Consolatio

John Milton: Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime

Lycidas

In this monody the author bewails a learned friend*, unfortunately drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish Seas, 1637.

[The author invokes the Muses to lament his friend]

...
Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,
compels me to disturb your season due:
for Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer:
...
O the heavy change, now thou art gone,
now thou art gone, and never must return!
...
Where were ye nymphs when the remorseless deep
closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas?
...
Ay me! Whilst thee the shores and sounding seas
wash far away, where'er thy bones are hurled,
whether beyond the stormy Hebrides,
where thou perhaps under the whelming tide
visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world;
...
look homeward Angel now, and melt with ruth.
And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth.
Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more,
for Lycidas your sorrow is not dead,
sunk though he be beneath the watry floor,
so sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,
...
and yet anon repairs his drooping head,
and tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore,
flames in the forehead of the morning sky:

so Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high,
through the dear might of Him that walked the waves;
where other groves, and other streams along,
with nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,
and hears the unexpressive nuptial song,
in the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love.
There entertain him all the saints above,
in solemn troops, and sweet societies
that sing, and singing in their glory move,
and wipe the tears forever from his eyes.

Now Lycidas the shepherds weep no more;
henceforth thou art the genius of the shore,
in thy large recompense, and shalt be good
to all that wander in that perilous flood.

        --John Milton (1608-1674)

*Milton's friend and classmate Edward King died age 25 when his ship sank in the Irish Sea, 1637. You can find the whole text and commentary here.

Jorge Luís Borges: The wished-for voice of my father coming home, who has not died

Suddenly the afternoon clears up
because the little rain is falling now.
Falling or has fallen. The rain is something
that doubtless happens in the past.

Whoever hears it fall has recovered
the time in which a lucky chance
revealed to him a flower called rose
and the curious color of colorado.

This rain that blinds the crystals
will make happy, in lost
the black grapes of a vine on a certain

patio that no longer exists. The wet
evening brings me the voice, the wished-for voice,,
of my father coming home, who has not died.

       --Jorge Luís Borges (1899-1986)

Bruscamente la tarde se ha aclarado
porque ya cae la lluvia minuciosa.
Cae o cayó. La lluvia es una cosa
que sin duda sucede en el pasado.

Quien la oye caer ha recobrado
el tiempo en que la suerte venturosa
le reveló una flor llamada rosa
y el curioso color del colorado.

Esta lluvia que ciega los cristales
alegrará en perdidos arrabales
las negras uvas de una parra en cierto

patio que ya no existe. La mojada
tarde me trae la voz, la voz deseada,
de mi padre que vuelve y que no ha muerto.

John Betjeman: Those we miss the most are those we take for granted

The Hon. Sec.

The  flag that hung half-mast today
seemed animate with being
as if it knew for whom it flew
and will no more be seeing.

He loved each corner of the links--
the stream at the eleventh,
the grey-green bents, the pale sea-pinks,
the prospect from the seventh;

to the ninth tee the uphill climb,
a grass and sandy stairway,
and at the top the scent of thyme
and long extent of fairway.

He knew how on a summer day
the sea's deep blue grew deeper,
how evening shadows over Bray
make that round hill look steeper.

He knew the ocean mists that rose
and seemed for ever staying,
when moaned the foghorn from Trevose
and nobody was playing;

the flip of cards on winter eves,
the whisky and the scoring,
as trees outside were stripped of leaves
and heavy seas were roaring.

He died when early April light
showed red his garden sally
and under pale green spears glowed white
his lilies of the valley:

that garden where he used to stand
and where the robin waited
to fly and perch upon his hand
and feed till it was sated.

The Times would never have the space
for Ned's discreet achievements;
the public prints are not the place
for intimate bereavements.

A gentle guest, a willing host,
affection deeply planted--
it's strange that those we miss the most
are those we take for granted.

        --John Betjeman (1906-1984)

Patrick Kavanagh: I do not think of you lying in the wet clay

In Memory of My Mother

I do not think of you lying in the wet clay
of a Monaghan graveyard; I see
you walking down a lane among the poplars
on your way to the station, or happily

going to second Mass on a summer Sunday--
you meet me and you say:
"Don't forget about the cattle--"
among your earthiest words the angels stray.

And I think of you walking along a headland
of green oats in June,
so full of repose, so rich with life--
and I see us meeting at the end of a town

on a fair day by accident, after
the bargains are all made and we can walk
together through the shops and stalls and markets
free in the oriental streets of thought.

O you are not lying in the wet clay,
for it is a harvest evening now and we
are piling up the ricks against the moonlight
and you smile up at us-- eternally.

       --Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967)

Christine de Pisan: Fountain of tears, river of sadness

Fountain of tears, river of sadness,
flood of sorrow, sea full of bitterness,
surround me and drown in great pain
my poor heart that feels too much distress.

They sink me and plunge me in hardship
for around me run stronger than the Seine
fountain of tears, river of sadness.
And their great waves flow very widely.

As the wind of Fortune blows them
all above me, I am so low that I can
scarcely rise again, so hardly I am oppressed--
fountain of tears, river of sadness.

        --Christine de Pisan (ca 1364-ca 1430), Her husband died when she was about 25, leaving her poor with three children.

Source de plour, riviere de tristece,
Flun de doulour, mer d'amertume pleine
M'avironnent et noyent en grant peine
Mon pauvre cuer qui trop sent de destresce.

Si m'affondent et plungent en asprece;
Car parmi moy cuerent plus fort que Saine
Source de plour, riviere de tristece.
Et leurs grans floz cheent a grant largece,

Si com le vent de Fortune les meine,
Tous dessus moy, dont si bas suis qu'a peine
Releveray, tant durement m'oppresse
Source de plour, riviere de tristece.

Christine de Pisan: The one who kept me alive is dead

Oh! Gods, what grief, what rage, what misery,
what discouragement, what a painful event,
for me, alas, who have so much grave torment,
that no creature ever suffered more!
Cursed the hour that my life lasts so long,
because I want nothing else
than to die; I don't care to live any more
when the one who kept me alive is dead.

O hard-hearted death, now you have shot down the best of
all my good days, a very hard thing for me,
when you took away the one who was the chief
of all my goods and nurturing,
for whom if you have thrown me so low, I swear it to you,
that I desire my body to be torn
from my suffering tired soul, too dark,

when the one who kept me alive is dead.
And if my weary painful days were short,
at least the pain that endure would cease;
but they will not be, so still again
I will live in endless mourning without measure,
in lamenting, in tears, in bitter stabbings.
I will be served painfully with every assault.
That is the right way to use up my time,
when the one who kept me alive is dead.

Princes, see the very cruel injury
that death has done me, so that I must die;
for I have fallen into a great misfortune
when the one who kept me alive is dead.

        --Christine de Pisan (ca 1364-ca 1430), Her husband died when she was about 25, leaving her poor with three children.

Hé! Dieux, quel dueil, quel rage, quel meschief,
quel desconfort, quel dolente aventure,
pour moy, helas, qui torment ay si grief,
qu'oncques plus grant ne souffri creature!
L'eure maudi que ma vie tant dure,
car d'autre riens nulle je n'ay envie
fors de morir; de plus vivre n'ay cure,
quant cil est mort qui me tenoit en vie.

O dure mort, or as tu trait a chief
touz mes bons jours, ce m'est chose molt dure,
quant m'as osté cil qui estoit le chief
de tous mes biens et de ma nourriture,
dont si au bas m'as mis, je le te jure,
que j'ay desir que du corps soit ravie
ma doulante lasse ame trop obscure,

Quant cil est mort qui me tenoit en vie.
et se mes las dolens jours fussent brief,
au moins cessast la dolour que j'endure;
mais non seront, ains toudis de rechief
vivray en dueil sanz fin et sanz mesure,
en plains, en plours, en amere pointure.
de touz assaulz dolens seray servie.
D'ainsi mon temps user c'est bien droitture,
quant cil est mort qui me tenoit en vie.

Princes, voiez la trés crueuse injure
que mort me fait, dont fault que je devie;
car choite suis en grant mesaventure,
quant cil est mort qui me tenoit en vie.

Edgar Lee Masters: We are voiceless in the presence of realities

Silence

...For the depths,
of what use is language?
A beast of the field moans a few times
when death takes its young.
And we are voiceless in the presence of realities --
we cannot speak....

If we who are in life cannot speak
of profound experiences,
why do you marvel that the dead
do not tell you of death?

        --Edgar Lee Masters (1868-1950), in The Second Book of Modern Verse (1919)

John Hall Wheelock: I have forgotten you, long long ago

Sleep on—I lie at heaven’s high oriels,
Over the stars that murmur as they go
Lighting your lattice-window far below;
And every star some of the glory spells
Whereof I know.
I have forgotten you, long long ago;
Like the sweet, silver singing of thin bells
Vanished, or music fading faint and low.
Sleep on—I lie at heaven’s high oriels,
Who loved you so.

        --"Nirvana," John Hall Wheelock (1888-1978). From The Second Book of Modern Verse (1919)

Ancient poem from Georgia: Who ever heard of any son whom no mother reared?

The Youth and the Leopard

[A very young man has killed a leopard, but the leopard killed him too. His mother mourns.]

As she wept, she bound the wounds
the leopard's claws had left on her son.
"Child, you are asleep, not dead,
it's hard work that has worn you out...
This much, no more, I shall weep for you,
your death is not a cause for tears.
Farewell, the sign of the cross be with you;
for this is the gateway to the grave.
At least I have brought up one real son,
a warrior who fought a savage leopard."

As she slept, the ghosts appeared
now of the leopard, now of her son.
Now the leopard seemed to rip
the iron bodice off her son;
now it seemed her son was winning,
flinging the leopard head over heels.
And, strange to say, after such dreams
she would awake with sobs and tears.
At times she would think, "Who ever heard
of any son whom no mother reared?
Perhaps the leopard's mother too
is, like me, crying day and night.
I shall leave and go to her
and give her comfort in her grief,
so that she tells me all her tales
and I shall tell her of my son,
for she is sorrowing for her son,
killed without pity by the sword."

        --Ancient poem from Georgia, anonymous, published in The Elek Book of Oriental Verse (1979), Gen. Ed. Keith Bosley

Mark Twain after losing his daughter: To me she was but treasure in the bank; I did not know that she could go away

You have seen our whole voyage.  You have seen us go to sea, a cloud of sail--and the flag at the peak; and you see us now, chartless, adrift--derelicts; battered, water-logged, our sails a ruck of rags, our pride gone.  For it is gone.  And there is nothing in its place.  The vanity of life was all we had, and there is no more vanity left in us.  We are even ashamed of that we had; ashamed that we trusted the promises of life and builded high--to come to this!

I did know that Susy was part of us; I did not know that she could go away; I did not know that she could go away, and take our lives with her, yet leave our dull bodies behind.  And I did not know what she was.  To me she was but treasure in the bank; the amount known, the need to look at it daily, handle it, weigh it, count it, realize it, not necessary; and now that I would do it, it is too late; they tell me it is not there, has vanished away in a night, the bank is broken, my fortune is gone, I am a pauper.  How am I to comprehend this?  How am I to have it?  Why am I robbed, and who is benefited?

I am working, but it is for the sake of the work--the "surcease of sorrow" that is found there.

        --Mark Twain [Samuel Clemens] (1835-1910), in a letter to a close friend after his favorite daughter Susy, aged 24, died of meningitis while her parents were abroad. Mark Twain and his wife never returned to the  home where she died.