Of the Last Verses in the Book
I was having some quality Columbo time last night, giving my old moggy a good going-over with his favourite brush while watching a DVD featuring the detective with the same name. Columbo (the cat) loves being brushed with a metal brush, especially on his head and his face. If I stop he grabs hold of it and pulls it back onto his muzzle as if to say “All right then, I’ll do it myself.” He likes such a firm application of the brush that it seems incredible to me that it doesn’t hurt him, but he clearly enjoys it, so what the hell…
When I’d finished he looked even more handsome than usual, but as he sat next to me on the sofa I reflected on the fact that he is starting to show his age a bit especially around the face – possibly owing to his penchant for the brush! Nowadays his purring sounds more like snoring, his kittenish moments are rarer and crotchety episodes a bit more common. He also gets stiffness in his legs from time to time, which the vet attributes to rheumatism and, although it doesn’t cause him actual pain, this problem makes him a lot less active than he used to be. Still, he has a right to take things easy. He’ll be 16 next month, which is quite a venerable age for a Tom cat.
I’ve been feeling pretty old myself this week, probably caused by fatigue associated with the onset of lecturing. All that walking up and down and waving your arms about can be quite tiring, I can tell you. Not sleeping much might have something to do with it too. I’m also feeling miserable because I need new spectacles, another sign of ongoing physical deterioration. I’ve got less excuse for feeling my age than Columbo, however, as I’m only 46. I think that’s only about 6 in cat years!
However, getting older definitely has its good points too. Twenty years ago I would never have envisaged myself sitting at home reading dusty old poetry books rather than going out to some sleazy nightclub, but the cardigan, carpet slippers and Columbo are suiting me just fine these days. Next week I’m going to go wild and have a night at the Opera, something that always makes me feel young. I may be no chicken, but I’m still younger than the average opera-goer!
I haven’t posted any poems for a few days, so here’s one that seems to fit. It’s by a relatively obscure poet and politician called Edmund Waller. The wikipedia page about him isn’t very complimetary about his talents as a poet, but he is at least credited with having pioneered the use of heroic couplets in English verse. His biography is interesting too. He narrowly escaped being executed in 1643, during the English Civil War, and was instead imprisoned in the Tower of London. He was only released after paying a fine of £10,000 – a truly enormous amount of money for the time. Although banished on his release, he subsequently returned to politics and lived to the ripe old age of 81.
Although his poetry is very unfashionable, this one is quite well known and – I think – rather marvellous, especially the last verse which puts me in mind of the lines from Leonard Cohen‘s great song Anthem:
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
The poem is called Of the Last Verses in the Book.
When we for age could neither read nor write,
The subject made us able to indite.
The soul, with nobler resolutions deckt,
The body stooping, does herself erect:
No mortal parts are requisite to raise
Her, that unbodied can her Maker praise.
The seas are quiet, when the winds give o’er,
So calm are we, when passions are no more:
For then we know how vain it was to boast
Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost.
Clouds of affection from our younger eyes
Conceal that emptiness, which age descries.
The soul’s dark cottage, batter’d and decay’d,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made;
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become
As they draw near to their eternal home:
Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view,
That stand upon the threshold of the new
(And, please, no jokes about “cottages”….)
In the Dark 
February 5, 2010 at 2:18 pm
Post more Leonard Cohen please!
February 5, 2010 at 2:28 pm
Rhodri,
I would happily post some Leonard Cohen lyrics on here were it not for the fact that I’m very careful about getting permission from the appropriate publisher before putting poems on this site. Sometimes the appropriate publishers are only too happy to agree, but in the case of Leonard Cohen it’s been difficult to get replies.
Old poems like this one are of course long out of copyright so it’s not an issue here.
Peter
February 5, 2010 at 2:24 pm
The loss of close-up focussing capacity in one’s 40s can be alarming, and in my case it was so marked that I feared it would carry on indefinitely and force a total lifestyle change – but it levelled off, and all I need now are reading glasses. So although you might get through a couple of pairs whle this process goes on, don’t panic about it.
Anton
February 5, 2010 at 2:42 pm
Anton,
I’ve had a considerable problem with astigmatism for some time, so have needed glasses for reading text and numbers, especially at a distance. In fact, I’ve also had contact lenses for some time but I don’t wear them very often nowadays. I’ve always been able to read close-up things quite easily and don’t wear glasses for that. Opticians have always warned me, however, that I should expect some deterioration in close-range vision and indeed that has now happened with a vengeance.
When I got Columbo’s latest insulin supply, it was a new brand. The vet suggested I read the leaflet with it, as the dosage changed slightly. I pulled the sheet out of the little box containing the vial of insulin, unfolded it and couldn’t read a single word of the small print. Gah.
I don’t watch TV all that often but, when I watch it (with glasses on), it’s impossible to do a crossword or read anything even if I take the glasses off. I guess the combination of problems in both near and far field vision that I now have is going to lead to a more complicated prescription, and possibly varifocals or something.
I’m going for an eye test next week and will have to wait until then to see what I need. Probably a white stick.
Peter
February 5, 2010 at 2:45 pm
Phillip,
Indeed. I linked to the lyrics to Anthem. I assume the site holding them has permission to display them, but it is not legal for me to copy them here without a permission of my own.
Peter
February 5, 2010 at 3:08 pm
Peter: My mid-40s ocular degeneration was also complicated by something else, in my case an asymmetry between the power of my eyes for which I needed glasses when a child. Nowadays this asymmetry prevents me from buying the cheap glasses that have thankfully become available and which save many people a lot of money. (I can’t find asymmetric cheaps.) It also means that I can’t ‘see’ many of those interesting illusions that jump out when you view an appropriately designed abstract pattern with the left eye, and simultaneously a slightly different pattern with the right eye.
February 5, 2010 at 3:13 pm
A friend of mine once worked out my optical prescription in about 3 minutes using my glasses and his watch. Since his watch had a circular dial, he just put the spectacle lens over it and rotated it. The circle distorts into an ellipse with an axis ratio that depends on the angle. Finding the principal axes and estimating their ratio gives you the prescription. He got it exactly as it was written on my prescription card. Quite impressive.
February 5, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Yes I’ve noticed my near-sight reading ability has deteriorated dramatically in the last 12-18 months, but I am still holding off getting glasses. It only happens at the moment in low light, with brighter light the smaller pupil and hence greater depth of field save me. I thought that one could offset the deterioration of one’s near-field eyesight by doing regular accommodation exercises (switching between focusing on something nearby and something far away), but apparently the deterioration is not due to the muscles getting weaker but to the lens continuing to grow into middle age, which makes making the round fat shape necessary for focusing on nearby objects increasingly difficult. Does anyone know if this is true?
February 5, 2010 at 3:32 pm
Apparently you also suffer from double vision.
February 5, 2010 at 3:45 pm
I’m 45. So it obviously a sadly important point in life to be losing our abilities to near-focus without help….
February 5, 2010 at 3:49 pm
There is clearly a design fault.
February 5, 2010 at 3:56 pm
Gentlemen,
I too thought the cause was stiffening of the lens rather than growth of it, but I’m open to correction. I also noticed it first not only with small print or under reduced illumination, but in cold air, eg outside in winter. Anybody else?
Phillip: If you post a request to Peter to delete a previous post of yours and he does, then your request to delete will confuse subsequent readers…
Anton
February 5, 2010 at 4:43 pm
I think I’ll leave everything as it is. It’s turning into quite a good comedy sketch!
February 5, 2010 at 4:51 pm
On the other hand, I could change my comments so the replies appear even sillier…
February 5, 2010 at 10:06 pm
Phillip: you’d need to ask Peter to “delete the current comment” as well as edit the one you asked him to. All in all, better to email him your patch?
Consistent Histories in quantum mechanics began with a man called Griffiths. Its extension into cosmology (sand Novikov might well be responsible, I don’t remember) is a lot more speculative IMHO. When I hear the phrase “the wave function of the universe” I want to reach for my revolver…
Anton
February 7, 2010 at 3:42 pm
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