Part VIII of Tennyson's magnum opus:
VIII The Lotos blooms below the barren peak, | 145 |
| The Lotos blows by every winding creek; | |
| All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone; | |
| Thro’ every hollow cave and alley lone | |
| Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown. | |
| We have had enough of action, and of motion we, | 150 |
| Roll’d to starboard, roll’d to larboard, when the surge was seething free, | |
| Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea. | |
| Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind, | |
| In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined | |
| On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind. | 155 |
| For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl’d | |
| Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl’d | |
| Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world; | |
| Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands, | |
| Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands, | 160 |
| Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands. | |
| But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song | |
| Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong, | |
| Like a tale of little meaning tho’ the words are strong; | |
| Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil, | 165 |
| Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil, | |
| Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil; | |
| Till they perish and they suffer—some, ’tis whisper’d—down in hell | |
| Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell, | |
| Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel. | 170 |
| Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore | |
| Than labor in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar; | |
| O, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more. |
From Ulysses:
| Come, my friends, | |
| ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world. | |
| Push off, and sitting well in order smite | |
| The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds | |
| To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths | 60 |
| Of all the western stars until I die. | |
| It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: | |
| It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, | |
| And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. | |
| Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’ | 65 |
| We are not now that strength which in old days | |
| Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; | |
| One equal temper of heroic hearts, | |
| Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will | |
| To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. |
- In Memoriam XXVII
- I envy not in any moods
- The captive void of noble rage,
- The linnet born within the cage,
- That never knew the summer woods:
- I envy not the beast that takes
- His license in the field of time,
- Unfetter’d by the sense of crime,
- To whom a conscience never wakes;
- Nor, what may count itself as blest,
- The heart that never plighted troth
- But stagnates in the weeds of sloth;
- Nor any want-begotten rest.
- I hold it true, whate’er befall;
- I feel it, when I sorrow most;
- ’Tis better to have loved and lost
- Than never to have loved at all.
It's a shame that so many of us are subjected to Whitman, Longfellow, Kerouac **puke**, and Ginsberg **double puke** while Blake and Tennyson gather dust on some bookshelf in the back of the room.
I have absolutely no problem saying that I think the world would be a better place had Ginsberg never lived and Howl never been published. Ginsberg was a huge influence — there can be little doubt about that. I’d be curious to know just how many adolescents he’s helped channel cognitive pity-parties into self-serving, whiny, yet shocking — and therefore “profound”– rants about society.
Forgive me for not seeing his — and really most of the Beats’ — pseudo-intellectual teen angst as art.
The fact that Ginsberg can be spoken in the same breath as Tennyson and Blake — whether Ginsberg really did have his “Blake moment” — makes me physically ill.
If you can get off from Ginsberg, I highly recommend this.
That's all.
Posts
