Earlier today I ran into this passage in the course of my wanderings:
From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.
Now I’m generally not all about welcoming the sweet release of Death with open arms–I tend to think of myself more as a “do not go gentle into that good night” type–but you have to admit, that’s some lovely arranging of words.
And aside from the raw beauty of the words, on first seeing them they called forth in my mind the image of men who have lived–men that strove with Gods, as ’twere–raising a toast to the fact that all stories eventually have an end. Not a surrender to Death, but an acknowledgement that endings are both part of the deal, and part of how things become meaningful. And of the notion that endlessness might be much more of a curse than a blessing–that “weariest river” coming home bit really hits that, I think. They’re not ready to give up even an hour to that eternal silence yet, but that doesn’t mean they fear an ending, or don’t know that someday the time will come to sail beyond the sunset. (Guess what my favourite Tennyson is. Heh.)
This being the era of Google, it didn’t take me very long to find the source of that passage–a poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne entitled “The Garden of Proserpine”. My quick search also revealed to me that ‘Proserpine’ is another form of Persephone, fabled of Greek myth, which explains both the garden, and the link to death.
And, I have to say, in context that passage above becomes a lot less defiant than I had originally perceived it. It’s much less “heroic hearts made weak by time and fate” and much more Persephone personifying the inevitability and release of Death. The second half of the second verse pretty much makes that explicit, with its denial of time and life, and praise of the oblivion of sleep.
I admit, I don’t really know much about Swinburne, or his works, but after spending some time with this one today, I think I probably will have to look into him, and his oeuvre, further.
I’ll put the whole thing after the jump, in case you want to look into it, but I do want to call out one other particular passage as worthy of your attention–the one that immediately precedes the one that started this:
We are not sure of sorrow,
And joy was never sure;
To-day will die to-morrow;
Time stoops to no man’s lure;
And love, grown faint and fretful,
With lips but half regretful
Sighs, and with eyes forgetful
Weeps that no loves endure.
The first half of that puts in me in the mind of Omar Khayyam–or maybe even a touch of Zeus’ final speech in Santayana–but that second half? Wow. In four lines he personifies love as a doddering old man, shows him crying senile and only transiently lucid tears at heartbreak so old as to be nearly forgotten, and ALSO suggests that in aged Love’s lucid moments he’s almost ready to finally set aside the things that cause him this pain in return for peace? Crafting that image that quickly is some brilliant poetic brevity, but let’s not ignore just how powerful an image it is. Damn.
The Garden of Proserpine
Here, where the world is quiet;
Here, where all trouble seems
Dead winds’ and spent waves’ riot
In doubtful dreams of dreams;
I watch the green field growing
For reaping folk and sowing,
For harvest-time and mowing,
A sleepy world of streams.
I am tired of tears and laughter,
And men that laugh and weep;
Of what may come hereafter
For men that sow to reap:
I am weary of days and hours,
Blown buds of barren flowers,
Desires and dreams and powers
And everything but sleep.
Here life has death for neighbour
And far from eye or ear
Wan waves and wet winds labour,
Weak ships and spirits steer;
They drive adrift, and whither
They wot not who make thither;
But no such winds blow hither,
And no such things grow here.
No growth of moor or coppice,
No heather-flower or vine,
But bloomless buds of poppies,
Green grapes of Proserpine,
Pale beds of blowing rushes
Where no leaf blooms or blushes
Save this whereout she crushes
For dead men deadly wine.
Pale, without name or number,
In fruitless fields of corn,
They bow themselves and slumber
All night till light is born;
And like a soul belated,
In hell and heaven unmated,
By cloud and mist abated
Comes out of darkness morn.
Though one were strong as seven,
He too with death shall dwell,
Nor wake with wings in heaven,
Nor weep for pains in hell;
Though one were fair as roses,
His beauty clouds and closes;
And well though love reposes,
In the end it is not well.
Pale, beyond porch and portal,
Crowned with calm leaves, she stands
Who gathers all things mortal
With cold immortal hands;
Her languid lips are sweeter
Than love’s who fears to greet her
To men that mix and meet her
From many times and lands.
She waits for each and other,
She waits for all men born;
Forgets the earth her mother,
The life of fruits and corn;
And spring and seed and swallow
Take wing for her and follow
Where summer song rings hollow
And flowers are put to scorn.
There go the loves that wither,
The old loves with wearier wings;
And all dead years draw thither,
And all disastrous things;
Dead dreams of days forsaken,
Blind buds that snows have shaken,
Wild leaves that winds have taken,
Red strays of ruined springs.
We are not sure of sorrow,
And joy was never sure;
To-day will die to-morrow;
Time stoops to no man’s lure;
And love, grown faint and fretful,
With lips but half regretful
Sighs, and with eyes forgetful
Weeps that no loves endure.
From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.
Then star nor sun shall waken,
Nor any change of light:
Nor sound of waters shaken,
Nor any sound or sight:
Nor wintry leaves nor vernal,
Nor days nor things diurnal;
Only the sleep eternal
In an eternal night.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne
