Filling In The Blanks

Over the past month or so, I have been running into poetic epitaphs by happenstance.  In a recent post, I quoted Edward Thomas:  "all poetry is in a sense love-poetry."  I agree.  But I also think that an argument can be made that all poetry is an elegy.

Hence (it now occurs to me):  "First known when lost."  (Again, courtesy of Edward Thomas.)  As William Allingham writes:  "Everything passes and vanishes;/Everything leaves its trace."  A truism, yes.  But true.

Elegies need not be sorrowful or mournful.  They are simply another form of love-poetry.

Robin Tanner, "The Gamekeeper's Cottage" (1928)

                       In the Month of Athyr

I can just read the inscription on this ancient stone.
"Lo[r]d Jesus Christ."  I make out a "So[u]l."
"In the mon[th] of Athyr"  "Lefkio[s] went to sleep."
Where his age is mentioned -- "lived to the age of" --
the Kappa Zeta shows that he went to sleep a young man.
In the corroded part I see "Hi[m] . . . Alexandrian."
Then there are three badly mutilated lines --
though I can pick out a few words, like "our tea[r]s," "grief,"
then "tears" again, and "sorrow to [us] his [f]riends."
I think Lefkios must have been greatly loved.
In the month of Athyr Lefkios went to sleep.

C. P. Cavafy, Collected Poems (translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard) (Princeton University Press 1975).

The brackets and ellipses appear in the original.  Athyr (also known as "Hathor") was an ancient Egyptian goddess.  "The month of Athyr/Hathor" corresponds to the period from November 10 through December 9 in our modern calendar.  "Kappa" (line 5) is "twenty" in Greek; "Zeta" is "seven."

Robin Tanner, "Martin's Hovel" (1927)

The following poem has appeared here before.  However, because it goes so well with Cavafy's poem, it is worth revisiting.

                    A Form of Epitaph

Name in block letters     None that signified
Purpose of visit     Barely ascertained
Reasons for persevering     Hope -- or pride
Status before admission here     Regained
Previous experience     Nil, or records lost
Requirements     Few in fact, not all unmet
Knowledge accumulated     At a cost
Plans     Vague     Sworn declaration     Not in debt

Evidence of departure     Orthodox
Country of origin     Stateless then, as now
Securities where held     In one wood box
Address for future reference     Below

Is further time desired?     Not the clock's
Was permit of return petitioned?     No

Laurence Whistler, Audible Silence (1961).

The novelty and humor of the fill-in-the-blanks structure used by Whistler tends to mask the fact that the poem is a well-wrought sonnet.

Robin Tanner, "Wren and Primroses" (1935)

"The Sense Of Seeing Suddenly Very Plain A Very Obvious Thing"

As I noted in a previous post, the poet and glass-engraver Laurence Whistler (1912-2000) was the brother of the artist Rex Whistler (1905-1944).  Rex joined the Welsh Guards in 1940.  In July of 1944 he was commanding a tank in the Guards Armoured Division in Normandy.  He was killed by a mortar explosion on July 18.

Laurence Whistler wrote the following poem after his brother's death.

          A Portrait in the Guards

So these two faced each other there,
The artist and his model.  Both
In uniform.  Years back.  In training.
Not combatant yet.  But both aware
Of what the word meant.  Not complaining,
But, inwardly, how loth.

They talked of this, perhaps.  Each knew
The other, or himself, might be
Unlucky.  But each knew this true
Of anyone at all.  And so
There was no thrill in it.  A knee
Jigged to the hit-tune of some show.

Each scrutinized the other frankly,
As only painter and sitter do:
Objectively and at leisure.  Face
That must not, please, relax too blankly
Into repose.  And face that threw
Glances, the brush being poised in space.

So both, it may be, had the sense
Of seeing suddenly very plain
A very obvious thing: the immense
Thereness of someone else: a man
Once only, since the world began.
Never before, and never again.

It could be, while a cigarette
Hung grey, each recognized the other
As valid utterly and brother.
It should be so.  Because, of all
Who in that mess-tent shortly met,
These would be first to fall.

Laurence Whistler, Audible Silence (1961).

                                 Rex Whistler, "Self-Portrait" (c. 1940) 

"Sleeping At Last"

The funereal theme of Laurence Whistler's "A Form of Epitaph" put me in mind of a poem by Christina Rossetti.  As I have suggested previously, there is a melancholy cast to Rossetti's poetry.  She is ever aware of mortality (which is not a bad thing in my book).  The following poem is a marvel of  music, with its repetitions (it is a roundel) and its internal rhymes.

                         Sleeping at Last

Sleeping at last, the trouble and tumult over,
   Sleeping at last, the struggle and horror past,
Cold and white, out of sight of friend and of lover,
         Sleeping at last.

   No more a tired heart downcast or overcast,
No more pangs that wring or shifting fears that hover,
   Sleeping at last in a dreamless sleep locked fast.

Fast asleep.  Singing birds in their leafy cover
   Cannot wake her, nor shake her the gusty blast.
Under the purple thyme and the purple clover
         Sleeping at last.

Christina Rossetti, New Poems, Hitherto Unpublished or Uncollected (edited by William Michael Rossetti) (1896).  "Sleeping at Last" was published after Rossetti's death.  There are contending views as to whether it was the final poem written by her.  The other candidate is "Heaven Overarches." 

                     Dante Gabriel Rossetti, "Christina Rossetti" (1866)

Life Explained, Part Fourteen: "A Form Of Epitaph"

The following poem is by Laurence Whistler (1912-2000), who started out as a poet and later became a glass engraver (although he did not give up poetry).  His brother was the artist Rex Whistler (1905-1944), who is perhaps best known for his book illustrations.  The poem is wonderfully humorous, but -- like the best humorous poems -- goes beyond laughs.

                    A Form of Epitaph

Name in block letters   None that signified
Purpose of visit   Barely ascertained
Reasons for persevering   Hope -- or pride
Status before admission here   Regained
Previous experience   Nil, or records lost
Requirements   Few in fact, not all unmet
Knowledge accumulated   At a cost
Plans   Vague    Sworn declaration   Not in debt

Evidence of departure   Orthodox
Country of origin   Stateless then, as now
Securities where held   In one wood box
Address for future reference   Below

Is further time desired?   Not the clock's
Was permit of return petitioned?   No

Laurence Whistler, Audible Silence (1961).  The poem is -- lovely touch! -- a sonnet.

                                                  Laurence Whistler
                                       Window in St. Nicholas Church
                                                  Moreton, Dorset