Coming Back to Life

After a long break, I am again adding material for contemplation. I will attempt to added worth material once a week.

"Letters From Iceland" by W.H. Auden & Cecil Day Lewis

"Isn't it true however far we've wandered into our provinces of persecution, where our regrets accuse, we keep returning back to the common faith from which we've all dissented, back to the hands, the feet, the faces? Children are always there and take the hands, even when they are most terrified. Those in love cannot make up their minds to go or stay. Artist and doctor return most often. Only the mad will never, never come back. For doctors keep on worrying while away, in case their skill is suffering or deserted. Lovers have lived so long with giants and elves, they want belief again in their own size. And the artist prays ever so gently, let me find pure all that can happen. Only uniqueness is success. For instance let me perceive the images of history. All that I push away with doubt and travel, today's and yesterdays alike, like bodies."

"Letters From Iceland" by W.H. Auden and Cecil Day Lewis.

The Wisdom of George Herbert

Life is half spent before we know what it is. A gentle heart is tied with an easy thread.

Dare to be true. Nothing can need a lie: a fault which needs it most, grows two thereby.

Do not wait; the time will never be "just right."
Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at
your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.

Good words are worth much, and cost little.

He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge
over which he himself must pass if he would ever reach heaven; for
everyone has need to be forgiven.

In conversation, humor is worth more than wit and easiness more than knowledge.

Living well is the best revenge.

Love and a cough cannot be hid.

None knows the weight of another's burden.

One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters.

Punishment is lame, but it comes.

Sometimes the best gain is to lose.

There is an hour wherein a man might be happy all his life, could he find it.

There is great force hidden in a gentle command.

Speak not of my debts unless you mean to pay them.

George Herbert - "Clasping Hands"

Clasping of hands.

LOrd, thou art mine, and I am thine,
If mine I am: and thine much more,
Then I or ought, or can be mine.
Yet to be thine, doth me restore;
So that again I now am mine,
And with advantage mine the more,
Since this being mine, brings with it thine,
And thou with me dost thee restore.
      If I without thee would be mine,
      I neither should be mine nor thine.

Lord, I am thine, and thou art mine:
So mine thou art, that something more
I may presume thee mine, then thine.
For thou didst suffer to restore
Not thee, but me, and to be mine,
And with advantage mine the more,
Since thou in death wast none of thine,
Yet then as mine didst me restore.
      O be mine still! still make me thine!
      Or rather make no Thine and Mine! 

Geoffrey Hill, "Tristia" - "Tragedy has all under regard."

Tristia: 1891-1938

A Valediction to Osip Mandelstam

Difficult friend, I would have preferred
You to them. The dead keep their sealed lives
And again I am too late. Too late
The salutes, dust-clouds and brazen cries.

Images rear from desolation
Look...ruins upon a plain...
A few men glare at their hands; others
Grovel for food in the roadside field.

Tragedy has us all under regard.
It will not touch us but it is there -
Flawless, insatiate - hard summer sky
Feasting on this, reaching its own end.

"Tristia: 1891-1938" (12 lines) from "Four Poems Regarding the Endurance of Poets" first published in King Log and reprinted in Selected Poems by Geoffrey Hill (Penguin Books, 2006) - reprinted in Selected Poems by Geoffrey Hill (Yale University Press, 2009: pg43).

To Create Something Beautiful: Hart Crane

"... try to imagine working for the pure love of simply making something beautiful, - something that maybe can't be sold or used to help sell anything else, but that is simply a communication between man and man, a bond of understanding and human enlightenment - which is what real work is.... I only ask to leave behind me something that the future may find valuable... I shall make every sacrifice toward that end." Hart Crane in a letter to Clarence Arthur Crane (his father) January 12, 1924.
Hart Crane Complete Poems & Selected Letters. (Library of America Press, 2007)

"The Loon's Cry" Howard Nemerov

For sometimes, when our world is not our home
Nor we any home elsewhere, but all
Things look to leave us naked, hungry, cold
We suddenly may seem in paradise
Again, in ignorance and emptiness
Blessed beyond what we thought to know:
Then on sweet waters echoes the loon's cry.

Howard Nemerov, "The Loon's Cry"

Howard Nemerov, Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov (University of Chicago Press, 1981).

Emily Dickinson on Pain

#1049

Pain has but one Acquaintance
And that is Death --
Each one unto the other
Society enough.

Pain is the Junior Party
By just a Second's right --
Death tenderly assists Him
And then absconds from Sight.

-------------------------------------------

#650

Pain - has an Elements of Blank -
It cannot recollect
When it begun - or if there were
A time when it was not -

It has no Future - but itself -
Its Infinite contain
Its Past - enlightenment to perceive
New Periods - of Pain.



The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
Thomas H. Johnson Edition

Joseph Brodsky, "Closed to the Clash of Day's Discord"

Joseph Brodsky
"Lithuanian Divertissement: VII / The Dominicans"


Turn off the thoroughfare, then into
a half-blind street, and once inside
the church, which at this hour is empty;
sit on a bench, adjust your sight,
and, afterward, in God's whorled ear,
closed to the clash of day's discord,
whisper four syllable, soft and clear:
Forgive me, Lord.

Jane Kenyon - 'A Hundred White Daffodils'

"I think for Christmas I'll ask Santa for some tree work; I'll point and he can cut. It's not just more flowers I want, it's more light, more air for flowers, more sun for cheerfulness. A person gets her fill of shade-loving plants. She wants swaying hollyhocks, clove-scented pinks, and lavender plants as big as bushes. She doesn't care so much about conquering Moscow as she does about having a comely pear tree and a hundred white daffodils that glow after dusk against the unpainted boards of an old barn."

Jane Kenyon
"The Phantom Pruner" in A Hundred White Daffodils: Essays, Interviews, The Akhmatova Translations, Newspaper Columns, and One Poem.

The Light is Everything -- Mary Oliver, "The Ponds"

Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled--
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world
I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing--
that the light is everything-- that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.

(From, "The Ponds" in House of Light , 1990)

Chekhov - The Student -- The "Unbroken Chain"

The old woman had wept, not
because he could tell the story touchingly, but because Peter was
near to her, because her whole being was interested in what was
passing in Peter's soul.

And joy suddenly stirred in his soul, and he even stopped for a
minute to take breath. "The past," he thought, "is linked with
the present by an unbroken chain of events flowing one out of
another." And it seemed to him that he had just seen both ends
of that chain; that when he touched one end the other quivered.

Anton Chekhov: Uncle Vanya Act IV

SONIA. What can we do? We must live our lives. [A pause]
Yes, we shall live, Uncle Vanya. We shall live through the long procession of days before us, and through the long evenings; we shall patiently bear the trials that fate imposes on us; we shall work for others without rest, both now and when we are old; and when our last hour comes we shall meet it humbly, and there, beyond the grave, we shall say that we have suffered and wept, that our life was bitter, and God will have pity on us. Ah, then dear, dear Uncle, we shall see that bright and beautiful life; we shall rejoice and look back upon our sorrow here; a tender smile--and--we shall rest. I have faith, Uncle, fervent, passionate faith. [SONIA kneels down before her uncle and lays her head on his hands. She speaks in a weary voice]
We shall rest. [TELEGIN plays softly on the guitar][Weeping]
You have never known what happiness was, but wait, Uncle Vanya, wait! We shall rest. [She embraces him] We shall rest. [The WATCHMAN'S rattle is heard in the garden; TELEGIN plays softly; MME. VOITSKAYA writes something on the margin of her pamphlet; MARINA knits her stocking]
We shall rest. We shall rest. We shall hear the angels. We shall see heaven shining like a jewel. We shall see all evil and all our pain sink away in the great compassion that shall enfold the world. Our life will be as peaceful and tender and sweet as a caress. I have faith; I have faith. [She wipes away her tears]
My poor, poor Uncle Vanya, you are crying!

Henry Vaughan: The Water-Fall

With what deep murmurs,through time's silent stealth,
Doth thy transparent, cool, and wat'ry wealth,
Here flowing fall,
and chide and call,
As if his liquid, loose retinue stay'd
Ling'ring, and were of this steep place afraid,
The common pass,
Where clear as glass,
All must descend ,
Not to an end,
But quick'ned by this deep and rocky grave,
Rise to a longer course more bright and brave.
Dear stream ! dear bank ! where often I
Have sat, and pleased my pensive eye,
Why, since each drop of thy quick store
Runs thither whence it flow'd before,
Should poor souls fear a shade or night,
Who came (sure) from a sea of light?
Or since those drops are all sent back
So sure to thee, that none doth lack,
Why should frail flesh doubt any more
That what God takes, He'll not restore?
O useful element and clear!
My sacred wash and cleanser here,
My first consigner unto those
Fountains of life, where the Lamb goes?
What sublime truths and wholesome themes
Lodge in thy mystical, deep streams!
Such as dull man can never find,
Unless that Spirit lead his mind,
Which first upon thy face did move
And hatch'd all with His quick'ning love.
As this loud brook's incessant fall
In streaming rings restagnates all,
Which reach by course the bank, and then
Are no more seen, just so pass men.
O my invisible estate,
My glorious liberty, still late!
Thou art the channel my soul seeks,
Not this with cataracts and creeks.

Henry Vaughan, The Complete Poems. Ed. Alan Rudrum
pg. 306-307

Geoffrey Hill - "Tragedy has us all under regard"

Tristia: 1891-1938

A Valediction to Osip Mandelstam

Difficult friend, I would have preferred
You to them. The dead keep their sealed lives
And again I am too late. Too late
The salutes, dust-clouds and brazen cries.

Images rear from desolation
Look...ruins upon a plain...
A few men glare at their hands; others
Grovel for food in the roadside field.

Tragedy has us all under regard.
It will not touch us but it is there -
Flawless, insatiate - hard summer sky
Feasting on this, reaching its own end.

"Tristia: 1891-1938" (12 lines) from "Four Poems Regarding the Endurance of Poets" first published in King Log and reprinted in Selected Poems by Geoffrey Hill (Penguin Books, 2006)

The Wisdom of George Herbert

Life is half spent before we know what it is. A gentle heart is tied with an easy thread.

Dare to be true. Nothing can need a lie: a fault which needs it most, grows two thereby.

Do not wait; the time will never be "just right."
Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at
your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.

Good words are worth much, and cost little.

He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge
over which he himself must pass if he would ever reach heaven; for
everyone has need to be forgiven.

In conversation, humor is worth more than wit and easiness more than knowledge.

Living well is the best revenge.

Love and a cough cannot be hid.

None knows the weight of another's burden.

One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters.

Punishment is lame, but it comes.

Sometimes the best gain is to lose.

There is an hour wherein a man might be happy all his life, could he find it.

There is great force hidden in a gentle command.

Speak not of my debts unless you mean to pay them.

Real Things, Fogs, Towers, & Bridges: Nabokov's Ada

An individual's life consisted of certain classified things: 'real things' which were unfrequent and priceless, simply 'things' which formed the routine stuff of life; and 'ghost things,' also called 'fogs,' such as fever, toothache, dreadful disappointments, and death. Three or more things occurring at the same time formed a 'tower,' or, if they came in immediate succession, they made a 'bridge.' 'Real towers' and 'real bridges' were the joys of life, and when the towers came in a series, one experienced supreme rapture; it almost never happened, though. In some circumstances, in a certain light, a neutral 'thing' might look or even actually become 'real' or else, conversely, it might coagulate into a fetid 'fog.' When the joy and the joyless happened to be intermixed, simultaneously or along the ramp of duration, one was confronted with 'ruined towers' and 'broken bridges.'

Vladimir Nabokov, Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle, 74.23 - 75.03

Auden Quote from Movie "Away from Her" (2006)

I watched the movie Away from Her (2006) last night. A wonderful, yet tragic exploration of the drift into Alzheimer's and the December romances that can be developed between those who share this disease. Tormented by his own memories that he all too much would like to forget, Grant realizes the ironic truth that his beloved wife Fiona has (at times) nearly forgotten him, but not his act of betrayal.


As she drifts deeper into the forgetfulness of Alzheimer's, Grant reads to her from "Letters From Iceland" by W.H. Auden and Cecil Day Lewis.
"Isn't it true however far we've wandered into our provinces of persecution, where our regrets accuse, we keep returning back to the common faith from which we've all dissented, back to the hands, the feet, the faces? Children are always there and take the hands, even when they are most terrified. Those in love cannot make up their minds to go or stay. Artist and doctor return most often. Only the mad will never, never come back. For doctors keep on worrying while away, in case their skill is suffering or deserted. Lovers have lived so long with giants and elves, they want belief again in their own size. And the artist prays ever so gently, let me find pure all that can happen. Only uniqueness is success. For instance let me perceive the images of history. All that I push away with doubt and travel, today's and yesterdays alike, like bodies."

Clasping of Hands - Commentary on Song of Songs

Clasping of hands.

LOrd, thou art mine, and I am thine, If mine I am: and thine much more, Then I or ought, or can be mine. Yet to be thine, doth me restore; So that again I now am mine, And with advantage mine the more, Since this being mine, brings with it thine, And thou with me dost thee restore. If I without thee would be mine, I neither should be mine nor thine. Lord, I am thine, and thou art mine: So mine thou art, that something more I may presume thee mine, then thine. For thou didst suffer to restore Not thee, but me, and to be mine, And with advantage mine the more, Since thou in death wast none of thine, Yet then as mine didst me restore. O be mine still! still make me thine! Or rather make no Thine and Mine!

Wendell Berry - A Timbered Choir

I go among the trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.

Then what is afraid of me comes
and lives a while in my sight.
What it fears in me leaves me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings, and I hear its song.

Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear in it leaves it,
and the fear of it leaves me.
It sings and I hear its song.

After days of labor,
mute in my consternations,
I hear my song at last,
and I sing it. As we sing,
the day turns, the trees move.
1979