Wellsprings: Poems I Journey With 28

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Poems I Journey With 28

T.S. Eliot said in “Burnt Norton,” the first poem in the sequence of poems called “Four Quartets,” that “human kind cannot bear very much reality.” Reality here, I contend, can be interpreted as all that wears us down as human beings as we try to negotiate our way through life, as we try to cope with its many highs and lows and make some meaning of our own journey through it. Again, I repeat this great poet’s words merely to highlight our need for some form of escapism from time to time: a good holiday, an inspiring read, celebrations of all kinds, concerts, drama, plays, music recitals, and all the cultural conventions and traditions that attempt to help human kind cope with the “jagged edges of existence” or “reality” as T.S. Eliot puts it in the above quoted poem.

Here, I’d like to return to two poems from the pen of our great national Nobel Laureate for Literature, W.B. Yeats and reproduce here for the readers of these musings two lovely refreshing poems that quite soothe my drooping spirits in these stressful days after a traffic accident.

Poem 1: The Lake Isle of Innisfree (1888):

Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Poem 2: The Song of Wandering Aengus

The Song of Wandering Aengus

I went out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire a-flame,

But something rustled on the floor,

And someone called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossom in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done,

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.

Source: The Wind Among the Reeds (1899)

Briefest of Commentaries

Yeats was born in 1865 and so he was only 23 when he wrote “Lake Isle of Innisfree” while he was 34 when he wrote the second poem. Eleven years is a long time in anyone’s life, and the second poem is obviously a far more mature and far deeper poem than the first. However, they are both written against the background of the nourishing and sustaining power of nature for us humans. In short, a good walk out in nature can heal many a broken heart and lift many a depressed spirit. These poems help me cope with life then at this first level, that is, at the level of the balm, the comfort and the healing that nature can offer us if we are open to her charms.

As Yeats grew older he became much more interested in what we in Ireland call the “Celtic Twilight” period, namely that Romantic turning back not alone to nature, but also to mythology and the strong links that mythology had with nature as it developed. Also Yeats as a poet became far more enchanted with anything to do with mystery, mystique and, indeed the mystical. To commune with nature was to commune with the sustaining power behind that universe – the pagan Celtic gods as represented in that wonderful body of Gaelic Celtic mythology that he himself did much to preserve and to promulgate.

The “fire” that was in his head is a very potent line because it shows the passion for nature that is in Aengus’s mind and indeed in that of the poet himself. Again, Aengus cuts and peels a “hazel wand” and we are immediately enchanted with a magical act that brings us into a more mystical world to which we can escape from the harsh reality around us. Everything around Aengus is magical and mystical and shot through with the powers of the gods of nature. There are moths on the wing there while the very heavens contain the mystical “moth-like stars” and the repetition of words serves to enchant us further as this is indeed the song of a wanderer through nature with all its healing attributes – indeed it yields up a “silver trout” to feed us on our journey.

Then we are invited into Aengus’s company as he lights a fire on the forest or wood floor, and then some mysterious person calls Aengus, or indeed us the reader, by our name. For sure, we are now in the mythical and mystical woods of the Celtic imagination, of the Celtic Twilight. Indeed, we are so enchanted that we want to stay there with Aengus. Like a fairy presence, this female voice changes into a beautiful girl who enchants Aengus and us the readers: