It is this great absence
that is like a presence, that compels
me to address it without hope
of a reply. It is a room I enter
from which someone has just gone, the vestibule for the arrival of one who has not yet come. I modernise the anachronism
of my language, but he is no more here than before. Genes and molecules have no more power to call him up than the incense of the Hebrews
at their altars. My equations fail as my words do. What resources have I other than the emptiness without him of my whole being, a vacuum he may not abhor?
When youthful faith has fled, PU Of loving take thy leave; Be constant to the dead – PUThe dead cannot deceive.
Sweet modest flowers of spring, PUHow fleet your balmy day! And man’s brief year can bring PUNo secondary May.
No earthly burst again PUOf gladness out of gloom; Fond hope and vision vain, PUUngrateful to the tomb!
But ’tis an old belief, PUThat on some solemn shore, Beyond the sphere of grief, PUDear friends will meet once more.
Beyond the sphere of time, PUAnd sin, and fate’s control, Serene in changeless prime PUOf body and of soul.
That creed I fain would keep, PUThat hope I’ll not forego; Eternal be the sleep, PUUnless to waken so.
by John Gibson Lockhart (1794-1854). The last three verses of this poem were adapted by Hubert Parry as No. 4 `There is an old belief’ in his Songs of Farewell.
‘Help, help,’ said a man. ‘I’m drowning.’
‘Hang on,’ said a man from the shore.
‘Help, help,’ said the man. ‘I’m not clowning.’
‘Yes, I know, I heard you before.
Be patient dear man who is drowning,
You, see I’ve got a disease.
I’m waiting for a Doctor J. Browning.
So do be patient please.’
‘How long, ‘ said the man who was drowning,
‘Will it take for the Doc to arrive? ‘
‘Not very long,’ said the man with the disease,
‘Till then try staying alive.’
‘Very well,’ said the man who was drowning.
‘I’ll try and stay afloat.
By reciting the poems of Browning
And other things he wrote.’
‘Help, help,’ said the man with the disease,
‘I suddenly feel quite ill.’
‘Keep calm.’ said the man who was drowning,
‘Breathe deeply and lie quite still.’
‘Oh dear,’ said the man with the awful disease.
‘I think I’m going to die.’
‘Farewell,’ said the man who was drowning.
Said the man with the disease, ‘goodbye.’
So the man who was drowning, drownded
And the man with the disease passed away.
But apart from that,
And a fire in my flat,
It’s been a very nice day.
Is there for honest Poverty
That hings his head, an’ a’ that;
The coward slave-we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a’ that!
For a’ that, an’ a’ that.
Our toils obscure an’ a’ that,
The rank is but the guinea’s stamp,
The Man’s the gowd for a’ that.
What though on hamely fare we dine, Wear hoddin grey, an’ a that; Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine; A Man’s a Man for a’ that: For a’ that, and a’ that, Their tinsel show, an’ a’ that; The honest man, tho’ e’er sae poor, Is king o’ men for a’ that.
Ye see yon birkie, ca’d a lord, Wha struts, an’ stares, an’ a’ that; Tho’ hundreds worship at his word, He’s but a coof for a’ that: For a’ that, an’ a’ that, His ribband, star, an’ a’ that: The man o’ independent mind He looks an’ laughs at a’ that.
A prince can mak a belted knight, A marquis, duke, an’ a’ that; But an honest man’s abon his might, Gude faith, he maunna fa’ that! For a’ that, an’ a’ that, Their dignities an’ a’ that; The pith o’ sense, an’ pride o’ worth, Are higher rank than a’ that.
Then let us pray that come it may, (As come it will for a’ that,) That Sense and Worth, o’er a’ the earth, Shall bear the gree, an’ a’ that. For a’ that, an’ a’ that, It’s coming yet for a’ that, That Man to Man, the world o’er, Shall brothers be for a’ that.
Light, I know, treads the ten million stars, And blooms in the Hesperides. Light stirs Out of the heavenly sea onto the moon’s shores. Such light shall not illuminate my fears And catch a turnip ghost in every cranny. I have been frightened of the dark for years. When the sun falls and the moon stares, My heart hurls from my side and tears Drip from my open eyes as honey Drips from the humming darkness of the hive. I am a timid child when light is dead. Unless I learn the night I shall go mad. It is night’s terrors I must learn to love, Or pray for day to some attentive god Who on his cloud hears all my wishes, Hears and refuses. Light walks the sky, leaving no print, And there is always day, the shining of some sun, In those high globes I cannot count, And some shine for a second and are gone, Leaving no print. But lunar night will not glow in my blackness, Make bright its corners where a skeleton Sits back and smiles, A tiny corpse Turns to the roof a hideous grimace, Or mice play with an ivory tooth. Stars’ light and sun’s light will not shine As clearly as the light of my own brain, Will only dim life, and light death. I must learn night’s light or go mad.
The sonnet Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley is so famous that it really needs no introduction, especially because I’ve posted it before, but I couldn’t help marking the fact that it was first published in the to the literary magazine The Examiner exactly two hundred years ago today, on January 11th 1818:
Here’s the poem in more legible form:
I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear: `My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’ Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away”.
What you may not know, however, is that Shelley’s poem was one of a pair with the same title on the same theme; the other, composed by Shelley’s friend Horace Smith, appeared about three weeks later on February 1st 2018. The two friends had written their poems as a sort of competition. Here’s the other Ozymandias:
In Egypt’s sandy silence, all alone, Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws The only shadow that the Desert knows. “I am great Ozymandias,” saith the stone, “The King of kings: this mighty city shows The wonders of my hand.” The city’s gone! Naught but the leg remaining to disclose The sight of that forgotten Babylon. We wonder, and some hunter may express Wonder like ours, when through the wilderness Where London stood, holding the wolf in chase, He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess What wonderful, but unrecorded, race Once dwelt in that annihilated place.
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