I am a man without a country. Wherever Livy was, that was my country.
--Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) (1835-1910), after the death of his wife Olivia Langdon Clemens, in a letter to a her brother.
Rain on Rahoon falls softly, softly falling,
where my dark lover lies.
Sad is his voice that calls me, sadly calling,
at grey moonrise.
Love, hear thou
how soft, how sad his voice is ever calling,
ever unanswered, and the dark rain falling,
then as now.
Dark to our hearts. O love, shall lie and cold
as his sad heart has lain
under the moongrey nettles, the black mould.
and muttering rain.
--James Joyce (1882-1941). This poem was inspired by the true story of a young man, Michael Bodkin, who courted Joyce's future wife, Nora, before they met. Michael had tuberculosis but "left his house on the rainy night before Nora left Galway to sing beneath her window a song of sorrow and farewell. He died from exposure a short time later and was buried in Rahoon cemetery." [From For the Love of Ireland, ed. Susan Cahill]
In the long, sleepless watches of the night,
a gentle face--the face of one long dead--
looks at me from the wall, where round its head
the night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.
Here in this room she died, and soul more white
never through martyrdom of fire was led
to its repose; nor can in books be read
the legend of a life more benedight.*
There is a mountain in the distant West
that, sun-defying, in its deep ravines
displays a cross of snow upon its side.
Such is the cross I wear upon my breast
these eighteen years, through all the changing scenes
and seasons, changeless since the day she died.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882). His beloved wife Frances Appleton had died in 1861 of burns suffered when her dress caught fire. The famous photographer William Henry Jackson took the photo in the mountains of Colorado in 1873; the photo became famous and the mountain was named Mountain of the Holy Cross.
* blessed
He first deceased; she for a little tried
to live without him, liked it not, and died.
--Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1639)
Your picture stands in my heart,
your name rings through my songs.
In spite of death and parting
I come loving and mild
to your grave again:
for the pure harmony of two souls
can never be split
even by death's shrill discord.
--Louise Otto(1819-1895)
Auf den Grabstein meines Bräutigams
In meinem Herzen steht dein Bild,
Dein Name klingt durch meine Lieder.
Trotz Tod und Trennung nah ich mild
Zu deinem Grab mich liebend wieder:
Denn zweier Seelen reine Harmonie
Trennt selbst des Todes schriller Misston nie.
Time passes, winter and spring fade;
cold and heat suddenly flow and change.
My bride has returned to the sad underworld,
a heavy place, forever shut off by gloom.
Private wishes-- who can follow them?
Staying on here-- how can that help me?
I should respect the court orders,
turn my heart back to my early service.
When I look at our cottage, I think of her in it.
The women's rooms are empty of her.
Pen and ink still hold her traces.
The floating fragrance is not yet gone,
her portrait still hangs on the screen
almost as if she is still there.
I come back uneasy, startled, sad.
It's like birds in the northern forest,
settled as a pair, one early left alone.
It's like flatfish roaming the river,
one eye gone on the way.
The spring wind comes bringing a fissure of fate
At dawn the water drips off the eaves
In my bedroom-- how can I forget those times?
My drowning grief overflows my days.
How much time will there be like this?
I could bang on a pot, like Zhuangzi.
--Chinese poet Pan Yue 潘岳 (247-300) was unusual for his time in writing publicly about his wife's death. This is my translation. You can read Kenneth Rexroth's translation of the same poem here.
悼亡诗三首
荏苒冬春谢。寒暑忽流易。
之子归穷泉。重壤永幽隔。
私怀谁克从。淹留亦何益。
僶俛恭朝命。回心反初役。
望庐思其人。入室想所历。
帏屏无髣髴。翰墨有余迹。
流芳未及歇。遗挂犹在壁。
怅怳如或存。回遑忡惊惕。
如彼翰林鸟。双栖一朝只。
如彼游川鱼。比目中路析。
春风缘隟来。晨溜承檐滴。
寝息何时忘。沉忧日盈积。
庶几有时衰。庄缶犹可击。
The Lake
Constantly pushed toward new coasts like this,
swept away into eternal night, with no return,
on the ocean of the ages-- can we never
throw down an anchor for a single day ?
O lake! the year is scarcely over,
and near the beloved waters she should have seen again,
look! I've come alone to sit on this stone
where you saw her sitting!
You groaned like this under these deep rocks;
you broke on their torn flanks;
the wind threw the foam from your waves like this
onto her adored feet.
One evening, do you remember? We were floating in silence;
on the waves, under the sky, there was nothing to hear far off
but the sound of oarsmen beating in rhythm
against your harmonious waves.
Suddenly in unearthly accents
echos fell from the enchanted shore:
the water listened, and the voice that I love
let these words fall:
"O time, suspend your flight! and you, happy hours,
suspend your race:
let us savor the fleet delights
of our fairest days!
"There are enough unhappy people down here who implore you--
rush, rush for them;
take with their days the cares that devour them--
forget the happy people.
"But I ask in vain for a few more moments,
time escapes me and flees;
I say to this night: Be slower; and dawn
comes to melt the night.
"Let us love then, let us love! let us revel in
the flying hour-- hurry!
Man has no harbor, Time has no shores;
it flows, and we pass!"
Envious Time, can it be that these euphoric moments,
when love pours happiness on us in long surges,
fly away from us at the same speed
as the unhappy days?
What! Can't we at least hold on to the traces?
What! gone forever? What! completely lost?
The same Time that gave them, the same Time that erased them,
will never give them back to us?
Eternity, nothingness, past, dark pits,
what do you do with the days that you engulf?
Speak: will you give us back those uttermost ecstasies
that you snatch from us?
O lake! silent rocks! caves! dark forest!
you whom Time spares or can make young again,
beautiful Nature, keep, keep from that night
at least the memory!
May it be in your rest, may it be in your storms,
beautiful lake, and in the look of your smiling shoreline,
and in these black pines, and in these wild rocks
leaning over your waters.
May it be in the soft wind that shivers and passes,
in the sounds of your banks repeated by your banks,
in the star with a silver forehead that whitens your surface
with its soft clearness.
May the wind that groans, the reed that sighs,
may the soft scent of your fragrant air,
may everything that can be heard, seen or breathed
all say: they loved!
--Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869) fell in love with Julie Charles, a married woman, after rescuing her from drowning in the Lake of Bourget, in the foothills of the Alps. He fell in love with her, but she died soon afterwards. Returning to the lake in 1817, he wrote this poem, his most famous.
Le Lac
Ainsi, toujours poussés vers de nouveaux rivages,
dans la nuit éternelle emportés sans retour,
ne pourrons-nous jamais sur l’océan des âges
jeter l’ancre un seul jour?
Ô lac! l’année à peine a fini sa carrière,
et près des flots chéris qu’elle devait revoir,
regarde! je viens seul m’asseoir sur cette pierre
où tu la vis s’asseoir!
Tu mugissais ainsi sous ces roches profondes;
ainsi tu te brisais sur leurs flancs déchirés;
ainsi le vent jetait l’écume de tes ondes
sur ses pieds adorés.
Un soir, t’en souvient-il? nous voguions en silence;
on n’entendait au loin, sur l’onde et sous les cieux,
que le bruit des rameurs qui frappaient en cadence
tes flots harmonieux.
Tout à coup des accents inconnus à la terre
du rivage charmé frappèrent les échos:
le flot fut attentif, et la voix qui m’est chère
laissa tomber ces mots:
« Ô temps, suspends ton vol! et vous, heures propices
suspendez votre cours:
laissez-nous savourer les rapides délices
des plus beaux de nos jours!
« Assez de malheureux ici-bas vous implorent,
coulez, coulez pour eux;
prenez avec leurs jours les soins qui les dévorent,
oubliez les heureux.
« Mais je demande en vain quelques moments encore,
le temps m’échappe et fuit;
je dis à cette nuit: Sois plus lente ; et l’aurore
va dissiper la nuit.
"Aimons donc, aimons donc ! de l’heure fugitive,
hâtons-nous, jouissons!
L’homme n’a point de port, le temps n’a point de rive ;
il coule, et nous passons!"
Temps jaloux, se peut-il que ces moments d’ivresse,
où l’amour à longs flots nous verse le bonheur,
s’envolent loin de nous de la même vitesse
que les jours de malheur?
Eh quoi! n’en pourrons-nous fixer au moins la trace?
Quoi! passés pour jamais? quoi ! tout entiers perdus?
Ce temps qui les donna, ce temps qui les efface,
ne nous les rendra plus?
Éternité, néant, passé, sombres abîmes,
que faites-vous des jours que vous engloutissez?
Parlez : nous rendrez-vous ces extases sublimes
que vous nous ravissez?
Ô lac! rochers muets! grottes! forêt obscure!
Vous, que le temps épargne ou qu’il peut rajeunir,
gardez de cette nuit, gardez, belle nature,
au moins le souvenir!
Qu’il soit dans ton repos, qu’il soit dans tes orages,
beau lac, et dans l’aspect de tes riants coteaux,
et dans ces noirs sapins, et dans ces rocs sauvages
qui pendent sur tes eaux.
Qu’il soit dans le zéphyr qui frémit et qui passe,
dans les bruits de tes bords par tes bords répétés,
dans l’astre au front d’argent qui blanchit ta surface
de ses molles clartés.
Que le vent qui gémit, le roseau qui soupire
que les parfums légers de ton air embaumé,
que tout ce qu’on entend, l’on voit ou l’on respire,
tout dise: Ils ont aimé!
Continue reading "Lamartine: Man has no harbor, Time has no shore" »
I cannot talk to the children about her. The moment I try, there appears on their faces neither grief, nor love, nor fear, nor pity, but the most fatal of all non-conductors, embarrassment. They look as if I were committing an indecency. They are longing for me to stop. I felt just the same after my own mother's death when my father mentioned her. I can't blame them. It's the way boys are.
--C.S. Lewis in A Grief Observed (1961). The children were his wife's two boys, Douglas and David Gresham, whom he adopted in 1956. (They became heirs to the Narnia estate.) They were in their teens when their mother died.
Slowly, quietly, like snow-flakes-- like the small flakes that come when it is going to snow all night-- little flakes of me, my impressions, my selections, are settling down on the image of her. The real shape will be quite hidden in the end. Ten minutes-- ten seconds-- of the real H. would correct all this.....The rough, sharp, cleansing tang of her otherness is gone.
--C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) in A Grief Observed. He was writing of Joy Davidman Gresham, who died less than four years after they were married.
