Category Archives: beauty

The very proof of me.

beauty, poetry, wildflowers, , , , ,

Walter de la Mare in the poem below does not sound sad for himself, that he should leave this world and go to a place without lamentation and darkness. But when he is removed from this earthly realm and will no longer be around to praise and wonder and delight in its beauties… will someone else take his place in that role? I’m intrigued by the idea he puts forth here, which sounds like “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Beauty is somehow also personified, and passes on the legacy of wonderment from one generation to another.

I don’t believe that when we leave this earth, we will forget its beauties, though He Who is the source of all beauty will certainly consume our attention. But it is surely a sign of his great love, and most natural for him, that De La Mare wants to be sure that those earthly delights have admirers when he is gone.

I wasn’t familiar with the flower that the poet names, Traveler’s Joy, so I looked it up and found that yes, it’s a clematis that is famous in the U.K. for climbing to the tops of hedgerows. Late in the season it takes on the appearance that makes people call it Old Man’s Beard, as in the photo at the bottom.

FARE WELL

When I lie where shades of darkness
Shall no more assail mine eyes,
Nor the rain make lamentation
When the wind sighs;
How will fare the world whose wonder
Was the very proof of me?
Memory fades, must the remembered
Perishing be?

Oh, when this my dust surrenders
Hand, foot, lip, to dust again,
May these loved and loving faces
Please other men!
May the rusting harvest hedgerow
Still the Traveller’s Joy entwine,
And as happy children gather
Posies once mine.

Look thy last on all things lovely,
Every hour. Let no night
Seal thy sense in deathly slumber
Till to delight
Thou have paid thy utmost blessing;
Since that all things thou wouldst praise
Beauty took from those who loved them
In other days.

-Walter de la Mare

Photo by Phil Gates in The Guardian

So fancy is the world.

beauty, poetry,

New housemate Bea has been browsing my bookshelves, which I encouraged her to do; it’s always a little sad to think of how lonely all those books are, the ones that have been in the same place for months or years without me even touching them, much less taking them down to look inside. One morning she was reading in a collection of Mary Oliver’s work, and when she discovered this poem below she brought it to me to read, too. We liked the part about stones, because we are great collectors of them. And the singing — and the silence.

THIS WORLD

I would like to write a poem about the world that has in it
nothing fancy.
But it seems impossible.
Whatever the subject, the morning sun
glimmers it.
The tulip feels the heat and flaps its petals open
and becomes a star.
The ants bore into the peony bud and there is a dark
pinprick well of sweetness.
As for the stones on the beach, forget it.
Each one could be set in gold.
So I tried with my eyes shut, but of course the birds
were singing.
And the aspen trees were shaking the sweetest music
out of their leaves.
And that was followed by, guess what, a momentous and
beautiful silence
as comes to all of us, in little earfuls, if we’re not too
hurried to hear it.
As for spiders, how the dew hangs in their webs
even if they say nothing, or seem to say nothing.
So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe they sing.
So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe the stars sing too,
and the ants, and the peonies, and the warm stones,
so happy to be where they are, on the beach, instead of being
locked up in gold.

-Mary Oliver

The birches in deathless marble.

beauty, poetry, summer, winter,

I SOUGHT THE WOOD IN WINTER

I sought the wood in summer
             When every twig was green;
The rudest boughs were tender,
            And buds were pink between.
Light-fingered aspens trembled
            In fitful sun and shade,
And daffodils were golden
            In every starry glade.
The brook sang like a robin—
            My hand could check him where
The lissome maiden willows
            Shook out their yellow hair.

“How frail a thing is Beauty,”
            I said, “when every breath
She gives the vagrant summer
            But swifter woos her death.
For this the star dust troubles,
            For this have ages rolled:
To deck the wood for bridal
            And slay her with the cold.”

I sought the wood in winter
            When every leaf was dead;
Behind the wind-whipped branches
            The winter sun set red.
The coldest star was rising
            To greet that bitter air,
The oaks were writhen giants;
            Nor bud nor bloom was there.
The birches, white and slender,
            In deathless marble stood,
The brook, a white immortal,
            Slept silent in the wood.

“How sure a thing is Beauty,”
            I cried. “No bolt can slay,
No wave nor shock despoil her,
            No ravishers dismay.
Her warriors are the angels
            That cherish from afar,
Her warders people Heaven
            And watch from every star.
The granite hills are slighter,
            The sea more like to fail;
Behind the rose the planet,
            The Law behind the veil.”

-Willa Cather

Nadezhda Bogomolova, Birch Trees