visceral

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A Prayer For Old Age

God guard me from those those thoughts men think
In the mind alone,
He that sings a lasting song
Thinks in a marrow bone;

From all that makes a wise old man
That can be praised of all;
O what am I that I should not seem
For the song's sake a fool.

I pray - for fashion's word is out
And prayer comes round again -
That I may seem though I die old
A foolish, passionate man.


WB Yeats
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signs of the times

"Your problem is how you are going to spend this one odd and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over people and circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are."

(from 'Let Us Commence', by Annie Lamott, commencement address at UC Berkeley, 2003)


Hmm. i wonder if the absence of any sort of reference to making life better for other people is a sign of the times. i'm no ascetic saint-on-a-desert-pillar, but surely there must be more to life than this. It all seems to be all about me, myself and I, which i think is probably fun for a couple of years, but whether or not i want to make me the focus of the rest of my life..... Sounds dead boring, as far as i can tell.

Hmmmm.
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describe your eden

From W. H. Auden's Reading in The Dyer's Hand:

"All the judgements, aesthetic or moral, that we pass, however objective we try to make them, are in part a rationalization and in part a corrective discipline of our subjective wishes. So long as a man writes poetry or fiction, his dream of Eden is his own business, but the moment he starts writing literary criticism, honesty demands that he describe it to his readers so that they may be in the position to judge his judgments. Accordingly, I must now give my answers to a questionnaire I once made up which provides the kind of information I should like to have myself when reading other critics."


Here, then, is my personal Eden:


Landscape
A bustling, cosmopolitan Garden City set in the middle of a bustling, diverse continent, and surrounded by serene villages where people have time to take long afternoon teas and leisurely morning walks. The continent has a whole range of different landscapes and climates, ranging from deserts to alpine mountains, and is in fact a large island surrounded by different oceans. The City itself has a river running through it, and you can see mountains in the distance. A short drive of a few hours will take you into a mountainous district full of lakes and temperate forests. (Ok, this sounds like i need to emigrate to Australia...)

Climate
Spring segueing into summer, or summer into autumn.

Ethinic origin of inhabitants
From all over the world - as in London.

Language
Sounds beautiful and lyrical, like Gaelic or Italian. Consciously open to evolution and change, but with a sense of tradition to anchor it.

Weights & Measures
Metric. Since we have ten fingers and ten toes, it’s the one that’s the most intuitive.

Religion
The Christianity of Jesus Christ (as opposed to the Christianity of any flawed human institution).

Size of Capital
The City is the Capital. The population is big enough to accommodate different tastes and aspirations so that there is no need for anyone to sacrifice their individual dreams for the sake of the greater social good. In fact, since this is Eden, there is no conflict between individual and society.

Form of Government
Democratic.

Sources of Natural Power
Solar energy.

Economic activities
Everyone gets to do what they love and love what they do, and make a good living from it, too. (Hey, that rhymes! I must be a poet after all…)

Means of transport
For speed and mobility: solar-powered cars, buses, trains, boats and airplanes that do not release atmospheric pollutants. For the sheer joy of feeling the wind in your face and feeling that your whole body is on the move: bicycles.

Architecture
All kinds of styles, tastefully arranged. Beauty of form and practicality of function are perfectly balanced.

Domestic Furniture and Equipment
Everything is environmentally-friendly and, like the architecture, is a perfect balance of form and function.

Formal Dress
Anything goes, as long as it's beautiful, decent (i'm a prude) and functional.

Sources of Public Information
A whole variety of media offering a plurality of viewpoints – newspapers, magazines, radio, television, internet.

Public Statues
Sculptures by the best artists.

Public Entertainments
Theatre, concerts, etc etc. The usual suspects. Lots of open-air stuff that's free or at least cheap.
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fields of gold

Partly inspired by XW's blog, and partly because of the mini-nostalgia binge my friends and i have been indulging in today:


Fields of Gold

You’ll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You’ll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we walk in fields of gold

So she took her love for to gaze awhile
Upon the fields of barley
In his arms she fell as her hair came down
Among the fields of gold

Will you stay with me, will you be my love
Among the fields of barley
We’ll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we lie in fields of gold

See the west wind move like a lover so
Upon the fields of barley
Feel her body rise when you kiss her mouth
Among the fields of gold

I never made promises lightly
And there have been some that I’ve broken
But I swear in the days still left
We’ll walk in fields of gold
We’ll walk in fields of gold

Many years have passed since those summer days
Among the fields of barley
See the children run as the sun goes down
Among the fields of gold

You’ll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You can tell the sun in his jealous sky
When we walked in fields of gold
When we walked in fields of gold
When we walked in fields of gold


(by Sting, from the album Ten Summoner's Tales)


This song is pure nostalgia. You have to listen to the original Sting version to feel the yearning - it's due to the combination of lush instrumentation (but never too lush - there is a restraint here that stops the violins and guitars from overwhelming the song) and Sting's voice (a voice that evokes the coming of old age, with its losses and its gains evenly weighed and measured).

Eva Cassidy did a cover version which Sting, apparently, said was better than his original. i disagree. Eva's voice is too young, too clear for this song, and even though her execution is flawless, i prefer Sting's because it speaks the song's meaning so much more honestly. Even the insistent rhythm of the original communicates the sense of time's winged chariot hurrying nearer and nearer more effectively than Eva Cassidy's languid lyricism.

This is a song for old age, and youth, no matter how wise beyond its years, will never be able to understand it truly. Which is exactly how it ought to be.
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on the uses of eyecandy

Gerard Manley Hopkins is my favourite poet.
There. i've done it. Made a Public Declaration of Adoration.
This means that his stuff is going to start appearing with some regularity on this space.

For a start, here are his thoughts on eyecandy:


........................To What Serves Mortal Beauty

TO what serves mortal beauty ' —dangerous; does set danc-
ing blood—the O-seal-that-so ' feature, flung prouder form
Than Purcell tune lets tread to? ' See: it does this: keeps warm
Men’s wits to the things that are; ' what good means—where a glance
Master more may than gaze, ' gaze out of countenance.
Those lovely lads once, wet-fresh ' windfalls of war’s storm,
How then should Gregory, a father, ' have gleanèd else from swarm-
ed Rome? But God to a nation ' dealt that day’s dear chance.
...To man, that needs would worship ' block or barren stone,
Our law says: Love what are ' love’s worthiest, were all known;
World’s loveliest—men’s selves. Self ' flashes off frame and face.
What do then? how meet beauty? ' Merely meet it; own,
Home at heart, heaven’s sweet gift; ' then leave, let that alone.
Yea, wish that though, wish all, ' God’s better beauty, grace.
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to borrow, and to borrow, and to borrow

i'd always known TS Eliot to be a thief (after all, he was the one who famously claimed that good poets steal), but i'd not known how much of a thief, till i came across this passage today:


from Lancelot Andrewes's Christmas Day sermon, 1622:

It is not commended, to stand gazing up into heaven too long, on Christ himself ascending: much less on His star. For, they sat not still gazing on the star. Their Vidimus begat Venimus; their seeing made them come; come a long journey. Venimus is soon said; but a short word: But, many a wide and weary step they made, before they could come to say Venimus, Lo, here we are come; Come and at our journey's end. To look a little on it. In this their coming, we consider, First, the distance of the place they came from. It was not hard by, as the shepherds' (but a step to Bethlehem, over the fields:) This was riding many a hundred miles, and cost them many a day's journey. Secondly, we consider the way that they came: If it be pleasant, or plain and easy: For if it be, it is so much the better. This was nothing pleasant: for through deserts, all the way waste and desolate. Nor (secondly) easy either: For over the rocks and crags of both Arabies (specially Petrea) their journey lay. Thirdly, yet if safe: but it was not; but exceedingly dangerous, a lying through the middest of the black tents of Kedar, a nation of thieves and cut-throats; to pass over the hills of robbers; infamous then, and infamous to this day. No passing, without great troop or convoy. Last we consider the time of their coming, the season of the year. It was no summer progress. A cold coming they had of it, at this time of the year; just the worst time of the year to take a journey, and specially a long journey in. The ways deep, the weather sharp, the days short, the sun furthest off in solstitio brumuli, the very dead of Winter. Venimus, we are come, if that be one; Venimus, we are (now) come, come at this time, that (sure) is another. And these difficulties they overcame, of a wearisome, irksome, troublesome, dangerous, unreasonable journey; And for all this, they came. And came it cheerfully and quickly; As appeareth by the speed they made. It was but Vidimus, Venimus, with them; They saw and they came: No sooner saw, but they set out presently.


Compare it with TS Eliot's far more famous 'The Journey of the Magi':

'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For the journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.


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Not that Eliot ever tried to conceal his debt to Andrewes: my ignorance does not in any way suggest any shortcomings in terms of intellectual integrity on Eliot's part. i'm just taken aback at his sheer audacity in taking for the opening lines of his poem the words of another writer, almost verbatim. Not to mention the fact that those have to be among the most memorable opening lines in all poetic history.

Literary fangirlism asides, what strikes me about the sermon is the way it brings what is essentially a sidenote in the Bible to startling, heart-throbbing life. All it would take would be for a Tolkein or a CS Lewis to expand it further, and it could become a whole book in a fantasy / Christian allegory series. Of course, the fact that it makes a valid, important point from the imaginative exercise simply increases my respect for this 17th century religious thinker and Anglican preacher. We could definitely do with more such people nowadays.
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