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Ode on Indolence

Posted in Poetry with tags , on June 19, 2011 by telescoper

Since I’m too lazy this Sunday to do anything too strenuous, I thought instead I would post the poem that was read to us on Friday morning. Appropriately enough it’s the Ode on Indolence, written around 1819 by John Keats. The opening epigram is actually from the New Testament (Matthew 6: 28-29), which, in the King James version I have, reads

28. And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:

29. And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

The poem isn’t just about being lazy, of course. It’s actually about the importance to the creative mind of having time for restful contemplation, i.e. just sitting and thinking about things. Call it meditation if you like. I’m sure that’s essential for artists and poets, but I also think we scientists need it too although finding time to think is increasingly difficult when you’re on a treadmill designed to mass produce “research outputs” for assessment by the factory bosses…

‘They toil not, neither do they spin.’
I
One morn before me were three figures seen,
     With bowed necks, and joined hands, side-faced ;
And one behind the other stepp’d serene,
     In placid sandals, and in white robes graced ;
They pass’d, like figures on a marble urn,
     When shifted round to see the other side ;
          They came again ; as when the urn once more
Is shifted round, the first seen shades return ;
     And they were strange to me, as may betide
          With vases, to one deep in Phidian lore.
II
How is it, Shadows ! that I knew ye not ?
     How came ye muffled in so hush a mask ?
Was it a silent deep-disguised plot
     To steal away, and leave without a task
My idle days ? Ripe was the drowsy hour ;
     The blissful cloud of summer-indolence
          Benumb’d my eyes ; my pulse grew less and less ;
Pain had no sting, and pleasure’s wreath no flower :
     O, why did ye not melt, and leave my sense
          Unhaunted quite of all but—nothingness ?
III
A third time pass’d they by, and, passing, turn’d
     Each one the face a moment whiles to me ;
Then faded, and to follow them I burn’d
     And ach’d for wings because I knew the three ;
The first was a fair Maid, and Love her name ;
     The second was Ambition, pale of cheek,
          And ever watchful with fatigued eye ;
The last, whom I love more, the more of blame
     Is heap’d upon her, maiden most unmeek,—
          I knew to be my demon Poesy.
IV
They faded, and, forsooth ! I wanted wings :
     O folly ! What is love ! and where is it ?
And for that poor Ambition ! it springs
     From a man’s little heart’s short fever-fit ;
For Poesy !—no,—she has not a joy,—
     At least for me,—so sweet as drowsy noons,
          And evenings steep’d in honied indolence ;
O, for an age so shelter’d from annoy,
     That I may never know how change the moons,
          Or hear the voice of busy common-sense !
V
And once more came they by ;— alas ! wherefore ?
     My sleep had been embroider’d with dim dreams ;
My soul had been a lawn besprinkled o’er
     With flowers, and stirring shades, and baffled beams :
The morn was clouded, but no shower fell,
     Tho’ in her lids hung the sweet tears of May ;
          The open casement press’d a new-leav’d vine ,
     Let in the budding warmth and throstle’s lay ;
O Shadows ! ’twas a time to bid farewell !
          Upon your skirts had fallen no tears of mine.
VI
So, ye three Ghosts, adieu ! Ye cannot raise
     My head cool-bedded in the flowery grass ;
For I would not be dieted with praise,
     A pet-lamb in a sentimental farce !
Fade softly from my eyes, and be once more
     In masque-like figures on the dreamy urn ;
          Farewell ! I yet have visions for the night,
And for the day faint visions there is store ;
          Vanish, ye Phantoms ! from my idle spright,
     Into the clouds, and never more return !

 


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A Summer Wish

Posted in Poetry with tags , on June 17, 2011 by telescoper

Live all thy sweet life thro’,
Sweet Rose, dew-sprent,
Drop down thine evening dew
To gather it anew
When day is bright:
I fancy thou wast meant
Chiefly to give delight.

Sing in the silent sky,
Glad soaring bird;
Sing out thy notes on high
To sunbeam straying by
Or passing cloud;
Heedless if thou art heard
Sing thy full song aloud.

Oh that it were with me
As with the flower;
Blooming on its own tree
For butterfly and bee
Its summer morns:
That I might bloom mine hour
A rose in spite of thorns.

Oh that my work were done
As birds’ that soar
Rejoicing in the sun:
That when my time is run
And daylight too,
I so might rest once more
Cool with refreshing dew.

by Christina Rossetti (1830-1894).

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Time Present and Time Past

Posted in Poetry with tags , , on June 6, 2011 by telescoper

Up early this morning to set off for the airport. No time for a proper post until I get to Copenhagen so I thought I’d just put this up, as it popped into my mind after I’d written yesterday’s item. I’m a bit reluctant to post a bit of a poem, rather than a whole one, but here goes.  This is the opening passage from Burnt Norton, the first of the Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot. If you haven’t read the whole thing, you should.

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden.

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June

Posted in Poetry with tags , on June 4, 2011 by telescoper

Now summer is in flower and natures hum
Is never silent round her sultry bloom
Insects as small as dust are never done
Wi’ glittering dance and reeling in the sun
And green wood fly and blossom haunting bee
Are never weary of their melody
Round field hedge now flowers in full glory twine
Large bindweed bells wild hop and streakd woodbine
That lift athirst their slender throated flowers
Agape for dew falls and for honey showers
These round each bush in sweet disorder run
And spread their wild hues to the sultry sun.

by John Clare (1793-1864).

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Judgment Day

Posted in Poetry with tags , , on May 22, 2011 by telescoper

Well, I guess the Rapture didn’t come after all. Or maybe it did and I’m unsurprisingly not among the chosen few to be saved? I studiously avoided try to make fun of the whole thing, despite the fact that yesterday everyone seemed to be posting rapture jokes like there was no tomorrow.

Anyway, for those who were disappointed by the poor turnout for the Apocalypse here is another poem by R.S. Thomas; this one is called called Judgment Day…

Yes, that’s how I was,
I know that face,
That bony figure
Without grace
Of flesh or limb;
In health happy,
Careless of the claim
Of the world’s sick
Or the world’s poor;
In pain craven –
Lord breathe once more
On that sad mirror
Let me be lost
In mist for ever
Rather than own
Such bleak reflections,
Let me go back
On my two knees
Slowly to undo
The knot of life
That was tied there.

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Human Life’s Mystery

Posted in Poetry with tags , on May 20, 2011 by telescoper

We sow the glebe, we reap the corn,
We build the house where we may rest,
And then, at moments, suddenly,
We look up to the great wide sky,
Inquiring wherefore we were born…
For earnest or for jest?

The senses folding thick and dark
About the stifled soul within,
We guess diviner things beyond,
And yearn to them with yearning fond;
We strike out blindly to a mark
Believed in, but not seen.

We vibrate to the pant and thrill
Wherewith Eternity has curled
In serpent-twine about God’s seat;
While, freshening upward to His feet,
In gradual growth His full-leaved will
Expands from world to world.

And, in the tumult and excess
Of act and passion under sun,
We sometimes hear-oh, soft and far,
As silver star did touch with star,
The kiss of Peace and Righteousness
Through all things that are done.

God keeps His holy mysteries
Just on the outside of man’s dream;
In diapason slow, we think
To hear their pinions rise and sink,
While they float pure beneath His eyes,
Like swans adown a stream.

Abstractions, are they, from the forms
Of His great beauty?-exaltations
From His great glory?-strong previsions
Of what we shall be?-intuitions
Of what we are-in calms and storms,
Beyond our peace and passions?

Things nameless! which, in passing so,
Do stroke us with a subtle grace.
We say, ‘Who passes?’-they are dumb.
We cannot see them go or come:
Their touches fall soft, cold, as snow
Upon a blind man’s face.

Yet, touching so, they draw above
Our common thoughts to Heaven’s unknown,
Our daily joy and pain advance
To a divine significance,
Our human love-O mortal love,
That light is not its own!

And sometimes horror chills our blood
To be so near such mystic Things,
And we wrap round us for defence
Our purple manners, moods of sense-
As angels from the face of God
Stand hidden in their wings.

And sometimes through life’s heavy swound
We grope for them!-with strangled breath
We stretch our hands abroad and try
To reach them in our agony,-
And widen, so, the broad life-wound
Which soon is large enough for death.

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61)

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Of Many Worlds in this World

Posted in Poetry with tags , on May 12, 2011 by telescoper

Just like as in a Nest of Boxes round,
Degrees of Sizes in each Box are found:
So, in this World, may many others be
Thinner and less, and less still by degree:
Although they are not subject to our sense,
A World may be no bigger than Two-pence.
NATURE is curious, and such Works may shape,
Which our dull senses easily escape:
For Creatures, small as Atoms, may be there,
If every one a Creature’s Figure bear.
If Atoms Four, a World can make, then see
What several Worlds might in an Ear-ring be:
For, Millions of those Atoms may be in
The Head of one small, little, single Pin.
And if thus small, then Ladies may well wear
A World of Worlds, as Pendents in each Ear.

by Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673), Duchess of Newcastle upon Tyne. Her remarkable book The Blazing World was one of the first ever works of science fiction.

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R.S. Thomas, a Short Biography

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , on April 25, 2011 by telescoper

I came across this short documentary about the poet R.S. Thomas on Youtube and thought I’d share it.

The documentary was made in anticipation of Thomas winning the 1996 Nobel Prize for Literature, for which he had been nominated. Sadly he didn’t win it, and the honour went to Seamus Heaney.

The film is only a few minutes long, but it says a lot about the man and his life as well as featuring two of his greatest poems. One, Children’s Song, I’ve posted before; the other is The Other, which is reproduced here:

There are nights that are so still
that I can hear the small owl calling
far off and a fox barking
miles away. It is then that I lie
in the lean hours awake listening
to the swell born somewhere in the Atlantic
rising and falling, rising and falling
wave on wave on the long shore
by the village, that is without light
and companionless. And the thought comes
of that other being who is awake, too,
letting our prayers break on him,
not like this for a few hours,
but for days, years, for eternity.

Apparently, at St Hywyn’s Church in Aberdaron, where Thomas was vicar for many years, you can see a large slate with this poem carved upon it; it is shown at the end of the short film. I don’t know why, but I have developed a curious longing to visit that place …

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The Sunset Poem

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , on April 24, 2011 by telescoper

I hope you’ve had as relaxing and peaceful an Easter as I have…I’ve done very little apart from sitting in the garden doing the crosswords. I thought I’d bid you good evening with this lovely piece of music. In fact it was one of the numbers we heard performed in fine style after the NAM conference dinner at Llandudno last week. It’s Rev. Eli Jenkins’ Prayer from Under Milk Wood, by Dylan Thomas which is also sometimes known as The Sunset Poem. It’s a different choir, though. This is the Dunvant Male Voice Choir and they’re filmed on the breezy clifftops overlooking the beautiful Rhossili Bay on the Gower Peninsula.

Every morning when I wake,
Dear Lord, a little prayer I make,
O please do keep Thy lovely eye
On all poor creatures born to die

And every evening at sun-down
I ask a blessing on the town,
For whether we last the night or no
I’m sure is always touch-and-go.

We are not wholly bad or good
Who live our lives under Milk Wood,
And Thou, I know, wilt be the first
To see our best side, not our worst.

O let us see another day!
Bless us all this night, I pray,
And to the sun we all will bow
And say, good-bye – but just for now!

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I was vicar of large things

Posted in Poetry with tags , on April 22, 2011 by telescoper

It seems appropriate to post something today – Good Friday – from the great Welsh poet R.S. Thomas. An Anglican clergyman, Thomas was vicar at St Hywyn’s Church (which was built 1137) in Aberdaron at the western tip of the Llŷn Peninsula. In this, one of his most famous poems, he speaks eloquently and movingly of the frustrations of his calling. I also managed to find a recording of the poet himself reading it.

and here is the text

I was vicar of large things
in a small parish. Small-minded
I will not say, there were depths
in some of them I shrank back
from, wells that the word “God”
fell into and died away,
and for all I know is still
falling. Who goes for water
to such must prepare for a long
wait. Their eyes looked at me
and were the remains of flowers
on an old grave. I was there,
I felt, to blow on ashes
that were too long cold. Often,
when I thought they were about
to unbar to me, the draught
out of their empty places
came whistling so that I wrapped
myself in the heavier clothing
of my calling, speaking of light and love
in the thickening shadows of their kitchens

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