Poem of the Week

Sorry not to have been around recently - new jobs = less time and a rather tired Oxford Reader. Also, shockingly, I've barely done any reading. It's taken me the best part of a week to read one Agatha Christie.

Anyway, hopefully will get back into the swing of things, and in the meantime, here's a poem - dedicated to the wonderful spirit that was and is Natasha Richardson.

They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it.
Death cannot kill what never dies.
Nor can spirits ever be divided, that love and live in the same divine principle, the root and record of their friendship.
If absence be not death, neither is theirs.
Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still.
For they must needs be present, that love and live in that whch is omnipresent.
In this divine glass they see face to face; and their converse is free, as well as pure.
This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal.

William Penn, from More Fruits of Solitude

A love once had now lost forever

I have always been intruiged by Elizabeth I's relationship with Robert Dudley, and the way they used each other's strength and still managed to fight like cats and dogs. Robert died today in 1588, and here is a poem, by Elizabeth which I think fits the moment quite well (even if it was probably written about the Duke of Alencon.)

On monsieur's departure

I grieve and dare not show my discontent,
I love and yet am forced to seem to hate,
I do, yet dare not say I ever meant,
I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate.
I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned,
Since from myself another self I turned.

My care is like my shadow in the sun,
Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it,
Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done.
His too familiar care doth make me rue it.
No means I find to rid him from my breast,
Till by the end of things it be supprest.
Some gentler passion slide into my mind,
For I am soft and made of melting snow;
Or be more cruel, love, and so be kind.
Let me or float or sink, be high or low.
Or let me live with some more sweet content,
Or die and so forget what love ere meant.

I'm planning a post about historical novels soon (probably tomorrow), so I can carry on the theme of Elizabeth then!

Poem of the week

I've been a bit lax with the poem of the week, so here is one, right now, to make up for it.

Maurice Maeterlinck was born today in 1862, so it's only fitting we should have one of his:

STAGNANT HOURS

ERE are the old desires that pass,

The dreams of weary men, that die,

The dreams that faint and fail, alas!

And there the days of hope gone by!




Where to fly shall we find a place?

Never a star shines late or soon:

Weariness only with frozen face,

And sheets of blue in the icy moon.




Behold the fireless sick, and lo!

The sobbing victims of the snare!

Lambs whose pasture is only snow!

Pity them all, O Lord, my prayer!




For me, I wait the awakening call:

I pray that slumber leave me soon.

I wait until the sunlight fall

On hands yet frozen by the moon.

Also - Ingrid Bergman was born on this date in 1915, and concluded that like Shakespeare it was best to die on a date your family could remember, and so passed away on this date in 1982. She was a lady of class and talent and has long been one of my favourite actresses.

ETA: Oh! And also, William Spooner, originator of spoonerisms died on this date in 1930 .... Now, who can give me the best spoonerism?

Through the emotional wringer

It is not often that I make it through a book in twenty four hours. Agatha Christie, yes - that's easy. And Harry Potter 6 I read in nine hours, having bought it at midnight and refusing to go to bed until I found out who died. But, like I say, it's not normal practise, especially when it's a work day.

So to say that The Spare Room by Helen Garner held me captive and refused to let me go, even when my heart was being ripped out, would not be doing justice to this small and beautifully formed novel. Other blogs, of a more exalted quality than this one, have praised this novel, and I can do nothing but say with sincerity that I concur.

Hilary Mantel describes it as 'a book for grown-up people', and this is true; but there's a brutality to it that makes it as hard for a grown-up to read as for an adolescent. It's beautifully constructed - so simple in it's premise of caring for a friend with cancer - but beneath the almost trivial exterior lies a painful place of warring emotions where the need to pretend all is well clashes with the equally powerful need to tell the truth - and that, for me, is the most brutal part of the book. When Helen rips through the veil of breezy cheerfulness that Nicola exudes whilst crippled with pain, knocks the breath from the body, but it doesn't stop us from urging her to continue.

Susan Hill wrote on her blog that 'THIS WILL WIN THE BOOKER PRIZE' (Caps are Susan's own) ... as we all know by now, it didn't even make the longlist, and my disappointment was based purely on the thoughts of those bloggers who I respect most. Now I've read it myself, I am glad that I put it on my anti-booker list. This is a book with lots to say and it says it whilst trying to come to terms with the most demanding of patients, suffering from a most demanding disease.

Read it, that's all I have to say!

Coleridge beneath the earth

Today, 1834, Coleridge gave up the ghost.

Here is a poem entitled 'Youth and Age' to remind us of him.

Verse, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying,
Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee -
Both were mine! Life went a-maying
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,
When I was young!
When I was young? -Ah, woeful When!
Ah! for the change 'twixt Now and Then!
This breathing house not built with hands,
This body that does me grievous wrong,
O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands
How lightly then it flashed along,
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,
On winding lakes and rivers wide,
That ask no aid of sail or oar,
That fear no spite of wind or tide!
Nought cared this body for wind or weather
When Youth and I lived in't together.

Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like;
Friendship is a sheltering tree;
O the joys! that came down shower-like,
Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty,
Ere I was old!
Ere I was old? Ah woeful Ere,
Which tells me, Youth's no longer here!
O Youth! for years so many and sweet
'Tis known that Thou and I were one,
I'll think it but a fond conceit -
It cannot be that Thou art gone!
Thy vesper-bell hath not yet tolled -
And thou wert aye a masker bold!
What strange disguise hast now put on,
To make believe that thou art gone?
I see these locks in silvery slips,
This drooping gait, this altered size:
But Springtide blossoms on thy lips,
And tears take sunshine from thine eyes:
Life is but Thought: so think I will
That Youth and I are housemates still.

Dew-drops are the gems of morning,
But the tears of mournful eve!
Where no hope is, life's a warning
That only serves to make us grieve
When we are old:
That only serves to make us grieve
With oft and tedious taking-leave,
Like some poor nigh-related guest
That may not rudely be dismist;
Yet hath out-stayed his welcome while,
And tells the jest without the smile.

Painter Extraordinaire

On this day in 1898, the pre-raphelite painter Edward Burne-Jones died. In memory of him, here are some of his works.