Remains

When this week began, I did not intend to devote any time to pondering the fate of my mortal remains and of my soul.  Then, mid-week, I happened upon this:

                         On Himself

Some parts may perish; die thou canst not all:
The most of Thee shall scape the funeral.

Robert Herrick, Hesperides (1648).

Poetry is funny that way:  you never know where you are headed next.

As it turns out, Herrick derived his thought from two lines of one of Horace's Odes:  "I shall not all die, and a large part of me will escape the Goddess of Death." Horace, Odes, Book III, Ode XXX.  Tom Cain and Ruth Connolly (editors), The Complete Poetry of Robert Herrick, Volume II (Oxford University Press 2013), page 675.  Here is a verse translation:

I shall not wholly die:  large residue
Shall 'scape the queen of funerals.

Horace (translated by John Conington), in The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace (Fifth Edition 1872).

Kenneth Rowntree, "Old Toll Bar House, Ashopton" (1940)

But this was not the end of the journey.  On the opposite page, I noticed this:

                  Great Spirits Supervive

Our mortal parts may wrapt in seare-cloths lie:
Great Spirits never with their bodies die.

Robert Herrick, Hesperides (1648) (italics in original).

"Supervive" means "survive."  OED.  "Seare-cloths" is a variant spelling of "cerecloth," which is defined as:  "cloth smeared or impregnated with wax or some glutinous matter:  (1) used for wrapping a dead body in; a waxed winding-sheet or a winding-sheet in general."  Ibid.

Is this whistling past the graveyard?  I have no theological agenda, nor do I have a sectarian bone to pick.  However, something has always told me that we all possess a soul (for lack of a better word -- and it is, actually, a fine word), a soul whose fate is beyond our ken.

As to the "Great Spirit" part:  well, none of us are in a position to lay claim to that epithet, are we?  Something unknown, inscrutable, and silent makes that determination.  I do know this:  if you come to believe that you are a "Great Spirit," then you most certainly are not.

Kenneth Rowntree, "The Livermore Tombs, Barnston, Essex" (1940)

Something about "Great Spirits never with their bodies die" rang a bell. When Herrick italicizes a phrase it signals that he has obtained it from another source, usually classical or Biblical.  Cain and Connolly, in their thorough annotations to Hesperides, do not, however, identify a source for this phrase.

But I have a thought.  As long-time (and much-appreciated!) readers will recall, I spent some time earlier this year wandering through The Greek Anthology.  I do not have the scholarly credentials to claim the following epigram as the source for Herrick's phrase, but it does provide an interesting parallel:

In sacred sleep here virtuous Saon lies;
'Tis ever wrong to say a good man dies.

Callimachus (translated by William Dodd), in The Hymns of Callimachus, Translated from the Greek into English Verse, with Explanatory Notes (1755).

An alternative translation:

Here Saon, wrapp'd in holy slumber, lies:
Thou canst not say, the just and virtuous dies.

Callimachus (translated by John Merivale), in Henry Wellesley (editor), Anthologia Polyglotta: A Selection of Versions in Various Languages, Chiefly from The Greek Anthology (1849).

Thus ends this week's journey.

Kenneth Rowntree, "Bridge to Cox's Farm, Ashopton" (1940)

"Green Now, Grey Now, Gone Anon"

When not bemoaning the state of their love life, Elizabethan poets were wont to be worrying another sore tooth:  the transience of our time on earth.  Christina Rossetti's lines "To think that this meaningless thing was ever a rose,/Scentless, colorless, this!" go well with the following untitled poem, which was set to music by Orlando Gibbons.

Fair is the rose, yet fades with heat or cold.
Sweet are the violets, yet soon grow old.
The lily is white, yet in one day 'tis done.
White is the snow, yet melts against the sun.
So white, so sweet was my fair mistress' face,
Yet altered quite in one short hour's space.
So short-lived beauty a vain gloss doth borrow,
Breathing delight to-day, but none to-morrow.

Anonymous, in Norman Ault (editor), Elizabethan Lyrics (1949).  The poem was first published in 1612 in Gibbons's Madrigals and Motets.

Kenneth Rowntree, "Old Toll Bar House, Ashopton" (1940)

With autumn nearly upon us, this is apt:

                    Autumnus

When the leaves in autumn wither
     With a tawny tanned face,
Warped and wrinkled up together,
     The year's late beauty to disgrace;
There thy life's glass may'st thou find thee:
     Green now, grey now, gone anon,
     Leaving, worldling, of thine own
Neither fruit nor leaf behind thee.

Joshua Sylvester, in Norman Ault, Elizabethan Lyrics (1949).  The poem was written prior to 1618, and was first published in 1621.  "Worldling" (line 7) is a lovely word (both in the context of this poem and in general). It deserves wider currency, I think.  It helps us to keep things in perspective.

Kenneth Rowntree, "Bridge End Farm, Derwent Village" (1940)

Finally, here is a wider view of things.

                              To Time

Eternal Time, that wastest without waste,
     That art and art not, diest, and livest still;
Most slow of all, and yet of greatest haste;
     Both ill and good, and neither good nor ill:
          How can I justly praise thee, or dispraise?
          Dark are thy nights, but bright and clear thy days.

Both free and scarce, thou giv'st and tak'st again;
     Thy womb that all doth breed, is tomb to all;
What so by thee hath life, by thee is slain;
     From thee do all things rise, by thee they fall:
          Constant, inconstant, moving, standing still;
          Was, Is, Shall be, do thee both breed and kill.

I lose thee, while I seek to find thee out;
     The farther off, the more I follow thee;
The faster hold, the greater cause of doubt;
     Was, Is, I know; but Shall, I cannot see.
          All things by thee are measured; thou, by none:
          All are in thee; thou, in thyself alone.

"A. W.", in Norman Ault (editor), Elizabethan Lyrics (1949).   The poem first appeared in 1602 in an anthology titled A Poetical Rhapsody, which was edited by Francis Davison.  To my knowledge, the identity of "A. W." has never been discovered, although there has been much scholarly speculation as to who it may be.  I've grown to like the fact that the writers of some of the best Elizabethan poems remain anonymous:  it puts the focus on the poetry, where it ought to be.

Kenneth Rowntree, "Bridge to Cox's Farm, Ashopton" (1940)

Perspective, Part Four: "The Bedlam Of Time Is An Empty Bucket Rattled"

In addition to "October" (which I posted recently), Patrick Kavanagh wrote a second poem set in that month.  The second poem is more about perspective than it is about autumn.  Just as "October" is more about what it means to say "something will be mine wherever I am" than it is about autumn.  But I wouldn't entirely discount autumn's role in the poems.  The season does tend to evoke these sorts of glimpses into what is important.

                Kenneth Rowntree, "Old Toll Bar House, Ashopton" (1940)

                         October 1943

And the rain coming down, and the rain coming down!
How lovely it falls on the rick well headed,
On potato pits thatched, on the turf clamps home,
On the roofs of the byre where the cows are bedded!

And the sun shining down, and the sun shining down!
How bright on the turnip leaves, on the stubble --
Where turkeys tip-toe across the ridges --
In this corner of peace in a world of trouble.

Patrick Kavanagh, Collected Poems (edited by Antoinette Quinn) (Penguin 2004).  The poem was first published in The Irish Press on October 27, 1943.

      Kenneth Rowntree, "Underbank Farm, Woodlands, Ashdale" (1940)

Those who are "politically-" or "socially-engaged" may feel that Kavanagh is not evincing sufficient concern for a world that, in 1943, was going up in flames.  They might feel the same way if Kavanagh were alive today and wrote the same poem, titling it "October 2012."  I would respectfully disagree with them.  I confess that I am one of those who think that the term "political poetry" is a perfect example of an oxymoron.  (Whether the politics are left, right, or Martian.)  And, if I hear the words "socially-engaged poetry," I immediately run for the exit.  (Whether the "social-engagement" is left, right, or Martian.)

            Kenneth Rowntree, "Bridge End Farm, Derwent Village" (1940)

               Beyond the Headlines

Then I saw the wild geese flying
In fair formation to their bases in Inchicore,
And I knew that these wings would outwear the wings of war,
And a man's simple thoughts outlive the day's loud lying.

Don't fear, don't fear, I said to my soul:
The Bedlam of Time is an empty bucket rattled,
'Tis you who will say in the end who best battled.
Only they who fly home to God have flown at all.

Patrick Kavanagh, Ibid.  The poem was first published in The Irish Press on March 29, 1943.

              Kenneth Rowntree, "Bridge to Cox's Farm, Ashopton" (1940)