646: Poetry Time

Poetry: a medium for the realist, the escapist, the romantic, the broken-hearted or even the optimist.

Though frequently baffled by the likes of Shakespeare, Donne, Shelley, Eliot and many others, I am still drawn from time to time by poetry.  This time here's a piece from one of Russia's greatest writers, Alexander S. Pushkin; it has the title Outlived Desire:

Outlived desire now departs,

My dreams I cannot love again;

I reap the fruit of empty hearts,

The fruit of pain.

The tempests of a cruel fate

My fair and flowery garlands rend;

Unhappy and alone I wait;

When comes the end?

So, stricken by the early cold,

The whistling, bitter gales of grief,

Still the autumn branches hold

One shuddering leaf.

(Tr. Frances Cornford and E. Polianowsky Salaman)

 

If the above suggests to you a particular mood on my part, then I can assure you that you are entirely correct.

Until the next time

643: Rose Macaulay and "The World My Wilderness"

In 1950, Rose Macaulay’s penultimate novel, The World My Wilderness was published by Collins; I am fortunate in owning a first edition of this wonderful book, which I have just read for the third time.  Miss Macaulay was, in my opinion one of England’s greatest writers of the 20^th Century; a highly-learned individual, it is fortunate for me that unlike some others, she did not “wear her learning” too prominently – at least in her writing!

I also own a copy of her 1920s novel Told by an Idiot which too, is excellent and a copy of Jane Emery’s first-class biography of the writer; from this I should like to quote the following (by Macaulay herself from her final novel The Towers of Trebizond):

“And now the joy was killed, and there seemed no reason why life too should not run down and stop now that its mainspring was broken.  When a companionship like ours suddenly ends, it is to lose a limb or the faculty of sight; one is quite simply cut off from life and scattered adrift, lacking the coherence and integration of love.  Life, I supposed, would proceed; I should see my friends, go abroad, go on with my work, such as it was, but the sentient, enjoying principle which kept it all ticking, was destroyed.”

In The Common Reader (first series) Virginia Woolf includes an essay titled Montaigne, in which she explains how difficult it is for the pen to express the nature of the soul.  I think that Miss Macaulay made a good fist of it, don’t you?

Meanwhile I am searching for a copy of Miss Macaulay's  The Secret River written in 1909; all I can find are first editions at around £60...

Until the next time

638: Promise Kept

This symbol represents infinity.

Infinity is what I promised two-and-a-half years ago.

I am keeping the promise.

Until the next time

613: Love Story

Lytton Strachey, painted by Carrington

Image source

My sweet companion and my gentle peer,

Why has thou left me thus unkindly here?

Thy end forever and thy life to moan,

O thou has left me all alone.

Thy soul and body when Death's agony

Besieged around thy noble heart,

Did not with more reluctance part,

Than I, my dearest friend, part from thee?

My dearest friend, would I have died for thee?

Life in this world henceforth will tedious be.

Nor shall I know hereafter what to do,

If once my griefs prove tedious too.

Silent and sad I walk about each day,

As sullen ghosts stalk speechless by.

Where their hid treasures lie;

Alas! My treasure's gone. Where do I stay?

No, it's not great poetry in the conventional sense, and for all I know it might even be derivative - my poetry education being almost entirely lacking. But it cannot be criticised for lack of emotional power; I was in tears when today, I read it for the first time.

These lines were written by (Dora) Carrington into her diary following the death early in 1932 of Lytton Strachey, whom she had loved for 17 years - entirely platonically of course - with great passion and commitment.  Two months later she shot herself.

As those of you who read these posts will guess, the poem is quoted in Gretchen Gerzina's biography, Carrington.  This was a true love story - complicated by other affaires (as Carrington called them) - though always paramount, and by the complexity of her nature.  The biography is sensitively written and very moving; I recommend it.

 

Carrington: The Farm at Watendlath

Source

Rosamond Lehmann, a writer I respect enormously (you will find references to her in this blog) was extremely fond of Carrington.  After her suicide, Lehmann wrote:

"It was such an exciting joy to be with her, always, for me.  Nobody has ever enriched me as she did, and I counted much too much on her love and support - and the intimacy I thought I had with her.  And to think how many others felt the same!"*

Forty years later Rosamond Lehmann wrote to David Garnett, "I never loved any woman as I loved her."*

It would seem that despite her intermittent yearnings for solitude and privacy, Carrington's heart was large and generous indeed.

There you are: a proper love story for this (unfortunate) time of year, and infinitely better than a pink, plastic, heart on a card eh?

By the way, should my scribblings about Carrington give you the impression that she has certain characteristics in common with someone I know (and love) then you would be perfectly correct (see Lehmann quotations above).

* Quoted from Rosamond Lehmann by Selina Hastings (Vintage 2003).

Until the next time.

Yet More Persian Wisdom

The Rubâ'iyât attributed to Omar Khayyám, is said to be in fact a collection of writings probably from Khayyám's time (12th century) to around the 17th century.

And as we know them they were of course the wonderful work of Edward Fitzgerald, who appears in places to have contributed a few lines of his own; he was entitled to: he was a genius.

So I wonder which wise man wrote the following stunningly beautiful and tear-inducing lines?

LXXIII

Ah Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire
 To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
 Would not we shatter it to bits---and then
 Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!

Until the next time.

More Poetry

Or in this case, Poëtry.  I have expressed elsewhere my admiration and respect for poets, and here bow before one of the masters of the art and shamelessly quote him for my own base ends.

I have restored the correct spelling and capitalisation, because I am a pedant, and that would go down well if shee were stalkinge here (or at least would have...)

The Triple Foole

I am two fooles, I know,

      For loving, and for saying so

          In whining poëtry;

But where's that wiseman, that would not be I,

          If she would not deny?

Then as th' earth's inward narrow crooked lanes

    Do purge sea water's fretful salt away,

I thought, if I could draw my paines

    Through Rime's vexation, I should them allay.

Griefe brought to numbers cannot be so fierce,

For he tames it, that fetters it in verse.

      But when I have done so,

      Some man, his art and voice to show,

          Doth Set and sing my paine;

And, by delighting many, frees againe

          Griefe, which verse did restraine.

To Love and Griefe tribute of Verse belongs,

    But not of such as pleases when 'tis read.

Both are increased by such songs,

    For both their triumphs so are published,

And I, which was two fooles, do so grow three;

Who are a little wise, the best fooles be. 

By John Donne of course, written some time between 1593 and 1601. 

   And here's something which is possibly even older; it perhaps comes from Persia but not from the famous Rubâ'iyát, but is quoted in the introduction to the edition I have by Professor Reynold Nicholson; I have not been able to locate the origin:

How tyrant-like doth Destiny disdain,

To stretch a pitying hand to helpless pain,

But when she stumbles on a bleeding heart

Stabs deeper yet and slays once more the slain.

Until the next time 

(Sorry about the bizarre format of this post, but HTM 'Ell is totally beyond me: if it plays up, there's not a damned thing I can do about it).

Another Reprise: Infinity + 1.1

I warned the other day that I might be re-cycling poetry.  Here's another.

The Hill

Breathless, we flung us on the windy hill,
Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass.
You said "Through glory and ecstasy we pass;
Wind, sun, and earth remain, and birds sing still,
When we are old, are old...." "And when we die
All's over that is ours; and life burns on
Through other lovers, other lips" said I,
"Heart of my heart, our heaven is now, is won!"
"We are Earth's best, that learnt her lesson here.
Life is our cry. We have kept the faith!" we said;
"We shall go down with unreluctant tread
Rose-crowned into the darkness!".... Proud we were,
And laughed, that had such brave true things to say.
—And then you suddenly cried, and turned away.

Rupert Brooke

It's just that the damned poets have that infuriating knack, talent, ability; but not always only the poets; she was much more succinct:  "Infinity +1"  she said.

Until the next time

Infinity + 1 (Again)

Yes, yes, I know I posted this a month ago; it's too good and too important to let it disappear into the past where nobody ever looks, so expect to see it here again.

 ****************************************************************************

Rupert Brooke's the man right now for me - or so it seems. Here he writes about eternal love.

    "One mote of all the dust that's I
  Shall meet one atom that was you. "

Beautiful


DUST

When the white flame in us is gone,
   And we that lost the world's delight
Stiffen in darkness, left alone
   To crumble in our separate night; 

When your swift hair is quiet in death,
   And through the lips corruption thrust
Has stilled the labour of my breath---
   When we are dust, when we are dust!--- 

Not dead, not undesirous yet,
   Still sentient, still unsatisfied,
We'll ride the air, and shine, and flit,
   Around the places where we died, 

And dance as dust before the sun,
   And light of foot, and unconfined,
Hurry from road to road, and run
   About the errands of the wind. 

And every mote, on earth or air,
   Will speed and gleam, down later days,
And like a secret pilgrim fare
   By eager and invisible ways, 

Nor ever rest, nor ever lie,
   Till, beyond thinking, out of view,
One mote of all the dust that's I
   Shall meet one atom that was you. 

Then in some garden hushed from wind,
   Warm in a sunset's afterglow,
The lovers in the flowers will find
   A sweet and strange unquiet grow 

Upon the peace; and, past desiring,
   So high a beauty in the air,
And such a light, and such a quiring,
   And such a radiant ecstasy there, 

They'll know not if it's fire, or dew,
   Or out of earth, or in the height,
Singing, or flame, or scent, or hue,
   Or two that pass, in light, to light, 

Out of the garden, higher, higher. . . .
   But in that instant they shall learn
The shattering ecstasy of our fire,
   And the weak passionless hearts will burn 

And faint in that amazing glow,
   Until the darkness close above;
And they will know---poor fools, they'll know!---
   One moment, what it is to love.

Those damned poets; they really do understand don't they?

Until the next time

Nothing New Under The Sun/Styx

Apology for the corny title this time; once seated at the computer, inspiration deserts me.

The Hill

Breathless, we flung us on the windy hill,
Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass.
You said "Through glory and ecstasy we pass;
Wind, sun, and earth remain, and birds sing still,
When we are old, are old...." "And when we die
All's over that is ours; and life burns on
Through other lovers, other lips" said I,
"Heart of my heart, our heaven is now, is won!"
"We are Earth's best, that learnt her lesson here.
Life is our cry. We have kept the faith!" we said;
"We shall go down with unreluctant tread
Rose-crowned into the darkness!".... Proud we were,
And laughed, that had such brave true things to say.
—And then you suddenly cried, and turned away.

Rupert Brooke

It's just that the damned poets have that infuriating knack, talent, ability; but not always only the poets; she was much more succinct:  "Infinity +1"  she said.

Until the next time