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Poetry
by George Eliot.
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The Legend of Jubal, and Other Poems (1874)
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Agatha,
by George Eliot
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This poem would be sweet for anyone familiar with the region, and as reverent about catholicism as needed. Or one could just enjoy the local colour provided.
Did George Eliot write this when visiting the region?
But which region is it? She mentions France seen West across Rhine, ocean visible from hills green! Such a view may be possible from a plane, but not from earth - where France is visible in distance West across Rhine, ocean is too far to be visible, and if one is close to ocean to see it from a hill above Rhine, it isn't France but Low Countries, Benelux, immediately West, not collectively small enough to see France across them.
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"Come with me to the mountain, not where rocks
"Soar harsh above the troops of hurrying pines,
"But where the earth spreads soft and rounded breasts
"To feed her children; where the generous hills
"Lift a green isle betwixt the sky and plain
"To keep some Old World things aloof from change."
Is she talking of hills when she says mountains? She speaks of earth spreading soft and hills being a green isle, but mountains are so labeled or defined only above a certain height, and in Nordic latitudes, that's alpine, unless it's in U.K. warmed by the gulf stream. Or tropics, where alpine scenery is at a far higher altitude than in Europe.
But the next few lines clear up one part- the location isn't tropical.
"Here too ’t is hill and hollow: new-born streams
"With sweet enforcement, joyously compelled
"Like laughing children, hurry down the steeps,
"And make a dimpled chase athwart the stones;
"Pine woods are black upon the heights, the slopes
"Are green with pasture, and the bearded corn
"Fringes the blue above the sudden ridge:
"A little world whose round horizon cuts
"This isle of hills with heaven for a sea,"
So, pines, and sea, in close proximity. And then she writes -
"Save in clear moments when south westward gleams
"France by the Rhine, melting anon to haze."
There are mountains where France can be seen westward across Rhine, but close to sea? That should be easily located!
Here is the heart of George Eliot that never left her breeding, as a clergyman's daughter, behind, even though her intellectual growth did so - so she was distanced from her family, not just father who partially reconciled upon her acceptance of his condition of outward compliance, but siblings too.
"The monks of old chose here their still retreat,
"And called it by the Blessed Virgin’s name,
"Sancta Maria, which the peasant’s tongue,
"Speaking from out the parent’s heart that turns
"All loved things into little things, has made
"Sanct Margen—Holy little Mary, dear
"As all the sweet home things she smiles upon,
"The children and the cows, the apple-trees,
"The cart, the plough, all named with that caress
"Which feigns them little, easy to be held,
"Familiar to the eyes and hand and heart.
"What though a Queen? She puts her crown away
"And with her little Boy wears common clothes,
"Caring for common wants, remembering
"That day when good Saint Joseph left his work
"To marry her with humble trust sublime."
When they thus wax poetic, do they not realise that it was West Asia, where the persona of two millennia past whom they worship, lived - if it were indeed history and not stories made up about them by church for power - and they had lived among orange groves and pines of a warm desert of Asia, with dark eyed and dark haired people, not Apple orchards with blue eyed, blond children frolicking?
"The monks are gone, their shadows fall no more
"Tall-frocked and cowled athwart the evening fields
"At milking-time; their silent corridors
"Are turned to homes of bare-armed, aproned men,
"Who toil for wife and children. But the bells,
"Pealing on high from two quaint convent towers,
"Still ring the Catholic signals, summoning
"To grave remembrance of the larger life
"That bears our own, like perishable fruit
"Upon its heaven-wide branches. ... "
Spiritual life, perishable fruit? What was she thinking? Spiritual life, persons devoted to it, aren't they all far more akin to the non-deciduous evergreens that grow taller than all else around, survive alpine heights, and live long unless cut down by humans or struck by calamities such as lightening or meteors? Fruits and perishable vegetation is of earthly life, delighting in flowering and scents, fruits and seeds, all symbolising youth, change of life that parallels change if seasons, reproduction.
"At their sound
"The shepherd boy far off upon the hill,
"The workers with the saw and at the forge,
"The triple generation round the hearth—
"Grandames and mothers and the flute-voiced girls—
"Fall on their knees, and send forth prayerful cries
"To the kind Mother with the little Boy,
"Who pleads for helpless men against the storm,
"Lightning and plagues and all terrific shapes Of power supreme."
The last two lines explain much about the superstition imposed by Rome being accepted by those then powerless against much, but George Eliot did live in Germany, did she never hear about maultascen and how they were invented, even if she never lived in Switzerland and so never heard of history of cheese, of second milking, or more along the line?
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And now, for the not so generic -
"Within the prettiest hollow of these hills,
"Just as you enter it, upon the slope
"Stands a low cottage neighboured cheerily
"By running water, which, at farthest end
"Of the same hollow, turns a heavy mill,
"And feeds the pasture for the miller’s cows,
"Blanchi and Nageli, Veilchen and the rest,
"Matrons with faces as Griselda mild,
"Coming at call. And on the farthest height
"A little tower looks out above the pines
"Where mounting you will find a sanctuary
"Open and still; without, the silent crowd
"Of heaven-planted, incense-mingling flowers;
"Within, the altar where the Mother sits
"’Mid votive tablets hung from far-off years
"By peasants succored in the peril of fire,
"Fever, or floods who thought that Mary’s love,
"Willing but not omnipotent, had stood
"Between their lives and that dread power which slew
"Their neighbor at their side. The chapel bell
"Will melt to gentlest music ere it reach
"That cottage on the slope, whose garden gate
"Has caught the rose-tree boughs and stands ajar;
"So does the door, to let the sunbeams in;
"For in the slanting sunbeams angels come
"And visit Agatha who dwells within—
"Old Agatha, whose cousins Kate and Nell
"Are housed by her in Love and Duty’s name,
"They being feeble, with small withered wits,
"And she believing that the higher gift
"Was given to be shared. So Agatha
"Shares her one room, all neat on afternoons,
"As if same memory were sacred there
"And everything within the-four low waIls
"An honored relic."
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Here's far more of quintessential George Eliot -
"One long summer’s day
"An angel entered at the rose-hung gate,
"With skirts pale blue, a brow to quench the pearl,
"Hair soft and blonde as infants’, plenteous
"As hers who made the wavy lengths once speak
"The grateful worship of a rescued soul.
"The angel paused before the open door
"To give good day. “Come in,” said Agatha.
"I followed close, and watched and listened there.
"The angel was a lady, noble, young,
"Taught in all the seemliness that fits the court,
"All lore that shapes the mind to delicate use,
"Yet quiet, lowly, as a meek white dove
"That with its presence teaches gentleness.
"Men called her Countess Linda; little girls
"In Freiburg town, orphans whom she caressed,
"Said Mamma Linda: yet her years were few,
"Her outward beauties all in budding time,
"Her virtues the aroma of the plant
"That dwells in all its being, root, stem, leaf.
"And waits not ripeness."
Oh, Freiburg!
That's nowhere close to ocean, though!
But notice how angels of George Eliot always gave red-gold or blond hair, and of course a higher breeding, even though they don't escape travails, but only must deal with them as best as they possibly could - Dorothea, Romola, even Gwendolyn - while the lesser mortal have blue eyes - Tessa, Rosamond - and the exalted virtuous have dark eyes and hair, shared by the not so exalted - Mirah, Lisa?
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Turns out, Countess Linda is visiting from Freiburg, for reasons not explained.
"Fair Countess Linda sat upon the bench,
"Close fronting the old knitter, and they talked
"With sweet antiphony of young and old.
"Agatha.
"You like our valley, lady? I am glad
"You thought it well to come again. But rest—
"The walk is long from Master Michael’s inn.
"Countess Linda.
"Yes, but no walk is prettier.
"Agatha.
"It is true:
"There lacks no blessing here, the waters all
"Have virtues like the garments of the Lord,
"And heal much sickness; then, the crops and cows
"Flourish past speaking, and the garden flowers,
"Pink, blue, and purple, ’t is a joy to see
"How they yield honey for the singing bees.
"I would the whole world were as good a home.
"Countess Linda.
"And you are well off, Agatha?—your friends
"Left you a certain bread: is it not so?
"Agatha.
"Not so at all, dear lady. I had naught,
"Was a poor orphan; but I came to tend
"Here in this house, an old afflicted pair,
"Who wore out slowly; and the last who died,
"Full thirty years ago, left me this roof
"And all the household stuff. It was great wealth;
"And so I had a home for Kate and Nell.
"Countess Linda.
"But how, then, have you earned your daily bread
"These thirty years?
"Agatha.
"O, that is easy earning.
"We help the neighbors, and our bit and sup.
"Is never failing; they have work for us
"In house and field, all sorts of odds and ends,
"Patching and mending, turning o’er the hay,
"Holding sick children,—there is always work;
"And they are very good,—the neighbors are:
"Weigh not our bits of work with weight and scale,
"But glad themselves with giving us good shares
"Of meat and drink; and in the big farm-house
"When cloth comes home from weaving, the good wife
"Cuts me a piece,—this very gown,—and says:
"“Here, Agatha, you old maid, you have time
"To pray for Hans who is gone soldiering:
"The saints might help him, and they have much to do,
"’T were well they were besought to think of him.”
"She spoke half jesting, but I pray,
"I pray For poor young Hans. I take it much to heart
"That other people are worse off than I,—
"I ease my soul with praying for them all.
"Countess Linda.
"That is your way of singing, Agatha;
"Just as the nightingales pour forth sad songs,
"And when they reach men’s ears they make men’s hearts
"Feel the more kindly."
................................................................................................"Countess Linda.
"When you go southward in your pilgrimage,
"Come to see me in Freiburg, Agatha.
"Where you have friends you should not go to inns.
"Agatha.
"Yes, I will gladly come to see you, lady.
"And you will give me sweet hay for a bed,
"And in the morning I shall wake betimes
"And start when all the birds begin to sing.
"Countess Linda.
"You wear your smart clothes on the pilgrimage,
"Such pretty clothes as all the women here
"Keep by them for their best: a velvet cap
"And collar golden-broidered? They look well
"On old and young alike,
"Agatha.
"Nay, I have none,—
"Never had better clothes than those you see.
"Good clothes are pretty, but one sees them best
"When others wear them, and I somehow thought
"’T was not worth while. I had so many things
"More than some neighbors, I was partly shy
"Of wearing better clothes than they, and now
"I am so old and custom is so strong
"’T would hurt me sore to put on finery.
"Countess Linda.
"Your gray hair is a crown, dear Agatha.
"Shake hands; good-by. The sun is going down
"And I must see the glory from the hill."
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October 04, 2021 - October 04, 2021.
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https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4271013472
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