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

614: Last Word on Love This February 14th

At The Ball

I chanced to see you. Music played,

Vain chatter filled the place

It seemed as though a veil were laid,

 Across your secret face.

Your eyes alone were sad; your way

Of speaking ravished me,

As though I heard a far pipe play,

And on the shores, the sea.

How welcome was your look of thought,

Your figure tall and slight;

And that clear laugh with sadness fraught

Is in my heart tonight.

And when the noise of day is stilled

Once more they come to me,

Those eyes with so much sadness filled,

That voice, with gaiety.

Down to the depths of sleep I go,

Where dreams uncaptured move.

But do I love you? Who can know?

Yet this, I think, is love.

Alexei Konstanovich Tolstoy (1817-1875)

This little gem appears in a slim volume published in 1943 (by Faber & Faber Ltd) and found today.  The translation is credited to Frances Cornford and E. Polianowsky Salaman.  

The italics are mine - and mine alone...

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.

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

"Nicely Put"

Lord Byron, "mad, bad and dangerous to know" - which indeed he was - is a good example of how complex indeed is the human character:

When we two parted

In silence and tears,

Half broken-hearted,

To sever for years,

Pale grew thy cheek and cold,

Colder thy kiss;

Truly that hour foretold

Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning

Sank chill on my brow—

It felt like the warning

Of what I feel now.

Thy vows are all broken,

And light is thy fame:

I hear thy name spoken,

And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,

A knell to mine ear;

A shudder comes o'er me—

Why wert thou so dear?

They know not I knew thee,

Who knew thee too well:—

Long, long shall I rue thee

Too deeply to tell.

In secret we met—

In silence I grieve

That thy heart could forget,

Thy spirit deceive.

If I should meet thee

After long years,

How should I greet thee?—

With silence and tears.

Until the next time