Sunday, December 19, 2021

Revenants

It's wonderful how a poem you have long been familiar with -- a poem you think you "know" -- suddenly and unexpectedly moves you.  I have recently been browsing in The New Oxford Book of Victorian Verse, visiting old standbys and hoping to make new discoveries.  Among the former, I happened upon this:

                    Rondeau

Jenny kissed me when we met,
     Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
     Sweets into your list, put that in:
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
     Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,
     Jenny kissed me.

Leigh Hunt (1784-1859), in Christopher Ricks (editor), The New Oxford Book of Victorian Verse (Oxford University Press 1987).

A nice but slight thing, one might think.  Written by someone who is not usually thought of as a poet.  It is a standard presence in anthologies of all sorts, and, once read, is likely to be passed over as the years go by.  But I had been away from it for a long time.  So I decided to stop and read it.

And, unaccountably, it struck a chord with me.  Was it the cast of light in the sky that day?  The season?  Senescence?  The state of the world?  Who knows.  But I do know that catch of breath, that heart-pause: Well, then, here is life.

George Charlton (1899-1979)
"The Churchyard at Leonard Stanley, Gloucestershire: Spring" (1942)

As you have heard me say here before, dear readers: "In poetry, one thing leads to another."  After reading "Rondeau," this presently came to mind:

                           Memory

Is Memory most of miseries miserable,
Or the one flower of ease in bitterest hell?

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), in William Rossetti (editor), The Collected Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Volume I (Ellis and Scrutton 1886).

Rossetti's meditation on memory is significantly less sanguine than Hunt's lovely preservation of a passing, ostensibly prosaic moment.  (Although Hunt has no illusions about the quiddities of life.)  I suspect that Rossetti's complicated and fraught romantic life might be the source of his gloominess.  Yet, still, even "one flower of ease in bitterest hell" is something.  And, in a life, it might be enough.

George Charlton
"The Churchyard at Leonard Stanley, Gloucestershire: Summer"

If we are fortunate, in time each of us ends up with a handful of these never-fading flowers.  I am not speaking of memories in general, which rise and fall within us incessantly.  Rather, I am thinking of the select few charmed revenants of our life, the moments of timelessness and of absolute clarity which haunt us, whether we want them to or not.  The winnowing process that leads to the handful is a mystery.  We play no conscious role in that process.  Oh, yes, what remains with us comes from within us.  But these moments -- which are indeed our life -- have a life of their own.

                        Revaluation

Now I remember nothing of our love
So well as the crushed bracken and the wings
Of doves among dim branches far above --
Strange how the count of time revalues things!

Patrick MacDonogh, Poems (edited by Derek Mahon) (The Gallery Press 2001).

George Charlton
"The Churchyard at Leonard Stanley, Gloucestershire: Autumn"

Are these revenants as close as we come in this World to beauty and truth?

                      While You Slept

You never knew what I saw while you slept.
We drove up a wide green stone-filled valley.
Around us were empty heather mountains.
A white river curved quickly beside us.
I thought to wake you when I saw the cairn --
A granite pillar of that country's past --
But I let you sleep without that history.
You did, however, travel through that place:
I can tell you that your eyes were at rest
As the momentous world moved beyond you,
And that you breathed in peace that quarter hour.
We seldom know what is irreplaceable.
You sang old songs for me, then fell asleep.
I worried about what you were missing.
But you missed nothing.  And I was the one who slept.

sip (Glen Coe, Scotland, c. 1986.  For JAH.)

George Charlton
"The Churchyard at Leonard Stanley, Gloucestershire: Winter"

22 comments:

Esther said...

Your poem still gives me chills.

Shanti Natania Grace said...

Dear Stephen,
I was going through poems I had saved and reread this poem I had forgotten, by Lisel Mueller, that I thought you would also love,
Thank you for your beautiful blog and its transmission of the deep peacefulness, awareness of impermanence, and appreciation of life and beauty.
- Shanti

In Passing

How swiftly the strained honey
of afternoon light
flows into darkness

and the closed bud shrugs off
its special mystery
in order to break into blossom:

as if what exists, exists
so that it can be lost
and become precious

~ Lisel Mueller ~

Stephen Pentz said...

Esther: Thank you. That's very nice of you to say. I'm always hesitant to use these, since it feels like an inappropriate imposition (not to mention that they don't measure up to their neighbors), but once in a while one of them seems to fit in.

Thanks again. I hope that all is well. Merry Christmas!

Jane the Booklady said...

Thank you for sharing these poems- yours especially. You have the ability to find poems that touch my heart and remind me why I love poetry so much!
Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year

Esther said...

Your humility would serve you well here in Japan. But I beg to differ with your assessment of your work. It absolutely *does* stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the best of its neighbors.

Merry Christmas and yoi otoshiwo!

Maggie Emm said...

Dear Stephen,
Thank you for the Hunt poem (and the others) - it really struck a chord in me too - a much needed chord!
I hope you have a happy and peaceful Christmas.

John Ashton said...

Stephen, I like this line, "If we are fortunate, in time each of us ends up with a handful of these never-fading flowers”

Such moments, often very short in terms of measured time, though measureless in the space they occupy in memory, return to us over and again. It seems inexplicable why some moments do this and other don’t, but those that do are indescribably precious. One that remains so for me is being on Salisbury Plain at sunrise on a Spring morning many, many years ago and seeing a pair of hares “boxing” Everything seemed held in stillness, but for those hares. I don’t know how long I stood and watched. Time seemed to stretch out then, as it still does when it returns in memory .
May I take this opportunity to wish you a very Happy Christmas and thank you again for all your posts.

GretchenJoanna said...

Oh, my. So "sip" IS you. (Who else?) This poem is really lovely - it seems to capture the flavor and essential truth of everything I read here.

God bless you. Merry Christmas!

Stephen Pentz said...

Shanti: Thank you very much for the kind words. And thank you as well for sharing the poem, which is new to me. The final stanza in particular is lovely: it reminds me of both the poem title by Edward Thomas which I borrowed for this blog -- "First Known When Lost" -- and the poem itself, which includes these lines: "I never had noticed it until/'Twas gone . . . Strange it could have hidden so near!"

Thank you for stopping by again. Merry Christmas!

Stephen Pentz said...

Jane: I greatly appreciate your kind words. Thank you. I'm pleased you like the poems.

It's good to hear from you. Thank you for visiting again. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you as well.

Stephen Pentz said...

Esther: Thank you for your follow-up thoughts, for which I cannot come up with an adequate response, other than to say "thank you" again (while shuffling my feet embarrassedly). Of course, one hopes that things that are close to one's heart may resonate with others as well, which is ultimately what poetry is all about. So what you have said indeed means a great deal to me.

"Yoi otoshi wo" to you also. (I had forgotten about this pre-January 1 expression, and only remembered akemashite omedetō gozaimasu. Thanks for reminding me.)

Stephen Pentz said...

Maggie Emm: I'm happy that Hunt's poem came at a good time for you. As ever, thank you for visiting. Merry Christmas, and best wishes for the coming year.

zmkc said...

Happy Christmas Stephen and I hope to continue to be delighted by your beautiful, thoughtful posts in the coming year.

Tristan FORWARD said...

... all lovely ... and the four paintings, too

Stephen Pentz said...

John: Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to your comment. Thank you very much for sharing that moment from your life, which sounds wonderful. Your description of it captures well the curious nature of these moments, particularly as the relate to "time": as you say, "often very short in terms of measured time, though measureless in the space they occupy in memory." And, as you also note, "inexplicable": we cannot create them; they simply occur. As I have mentioned here before, one thinks of Wordsworth's "spots of time."

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas, and I wish you all the best in the coming year. As I have said before, I greatly appreciate your long-time presence here.

Stephen Pentz said...

GretchenJoanna: Yes, that would be me. (An overly coy attempt to avoid self-promotion, I'm afraid.) Thank you very much for your thoughts on the poem. You are very kind. Without claiming any merits for the poem, I am heartened by your thought that it seems consistent with the essence of what appears here.

I apologize for the delayed reply to your comment. From your posts on Gladsome Lights, it looks like you enjoyed a lovely family Christmas. I wish you a wonderful New Year. As always, thank you very much for your presence here.

Stephen Pentz said...

Zoë: Thank you very much for your kind words. I apologize for the unacceptable delay in responding to your thoughts. It's wonderful to hear from you again, and I'm delighted to know you are still stopping by.

For my part, I cannot adequately express my gratitude to you for the wisdom, common sense, good humor, and beauty that I always find at zmkc, particularly over the past two years, amidst a world gone mad. I wholeheartedly agree with all of your thoughts on where we find ourselves, and your sane and articulate presence gives me hope and comfort.

I hope you had a lovely Christmas. I wish you all the best in the coming year.

Stephen Pentz said...

Tristan: Thank you very much. I'm pleased you liked the post. I hope you'll return soon. Thanks again.

Unknown said...

Thank you for posting your own poem which with your permission I will re-post, thank you for being there and opening memory windows for us...happy new year, Paul

Mathias Richter said...

Dear Mr Pentz

I must have encountered Leigh Hunt’s Rondeau years ago via one of the Oxford Books but didn’t remember more than the first line. I think I passed it over with a slight smile. Like yourself, meeting it again now I immediately saw something more in it than a good-humoured take on love and ageing. I cannot put this feeling down to a set of literary tools, though. As you suggested, when growing older we learn to notice layers of feeling not expressed on the surface. It wouldn’t do Hunt a favour to declare this poem a precursor to Thomas Hardy’s world of leave-taking and regret. It eschews the depths of say “Little head against my shoulder” which Gerald Finzi set so memorably (The Sigh). Yet, this song occurred to me when I reread Hunt’s poem now. In fact, I could almost imagine Finzi delighting in phrases like “Time, you thief” or “Say that health and wealth have missed me”. Maybe there is a common stream of experience in which both Hunt and Hardy dipped and which helped to give form to their artistic expression.

Thank you very much for offering another rare glimpse into your poetic world. The experience you tried to relate artistically must have been very special to you. The thoughts go so deep and the emotional turns are so unsettling that I come back to it again and again.

Thank you again, Mr Pentz! All best wishes for the New Year 2022!

Stephen Pentz said...

Paul: Thank you very much for your kind words. Of course you may re-post the poem if you wish. I'm pleased you liked it.

Thank you for visiting. Happy New Year to you as well.

Stephen Pentz said...

Mr. Richter: Thank you very much for your thoughtful comments on Hunt's poem. You have articulated much better than I did what moved me when I read the poem this time around: "when growing older we learn to notice layers of feeling not expressed on the surface." That's exactly it, isn't it? I couldn't have experienced the same feelings about the poem when I was, say, in my 20s -- or perhaps even 10 years ago. (And I wholly agree with you: "I cannot put this feeling down to a set of literary tools.")

And thank you as well for the thoughts on Hardy and Finzi. I had forgotten about "The Sigh": thank you for reminding me of it -- one of that series of searing poems that, as you know, appears in the "More Love Lyrics" section of Time's Laughingstocks. You put it well: Hardy's "world of leave-taking and regret." I read "The Sigh" after I received your comment, and I can see why Hunt's poem may have prompted you to think of "The Sigh": each is centered upon a kiss of course, but, as you say, it is more than that. For instance, as you mention: "Time, you thief," which is quite affecting, and which is one of the phrases that most moved me in my recent reading of the poem. I like your thought that Finzi might have "delight[ed]" in the phrase. (By the way, out of curiosity I checked The LiederNet Archive after receiving your comment, and discovered that "Jenny kissed me" has been set to music by ten composers. I suspect you are already familiar with the settings.)

Finally, thank you very much for your thoughts on my poem, which I greatly appreciate. I suppose that each of us has first-hand knowledge of the "world of leave-taking and regret."

It's wonderful to hear from you again. I'm delighted to know that you are still visiting after all these years. Thank you so much. Best wishes to you in the coming year.