width="1000" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1DeYcsmKt4w4h4OnzOzRHjgiFx8Gr9GRaNqjSuvuH1n5gjYRXvEmBsxX9st5s-5eJNTl_DA4qqjfWIAFQP-pZwi1szpGxsZGgTSEKP_k38nkf5m4CGUQzq3U26Hebp4bE25gk5qJXmSQRWNzlgnRLI4gW9Gv_PwnyIB7QG-K5YcgdAylduPAQWHF_rg/w400-h310/WAR_LEAMG_12-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">John Haswell (1855-1925), "Whitnash Church"</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Yüan Chen (779-831) was Po Chü-i's dearest friend. After passing their civil service examinations, they spent their younger years together while serving in governmental positions in Ch'ang-an, which was the capital of China at that time. Over the course of more than three decades, Po Chü-i wrote a number of poems about their separations, which were occasioned by their periodic reassignments and banishments. This, for instance, is one of the most beloved poems in Chinese literature:</div><div><br /></div><div> On Board Ship: Reading Yüan Chen's Poems</div><div><br /></div><div>I take your poems in my hand and read them beside the candle;</div><div>The poems are finished, the candle is low, dawn not yet come.</div><div>My eyes smart; I put out the lamp and go on sitting in the dark,</div><div>Listening to waves that, driven by the wind, strike the prow of the ship.</div><div><br /></div><div>Po Chü-i (translated by Arthur Waley), in Arthur Waley, <i>One Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems </i>(Constable 1918), page 142.</div><div><br /></div><div>Yüan Chen died at the young age (even for those times) of 52. Nine years after Yüan Chen's death, Po Chü-i, at the age of 68, wrote this:</div><div><br /></div><div> On Hearing Someone Sing a Poem by Yüan Chen</div><div><br /></div><div>No new poems his brush will trace;</div><div> Even his fame is dead.</div><div>His old poems are deep in dust</div><div> At the bottom of boxes and cupboards.</div><div>Once lately, when someone was singing,</div><div> Suddenly I heard a verse --</div><div>Before I had time to catch the words</div><div> A pain had stabbed my heart.</div><div><br /></div><div>Po Chü-i (translated by Arthur Waley), in Arthur Waley, <i>Ibid</i>, page 165.</div><div><br /></div><div>Po Chü-i does not identify which poem of Yüan Chen's he heard being sung. But, who knows, perhaps it was this, written by Yüan Chen after the death of his wife:</div><div><br /></div><div> Bamboo Mat</div><div><br /></div><div>I cannot bear to put away</div><div>the bamboo sleeping mat --</div><div><br /></div><div>that first night I brought you home,</div><div>I watched you roll it out.</div><div><br /></div><div>Yüan Chen (translated by Sam Hamill), in Sam Hamill, <i>Crossing the Yellow River: Three Hundred Poems from the Chinese </i>(BOA Editions 2000), page 191.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdGR3ujhXtg1ONhkyknSJcl2wqvcOy5FEbB54xjp7qD4gC3PHoECcvQhZlMIGVC9szhSlBrsaKXbDr-icDOj51Me5H0UumtfkbLl0DF0sSRWf-eXNhPcoh89d4yzAhck5BJcCwV1Zg-7MR0h57z_6H5xhX-ojsNysKTuzBOwigLKrBWV7aUENqIVp46Q/s1200/CSF_STG_20970_000-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="910" data-original-width="1200" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdGR3ujhXtg1ONhkyknSJcl2wqvcOy5FEbB54xjp7qD4gC3PHoECcvQhZlMIGVC9szhSlBrsaKXbDr-icDOj51Me5H0UumtfkbLl0DF0sSRWf-eXNhPcoh89d4yzAhck5BJcCwV1Zg-7MR0h57z_6H5xhX-ojsNysKTuzBOwigLKrBWV7aUENqIVp46Q/w400-h304/CSF_STG_20970_000-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Henry Morley (1869-1937), "Lifting Potatoes near Stirling"</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Among poetry's many wonders, perhaps the most wondrous is the echoing and reaffirmation of Beauty and Truth throughout the ages and in all corners of the World. Every poet writes his or her poems in times which are parlous, full of clamorous madness, and beset with evil, ill-will, duplicity, and bad faith. Yet through it all runs the serene thread of Beauty and Truth. "Together we came to the ward of Peace and Quiet." (Thank you, Po Chü-i and Arthur Waley.)</div><div><br /></div><div>In the Ninth Century, during the T'ang Dynasty (the greatest period of Chinese poetry), Po Chü-i wrote this about his dream of Yüan Chen:</div><div><br /></div><div>He seemed to be saying that neither of us had changed;</div><div>He seemed to be regretting that joy will not stay;</div><div>That our souls had met only for a little while,</div><div>To part again with hardly time for greeting.</div><div><br /></div><div>In Japan, approximately ten centuries later, Ryōkan wrote this:</div><div><br /></div><div>We meet only to part,</div><div>Coming and going like white clouds,</div><div>Leaving traces so faint</div><div>Hardly a soul notices.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ryōkan (1758-1831) (translated by John Stevens), in John Stevens, <i>Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf: Zen Poems of Ryōkan </i>(Shambhala 1996), page 91.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ryōkan was a Zen Buddhist monk who elected to live a life of penury in a mountain hut. He was well-educated, and had studied Chinese philosophy and literature. Chinese poetry had long been admired by Japanese <i>waka </i>and <i>haiku</i> poets, and Po Chü-i was a particular favorite of many of those poets. It is not unlikely that Ryōkan was familiar with Po Chü-i's poetry. Had he read "Dreaming that I Went with Li and Yü to Visit Yüan Chen"? We have no way of knowing. It would be lovely to discover that Ryōkan did indeed have Po Chü-i's four lines in mind when he wrote his own poem. But it is also wonderful to think that two human beings -- in different lands and at different times -- recognized, and articulated in a beautiful fashion, a fundamental truth about what it means to live in the World.</div><div><br /></div><div>And, nearly a century later in Ireland, W. B. Yeats wrote this:</div><div><br /></div><div>Before us lies eternity; our souls</div><div>Are love, and a continual farewell.</div><div><br /></div><div>W. B. Yeats, "Ephemera," <i>Poems </i>(T. Fisher Unwin 1895).</div><div><br /></div><div>The thread is continuous and consistent, and remains unbroken: souls; partings; a continual farewell.</div><div><br /></div><div>For me, who go,</div><div>for you who stay behind --</div><div>two autumns.</div><div><br /></div><div>Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902) (translated by Burton Watson), in Masaoka Shiki, <i>Selected Poems </i>(edited by Burton Watson) (Columbia University Press 1997), page 44.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzkkXIp8qaKW_cFPK4a0PQaQ2ENpiv8T4uDec2q57-yVKSyCa9dQLSPEjGC_rA9k6tSfKNbZ-xYPMHmrhVppBvkrn5-DK_e-omv1pkbL-HJQK0PpHzr2QpoKZILDmvSnd1uuTWqB5-ujELtOAsQOchEZ0RSthom-_sxAyMGfbE3AF1tC_iY_SPuvHsRQ/s944/GMI_OLD_1_86_2-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="559" data-original-width="944" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzkkXIp8qaKW_cFPK4a0PQaQ2ENpiv8T4uDec2q57-yVKSyCa9dQLSPEjGC_rA9k6tSfKNbZ-xYPMHmrhVppBvkrn5-DK_e-omv1pkbL-HJQK0PpHzr2QpoKZILDmvSnd1uuTWqB5-ujELtOAsQOchEZ0RSthom-_sxAyMGfbE3AF1tC_iY_SPuvHsRQ/w400-h236/GMI_OLD_1_86_2-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Alfred Parsons (1847-1920), "Meadows by the Avon"</span></div>Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-3581092342648244432022-10-31T02:25:00.000-07:002022-10-31T02:25:09.826-07:00AutumnI beg your pardon, dear readers, for the lengthy silence. I fell ill upon returning from an early September journey to Southern California to attend a nephew's wedding. Of course, the usual suspect came to mind, but several tests over two weeks were negative. Whatever it was, it was unpleasant. Emerging from the fog, other commitments required my attention. <div><br /></div><div>I now return, having survived a paucity of beauty and truth over the past two months by reading <i>haiku</i> -- one in the morning and one in the evening -- from R. H. Blyth's four-volume <i>Haiku</i>, and by eventually returning to my walks. I became accustomed to brevity followed by silence. Not a bad thing.</div><div><br /></div><div>One day earlier this month, I returned to a favorite passage:</div><div><br /></div><div>"More than half a century of existence has taught me that most of the wrong and folly which darken earth is due to those who cannot possess their souls in quiet; that most of the good which saves mankind from destruction comes of life that is led in thoughtful stillness. Every day the world grows noisier; I, for one, will have no part in that increasing clamour, and, were it only by my silence, I confer a boon on all."</div><div><br /></div><div>George Gissing, <i>The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft </i>(Archibald Constable & Co. 1903), pages 13-14.</div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, this sort of thing (a variation on <a href="http://firstknownwhenlost.blogspot.com/2012/02/dwell-in-some-decent-corner-of-your.html" target="_blank">Pascal</a>) is unrealistic and irresponsible, isn't it? A pernicious daydream, deluded and selfish. And yet . . .</div><div><br /></div><div> The stillness;</div><div>A bird walking on the fallen leaves:</div><div> The sound of it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ryūshi (d. 1681) (translated by R. H. Blyth), in R. H. Blyth, <i>Haiku, Volume 4: Autumn-Winter </i>(Hokuseido Press 1952), page 365.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTET661Umqz3tJNcZNGTS7PsITAtdb6YXi_oZIUamuGxx310tPAzcKzOBHaZoHq5z8HqISAx8v01iVom56xlZNWCdnKjRPIhsQIQpp_b8r0ontWGmuC3rEe77TXyfntt8H9SAn73sMXqSXlddEl8_wynY-yZLiSmSm4h5NVrSGL8EENy6igw_tDxb4SQ/s1200/SW_NPMAG_1947_52-001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="945" data-original-width="1200" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTET661Umqz3tJNcZNGTS7PsITAtdb6YXi_oZIUamuGxx310tPAzcKzOBHaZoHq5z8HqISAx8v01iVom56xlZNWCdnKjRPIhsQIQpp_b8r0ontWGmuC3rEe77TXyfntt8H9SAn73sMXqSXlddEl8_wynY-yZLiSmSm4h5NVrSGL8EENy6igw_tDxb4SQ/w400-h315/SW_NPMAG_1947_52-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Alexander Sillars Burns (1911-1987), "Afternoon, Wester Ross"</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Until a week or so ago, autumn here was unusually sunny and rain-free. The leaves on many of the trees remain green, but they have dried out. The leaf-shadows and sunlight still sway together on the ground, but with less definition, less depth. On a breezy day, the sound overhead has changed: little by little, sibilance has turned to a faint rustling.<br /><div><div><br /></div><div> Leaves</div><div><br /></div><div>The prisoners of infinite choice</div><div>Have built their house</div><div>In a field below the wood</div><div>And are at peace.</div><div><br /></div><div>It is autumn, and dead leaves</div><div>On their way to the river</div><div>Scratch like birds at the windows</div><div>Or tick on the road.</div><div><br /></div><div>Somewhere there is an afterlife</div><div>Of dead leaves,</div><div>A stadium filled with an infinite</div><div>Rustling and sighing.</div><div><br /></div><div>Somewhere in the heaven</div><div>Of lost futures</div><div>The lives we might have led</div><div>Have found their own fulfilment.</div><div><br /></div><div>Derek Mahon, <i>The Snow Party </i>(Oxford University Press 1975).</div><div><br /></div><div>For me, autumn is not autumn without a visit to Mahon's "Leaves." I return for the poem as a whole, but -- ah! -- the last two lines of the second stanza: the very heart of autumn. </div><div><br /></div><div> People are few;</div><div>A leaf falls here,</div><div> Falls there.</div><div><br /></div><div>Issa (1763-1828) (translated by R. H. Blyth), in R. H. Blyth, <i>Haiku, Volume 4: Autumn-Winter</i>, page 364.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijLWpNAyXzW-y7YtYP1gg7FPjSv3tfh2OaX_VI0lNSuBMFJlVagOPrmwO5nrYSB5wxSJ5_BIk7a3nbUJ9VsaIULdcfQiRYTqkE6O6E8cSs9ZqlxbyqQaSF1N73FjlFXPMLI3TUU9rTkFJC7D-7Rg3K5GYb57514arjNvNB1Hw9SostxjVmOnn8RCvbRw/s944/NTS_CZN_99_143-001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="944" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijLWpNAyXzW-y7YtYP1gg7FPjSv3tfh2OaX_VI0lNSuBMFJlVagOPrmwO5nrYSB5wxSJ5_BIk7a3nbUJ9VsaIULdcfQiRYTqkE6O6E8cSs9ZqlxbyqQaSF1N73FjlFXPMLI3TUU9rTkFJC7D-7Rg3K5GYb57514arjNvNB1Hw9SostxjVmOnn8RCvbRw/w400-h290/NTS_CZN_99_143-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Adam Bruce Thomson (1885-1976), "Harvesting in Galloway"</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Every autumn, there is a particular view that I treasure. My usual walking route takes me along the brow of a low hill, about a quarter-mile long. The hill slopes down toward a meadow to the west. As I approach the end of the brow to descend, the highest boughs of three maples that lie in the meadow below appear just beyond the edge of the brow. Their leaves are a brilliant deep-red at this time of year. As I get closer to the edge, the trees are revealed bit-by-bit, from tip to trunk. And, finally, there they are: standing in a serene row as I walk downward toward them. </div><div><br /></div><div> A Day in Autumn</div><div><br /></div><div>It will not always be like this,</div><div>The air windless, a few last</div><div>Leaves adding their decoration</div><div>To the trees' shoulders, braiding the cuffs</div><div>Of the boughs with gold; a bird preening</div><div>In the lawn's mirror. Having looked up</div><div>From the day's chores, pause a minute,</div><div>Let the mind take its photograph</div><div>Of the bright scene, something to wear</div><div>Against the heart in the long cold.</div><div><br /></div><div>R. S. Thomas, <i>Poetry for Supper </i>(Rupert Hart-Davis 1958).</div><div><br /></div><div>"Life that is led in thoughtful stillness." This is neither indolence nor impassivity.</div><div><br /></div><div> The wind brings</div><div>Enough of fallen leaves</div><div> To make a fire.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ryōkan (1758-1831) (translated by R. H. Blyth), in R. H. Blyth, <i>Haiku, Volume 4: Autumn-Winter</i>, page 357.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI8kfIcNV_L1xYiAFRnfXT7GDreJBH6L-cZpxvmCoqddKyK4KC7PgHBKs98Pw-GU3xtro4ItNNLY47SkJBPIwrdPK27TUOWPF8QMGhAqyT3XaIRHFBYuKRixLCa-2y14VlfpSXFBnPNN8zF2hbLZxyOa5PYXo00MeHkfD1_2mDgr4mGW6KfTY-3_Sw5w/s944/NSC_OIC_PCF_30.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="719" data-original-width="944" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI8kfIcNV_L1xYiAFRnfXT7GDreJBH6L-cZpxvmCoqddKyK4KC7PgHBKs98Pw-GU3xtro4ItNNLY47SkJBPIwrdPK27TUOWPF8QMGhAqyT3XaIRHFBYuKRixLCa-2y14VlfpSXFBnPNN8zF2hbLZxyOa5PYXo00MeHkfD1_2mDgr4mGW6KfTY-3_Sw5w/w400-h305/NSC_OIC_PCF_30.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Ian MacInnes (1922-2003), "Harvest, Innertoon" (1959)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>As I have said here in the past: this is the season of bittersweet wistfulness and wistful bittersweetness. "You sound like a broken record." This is a phrase that was common in the days of my youth (the Sixties and the Seventies). I'm afraid that it applies to me, a nattering Baby Boomer who looks back on a lost world. Before long, I will be recounting fond memories of neighborhood families raking oak leaves into piles, and setting them ablaze as dusk fell on a Minnesota evening. And, yes, I <i>do</i> remember quite well the smell of burning leaves. </div><div><br /></div><div> Under Trees</div><div><br /></div><div>Yellow tunnels under the trees, long avenues</div><div>Long as the whole of time:</div><div>A single aimless man</div><div>Carries a black garden broom.</div><div>He is too far to hear him</div><div>Wading through the leaves, down autumn </div><div>Tunnels, under yellow leaves, long avenues.</div><div><br /></div><div>Geoffrey Grigson, <i>The Collected Poems of Geoffrey Grigson, 1924-1962 </i>(Phoenix House 1963).</div><div><br /></div><div>Am I being sentimental about autumn? One sometimes hears derisive comments about "sentimentality." Oh well.</div><div><br /></div><div> The autumn of my life;</div><div>The moon is a flawless moon,</div><div> Nevertheless --</div><div><br /></div><div>Issa (translated by R. H. Blyth), in R. H. Blyth, <i>Haiku, Volume 3: Summer-Autumn </i>(Hokuseido Press 1952), page 396.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6YSblHwS8cSZvc-4gunTKc-ckBVfzEkiaRw0nlmOApBsWclBY3R4DpjsggWfVZI8OuepfvLaT20U6kUZODCZtF5NSiXrCYVK_ZaKY72AhuJ4YvrBOHar3hgo-0S1KI9KRxyXXaNf0q638t5tEwOJsdrH9G133lRBuplhmzvpmDXsQkongQ6HO_oWNVQ/s800/GL_GM_2468-001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="673" data-original-width="800" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6YSblHwS8cSZvc-4gunTKc-ckBVfzEkiaRw0nlmOApBsWclBY3R4DpjsggWfVZI8OuepfvLaT20U6kUZODCZtF5NSiXrCYVK_ZaKY72AhuJ4YvrBOHar3hgo-0S1KI9KRxyXXaNf0q638t5tEwOJsdrH9G133lRBuplhmzvpmDXsQkongQ6HO_oWNVQ/w400-h336/GL_GM_2468-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Adam Bruce Thomson, "Still Life at a Window" (1944)</span></div></div></div>Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-14410558845620036512022-09-03T14:05:00.000-07:002022-09-03T14:05:10.528-07:00How to Live, Part Thirty-One: Repose<div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Reading the poetry of Robert Herrick always helps to put our day-to-day world into perspective. For instance:<br /><div><br /></div><div> Nothing New</div><div><br /></div><div>Nothing is new: we walk where others went.</div><div>There's no vice now, but has his precedent.</div><div><br /></div><div>Robert Herrick, <i>Hesperides </i>(1648), in Tom Cain and Ruth Connolly (editors), <i>The Complete Poetry of Robert Herrick, Volume I </i>(Oxford University Press 2013), page 132. </div><div><br /></div><div>The most recent editors of <i>Hesperides</i> suggest two possible sources for Herrick's poem. First, Ecclesiastes I.9-10: "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us." Second, Juvenal I.147-149: "Posterity will add nothing more to the ways we have, our descendants will do and desire the same things, all vice stands [always] at its high point." (Tom Cain and Ruth Connolly (editors), <i>The Complete Poetry of Robert Herrick, Volume II </i>(Oxford University Press 2013), page 627.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, the fact that there is nothing new under the sun provides cold comfort amidst the daily welter -- the horror and the folly -- of the news of the world. But perhaps we should at least add a line to Herrick's couplet in order to provide a semblance of balance. Something like this: "There's no virtue now, but has his precedent."</div><div><br /></div><div>More importantly, beyond the dichotomy of vice and virtue, good and evil, there is -- at any and every moment -- something else, something further, something of another sort altogether.</div><div><br /></div><div> On the Road on a Spring Day</div><div><br /></div><div>There is no coming, there is no going.</div><div>From what quarter departed? Toward what quarter bound?</div><div>Pity him! in the midst of his journey, journeying --</div><div>Flowers and willows in spring profusion, everywhere fragrance.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ryūsen Reisai (d. 1365) (translated by Marian Ury), in Marian Ury (editor), <i>Poems of the Five Mountains: An Introduction to the Literature of the Zen Monasteries </i>(Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan 1992), page 33.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd0LAM9NvqTsvvkckXanHka72ML40izcUOiMp2wEy6V5AD4wUS6Q7VAVDq4K6ICCo0HJA09oCEKYOnyz3oWkWqNzJw0dN4yR9i73bN6W67BOJlefnjmGrvvhS6_Zybx4xJ3ixH77-afK8EjkCdjK7yxt67_7GbolKUhSqA6V2mMg0de_t0AbdsuXL3Kg/s1200/GAC_GAC_285.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="811" data-original-width="1200" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd0LAM9NvqTsvvkckXanHka72ML40izcUOiMp2wEy6V5AD4wUS6Q7VAVDq4K6ICCo0HJA09oCEKYOnyz3oWkWqNzJw0dN4yR9i73bN6W67BOJlefnjmGrvvhS6_Zybx4xJ3ixH77-afK8EjkCdjK7yxt67_7GbolKUhSqA6V2mMg0de_t0AbdsuXL3Kg/w400-h270/GAC_GAC_285.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">John Aldridge (1905-1983), "Roofing a New House"</span></div><div><br /></div><div>This "something else" is where words come to an end. Yet still we persist. This is what human beings do.</div><div><br /></div><div>"The old philosophy distinguished between knowledge achieved by effort (<i>ratio</i>) and knowledge received (<i>intellectus</i>) by the listening soul that can hear the essence of things and comes to understand the marvelous. But this calls for unusual strength of soul. The more so since society claims more and more and more of your inner self and infects you with its restlessness. It trains you in distraction, colonizes consciousness as fast as consciousness advances. The true poise, that of contemplation or imagination, sits right on the border of sleep and dreaming."</div><div><br /></div><div>Saul Bellow, <i>Humboldt's Gift </i>(Viking 1975), page 306.</div><div><br /></div><div>Bellow's passage is absolutely wonderful. Still, he is only reaffirming what has been said before, in many times and places and languages. And, for all his acuity, eloquence, good humor, and wisdom, we ultimately arrive at this (which, I acknowledge, raises questions about the value of what I am doing at this moment):</div><div><br /></div><div>The more talking and thinking,</div><div>The farther from the truth.</div><div><br /></div><div>Seng-ts'an (d. 606 A. D.) (translated by R. H. Blyth), in R. H. Blyth, <i>Haiku, Volume 3: Summer-Autumn </i>(Hokuseido Press 1952), page 68. </div><div><br /></div><div>Seng-ts'an was the Third Patriarch of Ch'an Buddhism. The lines appear in a work by him titled <i>Hsin Hsin Ming</i>. <i>Hsin Hsin Ming</i> has been translated as (for example) "Faith in Mind," "On Trust in the Heart" (Arthur Waley), "Inscription on Trust in the Mind" (Burton Watson), and "Faith Mind Inscription." (Blyth identifies the source of the lines as "<i>Shin Jin Mei</i>," which is the Japanese transliteration of <i>Hsin Hsin Ming</i>. The Japanese transliteration of Seng-ts'an is "Sōsan.")</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibVhmnTRPlrM8ccnTcAMV--BGwlY3tB34i1WEAQnft94gE-JDkofOm24ZM7vO2NxeB0QTw63HrMa_Ih-o9TX5k3cNQzx--csLt2adbQKb62ratIaP0w76HjmYdD7We9E9uxYKagfRWWAQVJHoWXu3sFk7PJK3Y1eWTiZxjxBgpX-zkF3OvhPpDYnwu7A/s800/ESX_SWFAG_689-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="665" data-original-width="800" height="333" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibVhmnTRPlrM8ccnTcAMV--BGwlY3tB34i1WEAQnft94gE-JDkofOm24ZM7vO2NxeB0QTw63HrMa_Ih-o9TX5k3cNQzx--csLt2adbQKb62ratIaP0w76HjmYdD7We9E9uxYKagfRWWAQVJHoWXu3sFk7PJK3Y1eWTiZxjxBgpX-zkF3OvhPpDYnwu7A/w400-h333/ESX_SWFAG_689-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">John Aldridge, "February Afternoon"</span></div><div><br /></div><div>At some point, does one simply leave the welter behind, turn away, and keep quiet?</div><div><br /></div><div> A Recluse</div><div><br /></div><div>Here lies (where all at peace may be)</div><div>A lover of mere privacy.</div><div>Graces and gifts were his; now none</div><div>Will keep him from oblivion;</div><div>How well they served his hidden ends</div><div>Ask those who knew him best, his friends.</div><div><br /></div><div>He is dead; but even among the quick</div><div>This world was never his candlestick.</div><div>He envied none; he was content</div><div>With self-inflicted banishment.</div><div>'Let your light shine!' was never his way:</div><div>What then remains but, Welladay!</div><div><br /></div><div>And yet his very silence proved </div><div>How much he valued what he loved.</div><div>There peered from his hazed, hazel eyes</div><div>A self in solitude made wise;</div><div>As if within the heart may be</div><div>All the soul needs for company:</div><div>And, having that in safety there,</div><div>Finds its reflection everywhere.</div><div><br /></div><div>Life's tempests must have waxed and waned:</div><div>The deep beneath at peace remained.</div><div>Full tides that silent well may be</div><div>Mark of no less profound a sea.</div><div>Age proved his blessing. It had given</div><div>The all that earth implies of heaven;</div><div>And found an old man reconciled</div><div>To die, as he had lived, a child.</div><div><br /></div><div>Walter de la Mare, <i>The Burning-Glass and Other Poems </i>(Faber and Faber 1945).</div><div><br /></div><div>For those of you, dear readers, who may not be acquainted with the poetry and prose of Walter de la Mare, I would suggest that the final two lines of "A Recluse" should not be taken as a criticism of the recluse. I would argue that, in de la Mare's world, the lines are arguably the highest form of praise (shot through with wistfulness and loss).</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgorH_eDAVtuTtRAyECu9jc-JA6LspZTYglcAzHUiDDhQs7S7bOXG_tiJaFf-QWp4RuwrmxDJDNj673Dv02ShU1f0qmBfuD3yloqXrxGZGWSVqaSDK8V7VU2jV9Pc6OMtSVnaT9Dg3BLZfNSRu2O28Nlw2E6YygPA6I4748EGbLApTbAzr5C6sjGhA0vg/s1200/WMR_RAA_PL007258-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="820" data-original-width="1200" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgorH_eDAVtuTtRAyECu9jc-JA6LspZTYglcAzHUiDDhQs7S7bOXG_tiJaFf-QWp4RuwrmxDJDNj673Dv02ShU1f0qmBfuD3yloqXrxGZGWSVqaSDK8V7VU2jV9Pc6OMtSVnaT9Dg3BLZfNSRu2O28Nlw2E6YygPA6I4748EGbLApTbAzr5C6sjGhA0vg/w400-h274/WMR_RAA_PL007258-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">John Aldridge, "The Pant Valley, Summer, 1960"</span></div><div><br /></div><div>In a deceptive way, it seems so very simple. It has all been said (and done -- rarely) before. But Bellow is right: "this calls for unusual strength of soul." I certainly cannot, and will never, claim to have that strength. As I have said here in the past, if one is lucky, and in the right place at the right time, one may catch glimpses, see glimmers. </div><div><br /></div><div>A dreamy and elusive World it is. Like late August and early September: afternoon tree shadows lengthening each day across a bright meadow, new umber tints in green leaves, a thin thread of coolness in the wind, a slight but unmistakable change in the angle of the sunlight.</div><div><br /></div><div> A butterfly flits</div><div>All alone -- and on the field,</div><div> A shadow in the sunlight.</div><div><br /></div><div>Bashō (1644-1694) (translated by Makoto Ueda), in Makoto Ueda, <i>Bashō </i>(Kodansha 1982), page 50.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlYFRTmvIH66sfLI3uGnil23xYyUe5Y8idaf4TwyFDy736vAFL3cLUP88ZjWFw4rlXjD7pvnaANm00OFfe2ddEpJagcBnQVGlFJFbY-7HT5zlYT-qJT27jsP_O20O2hT20bY1d1VXsSuVTGhgM6GPrvOxwiS3NsKz00Uvg4R7c4p63JXADP8o-DjktFA/s800/ESX_SWFAG_309-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="622" data-original-width="800" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlYFRTmvIH66sfLI3uGnil23xYyUe5Y8idaf4TwyFDy736vAFL3cLUP88ZjWFw4rlXjD7pvnaANm00OFfe2ddEpJagcBnQVGlFJFbY-7HT5zlYT-qJT27jsP_O20O2hT20bY1d1VXsSuVTGhgM6GPrvOxwiS3NsKz00Uvg4R7c4p63JXADP8o-DjktFA/w400-h311/ESX_SWFAG_309-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">John Aldridge, "Beslyn's Pond, Great Bardfield"</span></div></div>Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-77882360703700212102022-08-01T02:50:00.001-07:002022-08-01T07:52:14.071-07:00What You Leave BehindVirtually nothing is known about the Greek poet Praxilla, who, it is conjectured, lived in the middle of the Fifth Century, B. C. Of her poetry, only scattered fragments survive: a few lines quoted here and there in Greek prose works written by others. But a single fragment may be enough to ensure poetic immortality. And we shall help, in our small way, to preserve that immortality today.<div><br /></div><div>One of Praxilla's fragments:</div><div><br /></div><div>I lose the sunlight, lovely above all else;</div><div>Bright stars I loved the next, and the moon's face,</div><div>Ripe gourds, and fruit of apple-tree and pear.</div><div><br /></div><div>Praxilla (translated by T. F. Higham), in T. F. Higham and C. M. Bowra (editors), <i>The Oxford Book of Greek Verse in Translation </i>(Oxford University Press 1938), page 465.</div><div><br /></div><div>The fragment is believed to be from Praxilla's "Hymn to Adonis." (<u>Ibid</u>, p. 725.) The words are spoken by Adonis in the underworld, after his death. As it happens, the context in which the lines appear led to Praxilla being mocked, but, at the same time (and in a wonderful turnabout), preserved the fragment. The lines are found in this passage by Zenobius, from his prose work <i>Proverbs</i>:</div><div><br /></div><div>"Sillier than Praxilla's Adonis: -- This saying is used of fools. Praxilla of Sicyon, according to Polemon, was a lyric poetess. This Praxilla, in her <i>Hymns</i>, makes Adonis, when asked by the people in Hades what was the most beautiful thing he had left behind above, reply as follows: </div><div><br /></div><div>'The fairest thing I leave is the sunlight, and fairest after that the shining stars and the face of the moon, aye and ripe cucumbers and apples and pears.'</div><div><br /></div><div>For none but a simpleton would put cucumbers and the like on a par with the sun and the moon."</div><div><br /></div><div>Zenobius and Praxilla (translated by J. M. Edmonds), in J. M. Edmonds (editor), <i>Lyra Graeca: Being the Remains of All the Greek Lyric Poets from Eumelus to Timotheus, Excepting Pindar, Volume III </i>(Heinemann 1927), pages 73-75.</div><div><br /></div><div>T. F. Higham disagrees with the assessment that Praxilla's lines are "silly": "the Greeks, according to Zenobius, thought [the lines] very ridiculous. But regrets which couple gourds and the sun are not inappropriate to the year-god Adonis." (T. F. Higham and C. M. Bowra (editors), <i>The Oxford Book of Greek Verse in Translation</i>, page 725.) I completely concur with Higham's conclusion, although I would not rely solely upon his technical explanation relating to Adonis' status as a "year-god": the lines are lovely, and make perfect sense -- whether they be spoken by Adonis, or by any of us.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis9wgu4Q69mVPIyDvidYiS0PHvYf6FCeClNDwzJ_CsXc6h2oOEzMOp_9xDjRnTh5oJzeYMVNAUHhRdPs-TJNSVAIEg1Schs1uUE5TY743I-venkpvzgctJbGa37UBuHAWWaZe7aSuNI3nFb_nb8gSAS8V1aIyH2Ij7TLu0_EKeTUhDyFlSbBtjfP34Yg/s1000/WAR_LEAMG_207-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="778" data-original-width="1000" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis9wgu4Q69mVPIyDvidYiS0PHvYf6FCeClNDwzJ_CsXc6h2oOEzMOp_9xDjRnTh5oJzeYMVNAUHhRdPs-TJNSVAIEg1Schs1uUE5TY743I-venkpvzgctJbGa37UBuHAWWaZe7aSuNI3nFb_nb8gSAS8V1aIyH2Ij7TLu0_EKeTUhDyFlSbBtjfP34Yg/w400-h311/WAR_LEAMG_207-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Frederick Whitehead (1853-1938), "Hayfield" (1918)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>A few years after coming across Praxilla's lines, I was surprised and delighted to discover this:</div><div><br /></div><div> Praxilla</div><div><br /></div><div>Sunlight strews leaf-shadows on the kitchen floor.</div><div>Is it the beech tree or the basil plant or both?</div><div>Praxilla was <i>not</i> 'feeble-minded' to have Adonis</div><div>Answer that questionnaire in the underworld:</div><div>'Sunlight's the most beautiful thing I leave behind,</div><div>Then the shimmering stars and the moon's face,</div><div>Also ripe cucumbers and apples and pears.'</div><div>She is helping me unpack these plastic bags.</div><div>I subsist on fragments and improvisations.</div><div>Lysippus made a bronze statue of Praxilla</div><div>Who 'said nothing worthwhile in her poetry'</div><div>And set her groceries alongside the sun and moon.</div><div><br /></div><div>Michael Longley, <i>Snow Water </i>(Jonathan Cape 2004) (italics in original text). Longley's reference to Lysippus' bronze statue of Praxilla has its source in this excerpt from Tatian's <i>Against the Greeks </i>(First Century, A. D.): "Praxilla was portrayed in bronze by Lysippus, although she spoke nonsense in her poetry." (Translated by J. M. Edmonds in <i>Lyra Graeca, Volume III</i>, page 73.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Longley is exactly right: the Greeks who mocked Praxilla's lines had it all wrong. But that's how it goes: poetry is not, and has never been, everyone's cup of tea. This is not a moral failure on their part, nor is it the end of the world: it is simply a fact. But Edward Thomas articulates what they are missing: "[Poetry] is the utterance of the human spirit when it is in touch with a world to which the affairs of 'this world' are parochial. Hence the strangeness and thrill and painful delight of poetry at all times, and the deep response to it of youth and of love; and because love is wild, strange, and full of astonishment, is one reason why poetry deals so much in love, and why all poetry is in a sense love poetry." (Edward Thomas, <i>Feminine Influence on the Poets </i>(Martin Secker 1910), pages 86-87.)</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlEWwDOM44D_2WDiHZMY7-ciSSsaQStY81Ti7TaUtJQSCWLud0fDzU0nb7CGr_y0ZDFjV04Qg5R_5kCONxEY59kyUiP8oKrA2FSiHdOy82w5WDpN5hYc4n-sqrI2WPmgeDvPJTVkd8KDOAdaZMrLcWyGUeTKCimbh6aNzmYb6ky0Tv4oJ8ghiAXvCqpA/s800/DOR_DCMA_ART2244.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="598" data-original-width="800" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlEWwDOM44D_2WDiHZMY7-ciSSsaQStY81Ti7TaUtJQSCWLud0fDzU0nb7CGr_y0ZDFjV04Qg5R_5kCONxEY59kyUiP8oKrA2FSiHdOy82w5WDpN5hYc4n-sqrI2WPmgeDvPJTVkd8KDOAdaZMrLcWyGUeTKCimbh6aNzmYb6ky0Tv4oJ8ghiAXvCqpA/w400-h299/DOR_DCMA_ART2244.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Frederick Whitehead, "Cottage in Landscape" (1920)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>The sparrows and chickadees are a year-round presence on my walks, and I've realized that I've been taking them for granted. Imagine the generations of sparrows and chickadees with whom we have shared our time in the World. They have always been with us: lovely, charming, and antic. </div><div><br /></div><div>But this summer (why did it take so long?) I've been noticing how companionable they can be. Shy, but amiable, they may flit beside you for a bit as you walk along, cocking their heads as they briefly perch on a branch beside the path, having a look at you as you pass: dark eyes inquiring, it would seem. I am anthropomorphizing, aren't I? As "foolish" as Praxilla? (But not as eloquent, needless to say.) </div><div><br /></div><div> Equal Mistress</div><div><br /></div><div>The tiny daisies are</div><div>Not anything</div><div>Less dear than the great star</div><div>Riding in the west afar</div><div>To their Mistress Spring.</div><div><br /></div><div>Jupiter, the Pleiades</div><div>To her equal</div><div>With celandine and cress,</div><div>Stone-crop, freckled pagles</div><div>And birdseye small.</div><div><br /></div><div>Since in her heart of love</div><div>No rank is there,</div><div>Nor degree aught, hers is</div><div>The most willing service</div><div>And free of care.</div><div><br /></div><div>Violets, stars, birds</div><div>Wait on her smile, all</div><div>Too soon shall August come</div><div>Sheaves, fruit, be carried home,</div><div>And the leaves fall.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ivor Gurney, <i>Selected Poems </i>(edited by George Walter) (J. M. Dent 1996).</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMHFT4goPxdGtYxUX0M9pHSKM7JUxZ2qXU_T82sS6CqRC91BiFtOR-5u5mxE8sXYgenDUfVOvWa6241iLXK4Z-tdFnwQmvg50zYwzHHOVldB49OUCKU_ctKWGKTLD9pJucERAMjs2QR6hveWaVOFZrwPfjpRBBKBfKN5wljUnR2KqDJ5BZMwCeXUcahA/s800/WAR_LEAMG_104.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="525" data-original-width="800" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMHFT4goPxdGtYxUX0M9pHSKM7JUxZ2qXU_T82sS6CqRC91BiFtOR-5u5mxE8sXYgenDUfVOvWa6241iLXK4Z-tdFnwQmvg50zYwzHHOVldB49OUCKU_ctKWGKTLD9pJucERAMjs2QR6hveWaVOFZrwPfjpRBBKBfKN5wljUnR2KqDJ5BZMwCeXUcahA/w400-h263/WAR_LEAMG_104.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Frederick Whitehead, "Middlebere Farm, Poole Harbour" (1929)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>The things we leave behind. Flowers and stars, sparrows and chickadees, gourds and cucumbers, apples and pears, the sun and the moon. Praxilla was no fool. </div><div><br /></div><div> Aboard a Boat, Listening to Insects</div><div><br /></div><div>As though delighting, as though grieving, each with its own song --</div><div>an idler, listening, finds his ears washed completely clean.</div><div>As the boat draws away from grassy banks, they grow more distant,</div><div>till the many varied voices become one single voice.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ōkubo Shibutsu (1767-1837) (translated by Burton Watson), in Burton Watson (editor), <i>Kanshi: The Poetry of Ishikawa Jōzan and Other Edo-Period Poets </i>(North Point Press 1990), page 92.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAIUSLnYPmhj4kL6TKQNcdZufxq26G-1F2aP1hTjuS8qnwhPz-GfL9SZV253cWpnVXFvHeLmKEb7lCtYouTH07P32Udez0YYk0APwoLwFBxZ8WNqLoORVXGDv-dZlhDt_CXmShYK4mQ7M7qo5LUdM4W0ybSESHnFBP9moRaHQarfDcAWyFwkpnrSmyhA/s800/DOR_DCMA_ART2315.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="534" data-original-width="800" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAIUSLnYPmhj4kL6TKQNcdZufxq26G-1F2aP1hTjuS8qnwhPz-GfL9SZV253cWpnVXFvHeLmKEb7lCtYouTH07P32Udez0YYk0APwoLwFBxZ8WNqLoORVXGDv-dZlhDt_CXmShYK4mQ7M7qo5LUdM4W0ybSESHnFBP9moRaHQarfDcAWyFwkpnrSmyhA/w400-h268/DOR_DCMA_ART2315.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Frederick Whitehead, "Avebury" (1925)</span></div>Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-908559036091336482022-07-14T02:00:00.000-07:002022-07-14T02:00:12.595-07:00Glimmers"Yet still the unresting castles thresh." This line by Philip Larkin came to me a few days ago as I walked through a grove of trees, looking up at the highest boughs swaying in the wind against blue sky and white clouds. The ground at my feet was alive as well: light and shadows -- leaf-shadows and bough-shadows -- restlessly moving. This is what the World tells us (Larkin again, in the same poem): "<a href="https://firstknownwhenlost.blogspot.com/2021/05/may.html" target="_blank">Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.</a>"<br /><div><br /></div><div> For Once, Then, Something</div><div><br /></div><div>Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs</div><div>Always wrong to the light, so never seeing</div><div>Deeper down in the well than where the water</div><div>Gives me back in a shining surface picture</div><div>Me myself in the summer heaven godlike</div><div>Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.</div><div><i>Once</i>, when trying with chin against a well-curb,</div><div>I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,</div><div>Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,</div><div>Something more of the depths -- and then I lost it.</div><div>Water came to rebuke the too clear water.</div><div>One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple</div><div>Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,</div><div>Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?</div><div>Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.</div><div><br /></div><div>Robert Frost, <i>New Hampshire </i>(Henry Holt 1923) (italics in original text).</div><div><br /></div><div>"Me myself in the summer heaven godlike/Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs." Narcissus is implied here, I would presume. Frost has it right, doesn't he? And he doesn't spare himself from the recognition. There is indeed <i>something</i> out there in the World, but we are often ill-suited to engage in the search for it. I can personally (and ruefully) attest to that. All of this internal and external noise and gesticulation and distraction, signifying nothing.</div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, one must take what Frost says in his poems with a grain of salt. He was, after all, a master of qualifications, reversals, and qualified reversals. (As was his dear friend Edward Thomas.) What does "For Once, Then, Something" <i>really</i> mean? Long-time (and much-appreciated!) readers of this blog may recall one of my two fundamental poetic principles: <i>Explanation and explication are the death of poetry</i>. (For those who may be interested, the other principle is: <i>It is the individual poem that matters, not the poet</i>.) Hence, I will leave the poem alone. </div><div><br /></div><div>But, despite my principles, I do forage around in "literary criticism" now and then. In doing so, I discovered an article about a poetry reading that Frost gave at Harvard on October 16, 1962. "For Once, Then, Something" was one of the poems he read that day. After reciting it, Frost said: "Well, that's one of the humblest poems I ever wrote." (Robert W. Hill, Jr., "Robert Frost: A Personal Reminiscence," <i>The Robert Frost Review</i>, Number 8 (Fall 1998), page 13.) Something to consider.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Attachment to the self renders life more opaque. One moment of complete forgetting and all the screens, one behind the other, become transparent so that you can perceive clarity to its very depths, as far as the eye can see; and at the same time everything becomes weightless. Thus does the soul truly become a bird."</div><div><br /></div><div>Philippe Jaccottet (translated by Tess Lewis), in Philippe Jaccottet, <i>Seedtime: Notebooks, 1954-1979 </i>(Seagull Books 2013), page 1.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5raIXeg1MIy-hxbqc8wW6sfQtq5kSuhkr6-A-ei5nviAC0zukml_y8wf8NZ4BsJv7mXhh66go_GaFz3xdsiqzeX6ipZIKr9e6KsaPwp0yUiXL2YgQnk6w5tkHVZJyL6bsC8wdmu9POzuI7FQe54pHtDiU6SWJ-QmipkGCq1H8DZH9Imnq0K1Cj2nIhw/s1200/GMII_BAM_424_1935-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="938" data-original-width="1200" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5raIXeg1MIy-hxbqc8wW6sfQtq5kSuhkr6-A-ei5nviAC0zukml_y8wf8NZ4BsJv7mXhh66go_GaFz3xdsiqzeX6ipZIKr9e6KsaPwp0yUiXL2YgQnk6w5tkHVZJyL6bsC8wdmu9POzuI7FQe54pHtDiU6SWJ-QmipkGCq1H8DZH9Imnq0K1Cj2nIhw/w400-h313/GMII_BAM_424_1935-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Alexander Jamieson (1873-1937), "Doldowlod on the Wye" (1935)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Best to keep still, silent, and attentive. You never know what may arrive, and when.</div><div><br /></div><div> The Most of It</div><div><br /></div><div>He thought he kept the universe alone;</div><div>For all the voice in answer he could wake</div><div>Was but the mocking echo of his own</div><div>From some tree-hidden cliff across the lake.</div><div>Some morning from the boulder-broken beach</div><div>He would cry out on life, that what it wants</div><div>Is not its own love back in copy speech,</div><div>But counter-love, original response.</div><div>And nothing ever came of what he cried</div><div>Unless it was the embodiment that crashed</div><div>In the cliff's talus on the other side,</div><div>And then in the far distant water splashed,</div><div>But after a time allowed for it to swim,</div><div>Instead of proving human when it neared</div><div>And someone else additional to him,</div><div>As a great buck it powerfully appeared,</div><div>Pushing the crumpled water up ahead,</div><div>And landed pouring like a waterfall,</div><div>And stumbled through the rocks with horny tread,</div><div>And forced the underbrush — and that was all.</div><div><br /></div><div>Robert Frost, <i>A Witness Tree </i>(Henry Holt 1942).</div><div><br /></div><div>The World is reticent and coy. Yet, now and then, it unexpectedly sends us a message, makes a brief appearance. For Frost, these are not divine revelations. I cannot imagine him using the word "immanence." "For once, then, <i>something</i>." But what? ". . . and that was all." Nothing more? On the other hand, a common phrase does come to mind: "Make the most of it."</div><div><br /></div><div>I have my own story related to "The Most of It," which I recounted here in <a href="https://firstknownwhenlost.blogspot.com/2014/08/poetry-coda.html" target="_blank">August of 2014</a>. Many years before I encountered the poem, I spent a summer living beside a lake in northern Idaho. On a regular basis, a moose would enter the lake from the opposite shore, swim across, emerge from the water near the cabin, and walk off into the woods. Imagine my delight when I first read "The Most of It."</div><div><br /></div><div>"All I have been able to do is to walk and go on walking, remember, glimpse, forget, try again, rediscover, become absorbed. I have not bent down to inspect the ground like an entomologist or a geologist; I've merely passed by, open to impressions. I have seen those things which also pass -- more quickly or, conversely, more slowly than human life. Occasionally, as if our movements had crossed -- like the encounter of two glances that can create a flash of illumination and open up another world -- I've thought I had glimpsed what I should have to call the still centre of the moving world. Too much said? Better to walk on . . ."</div><div><br /></div><div>Philippe Jaccottet (translated by Mark Treharne), in Philippe Jaccottet, <i>Landscapes with Absent Figures </i>(Delos Press 1997), page 4 (ellipses in original text).</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtSAT9fJ8J9yf0JfFOFTSMkmZqcP3G3Lj0ilz3vN690Et5FxSB2RK6ojJJ1-D5eA9k-kg1WvWJLT0hPlHCZr6WSQvY8eF_Kk3vhRnTdUkaHWrfclVTuj1IZ4G5yUPfwPfugW0qfP6_pSIHx6wjPQOYUas0dJ-XxNJ9WMl63d_cCW5MZrLDA1a-rmP4qw/s1200/LAN_HARR_PRSMG_P1491.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="856" data-original-width="1200" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtSAT9fJ8J9yf0JfFOFTSMkmZqcP3G3Lj0ilz3vN690Et5FxSB2RK6ojJJ1-D5eA9k-kg1WvWJLT0hPlHCZr6WSQvY8eF_Kk3vhRnTdUkaHWrfclVTuj1IZ4G5yUPfwPfugW0qfP6_pSIHx6wjPQOYUas0dJ-XxNJ9WMl63d_cCW5MZrLDA1a-rmP4qw/w400-h285/LAN_HARR_PRSMG_P1491.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Albert Woods (1871-1944), "A Peaceful Valley, Whitewell"</div><div><br /></div><div>At this time of year, as I walk in the afternoon down a path between two wide meadows, swallows climb and dive and curve all around me, then skim just above the tall grass on each side of the path, feeding on insects. Last week, on another path, I saw a small, dark field mouse hurry into a clump of wild sweet peas, now in purple bloom. Yesterday evening, a raccoon climbed up into the cherry tree in the back garden, where the fruit is now ripe. Two of the neighborhood crows loudly complained about this activity. This morning I saw a robin walking in the garden, holding a cherry in its beak. </div><div><br /></div><div>"I have learned from long experience that there is nothing that is not marvellous and that the saying of Aristotle is true -- that in every natural phenomenon there is something wonderful, nay, in truth, many wonders. We are born and placed among wonders and surrounded by them, so that to whatever object the eye first turns, the same is wonderful and full of wonders, if only we will examine it for a while."</div><div><br /></div><div>John de Dondis, quoted in John Stewart Collis, <i>The Worm Forgives the Plough </i>(The Akadine Press 1997), page 170. "John de Dondis" is the anglicized name of Giovanni de' Dondi (c. 1330-1388).</div><div><br /></div><div>Little things. Glimmers and glimpses.</div><div><br /></div><div>Fireflies flying</div><div>in gaps between branches --</div><div>a grove of stars.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ikkadō Jōa (1501-1562) (translated by Steven Carter), in Steven Carter (editor), <i>Haiku Before Haiku: From the Renga Masters to Bashō </i>(Columbia University Press 2011), page 108.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjujR48_yCakEFK6aiCZsUaxlEI-KIpYYODiYjSegrH6aeMl9HsiRlU8NuGa9CQp4In18rzo5xzO2w_fOCwooVfQQvPVhuhrbdj7x4NcTGYGoxO6saPM3DSU3XX_7ZGVbA5Z0WYm4i3G6lXdxivymsKd6Q95lGEeU1mEhHK5piEyEiNnODjHP2CqEVlEQ/s1200/GMII_SAHS_1945_6-001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1004" data-original-width="1200" height="335" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjujR48_yCakEFK6aiCZsUaxlEI-KIpYYODiYjSegrH6aeMl9HsiRlU8NuGa9CQp4In18rzo5xzO2w_fOCwooVfQQvPVhuhrbdj7x4NcTGYGoxO6saPM3DSU3XX_7ZGVbA5Z0WYm4i3G6lXdxivymsKd6Q95lGEeU1mEhHK5piEyEiNnODjHP2CqEVlEQ/w400-h335/GMII_SAHS_1945_6-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Fred Stead (1863-1940), "River at Bingley, Yorkshire"</span></div>Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-59011203181333135302022-06-13T01:00:00.000-07:002022-06-13T01:00:08.957-07:00UtilitarianismHere are the opening lines of a poem to which we shall return in a moment:<div><br /></div><div>I live still, to love still</div><div> Things quiet and unconcerned, --</div><div><br /></div><div>The lines were written in the twentieth century by an English poet. They are engraved on the poet's tomb, which lies in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church, Long Melford, Suffolk.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM4yUPKCGS54QD6G6nQueYztJqBbifX_daKfKwwI9P8jNLgCyV1PnsVKLfFVAZYOLKX9LvON1pcpwf7QVFXFrcVlQLBljz5TRPwQIOpvwncQ2hmuEjyqoR8jYlcTmWDrL-SLsPMHJ6XrV_SRpZrgA03RyhTEhAj7S1KKyufCkA5jVnhl_DOiddSdW1_Q/s1200/PKA_ACO_A1980_94.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="927" data-original-width="1200" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM4yUPKCGS54QD6G6nQueYztJqBbifX_daKfKwwI9P8jNLgCyV1PnsVKLfFVAZYOLKX9LvON1pcpwf7QVFXFrcVlQLBljz5TRPwQIOpvwncQ2hmuEjyqoR8jYlcTmWDrL-SLsPMHJ6XrV_SRpZrgA03RyhTEhAj7S1KKyufCkA5jVnhl_DOiddSdW1_Q/w400-h309/PKA_ACO_A1980_94.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">James Torrington Bell (1898-1970), "Braes of Downie" (1938)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>My daily walk takes me through a wide, treeless meadow which slopes gently upward to the west. At this time of the year, the wild grasses in the meadow are knee high, even hip high in places. One wades through green along a narrow dirt path. If the day is breezy, you are surrounded by swaying, rustling waves of green. When you reach the top, the view suddenly opens up, and there they are, spread out to the horizon: Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Against this predominance of machinery in our existence, Wordsworth's poetry, like all great art and poetry, is a continual protest. Justify rather the end by the means, it seems to say: whatever may become of the fruit, make sure of the flowers and the leaves. </div><div> * * * * *</div><div>That the end of life is not action but contemplation -- <i>being </i>as distinct from <i>doing</i> -- a certain disposition of the mind: is, in some shape or other, the principle of all the higher morality. . . . To treat life in the spirit of art, is to make life a thing in which means and ends are identified: to encourage such treatment, the true moral significance of art and poetry. Wordsworth, and other poets who have been like him in ancient or more recent times, are the masters, the experts, in this art of impassioned contemplation. Their work is, not to teach lessons, or enforce rules, or even to stimulate us to noble ends; but to withdraw the thoughts for a little while from the mere machinery of life, to fix them, with appropriate emotions, on the spectacle of those great facts in man's existence which no machinery affects."</div><div><br /></div><div>Walter Pater, "Wordsworth," in <i>Appreciations, with an Essay on Style </i>(Macmillan 1889), pages 61-62 (italics in original text).</div><div><br /></div><div>Pater's essay is, I think, one of the finest things ever written about Wordsworth. But you should take what I say with a grain of salt: as I have said here before, I am a Wordsworthian pantheist (the Wordsworthian-Coleridgean pantheism of 1797 through 1799), so what Pater has to say falls on sympathetic ears. On the other hand, there are those who find Wordsworth insufferably dull. That's how these things go.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIbWlUI_QTD5FJmNczqrXprW25GILwtEOq6rM_453O-hdBDKmOPhAWl2m-ykaSoAfrZrWu8_xQgJ0O-UPDE5_UQkVrubLfJs9vjHUP1IH6__uuUjlONwPataGgvJeNtdEBLwDs9f-LH7BGPlMQ8XVz84PaWgZ3LUFkPIZGSuNoN4Hl7Luqj2CI3-j1fg/s1200/ES_BRHM_BTH_004_27.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="989" data-original-width="1200" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIbWlUI_QTD5FJmNczqrXprW25GILwtEOq6rM_453O-hdBDKmOPhAWl2m-ykaSoAfrZrWu8_xQgJ0O-UPDE5_UQkVrubLfJs9vjHUP1IH6__uuUjlONwPataGgvJeNtdEBLwDs9f-LH7BGPlMQ8XVz84PaWgZ3LUFkPIZGSuNoN4Hl7Luqj2CI3-j1fg/w400-h330/ES_BRHM_BTH_004_27.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Eric Hubbard (1892-1957), </span><span style="text-align: left;">"The Cuckmere Valley, East Sussex"</span></div><div><br /></div><div>From within the trees and bushes around the margins of the meadow, the birdsong never ceases. Now and then you may hear the brief, rapid, hollow knocking of a woodpecker, far off in a dark wood. You seldom see birds out in the meadow, but, when you do, it is a lovely surprise: a small, lone wanderer unexpectedly hops out of the deep grass beside the path, a few feet in front of you, and then hurries away down the long green tunnel -- as startled as you -- alert, but not greatly alarmed. </div><div><br /></div><div> Not for Use</div><div><br /></div><div>A little of Summer spilled over, ran</div><div>In splashes of gold on geometry slates.</div><div>The grass unstiffened to pressure of sun.</div><div>I looked at the melting gates</div><div><br /></div><div>Where icicles dropped a twinkling rain,</div><div>Clusters of shining in early December,</div><div>Each window a flaring, effulgent stain.</div><div>And easy now to remember</div><div><br /></div><div>The world's for delight and each of us</div><div>Is a joy whether in or out of love.</div><div>'No one must ever be used for use,'</div><div>Was what I was thinking of.</div><div><br /></div><div>Elizabeth Jennings, <i>Growing Points </i>(Carcanet 1975).</div><div><br /></div><div>"Things quiet and unconcerned." This falling away and paring away of things as the years go by is a welcome development.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjExKaVbKZePviD1AR0iNv9UCY0G528cJ45J0Cstm_Eo207fmuVAWiBeZYh09cKY537yKTGTys5ie1nVnPEuBtjEFdytW-xTxSvmmV4fBdQl7YwIq0BXIyWWN7d5qIq7AICocAw1KT1GgA03ymXKbKKRzDZu2eFBeQEBc8zPSZ_03bmGRxZ0i4NDfg03A/s800/SOM_VAG_BATVG_P_1980_57-001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="620" data-original-width="800" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjExKaVbKZePviD1AR0iNv9UCY0G528cJ45J0Cstm_Eo207fmuVAWiBeZYh09cKY537yKTGTys5ie1nVnPEuBtjEFdytW-xTxSvmmV4fBdQl7YwIq0BXIyWWN7d5qIq7AICocAw1KT1GgA03ymXKbKKRzDZu2eFBeQEBc8zPSZ_03bmGRxZ0i4NDfg03A/w400-h310/SOM_VAG_BATVG_P_1980_57-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Dane Maw (1906-1989), "Langdell Fells, Westmorland"</span></div><div><br /></div><div>And now, to return to our English poet. He was a gentle man who loved cricket and pubs. He and Thomas Hardy became good friends. He spent more days at the front than any of the other poets of the First World War. "Yes, I still remember/The whole thing in a way;/Edge and exactitude/Depend on the day." (Edmund Blunden, "Can You Remember?") He knew full well the uses to which a human being can be put. But he never ceased loving the World.</div><div><br /></div><div> Seers</div><div><br /></div><div>I live still, to love still</div><div> Things quiet and unconcerned, --</div><div> And many can say this.</div><div> I watch their bliss,</div><div>To these things they have ever returned.</div><div><br /></div><div>One who has passed beyond</div><div> Sits in my room with me,</div><div>But is sitting beside a pond</div><div> On a fallen tree,</div><div>And the pictured water-countenance</div><div>Is his day's ample inheritance.</div><div><br /></div><div>And one died young who passed</div><div> An hour or two away</div><div>From war, where windows were glassed</div><div> And kept their kind display,</div><div>There he stands rapt, -- the china, the clocks,</div><div>Gollywogs, chessmen, postcards, frocks.</div><div><br /></div><div>Enough it was also for her</div><div> Whose life was toil on toil</div><div>If sometimes a wanderer</div><div> Where bracken fronds uncoil,</div><div>Or silverweeds in woodways shone</div><div>She might regard them one by one.</div><div><br /></div><div>Edmund Blunden, <i>A Hong Kong House: Poems 1951-1961 </i>(Collins 1962).</div><div><br /></div><div>He closes his best-known poem with this line: "<a href="https://firstknownwhenlost.blogspot.com/2010/08/edmund-blunden-report-on-experience.html" target="_blank">Over there are faith, life, virtue in the sun.</a>"</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ1J4WMJzc0mG_7aFC-OovaZrGRB5dV2sU6gsajHmB7l3zlLLaL81WcQpqNtG1MVl2rjexXm-7174LdJCfNpNyFMMPgc5Ns08B75enEMZBb9nVpy_ZY8LbSLU9vH7e7hR3Y32uwReA7j9CRV7nyyiGF2c3mL-Br_mcF1I3EjyyiW0XVy_jktfggcp6jQ/s800/CAM_CCF_PD_5_1982.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="671" data-original-width="800" height="335" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ1J4WMJzc0mG_7aFC-OovaZrGRB5dV2sU6gsajHmB7l3zlLLaL81WcQpqNtG1MVl2rjexXm-7174LdJCfNpNyFMMPgc5Ns08B75enEMZBb9nVpy_ZY8LbSLU9vH7e7hR3Y32uwReA7j9CRV7nyyiGF2c3mL-Br_mcF1I3EjyyiW0XVy_jktfggcp6jQ/w400-h335/CAM_CCF_PD_5_1982.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">George Mackley (1900-1983), "Brackie's Burn, Northumberland"</span></div>Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-88568568421534235542022-05-06T02:50:00.000-07:002022-05-06T02:50:08.891-07:00Secret Sharers<div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Here is one way of looking at how we abide in the world:<div><br /></div><div>"Experience, already reduced to a group of impressions, is ringed round for each one of us by that thick wall of personality through which no real voice has ever pierced on its way to us, or from us to that which we can only conjecture to be without. Every one of those impressions is the impression of the individual in his isolation, each mind keeping as a solitary prisoner its own dream of a world."</div><div><br /></div><div>Walter Pater, "Conclusion," <i>The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry </i>(Macmillan 1893), page 249.</div><div><br /></div><div>I thought of Pater's passage after reading this:</div><div><br /></div><div> Man in a Park</div><div><br /></div><div>One lost in thought of what his life might mean</div><div>Sat in a park and watched the children play,</div><div>Did nothing, spoke to no one, but all day</div><div>Composed his life around the happy scene.</div><div><br /></div><div>And when the sun went down and keepers came</div><div>To lock the gates, and all the voices were</div><div>Swept to a distance where no sounds could stir,</div><div>This man continued playing his odd game.</div><div><br /></div><div>Thus, without protest, he went to the gate,</div><div>Heard the key turn and shut his eyes until</div><div>He felt that he had made the whole place still,</div><div>Being content simply to watch and wait.</div><div><br /></div><div>So one can live, like patterns under glass,</div><div>And, like those patterns, not committing harm.</div><div>This man continued faithful to his calm,</div><div>Watching the children playing on the grass.</div><div><br /></div><div>But what if someone else should also sit</div><div>Beside him on the bench and play the same</div><div>Watching and counting, self-preserving game,</div><div>Building a world with him no part of it?</div><div><br /></div><div>If he is truthful to his vision he</div><div>Will let the dark intruder push him from </div><div>His place, and in the softly gathering gloom</div><div>Add one more note to his philosophy.</div><div><br /></div><div>Elizabeth Jennings (1926-2001), <i>Recoveries </i>(Andre Deutsch 1964).</div><div><br /></div><div>Pater's observation is one of the stepping stones that takes him, two paragraphs (and a few more stepping stones) later, to his well-known prescription for how to live: "To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life." (Walter Pater, <i>The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry</i>, page 251.) But burning with a gem-like flame is not our concern at the moment, dear readers. (Mind you, I say that as one who is quite fond of Pater.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Rather, our concern is how to get through "an ordinary Wednesday afternoon" (to borrow from Walker Percy). In her own quiet, lovely fashion, Jennings shows us a "mind keeping as a solitary prisoner its own dream of a world." The man in the park may not be a complete stranger to some of us. I suspect he was not a complete stranger to Jennings. Like Pater, she goes a step further (but in her own way), and gives us those wonderful, beautiful, and mysterious final eight lines, which seem to be about getting through an ordinary Wednesday afternoon. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2J9Os8XrfW2tqZkc56KQ-eYsKOYsfAL_lWm3xdWas6I7XlWGL7DfasPNGVc71wmeuTs7frDF2YvodNWXYmLCR2NPaOMvVaPg5mxG9Sld8EeaYv2NxrZKsrFRB6FposqRckEYor7n2HXRnR9ghn79lAUPsAjxyHCCIy9sFdkMHSfar7JB6Evg1wHf0Nw/s1200/GLA_HAG_51914-001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="860" data-original-width="1200" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2J9Os8XrfW2tqZkc56KQ-eYsKOYsfAL_lWm3xdWas6I7XlWGL7DfasPNGVc71wmeuTs7frDF2YvodNWXYmLCR2NPaOMvVaPg5mxG9Sld8EeaYv2NxrZKsrFRB6FposqRckEYor7n2HXRnR9ghn79lAUPsAjxyHCCIy9sFdkMHSfar7JB6Evg1wHf0Nw/w400-h286/GLA_HAG_51914-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">James Paterson (1854-1932), "Moniaive" (1885)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>An observation by Thomas Hardy comes to mind: "The most prosaic man becomes a poem when you stand by his grave at his funeral and think of him." (Thomas Hardy, notebook entry for May 29, 1871, in Richard Taylor (editor), <i>The Personal Notebooks of Thomas Hardy </i>(Macmillan 1978), page 10.) In saying this, Hardy knew full well that he, too, was a "prosaic man." (I base this thought on having read accounts of Hardy by those who met him. Selections of these accounts may be found in Martin Ray (editor), <i>Thomas Hardy Remembered </i>(Ashgate 2007) and James Gibson (editor), <i>Thomas Hardy: Interviews and Recollections </i>(Macmillan 1999). Both books are delightful.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Well, we are all prosaic women and men, aren't we? To think otherwise is self-deception. Perhaps Elizabeth Jennings' wonderful closing lines are relevant: ". . . and in the softly gathering gloom/Add one more note to his philosophy." Isn't this a variation upon Hardy's thought? Are we indeed all strangers to one another?</div><div><br /></div><div> Lot 304: Various Books</div><div><br /></div><div>There are always lives</div><div>Left between the leaves</div><div>Scattering as I dust</div><div>The honeymoon edelweiss</div><div>Pressed ferns from prayer-books</div><div>Seed lists and hints on puddings</div><div>Deprecatory letters from old cousins</div><div>Proposing to come for Easter</div><div>And always clouded negatives</div><div>The ghost dogs in the vanishing gardens:</div><div><br /></div><div>Fading ephemera of non-events,</div><div>Whoever owned it</div><div>(Dead or cut adrift or homeless in a home)</div><div>Nothing to me, a number, or if a name</div><div>Then meaningless,</div><div>Yet always as I touch a current flows,</div><div>The poles connect, the wards latch into place,</div><div>A life extends me --</div><div>Love-hate; grief; faith; wonder;</div><div>Tenderness.</div><div><br /></div><div>Joan Barton (1908-1986), <i>The Mistress and Other Poems</i> (The Sonus Press 1972).</div><div><br /></div><div>Joan Barton wrote poems from an early age, but she did not become well-known as a poet until Philip Larkin chose to include one of her poems in <i>The Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century English Verse </i>(Oxford University Press 1973), which he edited. With respect to "Lot 304: Various Books," it may be helpful to know that Barton was a bookseller for much of her life.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjszHYTpUexPMYa00VGKQk4Z1fZdsgsr7I-LI0FZ4IliLDVekegQ-q7nmiyopIe4lR6hORKjrmnslkmOS1p3L7jhx_ILzJIn6dNBgzrUjclC8WF9xpJHsa5fu7RRfKDFoJkgi4LIV1rpKz0ZocW082o2gvkj5uJGSNZ1AzwfqUACHm5ytZrS2Cvnh_idA/s800/BRM_BMAG_1960P7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="446" data-original-width="800" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjszHYTpUexPMYa00VGKQk4Z1fZdsgsr7I-LI0FZ4IliLDVekegQ-q7nmiyopIe4lR6hORKjrmnslkmOS1p3L7jhx_ILzJIn6dNBgzrUjclC8WF9xpJHsa5fu7RRfKDFoJkgi4LIV1rpKz0ZocW082o2gvkj5uJGSNZ1AzwfqUACHm5ytZrS2Cvnh_idA/w400-h223/BRM_BMAG_1960P7.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="text-align: left;">Charles Holmes (1868-1936), "A Warehouse" (1921)</span></div><div><br /></div><div> A summer shower;</div><div>A woman sits alone,</div><div> Gazing outside.</div><div><br /></div><div>Kikaku (1661-1707) (translated by R. H. Blyth), in R. H. Blyth, <i>Haiku, Volume 3: Summer-Autumn </i>(Hokuseido Press 1952), page 67.</div><div><br /></div><div>What is one to do about "that thick wall of personality"? Is it possible to abandon, or to escape from, our "own dream of a world"? I'm not wise enough to provide answers to either of those questions. I'm afraid the best I can do is to return to these lines, which have appeared here on several occasions over the years: ". . . we should be careful//Of each other, we should be kind/While there is still time." (Philip Larkin, "The Mower.")</div><div><br /></div><div> The long night;</div><div>A light passes along</div><div> Outside the <i>shõji</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902) (translated by R. H. Blyth), in R. H. Blyth, <i>Haiku, Volume 3: Summer-Autumn</i>, page 356.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwYnqwWPPk1FayW7zMq2hjA8vgd485AlczsvSW93h3c68V64bLxS59Y4DH_vF8HE_cRPw_J0VovH1ENfdvOwKGZ3MlN3G1L6Q7aa7l5jS-9tnYJBgZsnTCYUd0-EEY1oJxky77qs3Ug5awBuWEDNpWprTZeawX-rJmddowVgfJjBRNxxKLAtCAuLww0g/s944/GMI_OLD_1_86_2-001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="559" data-original-width="944" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwYnqwWPPk1FayW7zMq2hjA8vgd485AlczsvSW93h3c68V64bLxS59Y4DH_vF8HE_cRPw_J0VovH1ENfdvOwKGZ3MlN3G1L6Q7aa7l5jS-9tnYJBgZsnTCYUd0-EEY1oJxky77qs3Ug5awBuWEDNpWprTZeawX-rJmddowVgfJjBRNxxKLAtCAuLww0g/w400-h236/GMI_OLD_1_86_2-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Alfred Parsons (1857-1920), "Meadows by the Avon"</span></div></div></div></div>Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-68104239733995218752022-04-11T01:15:00.000-07:002022-04-11T01:15:08.564-07:00In Perpetuity<div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Once again, dear readers, it is time to return to my favorite poem of April. Discovering a poem we love is a wonderful thing, but even more wonderful is the poem's continuing presence in our life over the years. We are not the same, the world is not the same, as when we last visited the poem. Who knows what awaits us when we arrive the next time?<br /><div><br /></div><div> Wet Evening in April</div><div><br /></div><div>The birds sang in the wet trees</div><div>And as I listened to them it was a hundred years from now</div><div>And I was dead and someone else was listening to them.</div><div>But I was glad I had recorded for him the melancholy.</div><div><br /></div><div>Patrick Kavanagh, <i>Collected Poems </i>(edited by Antoinette Quinn) (Penguin 2005). The poem was first published in <i>Kavanagh's Weekly </i>on April 19, 1952. <i>Ibid</i>, page 280.</div><div><br /></div><div>No doubt I am a creature of habit, stuck in my settled ways. But "Wet Evening in April" never ceases to move me, whether I return to it in April as a ritual, or whether it unaccountably rises to the surface of its own accord, in any season, at any moment.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwzmt8ytePJv8Xti2OBk1rFQTOoGdfeBdl8OAo9QliHdESGoOgOaZ0Nkp7Ip1PLHnhTx4yjnQsc-WM5t3FTbjcoHescvEsgQ0muueIxC-elM1OooYV1kJWGJBeXZIAd6f20XsPhB7VaynHBEceD_OnlZigyb2r85JdnRmZQPV8giA0eA7-B4-JGE5JuA/s944/LAN_GRUN_G307.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="883" data-original-width="944" height="374" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwzmt8ytePJv8Xti2OBk1rFQTOoGdfeBdl8OAo9QliHdESGoOgOaZ0Nkp7Ip1PLHnhTx4yjnQsc-WM5t3FTbjcoHescvEsgQ0muueIxC-elM1OooYV1kJWGJBeXZIAd6f20XsPhB7VaynHBEceD_OnlZigyb2r85JdnRmZQPV8giA0eA7-B4-JGE5JuA/w400-h374/LAN_GRUN_G307.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Richard Eurich (1903-1992), "The Window"</span></div><div><br /></div><div>"But it is a sort of April weather life that we lead in this world. A little sunshine is generally the prelude to a storm." (William Cowper, letter to Walter Bagot (January 3, 1787), in James King and Charles Ryskamp (editors), <i>The Letters and Prose Writings of William Cowper, Volume III: Letters 1787-1791 </i>(Oxford University Press 1982), pages 5-6.) So it was in this part of the world yesterday afternoon, as I walked through alternating showers and sunlight, the waters of Puget Sound by turns dark gray and dazzling. So it is in the world at large.</div><div><br /></div><div>Withal, there is an ever-present thread of beauty and truth running through our April weather life, through the April weather life of the world. Poetry is an instance of the existence of that thread.</div><div><br /></div><div> Homage to Arthur Waley</div><div><br /></div><div>Seattle weather: it has rained for weeks in this town,</div><div>The dampness breeding moths and a gray summer.</div><div>I sit in the smoky room reading your book again,</div><div>My eyes raw, hearing the trains steaming below me</div><div>In the wet yard, and I wonder if you are still alive.</div><div>Turning the worn pages, reading once more:</div><div>"By misty waters and rainy sands, while the yellow dusk thickens."</div><div><br /></div><div>Weldon Kees, in <i>The Collected Poems of Weldon Kees </i>(edited by Donald Justice) (University of Nebraska Press 1975). The poem was first published in 1943.</div><div><br /></div><div>As long time (and much appreciated!) readers of this blog may recall, Arthur Waley is one of my favorite translators of Chinese poetry into English (along with Burton Watson), and his translations have appeared here on many occasions. Thus, I was delighted when I first came across Kees' poem (most likely on a rainy day in Seattle).</div><div><br /></div><div>The quotation from Waley in the final line is from Waley's translation of a four-line poem (<i>chüeh-chü</i>) by Po Chü-i:</div><div><br /></div><div>A bend of the river brings into view two triumphal arches;</div><div>That is the gate in the western wall of the suburbs of Hsün-yang.</div><div>I have still to travel in my solitary boat three or four leagues --</div><div>By misty waters and rainy sands, while the yellow dusk thickens.</div><div><br /></div><div>Po Chü-i (772-846) (translated by Arthur Waley), in Arthur Waley, <i>One Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems </i>(Constable 1918). The poem is untitled. It appears in a two-poem sequence titled "Arriving at Hsün-yang." (By the way, Waley was in fact "still alive" when Kees wrote the poem: he died in 1966 at the age of 76.)</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihLp2rKCqw9aBG0_1QhO9X5Gp6H-5bsIkleDWITgJ4MvNty95EaYvzQ8D8jNQ5lyEanaM8Gu7UQH0kNDqn1CVti6A9f7OqaHvwkg5sq4BtDQOPFur6UHe1IaPGcjI2IX9RZoKuct2rF0T5ls0R_jdE-j0gMjFPrroVRxDZ-kk_zzaGeN9emM_3YqbRlg/s685/HMPS_UNIV_A2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="685" data-original-width="523" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihLp2rKCqw9aBG0_1QhO9X5Gp6H-5bsIkleDWITgJ4MvNty95EaYvzQ8D8jNQ5lyEanaM8Gu7UQH0kNDqn1CVti6A9f7OqaHvwkg5sq4BtDQOPFur6UHe1IaPGcjI2IX9RZoKuct2rF0T5ls0R_jdE-j0gMjFPrroVRxDZ-kk_zzaGeN9emM_3YqbRlg/w305-h400/HMPS_UNIV_A2.jpg" width="305" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Richard Eurich, "The Rose" (1960)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Patrick Kavanagh meditates upon someone not yet born who will be listening to birds singing in wet trees in April a hundred years in the future, when Kavanagh will be long gone. By virtue of the art of Arthur Waley, Weldon Kees reads a poem written by Po Chü-i a thousand years ago in China. However fragile and contingent the world is, we mustn't forget this abiding thread.</div><div><br /></div><div> To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence</div><div><br /></div><div>I who am dead a thousand years,</div><div> And wrote this sweet archaic song,</div><div>Send you my words for messengers</div><div> The way I shall not pass along.</div><div><br /></div><div>I care not if you bridge the seas,</div><div> Or ride secure the cruel sky,</div><div>Or build consummate palaces</div><div> Of metal or of masonry.</div><div><br /></div><div>But have you wine and music still,</div><div> And statues and a bright-eyed love,</div><div>And foolish thoughts of good and ill,</div><div> And prayers to them who sit above?</div><div><br /></div><div>How shall we conquer? Like a wind</div><div> That falls at eve our fancies blow,</div><div>And old Maeonides the blind</div><div> Said it three thousand years ago.</div><div><br /></div><div>O friend unseen, unborn, unknown,</div><div> Student of our sweet English tongue,</div><div>Read out my words at night, alone:</div><div> I was a poet, I was young.</div><div><br /></div><div>Since I can never see your face,</div><div> And never shake you by the hand,</div><div>I send my soul through time and space</div><div> To greet you. You will understand.</div><div><br /></div><div>James Elroy Flecker, in John Squire (editor), <i>The Collected Poems of James Elroy Flecker </i>(Secker and Warburg 1947).</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQJ9iARpZqqtLTSPMIH_QX71XtCSMSlo8gKzwlTIcLefwYvXa2uTWonjTr80xM1NL-1_toTaODVAiIgr6io9fnNlNmu5hC4RMBnnNojDBF775Y7tQU_IRMkjdSpsrtb0oVfN8HYD64W5Pljh8FC81S4aA-tGjn9A9jHq6oVDzepwAlzBcmbgiCuhF0-w/s1024/2011_CSK_05449_0033_000(richard_eurich_ra_the_road_to_grassington).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="812" data-original-width="1024" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQJ9iARpZqqtLTSPMIH_QX71XtCSMSlo8gKzwlTIcLefwYvXa2uTWonjTr80xM1NL-1_toTaODVAiIgr6io9fnNlNmu5hC4RMBnnNojDBF775Y7tQU_IRMkjdSpsrtb0oVfN8HYD64W5Pljh8FC81S4aA-tGjn9A9jHq6oVDzepwAlzBcmbgiCuhF0-w/w400-h318/2011_CSK_05449_0033_000(richard_eurich_ra_the_road_to_grassington).jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Richard Eurich, "The Road to Grassington" (1971)</span></div></div> </div>Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-73845437687308713482022-03-26T01:40:00.001-07:002022-03-26T10:27:05.474-07:00Empires. Animula. Blossoms and Warblers.<div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Given the situation in which the world now finds itself, I had thought to descant upon the folly and evil of self-appointed emperors and their imaginary, ultimately chimerical empires. I had intended to begin with this:</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> The Fort of Rathangan</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">The fort over against the oak-wood,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Once it was Bruidge's, it was Cathal's,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">It was Aed's, it was Ailill's,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">It was Conaing's, it was Cuilíne's,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">And it was Maeldúin's:</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">The fort remains after each in his turn --</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">And the kings asleep in the ground.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Anonymous (translated by Kuno Meyer), in Kuno Meyer (editor), <i>Selections from Ancient Irish Poetry </i>(Constable 1913). I first discovered the poem in Walter de la Mare's anthology <i>Come Hither: A Collection of Rhymes and Poems for the Young of All Ages </i>(Constable 1923).</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">I planned to eventually arrive at this:</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> In Yüeh Viewing the Past</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Kou-chien, king of Yüeh, came back from the broken land of Wu;</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">his brave men returned to their homes, all in robes of brocade.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Ladies in waiting like flowers filled his spring palace</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">where now only the partridges fly.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Li Po (701-762) (translated by Burton Watson), in Burton Watson (editor), <i>The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry: From Early Times to the Thirteenth Century </i>(Columbia University Press 1984).</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">But I soon realized, dear readers, that I would only be telling you something you already know. Moreover, of what value is historical "perspective" (or the "perspective" of immutable human nature) when singular and irreplaceable lives are being lost, or forever damaged, at this moment? I no longer had any heart for the project. "Perspective" is an inappropriate indulgence for someone who is out of harm's way, living in a place that is not at war.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieFChyKlTEpmNR1XQ9VWXQVDu2CgF2QXtooQ2OrSJ66wxLYciWGDzeXtFOx-OZPvox8pKxBzS-_cVrSCvtgZ1HeXwz5NkK3Pq5JOERZspiBkiOFDssKlcKWlEPaqfLkfaAV8a-05AL3GCL0hfqWeEzccctdfvc01uCDFLZ5dgSpd65CNwEaAnsV-obnA/s800/GL_GM_NR_129-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="650" data-original-width="800" height="325" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieFChyKlTEpmNR1XQ9VWXQVDu2CgF2QXtooQ2OrSJ66wxLYciWGDzeXtFOx-OZPvox8pKxBzS-_cVrSCvtgZ1HeXwz5NkK3Pq5JOERZspiBkiOFDssKlcKWlEPaqfLkfaAV8a-05AL3GCL0hfqWeEzccctdfvc01uCDFLZ5dgSpd65CNwEaAnsV-obnA/w400-h325/GL_GM_NR_129-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">James McIntosh Patrick (1907-1998), "A Castle in Scotland"</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Around the same time, for reasons unknown, I remembered this:</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> Animula </div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">No one knows, no one cares --</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">An old soul</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">In a narrow cottage,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">A parlour,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">A kitchen,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">And upstairs</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">A narrow bedroom,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">A narrow bed --</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">A particle of immemorial life.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">James Reeves, <i>Poems and Paraphrases </i>(Heinemann 1972). "Animula" is usually translated into English as "little soul." </div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Reeves' poem prompted me to return to a poem purportedly written by the Emperor Hadrian (ah, an emperor) on his deathbed. The poem begins: "<i>animula vagula blandula</i>." It has been translated into English dozens of times over the centuries. My favorite version is that of Henry Vaughan:</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">My soul, my pleasant soul and witty,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">The guest and consort of my body,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Into what place now all alone</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Naked and sad wilt thou be gone?</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">No mirth, no wit, as heretofore,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Nor jests wilt thou afford me more.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Henry Vaughan, <i>"</i>Man in Darkness, or, A Discourse of Death," in <i>The Mount of Olives: or, Solitary Devotions </i>(1652), in Donald Dickson, Alan Rudrum, and Robert Wilcher (editors), <i>The Works of Henry Vaughan, Volume I: Introduction and Texts, 1646-1652 </i>(Oxford University Press 2018), page 318.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">As a preface to his translation of the poem, Vaughan writes:</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">"You may believe, he was royally accommodated, and wanted nothing which this world could afford; but how far he was from receiving any comfort in his death from that pompous and fruitless abundance, you shall learn from his own mouth, consider (I pray) what he speaks, for they are the words of a dying man, and spoken by him to his departing soul."</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><i>Ibid</i>, page 318.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Finally, Hadrian and Vaughan led me to T. S. Eliot's "Animula," and, in particular, these lines:</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">'Issues from the hand of God, the simple soul'</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">To a flat world of changing lights and noise,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">To light, dark, dry or damp, chilly or warm;</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Moving between the legs of tables and of chairs,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Rising or falling, grasping at kisses and toys,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Advancing boldly, sudden to take alarm,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Retreating to the corner of arm and knee,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Eager to be reassured, taking pleasure</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">In the fragrant brilliance of the Christmas tree,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Pleasure in the wind, the sunlight and the sea.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> * * * * *</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Issues from the hand of time the simple soul</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Irresolute and selfish, misshapen, lame,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Unable to fare forward or retreat, </div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Fearing the warm reality, the offered good,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Denying the importunity of the blood,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Shadow of its own shadows, spectre in its own gloom,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Leaving disordered papers in a dusty room;</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Living first in the silence after the viaticum.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">T. S. Eliot, "Animula," lines 1-10 and 24-31, in <i>Collected Poems 1909-1935 </i>(Harcourt, Brace and Company 1936).</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcNdlFYS3nRJJqMvKt1y8XIBthz1fv65i6qfEm-thyYjvDz-ndc-JywijN7fgMJOPBFLpFd1tGXBi_0Wsn7bXiLAhL4dJ2y0kxOif5nkp_TACqjgB72YTnYJxKkKzD8ZoYLmO2o4SeRqSnR5dMkyrOM7cmFd3BqXHNPEaak-xYeWx6zp981al6aLsONg/s944/NML_WARG_WAG_2597-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="645" data-original-width="944" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcNdlFYS3nRJJqMvKt1y8XIBthz1fv65i6qfEm-thyYjvDz-ndc-JywijN7fgMJOPBFLpFd1tGXBi_0Wsn7bXiLAhL4dJ2y0kxOif5nkp_TACqjgB72YTnYJxKkKzD8ZoYLmO2o4SeRqSnR5dMkyrOM7cmFd3BqXHNPEaak-xYeWx6zp981al6aLsONg/w400-h274/NML_WARG_WAG_2597-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">James McIntosh Patrick, "Springtime in Eskdale" (1935)</span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">There is yet another way of considering this matter: "You are a little soul, carrying around a corpse, as Epictetus used to say." Marcus Aurelius, <i>Meditations</i>, Book IV, Section 41 (translated by W. A. Oldfather).</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Marcus Aurelius' quotation from Epictetus may be read in light of the section of the <i>Meditations</i> which immediately precedes it, and which is quite wonderful:</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">"Cease not to think of the Universe as one living Being, possessed of a single Substance and a single Soul; and how all things trace back to its single sentience; and how it does all things by a single impulse; and how all existing things are joint causes of all things that come into existence; and how intertwined in the fabric is the thread and how closely woven the web."</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Marcus Aurelius, <i>Meditations</i>, Book IV, Section 40 (translated by C. R. Haines).</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Empires. Animula. And yesterday afternoon I walked through Spring, which persists in being here, despite everything. "How intertwined in the fabric is the thread and how closely woven the web."</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">A man of the Way comes rapping at my brushwood gate,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">wants to discuss the essentials of Zen experience.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Don't take it wrong if this mountain monk's too lazy to open his</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> mouth:</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">late spring warblers singing their heart out, a village of drifting</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> petals.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Jakushitsu Genkō (1290-1367) (translated by Burton Watson), in Burton Watson, "Poems by Jakushitsu Genkō," <i>The Rainbow World: Japan in Essays and Translations </i>(Broken Moon Press 1990), page 127.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">What are we to do? "It's a sad and beautiful world." (Mark Linkous (performing as Sparklehorse), "Sad and Beautiful World.")</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">To a mountain village</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> at nightfall on a spring day</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> I came and saw this:</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">blossoms scattering on echoes</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"> from the vespers bell.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">Nōin (988-1050) (translated by Steven Carter), in Steven Carter (editor), <i>Traditional Japanese Poetry: An Anthology </i>(Stanford University Press 1991), page 134.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhng8Y8cNQDqAfMvzZ7EFBMQQPTOlsXiYZ5TbitpAVEwHc5lju2rDlfSCItQ52DiWaY5DWzeEMrIRcVA-M0NP--Oko6U9lHwcT7FGMV4mTRo0lDlkCf2rivkGCGBgl-_TeRn39TBbId5tMuvoxFZcWc8wt7taJ8qDL97OMY1OB61VNe63r6AbgNTDzFsA/s944/DUN_DAGM_2_1940.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="751" data-original-width="944" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhng8Y8cNQDqAfMvzZ7EFBMQQPTOlsXiYZ5TbitpAVEwHc5lju2rDlfSCItQ52DiWaY5DWzeEMrIRcVA-M0NP--Oko6U9lHwcT7FGMV4mTRo0lDlkCf2rivkGCGBgl-_TeRn39TBbId5tMuvoxFZcWc8wt7taJ8qDL97OMY1OB61VNe63r6AbgNTDzFsA/w400-h319/DUN_DAGM_2_1940.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">James McIntosh Patrick, "A City Garden" (1940)</span></div> Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-88296370092574407532022-03-04T02:00:00.000-08:002022-03-04T02:00:07.179-08:00Gulls<div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><meta class="" content="text/html charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"></meta><meta class="" content="text/html charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"></meta><meta class="" content="text/html charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"></meta><div style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">I am content to live my life in accordance with certain truisms. For instance: <i>Human nature has never changed, and never will</i>. And one of its corollaries: <i>Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward</i>. Both of these seem quite apt in light of the events of the past week. </div><div style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;">I suspect that the utility of truisms becomes more apparent as one ages. This is not necessarily a matter of attaining wisdom (I can attest to that). Rather, it reflects a paring away of that which is inessential, beside the point. There is little time left. Why expend any of it on the sophistries of the world?</div><div style="-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><div><br /></div><div> The Truisms</div><div><br /></div><div>His father gave him a box of truisms</div><div>Shaped like a coffin, then his father died;</div><div>The truisms remained on the mantelpiece</div><div>As wooden as the playbox they had been packed in</div><div>Or that other his father skulked inside.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then he left home, left the truisms behind him</div><div>Still on the mantelpiece, met love, met war,</div><div>Sordor, disappointment, defeat, betrayal,</div><div>Till through disbeliefs he arrived at a house</div><div>He could not remember seeing before.</div><div><br /></div><div>And he walked straight in; it was where he had come from</div><div>And something told him the way to behave.</div><div>He raised his hand and blessed his home;</div><div>The truisms flew and perched on his shoulders</div><div>And a tall tree sprouted from his father's grave.</div><div><br /></div><div>Louis MacNeice, <i>Solstices </i>(Faber and Faber 1961).</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEionEsisjcaTkewyubO1dETEBjJpbFD7mAUBIoG1S2b5YzWbI8rh3mE0ZhXdsg89KHwP_ifRLmol9wWh45h_cBsJTbqurGp_X1Ety8UYt_eNBbH_ZTthcvWA0Nc2DQJBfl4Khm4ZGjdiGXFI4uwiyojdrf1Wtx8W863L1j470LIAXVQ1Mc2GIkm9UN60A=s1200" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="802" data-original-width="1200" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEionEsisjcaTkewyubO1dETEBjJpbFD7mAUBIoG1S2b5YzWbI8rh3mE0ZhXdsg89KHwP_ifRLmol9wWh45h_cBsJTbqurGp_X1Ety8UYt_eNBbH_ZTthcvWA0Nc2DQJBfl4Khm4ZGjdiGXFI4uwiyojdrf1Wtx8W863L1j470LIAXVQ1Mc2GIkm9UN60A=w400-h268" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Charles Ginner (1878-1952), </span><span style="text-align: left;">"Hartland Point from Boscastle" (1941)</span></div><div><div><br /></div><div>The truisms mostly provide a framework for the world of humans, happenstance, and history, the world of fortune and of fate. As for the World -- the World of beautiful particulars -- that is something else entirely. I expect no explanations, answers, or solutions to arrive. That being said, I am always on the lookout for glimmers and glimpses, calls and whispers, from near or far. Yesterday, I came across thousands of tangled bare branches, a few passing white clouds, and a blue sky -- all floating on the surface of a puddle along the edge of a pathway. Birdsong was with me wherever I walked.</div><div><br /></div><div>Still, there are truisms that apply both to the world and the World. For example: <i>One thing leads to another</i>. As I have noted here in the past, one of the charms of poetry is that you never know where a poem will take you. A few mornings ago, I read this:</div></div><div><br /></div><div> Evening Rain by the Bridge</div><div><br /></div><div>Showering, the rain by the bridge,</div><div>Under shadow, at nightfall is not yet hushed.</div><div>A fisherman in straw coat waits hesitant on the bluff;</div><div>The monks' gong sounds across the central stream.</div><div>Sad and still, bush clover at twilight --</div><div>Blue into the distance, water oats in autumn.</div><div>How beautiful is the clear shallow water!</div><div>Tranquil: a single sand gull.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ichū Tsūjo (1349-1429) (translated by Marian Ury), in Marian Ury, <i>Poems of the Five Mountains: An Introduction to the Literature of the Zen Monasteries </i>(Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan 1992).</div><div><br /></div><div>The poem is a <i>kanshi</i>: a poem written in Chinese characters by a Japanese poet. The writing of <i>kanshi </i>developed due to the popularity of classical Chinese poetry in Japan. A <i>kanshi</i> replicates the formal structures and prosodic features of Chinese poetry (the number of lines in a particular lyric form, the prescribed number of characters in each line, as well as requirements relating to rhyme, tonal patterns, and verbal parallelisms). </div><div><br /></div><div>Although very few of the Japanese poets who wrote <i>kanshi </i>were fluent in, or spoke, Chinese, they were familiar with Chinese characters (known as <i>kanji</i> in Japanese) given that the characters are used in the Japanese writing system. For many years (particularly during the 14th and 15th centuries), the writing of <i>kanshi </i>was popular among Zen Buddhist monks due to Zen's origin in Chinese Ch'an Buddhism. A number of these monks had traveled to China to study Ch'an, and, while living there, had also grown fond of Chinese poetry.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiCPPnCTxtdDtzn1YCdD918VsdOd2LPRkc1RcnDUbLMwMOemS1kHeOnfU51c61vS5fx2WcT6Js8O0o6cROxPd7bP2iBBb7Lv-XjWpX2mOG2UnMYzCrGN8FXRIn3HZlcEvgqf2FAaVw0IGAhscwmCR3m6r1XWQUM2osjF_JCqg6yehlzeMSWViCg_DuSgg=s800" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="662" data-original-width="800" height="331" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiCPPnCTxtdDtzn1YCdD918VsdOd2LPRkc1RcnDUbLMwMOemS1kHeOnfU51c61vS5fx2WcT6Js8O0o6cROxPd7bP2iBBb7Lv-XjWpX2mOG2UnMYzCrGN8FXRIn3HZlcEvgqf2FAaVw0IGAhscwmCR3m6r1XWQUM2osjF_JCqg6yehlzeMSWViCg_DuSgg=w400-h331" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Charles Ginner, "Dahlias and Cornflowers" (1929)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Ichū Tsūjo's "Tranquil: a single sand gull" soon brought to mind one of Tu Fu's best-known, most-beloved poems:</div><div><br /></div><div> A Traveler at Night Writes His Thoughts</div><div><br /></div><div>Delicate grasses, faint wind on the bank;</div><div>stark mast, a lone night boat:</div><div>stars hang down, over broad fields sweeping;</div><div>the moon boils up, on the great river flowing.</div><div>Fame -- how can my writings win me that?</div><div>Office -- age and sickness have brought it to an end.</div><div>Fluttering, fluttering -- where is my likeness?</div><div>Sky and earth and one sandy gull.</div><div><br /></div><div>Tu Fu (712-770) (translated by Burton Watson), in Burton Watson, <i>The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry: From Early Times to the Thirteenth Century </i>(Columbia University Press 1984).</div><div><br /></div><div>Very little has been written about Ichū Tsūjo in English, so I am not qualified to opine upon his familiarity either with Chinese poetry in general or with Tu Fu's poetry in particular. However, I suspect that he was familiar with both Tu Fu's poetry and with "A Traveler at Night Writes His Thoughts." I would also not be surprised if "Tranquil: a single sand gull" is a conscious echo of "Fluttering, fluttering -- where is my likeness?/Sky and earth and one sandy gull."</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg8UGzcQepG0U9kRipLbZ2jQneWphB4LNhyoouUKmkj5Z0QGqusEyG4w1mU40cGntuNOguSO6B0zA9laso3DruyQ0vQS5SzcemK3SzByDy8Vvmd9LM_UxR-nuPcEQTz7kS7kPMiVBP_WHInwbGGjjnxamZr00Neir5xHgI9L2jTGexhHtXTklaOA7LImQ=s1200" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1010" data-original-width="1200" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg8UGzcQepG0U9kRipLbZ2jQneWphB4LNhyoouUKmkj5Z0QGqusEyG4w1mU40cGntuNOguSO6B0zA9laso3DruyQ0vQS5SzcemK3SzByDy8Vvmd9LM_UxR-nuPcEQTz7kS7kPMiVBP_WHInwbGGjjnxamZr00Neir5xHgI9L2jTGexhHtXTklaOA7LImQ=w400-h336" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Charles Ginner, "Novar Cottage, Bearley, Warwickshire" (1933)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Tu Fu's "one sandy gull" in turn brought me to this, one of my favorite poems of spring:</div><div><br /></div><div> The Chinese Restaurant in Portrush</div><div><br /></div><div>Before the first visitor comes the spring</div><div>Softening the sharp air of the coast</div><div>In time for the first seasonal 'invasion.'</div><div>Today the place is as it might have been,</div><div>Gentle and almost hospitable. A girl</div><div>Strides past the Northern Counties Hotel,</div><div>Light-footed, swinging a book-bag,</div><div>And the doors that were shut all winter</div><div>Against the north wind and the sea-mist</div><div>Lie open to the street, where one</div><div>By one the gulls go window-shopping</div><div>And an old wolfhound dozes in the sun.</div><div><br /></div><div>While I sit with my paper and prawn chow mein</div><div>Under a framed photograph of Hong Kong</div><div>The proprietor of the Chinese restaurant</div><div>Stands at the door as if the world were young,</div><div>Watching the first yacht hoist a sail</div><div>-- An ideogram on sea-cloud -- and the light</div><div>Of heaven upon the hills of Donegal;</div><div>And whistles a little tune, dreaming of home.</div><div><br /></div><div>Derek Mahon, <i>Collected Poems </i>(The Gallery Press 1999).</div><div><br /></div><div>Gulls. One thing leads to another: from the banks of a village stream in 14th century Japan, to a boat anchored in a great river in 8th century China, and, finally, to a seaside town in 20th century Northern Ireland. Are such journeys idle indulgences in a world of misery, calamity, and evil? Or are such journeys absolute necessities in a world of misery, calamity, and evil?</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg4GIOh0kvwnxpJh3RswbEN6pw0S5tl1NV6tqGRQ8XPUjrO7A-RMYmedavBBrdw3x0sfGr22flHD3C0F67nIU5tAKiD0LqTgP1lWjUpEk9Iw56UcrL4mDfnPPzI0wDe8748bZ4AA8mc0fY94aFIBMLUIHr_3ttehR4M6hOOwHHSouAzXdXyFsYaacEwkg=s1200" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="843" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg4GIOh0kvwnxpJh3RswbEN6pw0S5tl1NV6tqGRQ8XPUjrO7A-RMYmedavBBrdw3x0sfGr22flHD3C0F67nIU5tAKiD0LqTgP1lWjUpEk9Iw56UcrL4mDfnPPzI0wDe8748bZ4AA8mc0fY94aFIBMLUIHr_3ttehR4M6hOOwHHSouAzXdXyFsYaacEwkg=w281-h400" width="281" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Charles Ginner, "Yellow Chrysanthemums" (1929)</span></div></div></div></div>Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-2381695763145847692022-02-08T01:00:00.003-08:002022-02-08T09:02:50.230-08:00RevelationMy afternoon walk takes me through a grove of pines. Beside a turning of the path is a small group of bushes, sheltered beneath the boughs overhead, growing amid years of fallen needles and leaves. The bushes are widely-spaced, open-branched candelabras, varying between four to eight feet tall. Over time, they have become a harbinger of spring, for they are often the bearers of the first green buds of late winter. <div><br /></div><div>And so it is again: a few days ago, as I idly made my way, I noticed buds at the tip of nearly every twig, each lit by the low sun, most still folded tight, others already unfolding. Before long, small white blossoms will appear. I was startled by this sudden green presence. Sleepwalking once again. But the World always finds a way to shake us awake.<div><div><div><br /></div><div> A Thicket in Lleyn</div><div><br /></div><div>I was no tree walking.</div><div>I was still. They ignored me,</div><div>the birds, the migrants</div><div>on their way south. They re-leafed</div><div>the trees, budding them</div><div>with their notes. They filtered through</div><div>the boughs like sunlight,</div><div>looked at me from three feet</div><div>off, their eyes blackberry bright,</div><div>not seeing me, not detaching me</div><div>from the withies, where I was</div><div>caged and they free.</div><div> They would have perched</div><div>on me, had I had nourishment</div><div>in my fissures. As it was,</div><div>they netted me in their shadows,</div><div>brushed me with sound, feathering the arrows</div><div>of their own bows, and were gone,</div><div>leaving me to reflect on the answer</div><div>to a question I had not asked.</div><div>"A repetition in time of the eternal</div><div>I AM." Say it. Don't be shy.</div><div>Escape from your mortal cage</div><div>in thought. Your migrations will never </div><div>be over. Between two truths</div><div>there is only the mind to fly with.</div><div>Navigate by such stars as are not</div><div>leaves falling from life's</div><div>deciduous tree, but spray from the fountain</div><div>of the imagination, endlessly</div><div>replenishing itself out of its own waters.</div><div><br /></div><div>R. S. Thomas, <i>Experimenting with an Amen </i>(Macmillan 1986).</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPguecYyqNFiMXR4zdxi41gnF9KD1krFamJYPwOJTJIpCeGfjtXxyIUrHDkG7MLn4G0UfFv_4nKBOjERp57LE6RGgopsELWQUcs0SIBZdfYQJJ36_bHCNl1kRFrnb7iLmu4k1gAfKU0UUAZQ6-ZcT4RVZeTOBGE5v6tMsjCHK8Pd4O70siV_xQ1UCmlA/s944/BCO_BCO_P1-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="944" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPguecYyqNFiMXR4zdxi41gnF9KD1krFamJYPwOJTJIpCeGfjtXxyIUrHDkG7MLn4G0UfFv_4nKBOjERp57LE6RGgopsELWQUcs0SIBZdfYQJJ36_bHCNl1kRFrnb7iLmu4k1gAfKU0UUAZQ6-ZcT4RVZeTOBGE5v6tMsjCHK8Pd4O70siV_xQ1UCmlA/w400-h320/BCO_BCO_P1-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Duncan Grant (1885-1978), "Charleston Barn" (1942)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>"A repetition in time of the eternal I AM" is a variation by Thomas on Coleridge's definition of "the primary Imagination": "The primary IMAGINATION I hold to be the living Power and prime Agent of all human Perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM." (Samuel Taylor Coleridge, <i>Biographia Literaria </i>(1817) (edited by Adam Roberts) (Edinburgh University Press 2014), page 205.) Thomas' alteration of the language is interesting, for he seems to broaden the scope of Coleridge's conception: Coleridge is seeking to define the nature of "the Primary Imagination," but Thomas expands this into an observation on the nature of our existence.</div><div><br /></div><div>However, I shouldn't get too carried away with this parsing of words, for I would never wish to sell Coleridge short when it comes to contemplations upon eternity or upon the eternal and infinite "I AM": they are arguably in the foreground and background of all his thought and work. For instance, one finds them again in the final sentence of <i>Biographia Literaria</i>:</div><div><br /></div><div>"It is Night, sacred Night! the upraised Eye views only the starry Heaven which manifests itself alone: and the outward Beholding is fixed on the sparks twinkling in the aweful depth, though Suns of other Worlds, only to preserve the Soul steady and collected in its pure <i>Act</i> of inward Adoration to the great I AM, and to the filial WORD that re-affirmeth it from Eternity to Eternity, whose choral Echo is the Universe."</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Ibid</i>, page 414. ("Aweful" is an archaic spelling often used by Coleridge, particularly in his younger years. He uses it in this sense: "Solemnly impressive; sublimely majestic." (<i>The Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition </i>(Clarendon Press 1989), page 833.) The spelling appears odd to modern eyes, but the presence of "awe" in the word is lovely. It's a shame that this sense of the word has been lost.)</div><div><br /></div><div>With respect to Coleridge and "eternity," words written soon after Coleridge's death by Charles Lamb, his friend from childhood, are telling and touching:</div><div><br /></div><div>"When I heard of the death of Coleridge, it was without grief. It seemed to me that he long had been on the confines of the next world, — that he had a hunger for eternity. I grieved then that I could not grieve. But, since, I feel how great a part he was of me. His great and dear spirit haunts me. I cannot think a thought, I cannot make a criticism on men and books, without an ineffectual turning and reference to him. He was the proof and touchstone of all my cognitions. . . . Never saw I his likeness, nor probably the world can see again."</div><div><br /></div><div>Charles Lamb, in E. V. Lucas, <i>The Life of Charles Lamb, Volume II </i>(Methuen 1905), page 266. Coleridge died on July 25, 1834. Lamb's remarks were written in November of that year, "in the album of Mr. Keymer, a bookseller." <i>Ibid</i>. Lamb died soon after, on December 27.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_AuZwe2zF69Q7sk2gytWls9XPJSGO-9KeYvQRQx99MNnjgGqQOSDJuIvoGDpTy4ltBDTmkKtafsZpZ2TBQn6tLrw--bFukxbq7ubtXMEipiq7mEdsfPUMRWobJLvBwJVN_BVQQ5dQBP1_BNz_PI1e18QjT4dQLcwWGC4VoJE6vvwIOZD-sc0uu4VKZQ/s685/ACC_ACC_AC_212-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="685" data-original-width="605" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_AuZwe2zF69Q7sk2gytWls9XPJSGO-9KeYvQRQx99MNnjgGqQOSDJuIvoGDpTy4ltBDTmkKtafsZpZ2TBQn6tLrw--bFukxbq7ubtXMEipiq7mEdsfPUMRWobJLvBwJVN_BVQQ5dQBP1_BNz_PI1e18QjT4dQLcwWGC4VoJE6vvwIOZD-sc0uu4VKZQ/w354-h400/ACC_ACC_AC_212-001.jpg" width="354" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Duncan Grant, "The Doorway" (1929)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>A recurring theme in the poetry of R. S. Thomas (one might even say <i>the </i>theme of his poetry) is the obdurate silence of God, and Thomas' impatience with, and ultimate acceptance of, that silence. The fact that Thomas was an Anglican priest certainly adds an interesting and deeper dimension to the situation. </div><div><br /></div><div>At the same time, however, Thomas' preoccupation with this baffling, provocative, and powerful silence takes place in a World of immanence. And, at unexpected times and in unexpected places, all suddenly becomes clear: <i>Something</i> is there. As in "A Thicket in Lleyn." Or as in this:</div><div><br /></div><div> Arrival</div><div><br /></div><div>Not conscious</div><div> that you have been seeking</div><div> suddenly</div><div> you come upon it</div><div><br /></div><div>the village in the Welsh hills</div><div> dust free</div><div> with no road out</div><div>but the one you came in by.</div><div><br /></div><div> A bird chimes</div><div> from a green tree</div><div>the hour that is no hour</div><div> you know. The river dawdles</div><div>to hold a mirror for you</div><div>where you may see yourself</div><div> as you are, a traveller</div><div> with the moon's halo</div><div> above him, who has arrived</div><div> after long journeying where he</div><div> began, catching this</div><div> one truth by surprise</div><div>that there is everything to look forward to.</div><div><br /></div><div>R. S. Thomas, <i>Later Poems </i>(Macmillan 1983).</div></div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4CMRj7_r9cWpLSTHntnsoYy4-Eg3Y2D3WV3Cs3RrCl-biPGOkum6tpAZ8Nhzt1TJajOX04T0Lx87DREjBpX6TdQJMQB4Am0uLQqNs7rTBOzK49ht-enUeu3s3GZw848IPYvp_5LdZWrNliKVgQ1Qi1-68R1J4yQauxR-aZwV59VDTu2uNxuzCMCA5Jg/s944/WYR_BMGH_1934_020-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="727" data-original-width="944" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4CMRj7_r9cWpLSTHntnsoYy4-Eg3Y2D3WV3Cs3RrCl-biPGOkum6tpAZ8Nhzt1TJajOX04T0Lx87DREjBpX6TdQJMQB4Am0uLQqNs7rTBOzK49ht-enUeu3s3GZw848IPYvp_5LdZWrNliKVgQ1Qi1-68R1J4yQauxR-aZwV59VDTu2uNxuzCMCA5Jg/w400-h308/WYR_BMGH_1934_020-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Duncan Grant, "Laughton Castle" (c. 1930)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>"He had a hunger for eternity." There are worse things to hunger after. And "there is everything to look forward to." All of this inevitably brings me to my favorite poem by Thomas, which has appeared here six times over the past eleven years. So please bear with me, dear readers: it needs to be here.</div><div><br /></div><div> The Bright Field</div><div><br /></div><div>I have seen the sun break through </div><div>to illuminate a small field</div><div>for a while, and gone my way</div><div>and forgotten it. But that was the pearl</div><div>of great price, the one field that had</div><div>the treasure in it. I realize now </div><div>that I must give all that I have</div><div>to possess it. Life is not hurrying</div><div><br /></div><div>on to a receding future, nor hankering after</div><div>an imagined past. It is the turning</div><div>aside like Moses to the miracle</div><div>of the lit bush, to a brightness</div><div>that seemed as transitory as your youth</div><div>once, but is the eternity that awaits you.</div><div><br /></div><div>R. S. Thomas, <i>Laboratories of the Spirit </i>(Macmillan 1975).</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvGgLZeDjElbtvoAMS6pMKSk0Ac4lBNhWaBuEgbwNCZe8m5KDSZ5Xh8FamK55g9yf7b7esngV41FJpcdsT15CTx7iuVvFP3WoLKaJ4bPQcEpU2behzlpM7_cH1c7o8gnm_ymtbocV40Kw3e5gotgZ0J0kwzOtryNkpy04QokE7DEw6xLWmvdcNniKqHQ/s1200/TATE_TATE_N05171_10-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="958" data-original-width="1200" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvGgLZeDjElbtvoAMS6pMKSk0Ac4lBNhWaBuEgbwNCZe8m5KDSZ5Xh8FamK55g9yf7b7esngV41FJpcdsT15CTx7iuVvFP3WoLKaJ4bPQcEpU2behzlpM7_cH1c7o8gnm_ymtbocV40Kw3e5gotgZ0J0kwzOtryNkpy04QokE7DEw6xLWmvdcNniKqHQ/w400-h319/TATE_TATE_N05171_10-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Duncan Grant, "Girl at the Piano" (1940)</span></div></div>Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.com16