A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
     And wishper to their souls, to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
     The breath goes now, and some say, no:

So let us melt, and make no noise,
     No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,
T'were pophanation of our joys
     To tell the layety our love.

Moving of the earth brings harms and fears,
     Men reckon what it did and meant,
But trepidation of the spheres,
     Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers love
     (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
     Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love, so much refined,
     That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
     Careless, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
     Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
     Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
     As stiff twin compasses are two,
Thy soul the fixed foot, makes no show
     To move, but doth, if the other do.

And though it in the center sit,
     Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
     And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt though be to me, who must-
     Like the other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness draws my circle just,
     And makes me end, where I begun.
---John Donne [spelling adapted by me]

Donne's "Valediction" is one of the most beautiful love poems I've ever read. Donne describes relationships as beginningin the sensuous, and journeying to something more transcendent and intimate.

It's hard to move from the first level to the second, but the second level of love is all the more beautiful because it is more genuine. It's also a kind of love that persists: it doesn't die when the people separate.

Donne says that absence cannot kill his love, because his soul is joined to his lover's "like gold to airy thinness beat." Their uniqueness is overwhelmed by a sameness, a oneness that makes them like two legs of a drawing compass.

Finally, the language sounds sexual because it is. Words like "erect" and the ideas of two souls as one and leaning and hearkening after the lover are all obviously potent images. But they're not crass.

I think Donne is trying to say that, instead of killing our appreciation for the bodily experiences of love, the deeper love adds layer and color and depth to the physical experience. They're not enemies, even though some people try to draw them like they're mutually exclusive.

So why do I like this poem? Simple. I feel like he knows what love is. I'd like to believe and participate in a love as complex and rich as this.

-brian

I Wake and Feel

"I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hours we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw, ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light's delay.

With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away.

I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decree
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.

Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse."
--Gerard M. Hopkins

I submit this poem to you because Hopkins writes beautiful poetry, even in his grief. Just listen to the sounds that run throughout the poem. The passages of hope have a lighter, airier sound because they use W's and soft H's and S's. When he grieves or complains, the poem slows down. Lines are broken by punctuation, shorter words, and harder sounds like G's and D's and B's and F's cause you to pause as you read it aloud..

"I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decree..."
* * ___[ ]* * **[ ]* * ___ *___

You have to [stop] in the line twice. He makes a point of slowing you down to face the grim truth the lines convey.

Hopkins' poetry affects me because he is so honest, and yet so eloquent and deliberate in his composition. I pine and sigh with Hopkins as I look to escape my grief. And I realize alongside him that I have to get my own taste out of my mouth to savor God again.

-brian

Shipwreck

This is one of my favorite Jars of Clay songs. Christian or not, I believe anyone can appreciate the depth and skill of Hasseltein after listening to this song.

The accompaniment is minimal. There's one acoustic guitar, and some simple piano at a few points in the song, but every note is thoughtful and compelling. A lot is said in how quiet the music is, actually.

The lyrics are impressive. The song is the story of a man shipwrecked on an island, cut off from all the things he knows and loves. Even though the circumstances the man faces are so bleak, he holds out hope. He throws a message in a bottle out to sea. It washes up again, but he throws it out again, unwilling to quit trying. I can relate--I've never been shipwrecked, granted, but I have been alone. His situation resonates with me on that level, if nowhere else.

At least listen to the 30-second clip and decide for yourself, but it's worth a dollar if you ask me.

-brian

Welcome

Welcome to my new blog. This will be a house for some of my more sporadic musings. If I think something is interesting, or troubling, or pretty, I'll post it here. You can expect short posts, mostly.

Today's will be a selection from Wordsworth: his poem, "Surprized by joy."

Surprized by joy—impatient as the Wind
I wished to share the transport—Oh! with whom
But Thee, long buried in the silent Tomb,
That spot which no vicissitude can find?
Love, faithful love recalled thee to my mind—
But how could I forget thee!—Through what power
Even for the least division of an hour,
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind
To my most grievous loss?—That thought's return
Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,
Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,
Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more;
That neither present time, nor years unborn
Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.
---

This was written some time after his daughter died. This poem is most haunting to me because Wordsworth describes joy as a swindler. For a moment, it makes him forget that his daughter is dead. But joy is naturally shared, and he turns to share this joy with his daughter, only to remember she's gone. So joy brings his daughter back to take her away again. He aches. She has died a second time. Joy has become an enemy, because it makes him forget his resignation just long enough to make it hurt when he remembers.

Thoughts?

-brian