At Rest

In order to live well, we must come to terms with the fact of our own mortality.  Easier said than done, of course.  I can blithely write "come to terms with," which perhaps gives the impression that I know what I'm talking about -- that I know how to thread this needle.  But I can assure you that I know nothing whatsoever.

Earlier this week I spent half a day in a hospital for a routine diagnostic procedure.  The pre-procedure process involved lying alone on a gurney in a patient room after having an IV tube inserted in my arm.  I was told that I would have to wait twenty minutes for the procedure room to become available.  The lights were off.  I was quite relaxed.  But, as I looked up at the ceiling tiles and listened to the conversations taking place at the nurse's station, a thought occurred to me (a paraphrase):  "This is how my days may end.  Dusty ceiling tiles and strangers in conversation, day and night, out in an unseen hallway."

Here is a happier thought.

          Elizabeth

'Elizabeth the Beloved' --
So much says the stone,
That is all with weather defaced,
With moss overgrown.

But if to husband or child,
Brother or sire, most dear
Is past deciphering;
This only is clear:

That once she was beloved,
Was Elizabeth,
And now is beloved no longer,
If it be not of Death.

Sylvia Townsend Warner, Time Importuned (1928).

"Once she was beloved,/Was Elizabeth" is a lovely turn of phrase.  "And now is beloved no longer,/If it be not of Death" sounds like something that Edward Thomas might have written (and which, like Warner, he would have used to end a poem).  In fact, Warner wrote a poem in memory of Thomas, so there may be a subconscious influence at work.

William Holman Hunt, "Our English Coasts ('Strayed Sheep')" (1852)

If one wishes to "come to terms with" one's mortality, graveyards are preferable to hospitals as places to collect one's thoughts on the matter.

   The Old Graveyard at Hauppauge

In Adam's fall we sinned all,
and fell out of Paradise
into mankind -- this body of salt
and gathering of the waters,
birth, work, and wedding garment.

But now we are at rest . . .
Aletta and Phebe Almira,
and Augusta Brunce, and the MacCrones . . .
lying in the earth, looking up
at the clouds and drifting trees.

Louis Simpson, Caviare at the Funeral (1980).

Some may feel that the final two lines are an exercise in wishful thinking. But isn't our entire life an exercise in wishful thinking?  I'd say that a possible definition of "human being" is:  "the creature that engages in wishful thinking."

In the wake of the so-called Enlightenment, reason and rationalism are presumed to trump emotion and intuition.  However, when it comes to how to live (and how to die), a belief in the primacy of reason and rationalism (and in their noisome spawn, "Progress") is just as much an exercise in wishful thinking as is the thought (a lovely one, by the way) that those who have departed are "lying in the earth, looking up/at the clouds and drifting trees."  Reason and rationalism have nothing to do with what is humanly true.

 David Roberts, "Wrth y Bedd" (c. 1950)

In attempting to "come to terms with" my mortality, I prefer to leave reason and rationalism out of account.  The fact of our death, and the way in which we live our life in light of that unchangeable fact, is a matter of emotion, intuition, and imagination, not of ratiocination and logic.

For instance, the following poem is, on its face, irrational.  How can someone speak from the grave?  How can a wood-dove mourn?  Yet the poem makes perfect sense to me.

Not long I lived, but long enough to know my mind
And gain my wish -- a grave buried among these trees,
Where if the wood-dove on my taciturn headstone
Perch for a brief mourning I shall think it enough.

Sylvia Townsend Warner, Boxwood (1960).  The poem is untitled.

Fortunately for us, reason and rationalism have absolutely nothing to do with the essence of poetry.  I agree with Edward Thomas:  the criterion for judging whether certain words placed in a certain order qualify as poetry is whether what the poet says "is true and not feigning."  Humanly true.

John Everett Millais, "The Vale of Rest" (1859)

"Kin And Companion To A Tree"

Recently, mornings here have been foggy.  The fog is thin, and takes on a pinkish-orange glow as the sun rises.  The scene puts me in an 1890s mood:  ethereal, half-lit, vaguely melancholic, vaguely resigned to . . . something or other.  "Out of a misty dream/Our path emerges for a while, then closes/Within a dream."

As I have noted before, there are times during the year when dwelling poetically in the 1890s is entirely appropriate.  I am not one of those who feels that certain types of poetry have become "out-dated."  The word "progress" may (alas!) apply to the world at large, but it does not apply to poetry.  Certain things were done better in the 1890s (and at the turn of the 19th century) than in any other era of poetry, before or since.  We needn't give them up.

Today's news of the world?  Or the dreamy, twilit world of the 1890s?  No contest.

Ford Madox Brown, "Carrying Corn" (1854)

                  Autumn

There is so little wind at all,
The last leaves cling, and do not fall
From the bare branches' ends; I sit
Under a tree and gaze at it,
A slender web against the sky,
Where a small grey cloud goes by;
I feel a speechless happiness
Creep to me out of quietness.

What is it in the earth, the air,
The smell of autumn, or the rare
And half reluctant harmonies
The mist weaves out of silken skies,
What is it shuts my brain and brings
These sleepy dim awakenings,
Till I and all things seem to be
Kin and companion to a tree?

Arthur Symons, The Fool of the World and Other Poems (1906).

Although this may perhaps be said of the entire poem, I think the lines "the rare/And half reluctant harmonies/The mist weaves out of silken skies" capture the 1890s mood in a nutshell.  However, come to think of it, "these sleepy dim awakenings" is not far behind.

George Mason, "The Harvest Moon" (1872)

                            Harvest Moon

Thoughtful luminous harvest moon, as I walk,
The rich and sumptuous night, the procession of trees
Under the moon; the stream's babbling talk;
One star on the eastern ridge hung low on the sea's
Border unseen; a rose-grey shade in the west,
Faded, a petal of sunset, and absolute rose;
Crickets chirp, the sounds of day are at rest;
Under the harvest moon, one by one goes
The austere procession of trees, that walk as I walk.

Arthur Symons, Ibid.

As I have mentioned on another occasion, "grey" is one of Symons's favorite words (together with "twilight").  Thus, it is fitting to find this pairing in line 5: "a rose-grey shade in the west."  The poets of the Nineties often used repetition to achieve a sort of lulling, murmurous, dreamlike -- and (of course!) melancholic -- atmosphere.  Thus, Symons follows "a rose-grey shade" with "a petal of sunset, and absolute rose."  (An aside:  "A petal of sunset" is very nice in and of itself.)  Likewise, we have "thoughtful luminous harvest moon" (line 1), "under the moon" (line 3), and "under the harvest moon" (line 8), as well as the repetitions of "as I walk" (lines 1 and 9) and "procession of trees" (lines 2 and 9).

John Everett Millais, "The Vale of Rest" (1858)

From A Mountain In Vermont To A Jar In Tennessee

On more than one occasion, I have expressed a preference for the more direct (relatively so), more emotional later poetry of Wallace Stevens over his more precious, more abstract earlier poetry.  "July Mountain," which appeared in my most recent post, was one of the last poems written by Stevens.  A poem from Stevens's earlier years provides, I think, a good companion piece (or perhaps a bookend?) to "July Mountain."

          Anecdote of the Jar

I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.

Wallace Stevens, Harmonium (1923).

And what, exactly, is that all about?  Professors and Ph.D. candidates -- enthusiastic members of the Wallace Stevens explication industry in the United States -- have had a field day with that question, of course.  But their guesses are as good as yours or mine.  We should also remember what Mr. Stevens (down-to-earth lawyer and insurance company executive) said:  "I have the greatest dislike for explanations.  As soon as people are perfectly sure of a poem they are just as likely as not to have no further interest in it; it loses whatever potency it had."  (Letter to Ronald Lane Latimer, November 15, 1935.)

But T. S. Eliot may provide an oblique approach:  "the still point of the turning world."  As may Robert Frost:  "a momentary stay against confusion."  As may Edward Thomas:  "And for that minute a blackbird sang/Close by, and round him, mistier,/Farther and farther, all the birds/Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire."  And, finally, as may Philip Larkin:  "Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:/The sun-comprehending glass,/And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows/Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless."

                   John Everett Millais, "The Vale of Rest" (1858-1859)

Life Explained, Part Seven: "Does The Road Wind Up-Hill All The Way?"

There is a tinge of melancholy in much of  the poetry of Christina Rossetti (1830-1894).  However, given the fact that she wrote more than 1,000 poems, it would be unfair to characterize her solely as a poet of melancholy.  She may be best known for "In the Bleak Midwinter," which was set to music by Gustav Holst (and others) after her death.  She also wrote a book of poetry for children (Sing-Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book) which contains ditties about burying a dead thrush in the snow, a "fatherless, motherless" baby, linnets mourning over their eggs ("crushed" by "cruel boys"), and "a baby's grave where autumn leaves drop sere." 

All of which leads to the following poem, which does not exactly provide us with a sunny Explanation of Life.  

                          Up-Hill

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
   Yes, to the very end.
Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
   From morn to night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting place?
   A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
   You cannot miss that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
   Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
   They will not keep you standing at that door.

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
   Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
   Yea, beds for all who come.

                        John Everett Millais, "A Vale of Rest" (1858)