Tag Archives: Poetry

Tennyson, But were I loved as I desire to be

14 Friday Jan 2022

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Courtesy “Elise” on flickr

But were I loved as I desire to be!

What is there in the great sphere of the earth,

Or range of evil between death and birth,

That I should fear, – if I were loved by thee!

All the inner, all the outer world of pain,

Clear love would pierce and cleave, if thou wert mine;

As I have heard that somewhere in the main

Fresh-water springs come up through bitter brine.

‘I were joy, not fear, clasped hand in hand with thee,

To wait for death – mute – careless of all ills,

Apart upon a mountain, though the surge

Of some new deluge from a thousand hills

Flung leagues of roaring foam into the gorge

Below us, as far on as eye could see.

The Rhyme Scheme:

The first thing which strikes me is the complex rhyme scheme. He has written a sonnet, but I don’t know the name for this rhyme scheme:

A-B-B-A

C-D-C-D

E-F-G-F-G-E

What is interesting is how he uses the rhyme scheme to underscore the sense.

Here is the first stanza:

But were I loved as I desire to be!

What is there in the great sphere of the earth,

Or range of evil between death and birth,

That I should fear, – if I were loved by thee!

The first and last lines rhyme and specifically reference the love. The middle lines rhyme and mention what would not be feared.

The second stanza has alternating rhymes. This stanza breaks down into parallel propositions:

All the inner, all the outer world of pain,

Clear love would pierce and cleave, if thou wert mine;

As I have heard that somewhere in the main

Fresh-water springs come up through bitter brine.

The final sestet

‘I were joy, not fear, clasped hand in hand with thee,

To wait for death – mute – careless of all ills,

Apart upon a mountain, though the surge

Of some new deluge from a thousand hills

Flung leagues of roaring foam into the gorge

Below us, as far on as eye could see.

The first and last lines rhyme and both refer to the physical participation with the beloved. The middle lines draw together what they jointly see. (Although this does not perfectly work with lines 10-11a.)

And so the rhyme scheme helps provide instruction on how to read the poem.

The First Stanza

But were I loved as I desire to be!

What is there in the great sphere of the earth,

Or range of evil between death and birth,

That I should fear, – if I were loved by thee!

The initial stanza sets out the basic proposition of the whole: If I were so loved, I would not fear.

The love is defined twice, “as I desire to be”. This is ambiguous and standing alone sounds merely self-centered. But the further definition moves this from something self-centered, “If I were loved by thee.

This is the “If.”

The “then” is fear. Fear is defined first by location

What is there in the great sphere of the earth,

Then by time (the duration of his life)

Or range of evil between death and birth,

That I should fear, –

What is not answered here is why he would not fear. That comes next.

The Second Stanza

All the inner, all the outer world of pain,

Clear love would pierce and cleave, if thou wert mine;

As I have heard that somewhere in the main

Fresh-water springs come up through bitter brine.

Love has the capacity to “pierce and cleave” pain wherever it might be found:

All the inner, all the outer world of pain,

Clear love would pierce and cleave,

Notice the subtle shift here from fear to pain. I would fear something because it would bring about pain. He has moved from the cause to the result. But since love can obviate pain, he has no need to fear some circumstance. He will not feel the pain because he feels the love.

Again, the condition: if thou wert mine;

He now provides the prove and illustration of the proposition that love drives out fear:

As I have heard that somewhere in the main

Fresh-water springs come up through bitter brine.

I have heard of this circumstance in which a fresh-water spring pushed out the salt water. The idea here is that one cannot experience the depth of love and feel fear in the same moment. If I am filled with love, then I will not fear.

This concept comes from 1 John 4:18, which in the KJV (which Tennyson would have known) reads

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love

And so Tennyson is appropriating a concept which the Apostle John used of God’s love and applies the same psychology to human love. If I am filled with love to you and love from you, I will not fear anything in this life. Tennyson also stops short of misappropriating John’s logic, because John is referencing the fear of judgment to come. Tennyson does not say that love of a woman will stave off future judgment. He carefully limited this power to his life and this world.

The Sestet

‘I were joy, not fear, clasped hand in hand with thee,

To wait for death – mute – careless of all ills,

Apart upon a mountain, though the surge

Of some new deluge from a thousand hills

Flung leagues of roaring foam into the gorge

Below us, as far on as eye could see.

I could wait for death with joy and not be afraid if I were with you “clasped hand in hand with thee”.

He then specifies what could befall them as they wait:

Apart upon a mountain, though the surge

Of some new deluge from a thousand hills

Flung leagues of roaring foam into the gorge

Below us,

And this would spread out “as far eye could see.”

If you were to love me, I could be ennobled, heroic. To love you, to be loved by you would make me a morally better man. We could face the world together.

That last move in the sestet is interesting, because he says that the love would make her brave, too.

‘I were joy, not fear, clasped hand in hand with thee,

To wait for death – mute – careless of all ills,

Apart upon a mountain,

They together would be brave. Their love would be mutually strengthening. This is appropriate, because it would not be love if it were simply centered upon him alone.

Edward Taylor, Meditation 37, My soul, Lord, quails

08 Saturday Jan 2022

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My soul, Lord, quails to think that I should be

So high related, have such colors fair

Stick in my hat, from heaven: yet should see

My soul thus blotcht. Hell’s livery to bear.

What thine? New naturalized? Yet this relation

Thus barren, though’t’s a privilege-foundation?

The motto for this poem is again 1 Cor. 3:23, and here he has come to the words, “You are Christ’s.” And so, the poet contemplates what does this mean, I belong to Christ.

In this stanza, he compares himself to an attendant upon a king who wears the king’s uniform and yet seems himself as the ultimate imposture: I belong to this King in all my privilege and uniform, but look at me! I am not what my title claims.

The effect of this incongruity is fear and confession

My soul, Lord, quails

Quail is an archaic if not obsolete word by our day. The root meaning is along the lines of becoming ill. Entymology online gives this useful note: “Sense of “lose heart or courage, shrink before a danger or difficulty, cower” is attested from 1550s. According to OED, the word was common 1520-1650, then rare until 19c., when apparently it was revived by Scott. Related: Quailed; quailing.”

And thus, the word “quail” is especially fitting here: The poet is losing heart, I will be found out and found to be an impostor.  It is also interesting that it is his “soul” which quails. My life at its base, the thing I am: I am growing fearful at my core.

The break in the second foot, and the piled accents, opens the poem in a slow, even deliberate manner:

my SOUL [pause] LORD [pause] QUAILS

It frames the whole of the poem.

The poem then moves paradoxically to not a fearful thing but something which would seemingly bring joy:

                        to think that I should be

So high related, have such colors fair

Stick in my hat, from heaven

He has a claim to relationship with the King. He has fine clothing “colors fair”. Next there is a “stick in my hat.” I don’t know the details of 17th century court dress well enough to know if there was a stick which was displayed in a hat, or whether this was a mistake for “stick in hand,” which would then refer to some sort of cane.  The whole is “from heaven.”

What then is the problem?

                        yet should see

My soul thus blotcht.

Even though I dress so well, my soul – the soul has now returned as the scene of the crime—is “bloched.” His soul is stained. Underneath the heavenly dress, hidden from view in the soul, is a stain. I look like one thing but in my soul, I am another.

The whole is then reversed: Rather than being heaven’s livery, he is bearing the livery of hell!  His fearfulness is not merely the fear of the impostor, it is the fear of the traitor. I am in the court of a king and I am showing loyalty to his enemy.

At this point, an aspect of Taylor’s psychology, which is profoundly different from our post-Rousseau, post-Freud world. He does not look at the “natural” bent of his desire as good and “authentic” and his “true” self. That is the posture of therapy which seeks to have us feel good about desires (whatsoever they may be). Instead, Taylor would see this self as “natural” and corrupt. He does not begin with the premise that whatever he happens to want is morally neutral and good only because he wants it (“love is love”).

What is good and true is not defined by the desires of Taylor’s soul, but by the Lord of Taylor’s soul. The Lord has come to raise Taylor up. That is an idea which lies at the heart of Taylor’s project, but it is an idea which utterly foreign to our culture.

Taylor’s calls this rebellion, “Hell’s livery.”  And this is the paradox in Christianity: God’s love for his enemies. But it is not a love which merely receives the “prostitutes and sinners,” but a love which transforms them. Our culture would be fine with a God who merely receives but does not forgive (because there is nothing to be forgiven).

And that leads to the conflict in Taylor: God forgives and transforms: this is granted. But then why has God not transformed me:

What thine? New naturalized? Yet this relation

Thus barren, though’t’s a privilege-foundation?

I belong to you? I am a new citizen of this Kingdom? How is it that having received such a privilege, beginning from such a privileged place, I have produced nothing: I have a new relationship and there is nothing to show for it?

This is a struggle with identity: Who am I? I am really in Christ? Do I really belong to Christ?

Edward Taylor, Meditation 36.7, What strange strange thing am I?

17 Friday Dec 2021

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I am ashamed to say I love thee do. 

But dare not for my life and soul deny’t. 

Yet wonder much love’s springs should lie so low

They loveliness its object shines so bright.

Shall all the beams of love upon me shine?

And shall my love love’s object still make pine.

Notes

Beginning at the end: the word “pine” is an obsolete way of saying “pain”. It means not merely “pain” to languish or wear out.

We use that word only in the phrase “pine away” when we speak of someone who desires something greatly but cannot obtain it, such as someone lovesick who “pines away”.

I am ashamed to say I love thee do. 

It would be easy to misunderstand the force of this line. In current vernacular, this would seem to mean that he is ashamed of the object which he loves: I’m ashamed to say that I enjoy this low-brow movie, or this unhealthy snack. But here, the shame comes from the greatness of the object loved. Unlike the low-brow entertainment, it is not that the object loved is beneath him but rather that is so far above him.

It is a poor analogy, but it might understood by thinking of an awkward teenager claiming to be in love with a movie star. To claim that he loves this woman who is famously beautiful and ten years older would be ridiculous. For him to pine away over the impossible woman would make him a laughing stock. He would be ashamed to admit to his love. 

That is what is happening here: How can a human being claim to have this relationship with God? This is particularly the case in light of Taylor’s admission of his sin. Habakkuk 1:13 reads, “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity.” 

There is a paradox, an absurdity which runs through the heart of the Christian claim.

But dare not for my life and soul deny’t. 

Deny it must be read as two, not three, syllabus: Den-y’t

The alliteration on the D’s draws the beginning and the end of the line together. 

Even though it may seem preposterous to lay hold of God in love, it cannot be denied. Only by adhering to God will there be salvation. 

Yet wonder much love’s springs should lie so low

They loveliness its object shines so bright.

He returns again to one of the main themes which run through Taylor’s poetry: the inadequacy of my response to God’s goodness.  It was the theme expressed in line 4, “What strange-strange thing am I?”

He looks to himself and sees tha this love is not matched to the object of the love. The object is “loveliness” and it “shines bright”. Yet the “springs” of his own love are low, like a stream in the end of summer. This causes him to wonder. 

Note the alliteration on these lines

Yet wonder much love’s springs should lie so low

They loveliness its object shines so bright.

The alliteration then sets off the final “br” in bright. There is also the assonance on “I”, lie, shines, bright. 

Shall all the beams of love upon me shine?

And shall my love love’s object still make pine.

These lines continue the alliteration on S and L, together with the repetition of a long ‘I.’ The final wod of the stanza, “Pine” again breaks the alliteration with a strong vowel, but also is tied to the previous lines by the assonance on “I”.  This is probably the most musically satisfying sections of the poem. 

He returns to the problem of his relationship to the beloved object, but this time from a different angle. First, it was the absurdity that claims God. Second, the wonder at himself for having such a low regard for the object of his love. 

This third question concerns fulfillment: Will he see the display of God’s love (“all the beams of love upon shine”), and yet not achieve some consummation of that love “shall my love’s object still make me pine”)? 

The remainder of the poem will work out the terms of this desire: shall it be fulfilled?

Edward Taylor, Meditation 36.5 What a strange strange thing am I

13 Saturday Nov 2021

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For now I wonder t’feel how I thus feel.

My love leaps into creature’s bosoms; and 

Cold sorrows fall into my soul as steel,

When fail they, yet kiss [?] thy love’s white hand

I scarce know what t’make of myself. Wherefore

I crave pardon, Lord, for thou hast store.

Textual note: Stafford reads, “Yet kiss thy love’s white hand.” Patterson marks “kiss” as uncertain and confirms only the “is”. I’m not certain what could be correct not having access to the original manuscript and not knowing exactly what Taylor intends. 

Note: 

At this stanza, the poem takes a new turn. The poet has resolved the question of the presence of sin, but restating his understanding as a wonder that he has not more sin. Rather than concluding, grace must be insufficient or he is not redeemed based upon the presence of sin; Taylor concludes that grace is present, because there is not more sin. 

This leads to a second problem: If God has shown such patience and spent such grace on me, then why don’t I love him more? 

This question of affections is perhaps more critical than the question of indwelling sin. Puritan Richard Sibbes, from two generations earlier than Taylor writes:

Affections therefore are lawful, yea, necessary in God’s children. All actions in God’s worship are esteemed according to the affections that they are done with. We are as we love, not as we know. What is the life of a Christian but the performance of things with courage, delight, and joy? And therefore the strongest Christians have strongest affections. For religion doth not harden the heart, but mollifies it; and regeneration doth not take affections away, but restores them sanctified and pure.

Richard Sibbes, The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 5 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; W. Robertson, 1863), 125–126. Closer to Taylor’s poem is this passage from Puritan Thomas Doolittle:

That prayer be managed to the spiritual profit of those in the family, the master of the family should get his own heart in good frame, and get his own affections warmed in the duty.—Do you come to prayer with a lively heart, and quickened affections yourselves; your heat might warm them, and your earnest importunity might stir them up unto the same. Let them see you are in good earnest by your fervent praying, as becomes men that are begging for such things as the life of their souls, the pardon of their sin, the favour of God, deliverance from hell, and for everlasting happiness. Whereas if you come to the duty with flat, dull, and cold affections, this will make them so too. As you find it with yourselves when you are under a dull and lukewarm preacher,—you have little workings of affections; so your family will find it under your prayers, if they be such. For as a minister should get lively workings in his own breast of those affections which he would raise in the people,* so should you, in family-duties, get those workings of love, joy, and sorrow for sin, which you would desire should be in those that join with you; for what a minister is in the church, that you are, proportionably, in your house.†

James Nichols, Puritan Sermons, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Richard Owen Roberts, Publishers, 1981), 239–240.

            Jonathan Edwards, the son of Taylor’s fellow pastor, will work out a substantial theology around the matter of love. (While his sermon on sin appears in high school anthologies, the question of love and desire seem to be the key to his theology. I have not undertaken a thorough study of all his work, but a passing glance shows the importance of affections to his understanding of human conduct.)

            Edwards will write:

True religion, in great part, consists in holy affections.

Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections, ed. John E. Smith and Harry S. Stout, Revised edition., vol. 2, The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 95.

If love and affection are so critical to true spiritual life, then why is it missing in the life of Taylor? He would certainly assent to these quotations of those before and after him in this religious tradition.  Thus, his quandary: 

For now I wonder t’feel how I thus feel.

He looks at his love(s) and sees them disordered. First, he loves the wrong things too much:

My love leaps into creature’s bosoms;

The phrase “love leaps” is quite good. And the image of love leaping into the heart of any creature that happens by is remarkably vivid. I am in love with some many things that capture my sense, but they are all mere creatures.

This trouble is set forth in Paul and John. In Romans 1, Paul writes of worshipping and serving the creature rather than the Creator. In 1 John 2, John warns against loving the “world.” This snare, in parallel to Paul’s observation, runs counter to our duty toward God. “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

Our love is easily drawn to sensible objects. And while the contention might be that these are “real” things, tangible things; the quickly becomes problematic when you begin to consider what you actually behold with your senses. The difficulties here are far more profound than you may imagine, so for now merely consider that the world may be quite different than what you imagine it to be.

                                    and

Cold sorrows fall into my soul as steel,

When fail they,

The sounds and pictures are excellent. I’ve marked the end “l” col[d], fall, soul, steel, fail. Also the “O” cold, sorrows, soul. The “f” fall, fail. 

A cold sorrow is something: we think of sorrow as tears. Anger may be cold, but sorrow is hot. A cold sorrow however fails. The sorrow comes which should have had an effect, but it “falls” – and from where does it fall? – into the soul and there being cold, it fails. 

And so his love is quick, but set on the wrong objects. His sorrow is cold and fails. 

Moreover, the idea of steel falling into the soul has more than a hint of murder: it missing word is “sword”.

yet kiss [?] thy love’s white hand

If the text is obscure here, then kiss may be questioned. Indeed, I wonder if this poem not quite finished in other respects. The ideas were in place, but in the first stanzas it works better as argument than poetry. 

Does he mean that he does receive God’s love? Or that the sorrows kiss the hand? I’m not sure what to do here.

I scarce know what t’make of myself.

This is a driving theme in the poem: What a strange strange am I and here he does not know what to think of himself. 

We are riddle to ourselves in many ways. The Christian has the riddle of the desires which, as Peter says “war against our soul”. How can these conflicting things be present in one life?

                                    Wherefore

I crave pardon, Lord, for thou hast store.

I do not know what is so very wrong with me. What I do know is that I am utterly dependent the grace of God: I cannot even make sense of my own heart. All I can be certain of is the extraordinary grace of God.

Edward Taylor, Meditation 36.4 What strange strange am I

11 Thursday Nov 2021

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But did I say, I wonder Lord, to spy

Thyself so kind, and I so vile yet thine

I eat my word, and wonder more that I

No viler am, though all o’re vile do shine

As full of sin I am, as egg of meat

Yet find thy golden rod my sin to treat.

Nay did I say, I wonder t’see thy store

Of kindness, yet me thus vile with all

I now unsay my say, I wonder more

Thou dash me not to pieces with thy maul

But in the bed, Lord, of thy goodness lies

The reason of’t, which makes my wonder rise.

Summary:

These two stanzas cover the same problem from different perspectives. He takes issue with himself over his complaint that he “vile” despite the grace of God. He has asked, If I belong to God’s and God’s grace is effacious, then why am I not more holy?

He turns that question on its head. First, says, rather than wonder why I am so vile; I so should rather ask the question why I am not worse. Second, the real mystery here is not my sin but God’s mercy? Why would he be merciful to me?

Prosody:

To this point, the poem has not been very lyrical. Yet with these two stanzas we see a marked turn in the attention paid to sound. Of particular note is the long I repeated; most noticeably in the I-VILE. 

But did I say, I wonder Lord, to spy

Thyself so kind, and I so vile yet thine

I eat my word, and wonder more that I

No viler am, though all o’re vile do shine

As full of sin I am, as egg of meat

Yet find thy golden rod my sin to treat.

Nay did I say, I wonder t’see thy store

Of kindness, yet me thus vile with all

I now unsay my say, I wonder more

Thou dash me not to pieces with thy maul

But in the bed, Lord, of thy goodness lies

The reason of’t, which makes my wonder rise

Notes

But did I say, the parallel will be made with the next stanza, “Nay did I say”. By asking this question twice, he is calling into question his own self-understanding. There is a movement of thought as he holds up the potential responses to his wonder at his own sin. 

 I wonder Lord, to spy

Thyself so kind, and I so vile yet thine

While the verb “spy” may be attributed solely to the rhyme, the emphasis of the verb is on scrutiny and attention. Since the whole of the poem is a psychological and theological investigation of himself, to spy this out is appropriate.

I eat my word, This brings us to the next parallel between the stanza: He will “eat”, then “unsay”  the word he has said. There is a sort of repentance in this, he looks to himself and realizes the error.

and wonder more that I

No viler am, 

This will parallel 

Nay did I say, I wonder t’see thy store

Of kindness

He wonders at himself and at God. But now rather than wondering at the presence of any sin, he wonders at the lack sin! Why am I not even more vile than I presently appear? The parallel then helps with the understand: I am not more vile because the store of God’s grace is so extensive.

The mystery of grace has not transformed: Why am I not perfect if grace “works?” Instead, look at the mystery of grace that he has restrained so much sin.

though all o’re vile do shine This is a fascinating line, particularly in the context of Taylor’s standard imagery. Bright, shine, light are all characteristic he applies to God; while to himself and sin it is a matter of dark and shadow. But here, his vileness shines! The idea of sinfulness so extraordinary that it “lights-up” is strking. 

As full of sin I am, as egg of meat

And a parallel:

yet me thus vile with all

Yet find thy golden rod my sin to treat.

And the the parallel with the second stanza:

I now unsay my say, I wonder more

Thou dash me not to pieces with thy maul

The “rod” would be a rod of correction. But the correction is not destruction. As a side note, too much preaching aims at bare guilt, which is a psychological state of feeling bad for having done something wrong. The trouble with guilt is that standing alone it goes nowhere: Okay, I’m guilty. Since the feeling is bad, one merely tries to overcome the bad feeling. What is needed is repentance. It is the kindness of God which moves us to repentance: “God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance.” Romans 2:4

Look here at Taylor realizes:

Why doesn’t God destroy me? The goodness of God (Romans 2:4 in the KJV uses the word “goodness” rather than “kindness” as the English translation of chréston)

But in the bed, Lord, of thy goodness lies

The reason of’t, 

The addition of a bed of goodness creates a certain peace and restfulness to the whole which is remarkable. 

And now the wonder shifts. At the first, he wondered at his own sin. Now he wonders at the goodness, the kindness, the grace of God:

which makes my wonder rise.

Edward Taylor Meditation 36.3 What strange strange thing am I?

09 Tuesday Nov 2021

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The first two run thy glory would to shame.
The last plea doth my soul to hell confine.
My faith therefore doth all these pleas disdain.
Thou kindness art, it saith, and I am thine.
Upon this bank it doth on tiptoes stand
To ken o’re Reason’s head at Grace’s hand.

Now he considers the possibilities. If vileness indeed has the ultimate power in his life, or if grace lacks the strength to respond to the movement of sin, then God’s promises are weaker than the strength of sin. It would bring God’s glory to shame. For what can we do with a promise such as

For sin will not have dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. Rom. 6:14

And he rejects these possibilities on the ground that God cannot untrue.

The third possibility he considered, that he is not truly God’s, he also rejects because that would mean that he is accursed.

What then does he attribute to the basis for this consideration:

My faith therefore doth all these pleas disdain.

These are repugnant to faith, even though they appear as a matter of reason to be the only possibilities. Having worked himself into an apparent dead end, the poem, at this point, spies a way out of the quandary:

His faith “It” sees something. Faith begins with the truth of God: God is kindness. Second, faith knows that it lays hold of God, and those who confess and believe are indeed those who belong to God (I am thine). He knows that God cannot be a liar.

Faith from here spies somewhat difficult to see

Upon this bank it doth on tiptoes stand

Faith stands upon a bank. The bank (such as riverbank) must be (1) the disdain which faith has for the possibilities: since these things cannot be true—even though it seems most reasonable; and (2) the knowledge that God is kind, and he is God’s. I will start here and look for the answer. I belong to a good God. What must that mean for someone in my condition?

Faith has the ability to see over the head of Reason and to see what Grace can do:

To ken o’re Reason’s head at Grace’s hand.

Notice something here about Faith. Faith is not blind. It is not merely guessing or vague hoping. He understands faith as a specific kind of knowledge.

Perhaps it would be best to understand Faith as the means by which persons know one-another. We believe we love another, when we believe another loves us – or hates us for that matter; we are exercising faith. While we use the word “belief” as a weak form of knowledge, that is not the only meaning of that word. Belief/faith is means by which the intangible but real beauty of a relationship can be known.

Reason assumes a sort of self-interestedness: it is unreasonable to give all that you for the good of another. It is unreasonable to love your enemy. These things do not serve my self-interest. But Faith can see things which are unreasonable, not because they are untrue, but because they do not serve one’s self-interest.

There is a kind of love in God which is both true and unreasonable (in this sense). The absolute core of Christianity is the love of the enemy. God loves his enemies and makes them into family. We are then called upon to love our enemies (which is both exalted and impossible, for this is something God must convey through us) and in so doing help to reconcile them to God.

And so Faith can see past reason and see that must exquisite of treasures, Grace.

Faith is needed to understand God, because the work of God is often not directed at the particular moment, but may be directed toward the outcome (thus, as the poet will tell us, God’s patience is not for the purpose of encouraging his sin, but rather for the provocation of the poet’s love toward God). Conversely, difficulties from God often are given out of his love toward us:

Mercy and kindness floweth from him freely, naturally; he is never severe, never harsh; he never stings, he never terrifies us, but when he is sadly provoked by us. God’s hand sometimes may lie very hard upon his people, when his heart, his bowels, at those very times may be yearning towards his people, Jer. 31:18–20. No man can tell how the heart of God stands by his hand; his hand of mercy may be open to those against whom his heart is set, as you see in the rich poor fool, and Dives, in the Gospel; and his hand of severity may lie hard upon those on whom he hath set his heart, as you may see in Job and Lazarus. And thus you see those gracious, blessed, soul-quieting conclusions about the issue and event of afflictions, that a holy, a prudent silence doth include.

Thomas Brooks, The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 1 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert, 1866), 304.

Edward Taylor, Meditation 36.2 What strange strange thing am I?

05 Friday Nov 2021

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To find thee Lord thus overflowing kind

A t’find me thine, thus overflowing vile,

A riddle seems unrivetted I find.

This reason saith is hard to reconcile

Does vileness choose? Or can’t thy kindness shown

Me meliorate? Am I not thine own?

The kindness of God toward the sinner, and the vileness of the sinner on the other creates a paradox: a riddle which the poet cannot seem to resolve. Why does this knowledge of God’s grace not effectuate a greater degree or change?

Taylor raises this as three questions, which he will consider at more length. 

First question: Does vileness choose? The question is a bit unclear because it not immediately apparent what is chosen. I would take it that by saying vileness has a power of choice is that vileness would then be said to control the will. What exactly there is terms of ideas moving from Taylor, through J Edwards’ father to Jonathan himself I do not know. But in his work The Freedom of the Will, Edwards puts the power of controlling the will in the power of choice. There is some coherence in the thought from Taylor to Edwards.

Does the evil inclination have the full power over even the one who knows the grace of God?

Second question: Is the grace of God insufficient to work a transformation in the believer’s heart? “Or can’t thy kindness shown/Me meliorate?” Is the kindness of God insufficient to work a change. The language here seems to allude to Romans 2:4

Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?

The kindness of God was meant to lead to repentance, which necessarily entails change. But looking at himself he fails to see the degree of transformation, of repentance which thinks would have necessarily followed. 

This leads to the third question: Am I not thine own? There is a possibility that the reason transformation has not taken place is the poet is not transformed. To be truly “born again” (or born from above, in the language of John 3), entails a fundamental transformation: a heart of flesh is exchanged for a heart of stone.

Something must be done beyond bare performance of particular rites. It would be possible to be one who has done a great deal and yet not be truly redeemed. Jesus near the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount says

Matthew 7:21–23 (ESV)

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

So the three possibilities are: The sinful has the greater power. The grace of God cannot actually effectuate change. Or, the grace of God has no effect in the poet’s life, because poet has not been redeemed by God. 

The line, A riddle seems unrivetted I find, deserves some consideration. If the riddle is not fastened into place, unriveted, then it seems the riddle does not have much staying power. The riddle will simply drift off.

The riddle is unriveting: it is disturbing. The effect of the riddle is that it is unriveted, it is disturbing this is the third of three things he “finds”. He find God’s grace, his own sin, and an unriveting riddle.

[1] To find thee Lord thus overflowing kind

[2] A t’find me thine, thus overflowing vile,

[3] A riddle seems unrivetted I find.

This particular poem is proving to be difficult, even for Taylor. But perhaps the difficulty is part of the meaning of the poem. He is dealing with a matter which he cannot quite understanding: what is this persistence of sin in his life. It is irrational and contradictory. The poem itself is twisted and hard to understand.

Edward Taylor, Meditation 36.1 What strange-strange thing am I?

04 Thursday Nov 2021

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Meditation 36

What rocky heart is mine? What pincky eyes

Thy grace spy blanched, Lord, in immensity?

But find thy sight me not to meliorize,

O stupid heart! What strange-strange thing am I?

I many months do drown in sorrow’s spring

But hardly raise a sigh to blow down sin.

Summary: 

What a strange thing I am. A sight of the great grace of God has had so little effect upon my life. I am so little changed. I can spend months weeping over the results of my sin, but I do hardly a thing to stop the sin itself. 

This poem thus concerns the perplexity felt by the Christian who knows the hideous nature of sin, hates its effects; knows the great grace of God and its effects; and yet sees so little change. In this it underscores a curious case of accusation against the believer: You think you are better than others. When, if the believer be true and the truth be known, the answer is I think myself much worse than others. I

The syntax of the first three lines is quite difficult to follow, but I will try to untangle it (and I think I have it right).

Notes:

What rocky heart is mine? The phrase “rocky heart” has a couple of potential allusions, all of mean generally the same thing. (1) A promise of the new covenant in Ezekiel 36:26 is that God will take away the heart of stone and give one a heart of flesh. (2) The “rocky ground” of Mark 4:5 in the parable of the sower. (3) A plain unreceptive heart. 

What pincky eyes: eyes have shut or fluttering.

What pincky eyes/Thy grace spy blanched, Lord, in immensity. 

This is hardest clause in the poem: The eyes must be “spy” the grace. Blanched, weak, feeble, must refer to the eyes. My feeble, fluttering eyes spy the immensity of thy grace, Lord. 

But find thy sight me not to meliorize: This is not as obscure as the previous line, but it is a bit awkward at first read. Meliorize: to make better. I see your immense grace, but I am no better for the sight of it. 

This leads to the conflict which will drive the remainder of the poem

O stupid heart! What strange-strange thing am I?

What am I? What is wrong with me? In the next stanza he will consider the possible answers to this quandary; here, he raises the question. What am I that is not transformed by the sight of God’s grace? 

The poet has reached a psychological and spiritual crisis, an impasse:

Picture taken in Catania – Amenano’s Fountain. Courtesy of Domenica Prinzivalli

I many months do drown in Sorrow’s spring. Sorrow being personified, has a never ending spring of tears. Why he is crying is not stated here, but is implied by the next line:

But hardly raise a sigh to blow down sin. Here, “blow down” would be to stop. I make no effort to stop the sin, I merely cry at its continued presence. 

The remainder of the poem will then work through this quandary: what strange thing am I?

T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton, IIIa “In this twittering world”

29 Friday Oct 2021

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III

Here is a place of disaffection
Time before and time after
In a dim light: neither daylight
Investing form with lucid stillness
Turning shadow into transient beauty
With slow rotation suggesting permanence
Nor darkness to purify the soul
Emptying the sensual with deprivation
Cleansing affection from the temporal.
Neither plenitude nor vacancy. Only a flicker
Over the strained time-ridden faces
Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no concentration
Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind
That blows before and after time,
Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs
Time before and time after.
Eructation of unhealthy souls
Into the faded air, the torpid
Driven on the wind that sweeps the gloomy hills of London,
Hampstead and Clerkenwell, Campden and Putney,
Highgate, Primrose and Ludgate. Not here
Not here the darkness, in this twittering world.

This next section of the poem has resonance and even some ironic humor not conceivably present to Eliot, but unavoidable to see now. So I am going to take a section out of order and begin there:

Eructation of unhealthy souls
Into the faded air, the torpid
Driven on the wind that sweeps the gloomy hills of London,
Hampstead and Clerkenwell, Campden and Putney,
Highgate, Primrose and Ludgate. Not here
Not here the darkness, in this twittering world.

We cannot miss the last phrase, “in this twittering world.” The ironic use of the word “twitter” for Twitter (like the Facebook’s “friends”) reads like a parody of postmodernism. But look back how Eliot gets to a “twittering world”: it is the 

Eructation of unhealthy souls

Into the faded air.

Like volcanoes, these unhealthy souls are bleching into the air. But the air is faded: it is worn out. This is not a place of healthy life (the souls are unhealthy), but ghostly existence which is not quite alive or dead. It sweeps across the world after the Great War has ruined all and the next war is on its way. 

Note: This is not even the darkness:

Not here

Not here the darkness.

They are not in the darkness, that would be too definite. I cannot help but think of his lines from the Waste Land:

  Unreal City,

Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,

A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,

I had not thought death had undone so many.

Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,

And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.

There is an insistence of modern life, which its getting and spending: Eliot living in the bitter parody of Romanticism. As Wordsworth wrote

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;

These people are too busy to be redeemed. Consider the lines immediately prior to what we have considered:

            Only a flicker
Over the strained time-ridden faces
Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no concentration
Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind
That blows before and after time,
Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs
Time before and time after.

The language sounds prophetic as to contemporary screen-based reality and life:

Only a flicker
Over the strained time-ridden faces
Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning.

Only a flicker

Over the strained time-ridden faces

Distracted from distraction by distraction

We are distracted from distraction by yet another distraction. And there is no meaning in anything

Filled with fancies – that is diversions—and all of it: “empty of meaning.” It would be difficult to better skewer modern life. And none of this would lead to the anti-capitalist socialism. The problem is far deeper than an economic structure. Notice the line

Only a flicker
Over the strained time-ridden faces

Marxism is intensely time-bound: the dialectic moves through economic powers through time. But this being time-bound is the trouble: These faces are faces who cannot escape time.  Is “all time … unredeemable”?

Now we can consider how Eliot begins this section: 

Here is a place of disaffection
Time before and time after
In a dim light: neither daylight
Investing form with lucid stillness
Turning shadow into transient beauty
With slow rotation suggesting permanence
Nor darkness to purify the soul
Emptying the sensual with deprivation
Cleansing affection from the temporal.

He is speaking of a very particular place, the time before and the time after: Before and after what? The still point he has been writing of. A place to get outside of the driving of history. But just on either side of a place of eternity (because Eliot seems to be thinking of Boethius’ understanding of eternity) there is

a place of disaffection
Time before and time after

That before and after comes again in lines we have already considered:

Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind
That blows before and after time,
Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs
Time before and time after.

So what we have “a place of disaffection”, a time-ridden place, without meaning, capable of offering nothing but distraction.  It is a place of “faded air,” a place without even darkness:

In a dim light: neither daylight
Investing form with lucid stillness
Turning shadow into transient beauty
With slow rotation suggesting permanence
Nor darkness to purify the soul
Emptying the sensual with deprivation
Cleansing affection from the temporal.

This place outside of the still point has less than true human existence. It is not day or night. It is a place without beauty. The darkness which is not present in the time before and after 

            Not here
Not here the darkness, in this twittering world.

Is the darknight of the soul: a darkness which “purifies the soul.” Note in particular how this darkness is the exact opposite of distraction and time-ridden:

Emptying the sensual with deprivation
Cleansing affection from the temporal.

There is no salvation is in the twittering world, but all the twittering world can offer is distraction.  It is not even a place of fullness:

Neither plenitude nor vacancy. Only a flicker
Over the strained time-ridden faces

What then is the use of this poem? There is a note in Christianity of not being bound to the world

15 Do not love the world or the things in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

The poem takes us this strand but forces us to stare directly into what this world is: void all illusion. It is a world of nothing beyond distraction. The air is faded, because it will pass away. The world offers neither full joy nor purification. Come stare directly into this ghostly world which is neither alive nor dead.  It is merely

Tumid apathy with no concentration
Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind

I thought of adding a photograph of people staring into their phones.

K.B.L. Luccia-1.000 pic


A Garden Wall

21 Thursday Oct 2021

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Last night a friend (who grew up in China), told me of a traditional poem which illustrates the vanity of humans, and how we can so easily over estimate ourselves. He explained the rhyme scheme and stanza structure. I have attempted to take what he told me and create passable English verse. Whether it is successful as a re-creation of the Chinese poem or as passable verse I will leave to others. But since the exercise amused me, I set it down here for the possible amusement of others.

The width of a wall has troubled you so

You’ve written to me to ruin your foe

Your governor-brother across the state.

Your fields spread so far and wide

A thousand acres on every side:

The width of a hand has filled you with hate!

The Great Wall guards our state against the horde

It keeps our fields peaceful from all swords,

Even your walls are safe beneath its shade.

Tell me my brother, the name of the man 

The name of the emperor of all the land 

Who long ago raised the Great Wall of China.