The Immortal Part – A. E. Housman -Comments

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The Immortal Part

When I meet the morning beam,
Or lay me down at night to dream,
I hear my bones within me say,
‘Another night, another day.

‘When shall this slough of sense be cast,
This dust of thoughts be laid at last,
The man of flesh and soul be slain
And the man of bone remain?

‘This tongue that talks, these lungs that shout
These thews that hustle us about,
This brain that fills the skull with schemes,
And its humming hive of dreams,—

‘These to-day are proud in power
And lord it in their little hour:
The immortal bones obey control
Of dying flesh and dying soul.

”Tis long till eve and morn are gone:
Slow the endless night comes on,
And late to fulness grows the birth
That shall last as long as earth.

‘Wanderers eastward, wanderers west,
Know you why you cannot rest?
‘Tis that every mother’s son
Travails with a skeleton.

Lie down in the bed of dust;
Bear the fruit that bear you must;
Bring the eternal seed to light,
And morn is all the same as night.

‘Rest you so from trouble sore,
Fear the heat o’ the sun no more,
Nor the snowing winter wild,
Now you labour not with child.

‘Empty vessel, garment cast,
We that wore you long shall last.
—Another night, another day.’
So my bones within me say.

Therefore they shall do my will
To-day while I am master still,
And flesh and soul, now both are strong,
Shall hale the sullen slaves along,

Before this fire of sense decay,
This smoke of thought blow clean away,
And leave with ancient night alone
The stedfast and enduring bone.

A. E. Housman

Strong iambic rhythm and rhyme in each of the four line stanzas (aabb).

As I get older my bones are in tune with the bone-talking words expressed in the first stanza (but I can recommend glucosamine). And I liked the way he talked of death as a birth in stanza five – And late to fulness grows the birth / That shall last as long as earth.

Getting to the bones of this poem, looking at the last stanza and the first line – before this fire of sense decay … while we are master over flesh and before the decay to everlasting bone – the immortal part (if indeed bones last forever) let us make the most of our being! And don’t let’s concentrate our thoughts on that enduring bone or that ancient night! This smoke of thought blow clean away – line two of  the last stanza.

Housman was an atheist and a somewhat depressive character. Even so it is interesting to have a look at one of his quotes …

The troubles of our proud and angry dust are from eternity, and shall not fail. Bear them we can, and if we can we must. Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.

He believed that we can bear all our troubles and not only we can bear them but he states that we must bear them. Let’s face it, what creator (or God if you like) would design a universe where we were not capable of bearing our troubles – it’s not worth thinking of … it would be such a horrid scenario – in this sense he at least believed in a good creator.

And here is a link to A. E. Housman on Wikipedia

Book Release – and the humble worm

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I have just released my first poetry book for general distribution. A great moment in the life of Richard … according to a grand-daughter ‘epic’ … a new word that’s being bandied around by the young.

‘My Word in Your Ear’: Selected Poems: 2001 – 2015

A selection of eighty poems covering a wide variety from the the personal, philisophic and spiritual to the more lighter and sometimes firvolous.

Here is one poem …

The Healthy Worm
with apologies to William Blake

O worm, thou art ’earthy!
the visible flower
that shines in the light
of the bright day

has raised from thy bed
of rotten decay
and opened her face
from thy composted waste

This is my poetic response to the well known poem ‘The Sick Rose’ by William Blake. An interesting follow up on the previous post and the sonnet on ‘death and life’ by John Crowe Ransom.  In Blake’s ‘The Sick Rose’ the worm (death, or perhaps sin) is hidden from the beauty of the rose (young life) and the rose knows not of its fate. The worm being analogous to the serpent.

The last two lines … And his dark secret love / Does thy life destroy … so again there is a marriage where ‘death’ is seen as a lover – all beit an insidious lover … not quite the gentleman seen in the ‘Piazza Piece’ sonnet of John Crowe Ransom.

I give the worm credit in the creation of beauty in the rose (visible flower) and so laud the value of the worm that through decomposition new life is generated … part of the unending earth cycle of life and death.

Piazza Piece – John Crowe Ransom

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Piazza Piece

–I am a gentleman in a dustcoat trying
To make you hear. Your ears are soft and small
And listen to an old man not at all;
They want the young men’s whispering and sighing.
But see the roses on your trellis dying
And hear the spectral singing of the moon;
For I must have my lovely lady soon,
I am a gentleman in a dustcoat trying.

–I am a lady young in beauty waiting
Until my truelove comes, and then we kiss.
But what grey man among the vines is this
Whose words are dry and faint as in a dream?
Back from my trellis, Sir, before I scream!
I am a lady young in beauty waiting.

John Crowe Ransom

This is a Petrarchan sonnet – an eight line octave plus a six line sestet (with rhyme scheme ‘abbaacca’ / ‘addeea’). It is a well-crafted delightful conversation piece ostensibly between a gentleman wooing a young and beautiful lady.

The first line and the last line of the octave are the same. This is the story of the octave that of the gentleman trying to get the attention of the young and beautiful lady. The gentleman is old wearing a dustcoat and talks of the fading nature of the lady in terms of roses. He states emphatically that he must have my lovely lady soon and there is a ghostly presence in the spectral singing of the moon.

The first line and the last line of the sestet are the same and this is the story of the response – a lady young in beauty waiting and waiting for her truelove. The lady is young and dismissive of the grey old man and only hears him as in a dream.

I think this is really the age old story of a ‘romantic death’ in the form of a gentleman and his relationship with ‘life’ and making the most of life and the present moment. And of course the voice of death will become more prominent in the ears of the lady and eventually the old grey man will win her over. It is interesting that death is masculine and ghostly whereas life is feminine and beautiful. And very appropriate that the gentleman is wearing a dustcoat. I think there is something of a sweet pending marriage of the two taking place in this poem.

This poem gives emphasis to the present and not having idealistic expectations. Life is a present to be opened and used now– not waiting for that perfect moment before acting (carpe diem Latin – seize the day). Maybe it is time to open that special bottle of wine you have been keeping in your cellar!

Here is a link to John Crowe Ransom on Wikipedia 

Ode on the Poets – John Keats

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Ode on the Poets

BARDS of Passion and of Mirth
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Have ye souls in heaven too,
Double-lived in regions new?

—Yes, and those of heaven commune
With the spheres of sun and moon;
With the noise of fountains wonderous
And the parle of voices thunderous;
With the whisper of heaven’s trees
And one another, in soft ease
Seated on Elysian lawns
Browsed by none but Dian’s fawns;
Underneath large blue-bells tented,
Where the daisies are rose-scented,
And the rose herself has got
Perfume which on earth is not;
Where the nightingale doth sing
Not a senseless, trance´d thing,
But divine melodious truth;
Philosophic numbers smooth;
Tales and golden histories
Of heaven and its mysteries.

Thus ye live on high, and then
On the earth ye live again;
And the souls ye left behind you
Teach us, here, the way to find you,
Where your other souls are joying,
Never slumber’d, never cloying.
Here, your earth-born souls still speak
To mortals, of their little week;
Of their sorrows and delights;
Of their passions and their spites;
Of their glory and their shame;
What doth strengthen and what maim:—
Thus ye teach us, every day,
Wisdom, though fled far away.

Bards of Passion and of Mirth
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Ye have souls in heaven too,
Double-lived in regions new!

John Keats

Ode – lyrical poetic form … meant to be sung … 50 to 200 lines

Of their sorrows and delights
^ ^ ^^ ^ ^^
Strong seven syllable iambic rhythm

Keats is famous for his odes this is not one of his well-known like ‘Ode to a Nightingale’.

S1 and S2 … the first four lines question whether poets have a soul in any after-life … then from line five we have a view of heaven in terms of the nature of earth – daisies are rose-scented … always an impossible task to come to terms with the undefinable nature of heaven … but of course very fitting to use a garden image. It is nice and poetic to think of heaven in such positive terms. A gift in the mind of the living for those poets who have departed this life.

Elysian lawns = the final resting places of the souls of the heroic Dian’s fawns = the goddess of hunt, moon and childbirth who could talk to and control animals (Greek Mythology)

S3 …If the departed have an after-life soul then this stanza states there is communication with their earth-born soul – Here, your earth-born souls still speak … and the communication is very positive – Thus ye teach us, every day / Wisdom, though fled far away. This is apart from any words left behind which are brought to life by the living ( I immediately think of the ‘The Dead Poets Society’).

The first and last four lines of the poem give emphasis on the duality of the soul – for those that belief in some kind of after-life. The nature of any on-going connectivity between the living and the departed poet is up to the reader to discover.

Keats wrote his poetry in seven years from a teenager up to his untimely death at the age of twenty five. He died of ‘consumption’ (TB) in Rome – he went to Italy seeking a better climate because of illness. He had trained in medicine and it is ironic that the medical assistance at that time promoted his early demise. Unfortunately he was not given opium to alleviate his painful end. His soul lives on below the clouds.

A link to Keats on Wikipedia

The Road through the Woods – Rudyard Kipling – Analysis

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The Road through the Woods

They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.

Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate,
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because they see so few.)
You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods …
But there is no road through the woods.

Rudyard Kipling

Nice balance between the two stanzas and I like the internal rhyme … the first stanza defining the history of the area and the second exploring any on-going effect … a ghostly mystical effect as though the environment retains an imprint of its history and can speak to those sensitive to such communication … one negative – I question the need for the comment about the otter – it detracts.

And this could be regarded as an early environmental poem … an anti-development poem perhaps, and showing the after effect of mans’ intrusion on nature.

S1 … tells the story of change when once there was a road, presumably not bitumen, and now the road has been replaced by both man and nature … and to look at the environment you would never know that once it had been a thorough fare … however, the keeper knows … the person who looks after the area … he knows that the woods has been violated – perhaps ‘violated’ is the wrong word for the road through the woods might have been environmentally friendly … however the anemones are only thin now implying the old road still has a negative effect.

S2 … poses a question can the imprint from the past be heard again … at special times when more sensitive and when the ‘ghosts’ are likely to emerge … in this case the horses may have known the old road which could help their recall to previous times when they travelled through this area, especially if it was on a regular basis … I think animals have a greater sense to where they have been.

The last two lines in S2 says it all … although something has gone it is still alive – for those that have experienced the past … perhaps all experience is retained to some degree … the mind a continuous growing memory bank … and digressing as we age we start to recall events long forgotten … of course inanimate objects speak or show their past in their very own different ways … I like the element of mystery evident in the poem – a good poem should always make people think – don’t you think?

Rudyard Kipling is better known for his books especially ‘The Jungle Book’ here is a link to Wikipedia 

However, his poem ‘If’ – is very well known and was head of a popularity count in the UK in the nineties.

And here is Walter de la mere’s well-known poem ‘The Listners’ with an element of mystery

Prayer – Carol Ann Duffy – Analysis

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Prayer

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child’s name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio’s prayer –
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

Carol Ann Duffy

Minim = a musical note with the time value of half a semibreve or two crotchets. It is written as an open note head with a stem.
Train = long moving line of people

Looking at this sonnet …

The first quatrain … when in the middle of a task something to the peripheral arrests attention … in this instant a voice from the trees … as though someone else is speaking and there is communion with the environment … the woman stops what she is doing and for one brief moment there is an appreciation of life … the joy of just being.… there is a gift of thanks … or putting it another way this can be thought of as a prayer of thanks whether or not just a thank you for life or whether a thank you to another ‘God’.

The second quatrain … prayers happen regardless of any formal faith … night is the time when the mind is vulnerable … and often in those sleep hours thoughts occur seemingly out of nowhere… and if the truth of the matter unravels there is usually some pain and discomfort from this communion in any resolution.

Maybe hearing a piece of music gives association to something way back from his youth … perhaps to a time when the man was more motivated and a time when he was following his young heart with strong purpose … and again this may be painful and the man may seek consolation if reflecting on unfilled dreams.

The third quatrain … pray for us now – this looks like an ask … an ask for help and we all need help and support in order to give help and support … prayer is defined as a solemn request or a giving of thanks to an object of worship (usually God) … so this is an ask for us to ask our ‘God’ for help for those in need … to invoke an external force … if the lodger needed consolation then the Grade 1 piano scales could be seen as a response to prayer. The last sentence seems to show a person in grief … as though they named their loss … in grief for a child and in need of consolation … in need of prayer

The rhyming couplet … mentioning the shipping forecast invokes a prayer for those at sea … a prayer that sailors may be able to heed the information and not risk life … darkness outside gives the feeling that prayer is a mystery and hidden … whereas inside the radio’s prayer gives the other side of the coin that prayer always emanates from the internal reaching out from the person

Re: shipping forecasts … the unique and distinctive sound of these broadcasts has led to their attracting an audience much wider than that directly interested in maritime weather conditions. Many listeners find the repetition of the names of the sea areas almost hypnotic, particularly during the night-time broadcast at 0048 UK time. (from Wikipedia)

I do like this sonnet as it widens the concept of traditional prayer and brings prayer down to the basics of everyday communication in the living of life.

And to end, –  a prayer that our daily transactions are appropriate as we negotiate life!

In the Bleak Mid-Winter – Christina Rossetti

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A Christmas Carol

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty,
Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim
Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk,
And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.

Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air –
But only His mother
In her maiden bliss
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.

What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a wise man
I would do my part;
Yet what I can, I give Him –
Give my heart.

Christina Georgina Rossetti (5 December 1830 – 29 December 1894)

Christina Rossetti was asked to write a Christmas poem for a magazine and so she had to consider the audience and clearly she has stayed true to the traditional Christmas story. And quite clearly she has but poetic thought in creating five eight line stanzas with rhyme and rhythm. So much so that her words have been used to create one of the most popular Christmas carols and the first line ‘in the bleak mid-winter’ has become well known.

S1 – she lived in London so snow and a winter Christmas was synonymous. Winter is always an appropriate setting for the coming of Christ … for the birth of redemption in a cold hard bleak world. And looking back on 2015 it doesn’t take much to see that a little bleakness is in evidence.

S2 – in this stanza there is an interpretation of biblical passages so Christina must have been familiar with her bible – the first four lines of the stanza are questioned in the analysis in Wikipedia (see the footnote below) … the lines ‘Heaven and earth shall flee away / When He comes to reign’ suggest a second coming – but who has any idea how this will manifest itself! Perhaps a daughter will be sent next time, that would show a nice balance between the sexes.

S3 – I have always liked the humble beginnings and the makeshift environment for the arrival of the most powerful entity imaginable.

S4 – of all the people and paraphernalia around the stable it is the mother Mary who truly worships the new born with a kiss. Whether or not He cried when He was born we do not know – perhaps it would be quite poetic and very appropriate if he had.

cherubim = angel, chubby-faced child
seraphim = an angel of the highest order of nine rankings

S5 – this shows a personal identity with Jesus … and if we have any understanding of the Christ gift in its unimaginable enormity then there is only one gift in return – it costs of course.

May you appreciate your gifts this Christmas and enjoy with family and friends.

Here is a You Tube recording of the carol sung by Susan Boyle

Footnote …

From Wikipedia … Wikipedia Analysis

‘Hymnologist and theologian Ian Bradley has questioned the poem’s theology: “Is it right to say that heaven cannot hold God, nor the earth sustain, and what about heaven and earth fleeing away when he comes to reign?”[3] However I Kings 8.27, in Solomon’s prayer of dedication of the Temple, says: “But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you.” Regarding “heaven and earth fleeing away”, many New Testament apocalyptic passages use such language, principally Revelation 20. 11 “And I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them” (KJV). Similar language is used in II Peter 3. 10-11: “The heavens will disappear with a roar, the elements will be destroyed by fire… That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells” (NIV).’

Let us drink and be merry – Thomas Jordan

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Let us drink and be merry

Let us drink and be merry, dance, joke, and rejoice,
With claret and sherry, theorbo and voice!
The changeable world to our joy is unjust,
All treasure’s uncertain,
Then down with your dust!
In frolics dispose your pounds, shillings, and pence,
For we shall be nothing a hundred years hence.

We’ll sport and be free with Moll, Betty, and Dolly,
Have oysters and lobsters to cure melancholy:
Fish-dinners will make a man spring like a flea,
Dame Venus, love’s lady,
Was born of the sea:
With her and with Bacchus we’ll tickle the sense,
For we shall be past it a hundred years hence.

Your most beautiful bride who with garlands is crown’d
And kills with each glance as she treads on the ground.
Whose lightness and brightness doth shine in such splendour
That one but the stars
Are thought fit to attend her,
Though now she be pleasant and sweet to the sense,
Will be damnable mouldy a hundred years hence.

Then why should we turmoil in cares and in fears,
Turn all our tranquill’ty to sighs and to tears?
Let’s eat, drink, and play till the worms do corrupt us,
’Tis certain, Post mortem
Nulla voluptas.
For health, wealth and beauty, wit, learning and sense,
Must all come to nothing a hundred years hence.

Thomas Jordan (1612-1685)

The poem is well crafted – iambic with rhyming couplets – it has been labelled a song and it does have a nice rhythmic beat.

Theorbo – plucked string instrument of the lute family
Venus – Goddess of love and beauty
Bacchus – God of wine
Post mortem nulla voluptas – after death no pleasure remains

Interesting that oysters were known as an aphrodisiac over four hundred years ago.

Well it is the season to be merry. Thomas Jordan is not thinking of Christmas – quite clearly he is thinking of death of where he, or others, will be in a hundred years’ time.

To me the words have a sense of ‘must’ and a sense of urgency while accepting that we only have this moment – the now to be enjoyed in all its’ fullness. But in my book when you try to force merriment the party often falls flat.

Having said that I insist you have a ‘merry’ Christmas.

Anyway isn’t Christmas the celebration of the birth of life eternal so who knows what pleasures will be unwrapped in the future! Well one day we all may know.

A link to Thomas Jordan on Wikipedia.