Miscellaneous Poems (Poetry by George Eliot) by George Eliot.

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Poetry by George Eliot.

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Miscellaneous Poems

by George Eliot.

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This is a look at various small poems of George Eliot.

Reading them to begin with, it s clear at the outset that most of it's not written for a readership as much as for herself, most of it. This becomes clear within a few lines of the opening poem. Much of it is laboured more than a flow pouring with ease and that doesn't make for good poetry.

Here the set is gleaned from various complete collections of works of George Eliot, which follow very different orders, and hence here the order is mixed in the latter half; the first part follows order as given in four separate publications.

It's a few minutes before one realises that two separate poems, GOD NEEDS ANTONIO and STRADIVARIUS, not only share a theme and a thought, a feeling - they are identical. It's the same poem, given under two separate titles! Other than Delphi, no other collection includes it, so perhaps it's Delphi making up!

Funnily enough, HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX kept appearing in the review formats I had prepared for reviews of George Eliot works, and it came to notice when, while reviewing the poetry, I couldn't find such a title, or a poem with thus title, in any of the (over half a dozen) collections of works of George Eliot on the kindle - so how was it on the reviews, where i had cooied the list from contents of the books?

Then I saw it among the contents undoubtedly copied from Delphi, and realised I'd got it from there! It was corrected by kindle some time between my beginning the reviews, and noticing this, about a ten moths or so of the gap. I am keeping that original list as copied then, although, of course, not reviewing that poem.

Another one that was included, at least in the contents list, was TO THE SKYLARK. Again, it was not to be found! The mystery got solved when I found it in the book titled O MAY I JOIN THE CHOIR INVISIBLE!, which includes that poem by George Eliot, but is in fact a collection of poems, favourite of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, by various poets. Needless to say, that's kept in the contents, too. But not reviewed.

Whether to include or not A COLLEGE BREAKFAST-PARTY was a difficult choice - it fits with the various other poems with college themes, such as

LINES WRITTEN UNDER THE CONVICTION THAT

IT IS NOT WISE TO READ MATHEMATICS IN NOVEMBER

AFTER ONE’S FIRE IS OUT,

LECTURES TO WOMEN ON PHYSICAL SCIENCE,

and

A VISION OF A WRANGLER, OF A UNIVERSITY,

OF PEDANTRY, AND OF PHILOSOPHY,

but - at over eighteen pages - is quite long. And it's more in line with her philosophy themed work, unlike the three mentioned above. Do we include it here, as college residence theme?

Theme wins!

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Contents

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In order

On Being Called a Saint.

Farewell.

Sonnet.

Question and Answer.

“’Mid my Gold-Brown Curls.”

“’Mid the Rich Store.”

“As Tu Va la Lune se Lever.”

In A London Drawing Room.

Arms! To Arms!

Ex Oriente Lux.

In the South.

Will Ladislaw’s Song.

Erinna.

“I Grant you Ample Leave.”

Mordecai’s Hebrew Verses.

Count that Day Lost.

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Not necessarily in the same order as followed in any one particular collection of works of George Eliot.

SWEET ENDINGS COME AND GO, LOVE

TWO LOVERS

GOD NEEDS ANTONIO

ROSES

O MAY I JOIN THE CHOIR INVISIBLE!

I COME AND STAND AT EVERY DOOR

LINES WRITTEN UNDER THE CONVICTION

THAT IT IS NOT WISE TO READ MATHEMATICS

IN NOVEMBER AFTER ONE’S FIRE IS OUT

MOTHER AND POET.

NATURE’S LADY.

STRADIVARIUS

LECTURES TO WOMEN ON PHYSICAL SCIENCE

A VISION OF A WRANGLER, OF A UNIVERSITY,

OF PEDANTRY, AND OF PHILOSOPHY

A COLLEGE BREAKFAST-PARTY

Self and Life.

ARION

The Death of Moses.

Making Life Worth While

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On Being Called a Saint.

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It's not written for a readership as much as for herself, most of it. This becomes clear within a few lines of the opening lines.

"A Saint! O would that I could claim

"The privileg’d, the honour’d name

"And confidently take my stand

"Though lowest in the saintly band!

"Would though it were in scorn applied

"That term the test of truth could bide

"The kingly salutations given

"In mockery to the King of Heaven."

Her religious fervour isn't unfamiliar after one has read Romola and Daniel Deronda. Still, it's quite startling when she writes -

"Oh for an interest in that name

"When hell shall ope its jaws of flame

"And sinners to their doom be hurl’d

"While scorned saints ‘shall judge this world.’"

One thought she disdained those - such as the evangelical Cummins who she wrote critically of - who were gung ho about precisely this enthusiasm!

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September 29, 2021 - September 29, 2021.

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Farewell.

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Was this one of her last poems? From being only second in this collection, it woukdnt seem so. But when she writes

"Thou sun, to whose parental beam

"I owe All that has gladden’d me while here below—

"Moon, stars, and covenant confirming bow,

"Farewell!

"Ye verdant meads, fair blossoms, stately trees,

"Sweet song of birds, and soothing hum of bees—

"Refreshing odours, wafted on the breeze,

"Farewell! "

It definitely isn't about saying goodnight, or a journey she expects to return from, however hazardous journeys were in her days.

Its pretty, no doubt. And touching.

"Books that have been to me as chest of gold,

"Which, miser like, I secretly have told,

"And for them love, health, friendship, peace have sold,

"Farewell! "

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September 29, 2021 - September 29, 2021.

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Sonnet.

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Tad mysterious.

"If, haply, conscious of the present scene,

"I’ve marked before me some untraversed spot

"The setting sunbeams had foresaken not,

"Whose turf appeared more velvet-like and green

"Than that I walked and fitter for repose:

"But ever, at the wished-for place arrived,

"I’ve found it of those seeming charms deprived

"Which from the mellowing power of distance rose:

"To my poor thought, an apt though simple trope

"Of life’s dull path and earth’s deceitful hope"

Unless it's about passage of time, and inability to return.

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September 29, 2021 - September 29, 2021.

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Question and Answer.

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Religious more than essence of experience of life, one suspects, when she goes -

"“Where blooms, O my Father, a thornless rose?”

"“That can I not tell thee, my child;

"Not one on the bosom of earth e’er grows,

"But wounds whom its charms have beguiled.”

"“Would I’d a rose on my bosom to lie!

"But I shrink from the piercing thorn;

"I long, but dare not its point defy,

"I long, and I gaze forlorn.”

"“Not so, O my child, round the stem again

"Thy resolute fingers entwine---

"Forego not the joy for its sister pain,

"Let the rose, the sweet rose, be thine!”"

After all, being a clergyman's daughter and later married to someone in trade, middle class at all times, her life couldn't be said to have been of strife against poverty, exactly, much less of battling against odds such as those faced by Irish, or other colonial subjects, or even the settlers in the new world who built log cabins and did everything else depending on no workers as such.

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September 29, 2021 - September 29, 2021.

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“’Mid my Gold-Brown Curls.”

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It's a rare admission of vanity from George Eliot!

"’Mid my gold-brown curls

"There twined a silver hair:

"I plucked it idly out

"And scarcely knew ’twas there.

"Coiled in my velvet sleeve it lay

"And like a serpent hissed:

"“Me thou canst pluck & fling away,

"One hair is lightly missed;

"But how on that near day

"When all the wintry army muster in array?”"

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September 29, 2021 - September 29, 2021.

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“’Mid the Rich Store.”

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"So man His miniature resemblance gives

"To matter’s every form a speaking soul,"

She stops at the border of spiritual, unwilling to leave her bringing up behind, like an earthbound spirit afraid of flight and chained to its cage.

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September 30, 2021 - September 30, 2021.

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“As Tu Va la Lune se Lever.”

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"Have you seen the moon rise in an azure sky without a veil?" Begins this, and goes on to attempt a spiritual connection - but, alas, not freely, but only within framework of her background of restrictions by church!

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September 30, 2021 - September 30, 2021.

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In A London Drawing Room.

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Facts of her description are not in dispute, but the overall effect is of a dull, dismal place.

"The sky is cloudy, yellowed by the smoke.

"For view there are the houses opposite

"Cutting the sky with one long line of wall

"Like solid fog: far as the eye can stretch

"Monotony of surface & of form

"Without a break to hang a guess upon.

"No bird can make a shadow as it flies,

"For all is shadow, as in ways o’erhung

"By thickest canvass, where the golden rays

"Are clothed in hemp. ... "

So far, it's dismal enough. But next, it's as if she's made up her mind to paint it negative.

"No figure lingering

"Pauses to feed the hunger of the eye

"Or rest a little on the lap of life.

"All hurry on & look upon the ground,

"Or glance unmarking at the passers by ... "

We've all experienced the loneliness resulting from being in a strange place, especially a city that is in a hurry. But it's the city that is friendlier, too, than the small village that ignores strangers who are clearly waiting, politely, for a glance, a greeting before they can ask for an address and be on the way!

But she gets worse.

"The wheels are hurrying too, cabs, carriages

"All closed, in multiplied identity. ... "

Why wouldn't the carriages be closed, what with dust flying to splash as it's driven? It isn't a stroll of a summer's afternoon in the cold Nordic latitudes.

"The world seems one huge prison-house & court

"Where men are punished at the slightest cost,

"With lowest rate of colour, warmth & joy."

One moment, isn't the title A London Drawing Room? Not a lonely waiting at a bus stop?

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September 30, 2021 - September 30, 2021.

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Arms! To Arms!

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It's mystifying when one reads

" ... But at last the watchman posted

"Darkly like the stars at noon ... "

One doesa double take - what? Watchman, like stars at noon? Is he invisible? Or did George Eliot see stars at noon, does anyone, except during an eclipse? Is it ever that dark below arctic circle latitudes?

But then it becomes clearer- she's being racist.

"Now the gates of morn are open

"And the Christians ope their gates;

"Meet the Moor at half a league thence,

"Clashing weapons, clashing hates."

Incidentally, it's those that live in the Nordic darkness that have no chance of allowing nature's heat to affect their skins, and so nature brings them out of wombs and keeps them at the rare level; as opposed to the tanned members of the same who move to, say, California.

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September 30, 2021 - September 30, 2021.

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Ex Oriente Lux.

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When she sees Asia as East, close to Sun at first dawn -

"When first the earth broke from her parent ring

"Trembling an instant ere her separate life

"Had found the unfailing pulse of night and day,

"Her inner half that met the effusive Sun

"Had earlier largesse of his rays and thrilled

"To the celestial music of the dawn

"While yet the western half was cold and sad,

"Shivering beneath the whisper of the stars.

"So Asia was the earliest home of light:

"The little seeds first germinated there,

"Birds first made bridals, and the year first knew Autumnal ripeness.

"Ever wandering sound

"That dumbly throbbed within the homeless vast

"Took sweet imprisonment in song and speech—

"Like light more beauteous for shattering,

"Parted melodious in the trembling throat

"Of the first matin bird; made utterance

"From the full-rounded lips of that young race

"Who moved by the omnipresent Energy

"Dividing towards sublimer union,

"Clove sense & image subtilly in twain,

"Then wedded them, till heavenly

"Thought was born."

is she aware that Asia isn't just West Asia, that Asia includes the India and China that she wrote disdainfully of as "punished by England" for daring to oppose British domination?

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September 30, 2021 - September 30, 2021.

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In the South.

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If poet goes on a vacation in autumn sojourning South where its palms and ocean - Mediterranean? - then obviously, as happy as she's to paint olives and apples,

"O gentle brightness of late Autumn morns!

"The dear Earth like a patient matron left

"By all she loved and reared, still smiles and loves.

"The fields low-shorn gleam with a paler gold,

"The olives stretch their shadows; on the vines

"Forgotten bunches breathe out mellowness,

"And little apples poised upon their stems

"Laugh sparkling high above the mounting sun.

"Each delicate blade and bossy arching leaf

"Is silvered with the dew; the plough overturns

"The redolent earth, and with slow-broadening belt

"Of furrowed brownness, makes mute prophecy.

"The far off rocks take breathing colours, bathed

"In the aërial ocean of clear blue;

"The palm soars in the silence, and the towers

"And scattered villages seem still to sleep

"In happy morning dreams."

- she's missing Autumn glory!

Try New England!

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September 30, 2021 - September 30, 2021.

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Will Ladislaw’s Song.

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Frugal, indeed!

"O me, O me, what frugal cheer

"My love doth feed upon!

"A touch, a ray, that is not here,

"A shadow that is gone:

"A dream of breath that might be near,

"An inly-echoed tone,

"The thought that one may think me dear,

"The place where one was known,

"The tremor of a banished fear,

"An ill that was not done—

"O me, O me, what frugal cheer

"My love doth feed upon!"

George Eliot's prose in Middlemarch was much more poetic in portraying Will and Dorothea, individually and in their relationship.

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September 30, 2021 - September 30, 2021.

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Erinna.

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"“Erinna died in early youth when chained by her mother to the spinning-wheel. She had as yet known the charm of existence in imagination alone. Her poem called ‘The Spindle—Ηλακάτη—containing only 300 hexameter verses, in which she probably expressed the restless & aspiring thoughts which crowded on her youthful mind as she pursued her monotonous work, has been deemed by many of the ancients of such high poetic merit as to entitle it to a place beside the epics of Homer.” Muller, Hist. Gr. Lit} Four lines of the ηλακάτη are extant. The dialect is a mixture of Doric and Æolic spoken at Rhodes where Erinna was born; the date about B.C. 612:"

First few verses make one wonder if these are by Erinna, but then it's clear they are about her, by George Eliot.

"’Twas in the isle that Helios saw

"Uprising from the sea a flower-tressed bride

"To meet his kisses—Rhodes, the filial pride

"Of god-taught craftsmen who gave Art its law:

"She held the spindle as she sat,

"Erinna with the thick-coiled mat

"Of raven hair and deepest agate eyes,

"Gazing with a sad surprise

"At surging visions of her destiny

"To spin the byssus drearily

"In insect labour, while the throng

"Of gods and men wrought deeds that poets wrought in song."

And yet, has much changed, for an average woman, even one of middle class? Whatever her achievements, whatever vast space her mind, however vast soul, her being on earth is still subject to being asked if she spends her time housekeeping.

If she's lucky!

"Hark, the passion in her eyes

"Changes to melodic cries

"Lone she pours her lonely pain.

"Song unheard is not in vain:

"The god within us plies

"His shaping power and moulds in speech

"Harmonious a statue of our sorrow,

"Till suffering turn beholding and we borrow,

"Gazing on Self apart, the wider reach

"Of solemn souls that contemplate

"And slay with full-beamed thought the darkling

"Dragon Hate."

Else, it isn't asking, it's being told, "if you aren't "working ", you must be a housekeeper!"!

And yet

"But Pallas, thou dost choose and bless

"The nobler cause, thy maiden height

"And terrible beauty marshalling the fight

"Inspire weak limbs with stedfastness.

"Thy virgin breast uplifts

"The direful aegis, but thy hand

"Wielded its weapon with benign command

"In rivalry of highest gifts

"With strong Poseidon whose earth-shaking roll

"Matched not the delicate tremors of thy spear

"Piercing Athenian land and drawing thence

"With conquering beneficence

"Thy subtly chosen dole

"The sacred olive fraught with light and plenteous cheer.

"What, though thou pliest the distaff and the loom?

"Counsel is thine, to sway the doubtful doom

"Of cities with a leaguer at their gate;

"Thine the device that snares the hulk elate

"Of purblind force and saves the hero or the State."

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September 30, 2021 - September 30, 2021.

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“I Grant you Ample Leave.”

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On verge of spiritual discovery, she steps back!

"“I grant you ample leave To use the hoary formula ‘I am’

"Naming the emptiness where thought is not;

"But fill the void with definition, ‘I’

"Will be no more a datum than the words

"You link false inference with, the ‘Since’ & ‘so’

"That, true or not, make up the atom-whirl.

"Resolve your ‘Ego’, it is all one web

"With vibrant ether clotted into worlds:

"Your subject, self, or self-assertive ‘I’

"Turns nought but object, melts to molecules,

"Is stripped from naked Being with the rest

"Of those rag-garments named the Universe.

"Or if, in strife to keep your ‘Ego’ strong

"You make it weaver of the etherial light,

"Space, motion, solids & the dream of Time—

"Why, still ’tis Being looking from the dark,

"The core, the centre of your consciousness,

"That notes your bubble-world: sense, pleasure, pain,

"What are they but a shifting otherness,

"Phantasmal flux of moments?—”"

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September 30, 2021 - September 30, 2021.

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Mordecai’s Hebrew Verses.

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George Eliot's image of Judaism has no joy in it, no space for love; it's all sombre, denying love, laughter. And this, root of her own upbringing, defines spirituality for her, whereas one sees Fiddler On The Roof for another, joyous view of life thats jewish life through millennia, despite all the striving against poverty and much, much more! What isn't joy, cheer, is all forced and inflicted - from outsiders.

"“Away from me the garment of forgetfulness,

"Withering the heart;

"The oil and wine from presses of the Goyim,

"Poisoned with scorn.

"Solitude is on the sides of Mount Nebo,

"In its heart a tomb:

"There the buried ark and golden cherubim

"Make hidden light:

"There the solemn faces gaze unchanged,

"The wings are spread unbroken:

"Shut beneath in silent awful speech

"The Law lies graven.

"Solitude and darkness are my covering,

"And my heart a tomb;

"Smite and shatter it, O Gabriel!

"Shatter it as the clay of the founder

"Around the golden image.”"

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September 30, 2021 - September 30, 2021.

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Count that Day Lost.

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Simple!

"If you sit down at set of sun

"And count the acts that you have done,

"And, counting, find

"One self-denying deed, one word

"That eased the heart of him who heard,

"One glance most kind

"That fell like sunshine where it went—

"Then you may count that day well spent.

"But if, through all the livelong day,

"You’ve cheered no heart, by yea or nay—

"If, through it all

"You’ve nothing done that you can trace

"That brought the sunshine to one face—

"No act most small

"That helped some soul and nothing cost—

"Then count that day as worse than lost."

And yet - if one does a reckoning, then it wasn't a good deed, it was an attempt to earn a good deed!

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September 30, 2021 - September 30, 2021.

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September 29, 2021 - September 30, 2021.

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SWEET ENDINGS COME AND GO, LOVE

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A theme not unfamiliar, about evening of life together.

"Sweet evenings come and go, love,

"They came and went of yore:

"This evening of our life, love,

"Shall go and come no more.

"When we have passed away, love,

"All things will keep their name;

"But yet no life on earth, love,

"With ours will be the same.

"The daisies will be there, love,

"The stars in heaven will shine:

"I shall not feel thy wish, love,

"Nor thou my hand in thine.

But the last one is unclear.

"A better time will come, love,

"And better souls be born:

"I would not be the best, love,

"To leave thee now forlorn."

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October 01, 2021 - October 01, 2021.

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TWO LOVERS

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George Eliot paints a life of togetherness of two lovers, wedding, home, children and then alone together in old age. But again, it's laboured. She lacks the facility of ease, and the words aren't in a flow through her as much as gathered and nailed together to construct a verse.

"Two wedded from the portal stept:

The bells made happy carolings,

"The air was soft as fanning wings,

"White petals on the pathway slept.

"O pure-eyed bride!

"O tender pride!"

White petals "slept" on their path, not strewn?

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October 01, 2021 - October 01, 2021.

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GOD NEEDS ANTONIO

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"“‘Twere purgatory here to make them ill;

"And for my fame - when any master holds

"‘Twixt chin and hand a violin of mine,

"He will be glad that Stradivari lived,

"Made violins, and made them of the best.

"The masters only know whose work is good:

"They will choose mine, and while God gives them skill

"I give them instruments to play upon,

"God choosing me to help him."

"‘Tis God gives skill,

"But not without men’s hands: he could not make

"Antonio Stradivari’s violins

"Without Antonio.

"Get thee to thy easel.”"

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October 01, 2021 - October 01, 2021.

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ROSES

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A child's dream.

"You love the roses - so do I. I wish

"The sky would rain down roses, as they rain

"From off the shaken bush.

"Why will it not?

"Then all the valley would be pink and white

"And soft to tread on.

"They would fall as light

"As feathers, smelling sweet; and it would be

"Like sleeping and like waking, all at once!"

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October 01, 2021 - October 01, 2021.

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O MAY I JOIN THE CHOIR INVISIBLE!

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She begins well,

"O may I join the choir invisible

"Of those immortal dead who live again

"In minds made better by their presence; live

"In pulses stirred to generosity,

"In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn

"Of miserable aims that end with self,

"In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,

"And with their mild persistence urge men’s minds

"To vaster issues."

- but then gets belaboured after the first stanza.

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October 01, 2021 - October 01, 2021.

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I COME AND STAND AT EVERY DOOR

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Was Hiroshima known to England in time of George Eliot?

"I come and stand at every door

"But no one hears my silent tread

"I knock and yet remain unseen

"For I am dead, for I am dead.

"I’m only seven although

"I died In Hiroshima long ago

"I’m seven now as I was then

"When children die they do not grow.

"My hair was scorched by swirling flame

"My eyes grew dim, my eyes grew blind

"Death came and turned my bones to dust

"And that was scattered by the wind.

"I need no fruit, I need no rice

"I need no sweet, nor even bread

"I ask for nothing for myself

"For I am dead, for I am dead.

"All that I ask is that for peace

"You fight today, you fight today

"So that the children of this world

"May live and grow and laugh and play."

This poem is included in her poetry in the Delphi collection, so presumably it wasn't mistakenly included.

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October 01, 2021 - October 01, 2021.

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LINES WRITTEN UNDER THE CONVICTION
THAT IT IS NOT WISE TO READ MATHEMATICS
IN NOVEMBER AFTER ONE’S FIRE IS OUT

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Again, did George Eliot really write this? It's very unlike her other verses, but it's included in the Delphi collection of her works.

"In the sad November time,

"When the leaf has left the lime,

"And the Cam, with sludge and slime,

"Plasters his ugly channel,

"While, with sober step and slow,

"Round about the marshes low,

"Stiffening students stumping go

"Shivering through their flannel."

....

"“Those that fix their eager eyes

"Ever on the nearest prize

"Well may venture to despise

"Loftier aspirations.

"Pedantry is in demand!

"Buy it up at second-hand,

"Seek no more to understand

"Profitless speculations.”"

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October 01, 2021 - October 01, 2021.

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MOTHER AND POET.

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"Dead! one of them shot by the sea in the east,

"And one of them shot in the west by the sea.

"Dead! both my boys!

"When you sit at the feast

"And are wanting a great song for Italy free,

"Let none look at me!

"Yet I was a poetess only last year,

"And good at my art for a woman, men said,

"But this woman, this, who is agonized here,

"The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head

"Forever instead."

....

"Both boys dead! but that’s out of nature. We all

"Have been patriots, yet each house must always keep one.

"‘Twere imbecile hewing out roads to a wall,

"And when Italy’s made, for what end is it done

"If we have not a son?

.....

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October 01, 2021 - October 01, 2021.

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NATURE’S LADY.

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"Three years she grew in sun and shower,

"Then Nature said, "“A lovelier flower

"On earth was never sown;

"This child I to myself will take,

"She shall be mine, and

"I will make A lady of my own."

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October 01, 2021 - October 01, 2021.

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STRADIVARIUS.

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The two separate poems, STRADIVARIUS and GOD NEEDS ANTONIO, have the same thene; it isn't clear if George Eliot was unsatisfied with an earlier version, and wrote the other. Neither is as belaboured as most of her work, they both flow well, although the concept is of a dialogue between two very different artistes of which one is much less known. West, though, might not label Stradivarius an artist. Still, it's a poem where honesty of one's application to ones vocation is lauded as highest spiritual, and as such, it's more India in spirit than abrahmic or West.

In a later generation, Galsworthy wrote eulogies to this unity, between an artist or craftsman, and his work, where the man or woman gives one's best to the work; his short story about a poor bootmaker, unknown but for those using his boots, was a eulogy to the worker and to the era, as was the piece about old hansom cabs. But his Man of Property (titled so later after the first title - Forsyte Saga, later extended to Forsyte Chronicles - was extended to the series of books) was a subtle eulogy to the highest offered by the poor young architect to his work, forever immortalised subtly by the tale, the saga.

"Your soul was lifted by the wings to-day

"Hearing the master of the violin:

"You praised him, praised the great Sebastian too

"Who made that fine Chaconne; but did you think

"Of old Antonio Stradivari ?—him

"Who a good century and half ago

"Put his true work in that brown instrument

"And by the nice adjustment of its frame

"Gave it responsive life, continuous

"With the master’s finger-tips and perfected

"Like them by delicate rectitude of use.

"Not Bach alone, helped by fine precedent

"Of genius alone before, nor Joachim

"Who holds the strain afresh incorporate

"By inward hearing and notation strict

"Of nerve and muscle, made our joy to-day:

"Another soul was living in the air

"And swaying it to true deliverance

"Of high invention and responsive skill:—

"That plain white-aproned man who stood at work

"Patient and accurate full fourscore years,

"Cherished his sight and touch by temperance,

"And since keen sense is love of perfectness

"Made perfect violins, the needed paths

"For inspiration and high mastery.

"No simpler man than he: he never cried,

"“Why was I born to this monotonous task

"Of making violins ?” or flung them down

"To suit with hurling act a well-hurled curse

"At labour on such perishable stuff.

"Hence neighbours in Cremona held him dull,

"Called him a slave, a mill-horse, a machine,

"Begged him to tell his motives or to lend

"A few gold pieces to a loftier mind.

"Yet he had pithy words full fed by fact;

"For fact, well-trusted, reasons and persuades,

"Is gnomic, cutting, or ironical,

"Draws tears, or is a tocsin to arouse—

"Can hold all figures of the orator

"In one plain sentence; has her pauses too—

"Eloquent silence at the chasm abrupt

"Where knowledge ceases. Thus Antonio

"Made answers as Fact willed, and made them strong"

"“I like the gold—well, yes—but not for meals.

"And as my stomach, so my eye and hand,

"And inward sense that works along with both,

"Have hunger that can never feed on coin.

"Who draws a line and satisfies his soul,

"Making it crooked where it should be straight? An idiot with an oyster-shell may draw

"His lines along the sand, all wavering,

"Fixing no point or pathway to a point;

"An idiot one remove may choose his line,

"Straggle and be content; but God be praised,

"Antonio Stradivari has an eye

"That winces at false work and loves the true,

"With hand and arm that play upon the tool

"As willingly as any singing bird

"Sets him to sing his morning roundelay,

"Because he likes to sing and likes the song.”"

"“’Twere purgatory here to make them ill;

"And for my fame—when any master holds

"’Twixt chin and hand a violin of mine,

"He will be glad that Stradivari lived,

"The masters only know whose work is good:

"They will choose mine, and while God gives them skill

"I give them instruments to play upon,

"God choosing me to help Him.”"

"“Why, many hold Giuseppi’s violins

"As good as thine.”

"“May be: they are different.

"His quality declines: he spoils his hand

"With over-drinking. But were his the best,

"He could not work for two. My work is mine,

"And, heresy or not, if my hand slacked

"I should rob God—since He is fullest good—

"Leaving a blank instead of violins.

"I say, not God Himself can make man’s best

"Without best men to help Him. I am one best

"Here in Cremona, using sunlight well

"To fashion finest maple till it serves

"More cunningly than throats, for harmony.

"’Tis rare delight: I would not change my skill

"To be the Emperor with bungling hands,

"And lose my work, which comes as natural

"As self at waking.”

"“Thou art little more

"Than a deft potter’s wheel, Antonio;

"Turning out work by mere necessity

"And lack of varied function. Higher arts

"Subsist on freedom—eccentricity—

"Uncounted aspirations—influence

"That comes with drinking, gambling, talk turned wild,

"Then moody misery and lack of food—

"With every dithyrambic fine excess:

"These make at last a storm which flashes out

"In lightning revelations. Steady work

"Turns genius to a loom; the soul must lie

"Like grapes beneath the sun till ripeness comes

"And mellow vintage. I could paint you now

"The finest Crucifixion; yesternight

"Returning home I saw it on a sky

"Blue-black, thick-starred.

"I want two louis d’ors

"To buy the canvas and the costly blues—

"Trust me for a fortnight.”

"“Where are those last two

"I lent thee for thy Judith?—her thou saw’st

"In saffron gown, with Holofernes’ head

"And beauty all complete ?”

"“She is but sketched:

"I lack the proper model—and the mood.

"A great idea is an eagle’s egg,

"Craves time for hatching; while the eagle sits

"Feed her.”

"“If thou wilt call thy pictures eggs

"I call the hatching, Work. ’Tis God gives skill,

"But not without men’s hands; He could not make

"Antonio Stradivari’s violins

"Without Antonio. Get thee to thy easel.”"

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October 01, 2021 - October 02, 2021.

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LECTURES TO WOMEN ON PHYSICAL SCIENCE

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Again, it's very unlike her work! But it's included in the Delphi collection of her works.

"Professor Chrschtschonovitsch, Ph.D., “On the C. G. S. system of Units.

"”Remarks submitted to the Lecturer by a student.

"Prim Doctor of Philosophy

"Front academic Heidelberg!

"Your sum of vital energy

"Is not the millionth of an erg.

"Your liveliest motion might be reckoned

"At one-tenth metre in a second.

"“The air,”you said, in language fine,

"Which scientific thought expresses,

"“The air -- which with a megadyne,

"On each square centimetre presses --

"The air, and I may add the ocean,

"Are nought but molecules in motion.”

"Atoms, you told me, were discrete,

"Than you they could not be discreter,

"Who know how many Millions meet

"Within a cubic millimetre.

"They clash together as they fly,

"But you! -- you cannot tell me why.

"And when in tuning my guitar

"The interval would not come right,

"“This string,”you said, “is strained too far,

"‘Tis forty dynes, at least too tight!”

"And then you told me, as I sang,

"What overtones were in my clang."

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October 01, 2021 - October 01, 2021.

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A VISION OF A WRANGLER, OF A UNIVERSITY,

OF PEDANTRY, AND OF PHILOSOPHY

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One, did she really write this?

It sounds like written by someone doing a Wranglers at Cambridge, and she couldn't have resided.

Two, is this poem exchanged with another, titled

LINES WRITTEN UNDER THE CONVICTION THAT IT IS NOT WISE TO READ MATHEMATICS IN NOVEMBER AFTER ONE’S FIRE IS OUT

by mistake by Delphi?

"Deep St. Mary’s bell had sounded,

"And the twelve notes gently rounded

"Endless chimneys that surrounded

"My abode in Trinity. (Letter G, Old Court, South Attics),

"I shut up my mathematics,

"That confounded hydrostatics —

"Sink it in the deepest sea!

"In the grate the flickering embers

"Served to show how dull November’s

"Fogs had stamped my torpid members,

"Like a plucked and skinny goose.

"And as I prepared for bed,

"I Asked myself with voice unsteady,

"If of all the stuff I read, I

"Ever made the slightest use."

"Thus I muttered, very seedy,

"Husky was my throat, and reedy;

"And no wonder, for indeed I

"Now had caught a dreadful cold.

"Thickest fog had settled slowly

"Round the candle, burning lowly,

"Round the fire, where melancholy

"Traced retreating hills of gold.

"Still those papers lay before me —

"Problems made express to bore me,

"When a silent change came o’er me,

"In my hard uneasy chair.

"Fire and fog, and candle faded,

"Spectral forms the room invaded,

"Little creatures, that paraded

"On the problems lying there."

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October 01, 2021 - October 01, 2021.

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A COLLEGE BREAKFAST-PARTY

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The idea is certainly amusing, Hamlet and Horatio and others at a college breakfast. Anybody else would mark a hilarious skit, whether prose or verse. George Eliot makes it a long discussion of philosophy, eighteen pages long, daunting enough to anyone unfamiliar with her long, twisted, convoluted sentences that can only get more difficult. To those finished with her prose and also with a massive heart attack in midst thereof, it requires extra courage to proceed. But kindle has mistakenly branded all those collections of her works "read", and attempt to undo that has resulted in listing one - Delphi - as not to be counted, but still read! So one is going to plod through and delay pleasure of reading other, lighter stuff.

Characters here may borrow their names from literature, but one may wonder if this group discussing philosophy at breakfast was modeled on her own groups, either friends and visitors at home of the Bray family, or later that of the Lewes family.

Hamlet's dialogue after departure of the priest pinpoints precisely what's wrong with church, if the priest's own didn't make it clear already - it's the imposition of church ordering faith as alternative to thought, and the only choice when faced with mystery.

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"Young Hamlet, not the hesitating Dane,

"But one named after him, who lately strove

"For honours at our English Wittenberg,—

"Blonde, metaphysical, and sensuous,

"Questioning all things and yet half convinced

"Credulity were better; held inert

"’Twixt fascinations of all opposites,

"And half suspecting that the mightiest soul

"(Perhaps his own?) was union of extremes,

"Having no choice but choice of everything:

"As, drinking deep to-day for love of wine,

And here's the racist, ignorant author, familiar from the last offering in Impressions of Theophrastus Such -

"To-morrow half a Brahmin, scorning life

"As mere illusion, yearning for that

"True Which has no qualities; another day

"Finding the fount of grace in sacraments.

"And purest reflex of the light divine

"In gem-bossed pyx and broidered chasuble,

She's mixing what little she's heard about India - from likes of Macaulay who were derisive and contemptuous as colonising invaders would be to those they looted, just as males are towards females not protected by males more powerful - but without thinking, with concepts from abrahmic faiths, and making a Complete mess, of course! Fortunately that is that, and she proceeds with what she knows -

"Resolved to wear no stockings and to fast

"With arms extended, waiting ecstasy;

"But getting cramps instead, and needing change,

"A would-be pagan next:

"Young Hamlet sat

"A guest with five of somewhat riper age

"At breakfast with Horatio, a friend

"With few opinions, but of faithful heart,

"Quick to detect the fibrous spreading roots

"Of character that feed men’s theories,

"Yet cloaking weaknesses with charity

"And ready in all service save rebuke."

"With ebb of breakfast and the cider-cup

"Came high debate: the others seated there

"Were Osric, spinner of fine sentences,

"A delicate insect creeping over life

"Feeding on molecules of floral breath,

"And weaving gossamer to trap the sun;

"Laertes ardent, rash, and radical;

"Discursive Rosencranz, grave Guildenstern,

"And he for whom the social meal was made—

"The polished priest, a tolerant listener,

"Disposed to give a hearing to the lost,

"And breakfast with them ere they went below.

"From alpine metaphysic glaciers first

"The talk sprang copious; the themes were old,

"But so is human breath, so infant eyes,

"The daily nurslings of creative light.

"Small words held mighty meanings:

"Matter, Force, Self, Not-self,

"Being, Seeming, Space and Time—

"Plebeian toilers on the dusty road

"Of daily traffic, turned to Genii

"And cloudy giants darkening sun and moon.

"Creation was reversed in human talk:

"None said, “Let Darkness be,” but Darkness was;

"And in it weltered with Teutonic ease,

"An argumentative Leviathan,

"Blowing cascades from out his element,

"The thunderous Rosencranz, till

"“Truce, I beg!”

"Said Osric, with nice accent. “I abhor

"That battling of the ghosts, that strife of terms

"For utmost lack of colour, form, and breath.

"That tasteless squabbling called

"Philosophy As if a blue-winged butterfly afloat

"For just three days above the Italian fields,

"Poising in sunshine, fluttering toward its bride,

"Should fast and speculate, considering

"What were if it were not?” or what now is

"Instead of that which seems to be itself?

"Its deepest wisdom surely were to be

"A sipping, marrying, blue-winged butterfly;

"Since utmost speculation on itself

"Were but a three days’ living of worse sort—

"A bruising struggle all within the bounds

"Of butterfly existence.”

"“I protest,”

"Burst in Laertes, “against arguments

"That start with calling me a butterfly,

"A bubble, spark, or other metaphor

"Which carries your conclusions as a phrase

"In quibbling law will carry property."

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"Why, rhetoric brings within your easy reach

"Conclusions worthy of—a butterfly.

"The universe, I hold, is no charade,

"No acted pun unriddled by a word,

"Nor pain a decimal diminishing

"With hocus-pocus of a dot or nought.

"For those who know it, pain is solely pain:

"Not any letters of the alphabet

"Wrought syllogistically pattern-wise,

"Nor any cluster of fine images,

"Nor any missing of their figured dance

"By blundering molecules. Analysis

"May show you the right physic for the ill,

"Teaching the molecules to find their dance,

"Instead of sipping at the heart of flowers.

"But spare me your analogies, that hold

"Such insight as the figure of a crow

"And bar of music put to signify A crowbar.”

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"Said the Priest, “There I agree—"

....

"I—nay, the Church objects nought, is content:

"Reason has reached its utmost negative,

"Physic and metaphysic meet in the inane

"And backward shrink to intense prejudice,

"Making their absolute and homogene

"A loaded relative, a choice to be

"Whatever is—supposed, a What is not."

................................................................................................

"Though fed and clad by dissoluble waves

"Has antecedent quality, and rules

"By veto or consent the strife of thought,

"Making arbitrament that we call faith.”"

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"Laertes granting, I will put your case

"In analogic form: the doctors hold

"Hunger which gives no relish—save caprice

"That tasting venison fancies mellow pears—

"A symptom of disorder, and prescribe

"Strict discipline. Were I physician here

"I would prescribe that exercise of soul

"Which lies in full obedience: you ask,

"Obedience to what? The answer lies

"Within the word itself; for how obey

"What has no rule, asserts no absolute claim?

"Take inclination, taste—why that is you,

"No rule above you. Science, reasoning

"On nature’s order—they exist and move

"Solely by disputation, hold no pledge

"Of final consequence, but push the swing

"Where Epicurus and the Stoic sit

"In endless see-saw. One authority,

"And only one, says simply this.

"Obey: Place yourself in that current (test it so!)

"Of spiritual order where at least

"Lies promise of a high communion,"

"A Head informing members, Life that breathes

"With gift of forces over and above

"The plus of arithmetic interchange.

"‘The Church too has a body,’ you object,

"‘Can be dissected, put beneath the lens

"And shown the merest continuity

"Of all existence else beneath the sun.’

"I grant you; but the lens will not disprove

"A presence which eludes it. Take your wit,

"Your highest passion, widest-reaching thought:

"Show their conditions if you will or can,

"But though you saw the final atom-dance

"Making each molecule that stands for sign

"Of love being present, where is still your love?

"How measure that, how certify its weight?

"And so I say, the body of the Church

"Carries a Presence, promises and gifts

"Never disproved—whose argument is found

"In lasting failure of the search elsewhere

"For what it holds to satisfy man’s need.

"But I grow lengthy: my excuse must be

"Your question, Hamlet, which has probed right through

"To the pith of our belief. And I have robbed

"Myself of pleasure as a listener.

"’T is noon, I see; and my appointment stands

"For half-past twelve with Voltimand. Good-by.”"

"Brief parting, brief regret—sincere, but quenched

"In fumes of best Havana, which consoles

"For lack of other certitude. Then said,

"Mildly sarcastic, quiet Guildenstern:

"“I marvel how the Father gave new charm

"To weak conclusions: I was half convinced

"The poorest reasoner made the finest man,

"And held his logic lovelier for its limp.”"

"“I fain would hear,” said Hamlet, “how you find

"A stronger footing than the Father gave.

"How base your self-resistance save on faith

"In some invisible Order, higher Right

"Than changing impulse. What does Reason bid?

"To take a fullest rationality

"What offers best solution: so the Church.

"Science, detecting hydrogen aflame

"Outside our firmament, leaves mystery

"Whole and untouched beyond; nay, in our blood

"And in the potent atoms of each germ

"The Secret lives—envelops, penetrates

"Whatever sense perceives or thought divines.

"Science, whose soul is explanation, halts

"With hostile front at mystery. The Church

"Takes mystery as her empire, brings its wealth

"Of possibility to fill the void

"’Twixt contradictions—warrants so a faith

"Defying sense and all its ruthless train

"Of arrogant ‘Therefores.’ Science with her lens

"Dissolves the Forms that made the other half

"Of all our love, which thenceforth widowed lives

"To gaze with maniac stare at what is not.

"The Church explains not, governs—feeds resolve

"By vision fraught with heart-experience

"And human yearning.”"

"“Ay,” said Guildenstern,

"With friendly nod, “the Father, I can see,

"Has caught you up in his air-chariot.

"His thought takes rainbow-bridges, out of reach

"By solid obstacles, evaporates

"The coarse and common into subtilties.

"Insists that what is real in the Church

"Is something out of evidence, and begs

"(Just in parenthesis) you’ll never mind

"What stares you in the face and bruises you.

"Why, by his method I could justify

"Each superstition and each tyranny

"That ever rode upon the back of man,

"Pretending fitness for his sole defence

"Against life’s evil. How can aught subsist

"That holds no theory of gain or good?

"Despots with terror in their red right hand

"Must argue good to helpers and themselves,

"Must let submission hold a core of gain

"To make their slaves choose life.

"Their theory, Abstracting inconvenience of racks,

"Whip-lashes, dragonnades and all things coarse

"Inherent in the fact or concrete mass,

"Presents the pure idea—utmost good

"Secured by Order only to be found

"In strict subordination, hierarchy

"Of forces where, by nature’s law, the strong

"Has rightful empire, rule of weaker proved

"Mere dissolution. What can you object?

"The Inquisition—if you turn away

"From narrow notice how the scent of gold

"Has guided sense of damning heresy—

"The Inquisition is sublime, is love

"Hindering the spread of poison in men’s souls:

"The flames are nothing: only smaller pain

"Te hinder greater, or the pain of one

"To save the many, such as throbs at heart

"Of every system born into the world.

"So of the Church as high communion

"Of Head with members, fount of spirit force

"Beyond the calculus, and carrying proof

"In her sole power to satisfy man’s need:

"That seems ideal truth as clear as lines

"That, necessary though invisible, trace

"The balance of the planets and the sun—

"Until I find a hitch in that last claim."

....

"I argue not against yon. Who can prove

"Wit to be witty when the deeper ground

"Dullness intuitive declares wit dull?

"If life is worthless to you—why, it is."

....

"I am no optimist whose fate must hang

"On hard pretence that pain is beautiful

"And agony explained for men at ease

"By virtue’s exercise in pitying it.

"But this I hold: that he who takes one gift

"Made for him by the hopeful work of man,

"Who tastes sweet bread, walks where he will unarmed,

"His shield and warrant the invisible law,

"Who owns a hearth and household charities,

"Who clothes his body and his sentient soul

"With skill and thoughts of men, and yet denies

"A human good worth toiling for, is cursed

"With worse negation than the poet feigned

"In Mephistopheles. The Devil spins

"His wire-drawn argument against all good

"With sense of brimstone as his private lot,

"And never drew a solace from the Earth.”"

"Laertes fuming paused, and Guildenstern

"Took up with cooler skill the fusillade:

"“I meet your deadliest challenge, Rosencranz—"

....

"Do Boards and dirty-handed millionaires

"Govern the planetary system?—sway

"The pressure of the Universe?—decide

"That man henceforth shall retrogress to ape,

"Emptied of every sympathetic thrill

"The All has wrought up in him? dam up henceforth

"The flood of human claims as private force

"To turn their wheels and make a private hell

"For fish-pond to their mercantile domain?

"What are they but a parasitic growth

"On the vast real and ideal world

"Of man and nature blent in one divine?

"Why, take your closing dirge—say evil grows

"And good is dwindling; science mere decay,

"Mere dissolution of ideal wholes

"Which through the ages past alone have made

"The earth and firmament of human faith;

"Say, the small arc of Being we call man

"Is near its mergence, what seems growing life

"Nought but a hurrying change toward lower types,

"The ready rankness of degeneracy.

"Well, they who mourn for the world’s dying good

"May take their common sorrows for a rock,

"On it erect religion and a church,

"A worship, rites, and passionate piety—

"The worship of the Rest though crucified

"And God-forsaken in its dying pangs;

"The sacramental rites of fellowship

"In common woe; visions that purify

"Through admiration and despairing love

"Which keep their spiritual life intact

"Beneath the murderous clutches of disproof

"And feed a martyr-strength.”

"“Religion high!”

"(Rosencranz here) “but with communicants

"Few as the cedars upon Lebanon—

"A child might count them.

"What the world demands

"Is faith coercive of the multitude.”

"“Tush, Guildenstern, you granted him too much,”

"Burst in Laertes; “I will never grant

"One inch of law to feeble blasphemies

"Which hold no higher ratio to life—

"Full vigorous human life that peopled earth

"And wrought and fought and loved and bravely died—

"Than the sick morning glooms of debauchees."

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"Each now said “Good-by.”

"Such breakfast, such beginning of the day

"Is more than half the whole. The sun was hot

"On southward branches of the meadow elms,

"The shadows slowly farther crept and veered

"Like changing memories, and

"Hamlet strolled Alone and dubious on the empurpled path

"Between the waving grasses of new June

"Close by the stream where well-compacted boats

"Were moored or moving with a lazy creak

"To the soft dip of oars. All sounds were light

"As tiny silver bells upon the robes

"Of hovering silence. Birds made twitterings

"That seemed but Silence self o’erfull of love.

’T was invitation all to sweet repose;

"And Hamlet, drowsy with the mingled draughts

"Of cider and conflicting sentiments,

"Chose a green couch and watched with half-closed eyes

"The meadow-road, the stream and dreamy lights,

"Until they merged themselves in sequence strange

"With undulating ether, time, the soul,

"The will supreme, the individual claim,

"The social Ought, the lyrist’s liberty,

"Democritus, Pythagoras, in talk

"With Anselm, Darwin, Comte, and Schopenhauer,

"The poets rising slow from out their tombs

"Summoned as arbiters—that border-world

"Of dozing, ere the sense is fully locked.

"And then he dreamed a dream so luminous

"He woke (he says) convinced; but what it taught

"Withholds as yet. Perhaps those graver shades

"Admonished him that visions told in haste

"Part with their virtues to the squandering lips

"And leave the soul in wider emptiness."

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October 02, 2021 - October , 2021.

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Self and Life.

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Could have been better, for it does have flashes - but, over and over, George Eliot returns to plodding instead of flight.

"Self.

"Changeful comrade, Life of mine,

"Before we two must part,

" I will tell thee, thou shalt say,

"What thou hast been and art.

"Ere I lose my hold of thee

"Justify thyself to me."

And her first, instinctive, response is all too right, completely good.

"Life.

I was thy warmth upon thy mother’s knee

"When light and love within her eyes were one;

"We laughed together by the laurel-tree,"

....

"Where the trellised woodbines grew,

"And all the summer afternoon

"Mystic gladness o’er thee threw.

"Was it person? Was it thing?

"Was it touch or whispering?

"It was bliss and it was I:

"Bliss was what thou knew’st me by."

But then she has to digress; for formality of her philosophy? She returns, though, over and over, to good and correct response.

"Life.

"But all thy anguish and thy discontent

"Was growth of mine, the elemental strife

"Toward feeling manifold with vision blent

"To wider thought: I was no vulgar life"

....

"Life.

"But then I brought a love that wrote within

"The law of gratitude, and made thy heart

"Beat to the heavenly tune of seraphin

"Whose only joy in having is, to impart:"

....

"Self.

"Yea, I embrace thee, changeful Life!

"Far-sent, unchosen mate!

"Self and thou, no more at strife,

"Shall wed in hallowed state.

"Willing spousals now shall prove

"Life is justified by love."

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October 02, 2021 - October 02, 2021.

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Arion.

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Amazing, and yet, as always, George Eliot must choose tragic for the brilliant, the good!

"Arion, whose melodic soul

"Taught the dithyramb to roll

"Like forest fires, and sing

"Olympian suffering,

"Had carried his diviner lore

"From Corinth to the sister shore

"Where Greece could largelier be,

"Branching o’er Italy.

"Then weighted with his glorious name

"And bags of gold, aboard he came

"’Mid harsh seafaring men

"To Corinth bound again.

"The sailors eyed the bags and thought:

"“The gold is good, the man is naught—

"And who shall track the wave

"That opens for his grave?”

"With brawny arms and cruel eyes

"They press around him where he lies

"In sleep beside his lyre,

"Hearing the Muses quire,

"He waked and saw this wolf-faced Death

"Breaking the dream that filled his breath

"With inspiration strong

"Of yet unchanted song.

"“Take, take my gold and let me live!”

"He prayed, as kings do when they give

"Their all with royal will,

"Holding born kingship still.

"To rob the living they refuse,

"One death or other he must choose,

"Either the watery pall

"Or wounds and burial.

"“My solemn robe then let me don,

"Give me high space to stand upon,

"That dying I may pour

"A song unsung before.”

"It pleased them well to grant this prayer,

"To hear for naught how it might fare .

"With men who paid their gold

"For what a poet sold.

"In flowing stole, his eyes aglow

"With inward fire, he neared the prow

"And took his god-like stand,

"The cithara in hand.

"The wolfish men all shrank aloof,

"And feared this singer might be proof

"Against their murderous power,

"After his lyric hour.

But he, in liberty of song,

"Fearless of death or other wrong,

"With full spondaic toll

"Poured forth his mighty soul:

"Poured forth the strain his dream had taught,

A nome with lofty passion fraught

"Such as makes battles won

"On fields of Marathon.

"The last long vowels trembled then

"As awe within those wolfish men:

"They said, with mutual stare,

"Some god was present there.

"But lo! Arion leaped on high,

"Ready, his descant done, to die

"Not asking, “Is it well?”

"Like a pierced eagle fell."

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October 02, 2021 - October 02, 2021.

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The Death of Moses.

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THE DEATH OF MOSES.

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Suddenly, here, George Eliot is home, and her language easy, her verse flows.

"Moses, who spake with God as with his friend,

"And ruled his people with the twofold power

"Of wisdom that can dare and still be meek,

"Was writing his last word, the sacred name

"Unutterable. of that Eternal Will ... "

Here's a huge, major characteristic chasm between abrahmic vs India - naming, calling God - in any form of ones choice or preference, or without; any God or Godess oe The ultimate Divine - is not only permitted, name utterable, but is done so any time, by anyone, and children named after too, routinely. Concept of fear of god doesn't exist, it's ridiculous to India unaffected by invaders conversion drives over a millennium and half; and God, whether image or thought, may inspire reverence, but it is just as often Love. Fear is from ones own deeds, ones own possible turning to wrong; but Gods aren't stooping to meeting out punishment, they are at most amused, as might be a parent at a baby.

"Which was and is and evermore shall be.

"Yet was his task not finished, for the flock

"Needed its shepherd and the life-taught sage

"Leaves no successor; but to chosen men,

"The rescuers and guides of Israel,

"A death was given called the Death of Grace,

"Which freed them. from the burden of the flesh

"But left them rulers of the multitude

"And loved companions of the lonely. This

"Was God’s last gift to Moses, this the hour

"When soul must part from self and be but soul."

Now, George Eliot is at once gentle, loving, maternal - but racist.

"God spake to Gabriel, the messenger

"Of mildest death that draws the parting life

"Gently, as when a little rosy child

"Lifts up its lips from off the bowl of milk

"And so draws forth a curl that dipped its gold

And then, she's back to being earthbound, making an Archangel sound like a human!

"In the soft white—thus Gabriel draws the soul.

"“Go bring the soul of Moses unto me!”

"And the awe-stricken ung’el answered, “Lord,

"How shall I dare to take his life who lives

"Sole of his kind, not to be likened once

"In all the generations of the earth?”"

For heaven's sake! It's a conversation between an archangel and his boss, not a kings minion fearing separation of a great man's body from soul!

And she repeats it too, with other archangel.

"Then God called Michael, him of pensive brow

"Snow-vest and flaming sword, who knows and acts:

"“Go bring the spirit of Moses unto me!”

"But Michael with such grief as angels feel,

"Loving the mortals whom they succour, pled:

“Almighty, spare me; it was I who taught

"Thy servant Moses; he is part of me

"As I of thy deep secrets, knowing them.”

"Then God called Zamael, the terrible,

"The angel of fierce death, of agony

"That comes in battle and in pestilence

"Remorseless, sudden or with lingering throes.

"And Zamael, his raiment and broad wings

"Blood-tinctured, the dark lustre of his eyes

"Shrouding the red, fell like the gathering night

"Before the prophet. But that radiance

"Won from the heavenly presence in the mount

"Gleamed on the prophet’s brow and dazzling pierced

"Its conscious opposite: the angel turned

"His murky gaze aloof and inly said:

"“An angel this, deathless to angel’s stroke.”"

Greeks knew better, informing us that those loved by Gods die young! India of course knew better - for example, amongst the heavenly creatures, who are sent to earth as humans, for a sin committed up there, those who live longer do so to expiate their sins and work out their repentance before retuning back above.

The poem, though, proceeds in the strain, imposing human thought and emotion on creatures of non physical material, instead of opening a human consciousness to Light.

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October 02, 2021 - October 02, 2021.

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Making Life Worth While

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It's a good thought, philosophy, good attitude.

"Every soul that touches yours -

"Be it the slightest contact -

"Get there from some good;

"Some little grace; one kindly thought;

"One aspiration yet unfelt;

"One bit of courage

"For the darkening sky;

"One gleam of faith

"To brave the thickening ills of life;

"One glimpse of brighter skies -

"To make this life worthwhile

"And heaven a surer heritage."

And it's far more worthy if, instead of person, one uses this philosophy for whole cultures, across time and around the world.

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October 02, 2021 - October 02, 2021.

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TO THE CHIEF MUSICIAN UPON NABLA: A TYNDALLIC ODE

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It's perhaps the most thrilling of poetry of George Eliot, because not only she conveys that she's thrilled with studies of sciences, she manages to convey that thrill, however imperfectly, however imperfect her verses.

"I.

"I come from fields of fractured ice,

"Whose wounds are cured by squeezing,

"Melting they cool, but in a trice,

"Get warm again by freezing.

"Here, in the frosty air, the sprays

"With fernlike hoar-frost bristle,

"There, liquid stars their watery rays

"Shoot through the solid crystal.

"II.

"I come from empyrean fires --

"From microscopic spaces,

"Where molecules with fierce desires,

"Shiver in hot embraces.

"The atoms clash, the spectra flash,

"Projected on the screen,

"The double D, magnesian b,

"And Thallium’s living green.

"III.

"We place our eye where these dark rays

"Unite in this dark focus,

"Right on the source of power we gaze,

"Without a screen to cloak us.

"Then where the eye was placed at first,

"We place a disc of platinum,

"It glows, it puckers! will it burst?

"How ever shall we flatten him!

"IV.

"This crystal tube the electric ray

"Shows optically clean,

"No dust or haze within, but stay!

"All has not yet been seen.

"What gleams are these of heavenly blue?

"What air-drawn form appearing,

"What mystic fish, that, ghostlike, through

"The empty space is steering?

"V.

"I light this sympathetic flame,

"My faintest wish that answers,

"I sing, it sweetly sings the same,

"It dances with the dancers.

"I shout, I whistle, clap my hands,

"And stamp upon the platform,

"The flame responds to my commands,

"In this form and in that form.

"VI.

"What means that thrilling, drilling scream,

"Protect me! ‘tis the siren:

"Her heart is fire, her breath is steam,

"Her larynx is of iron.

"Sun! dart thy beams! in tepid streams,

"Rise, viewless exhalations!

"And lap me round, that no rude sound

"May max my meditations.

"VII.

"Here let me pause. --

"These transient facts,

"These fugitive impressions,

"Must be transformed by mental acts,

"To permanent possessions.

"Then summon up your grasp of mind,

"Your fancy scientific,

"Till sights and sounds with thought combined,

"Become of truth prolific.

"VIII.

"Go to! prepare your mental bricks,

"Fetch them from every quarter,

"Firm on the sand your basement fix

"With best sensation mortar.

"The top shall rise to heaven on high --

"Or such an elevation,

"That the swift whirl with which we fly

"Shall conquer gravitation."

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October 02, 2021 - October 02, 2021.

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The Complete Shorter Poetry Of George Eliot

(Pickering Masters)

by George Eliot,

William Baker

Hardcover

Published August 18th 2015

by Routledge

(first published January 1st 2005)

Original Title

The Complete Shorter Poetry

Of George Eliot (Pickering Masters)

ISBN:- 1851967966

(ISBN13: 9781851967964)

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Order from a Complete Collection of Works of George Eliot

Stradivarius.

A College Breakfast-Party.

Two Lovers.

Self and Life.

“Sweet Endings Come and Go, Love.”

Arion.

“O May I Join the Choir Invisible.”

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LIST OF THE POEMS

(FROM DELPHI COLLECTION OF WORKS OF GEORGE ELIOT)

THE LEGEND OF JUBAI.

AGATHA.

ARMGART

HOW LISA LOVED THE KING.

A MINOR PROPHET.

BROTHER AND SISTER.

STRADIVARIUS.

A COLLEGE BREAKFAST-PARTY

THE DEATH OF MOSES.

ARION

“O MAY I JOIN THE CHOIR INVISIBLE.”

THE SPANISH GYPSY.

I COME AND STAND AT EVERY DOOR

LINES WRITTEN UNDER THE CONVICTION THAT IT IS NOT WISE TO READ MATHEMATICS IN NOVEMBER AFTER ONE’S FIRE IS OUT

LECTURES TO WOMEN ON PHYSICAL SCIENCE

TO THE CHIEF MUSICIAN UPON NABLA: A TYNDALLIC ODE

A VISION OF A WRANGLER, OF A UNIVERSITY, OF PEDANTRY, AND OF PHILOSOPHY

MID MY GOLD-BROWN CURLS

IN A LONDON DRAWINGROOM

COUNT THAT DAY LOST

I GRANT YOU AMPLE LEAVE

SWEET ENDINGS COME AND GO, LOVE

TWO LOVERS

GOD NEEDS ANTONIO

ROSES

O MAY I JOIN THE CHOIR INVISIBLE!

HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX.

MOTHER AND POET.

NATURE’S LADY.

TO A SKYLARK.

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Sunday, October 3, 2021

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