The Legend of Jubal, and Other Poems (1874)(Poetry by George Eliot); by George Eliot.

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Poetry by George Eliot.

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The Legend of Jubal, and Other Poems (1874)

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The Legend of Jubal

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When one has finished, one grows aware of the story George Eliot wished to tell (- that of the worshipped son of God who, if he were to return, could very well find himself not only ignored, but very likely persecuted, again, by the very ones who swear faith and call themselves in his name; of Europe that, seemingly converted to a creed of brotherhood and kindness, of meek inheriting heaven and of doing unto others as you would have them do into you, yet follows hypocrisy of paying obeisance to the creed, weekly, and goes to war for looting others lands -) yet finds the conflict in herself too great, having been outspoken about pride of an ancestry of invaders, and of righteousness of England in punishing India and China for resisting the domination of England - and so she dared not, but instead tells here the story of Jubal who discovered music and gave this great gift to humanity.

She combines it with his sojourn to find greatest mountains South, and having discovered great ocean thereafter, returning home, only to be beaten in his own name.

Which is the greater story, that of followers of a God assaulting him if he appears? Or the sojourner who cannot return home to recognition and love and peace, but is assaulted and humiliated instead?

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Interesting, that usually there's a pretence in abrahmic faiths about non existence of Gods, other than one admitted and demanded faith to; but in history and mythology of Greece, Rome, Egypt and even of West Asia, other Gods are not only mentioned, they are well described and characterised.

George Eliot begins with mention of them, and quickly covers up with ascribing them only to imagination of Cain, but bible itself is a matter of faith according to church dogma and not admitted as history of the region; and yet, she then goes on to indicate Cain possibly going yo India.

This last is merely another infliction of contempt on India, of course, by someone of colonial empire rulers; India has very rich treasure of knowledge, branded mythology by West, but since much proven true history by science of West - including, for example, history of rising of Himaalayan ranges from ocean, and too, evolution theory that parallels Dashaavataara of India's traditional lore.

But India has no memory, no tradition of any tale, whatsoever, of even a Cain (or anyone arriving from West across what was prehistorically an ocean - hence the name, Sindhu, literally meaning ocean, for the river called Indus by west), much less of a whole Aaryan race that is foundation of civilisation of India. Tradition of India reaches prehistory of Indian subcontinent, and has no whiff of arriving from across Sindhu. It has, instead, memories of Himaalayan ranges rising out of the ocean, and of Gangaa being brought down to earth by efforts of a single man, Bhagieratha.

So Cain going East, of Eden - presumably from West Asia - might have reached, say, western borders of the region known as Central Asia.

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It isn't just that George Eliot- daughter of a clergyman - mentions other Gods, before covering it up as his lack of doubt in their existence, and seeing them mirrored there - so church could easily brand it all as thinking of a fallen one who murdered hus brother, even though history really point at flesh consumers and monotheist conversionists as perpetrators of massacres on humongous scale, not vegetarians of a happy land inhabited by Gods.

It also that the author says, "When Cain was driven from Jehovah’s land ", so, not only he did not leave of his own volition, not only he was ordered to leave, but was "driven out"; what's more, "driven from Jehovah’s land", and "He wandered eastward, seeking some far strand, Ruled by kind gods who asked no offerings"! So concept within Eden is of a god who "owns" that land, whik e others are "ruled" by other Gods; moreover, the owner of Eden asked for offerings, which, Cain hoped, those other Gods elsewhere were kind enough not to ask!

And yet, church fraudulently demands exclusive faith in one who so demands, and more, denial of all others, not denial of offerings, but of their very existence!

"When Cain was driven from Jehovah’s land

"He wandered eastward, seeking some far strand

"Ruled by kind gods who asked no offerings

"Save pure field-fruits, as aromatic things,

"To feed the subtler sense of frames divine

"That lived on fragrance for their food and wine:

"Wild joyous gods, who winked at faults and folly,

"And could be pitiful and melancholy.

"He never had a doubt that such gods were;

"He looked within, and saw them mirrored there.

"Some think he came at last to Tartary,

"And some to Ind; but, howsoe’er it be,

"His staff he planted where sweet waters ran,

"And in that home of Cain the Arts began."

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Beautiful content and beautifully flow the verses -

"Man’s life was spacious in the early world:

"It paused, like some slow ship with sail unfurled

"Waiting in seas by scarce a wavelet curled;

"Beheld the slow star-paces of the skies,

"And grew from strength to strength through centuries;

"Saw infant trees fill out their giant limbs,

"And heard a thousand times the sweet birds’ marriage hymns."

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And it reverts to memory of terror -

"In Cain’s young city none had heard of

"Death Save him, the founder; and it was his faith

"That here, away from harsh Jehovah’s law,

"Man was immortal, since no halt or flaw

"In Cain’s own frame betrayed six hundred years,

"But dark as pines that autumn never sears

"His locks thronged backward as he ran, his frame

"Rose like the orbed sun each morn the same,

"Lake-mirrored to his gaze; and that red brand,

"The scorching impress of Jehovah’s hand,

"Was still clear-edged to his unwearied eye,

"Its secret firm in time-fraught memory."

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Here's a clue to location of Eden-

"He said, “My happy offspring shall not know

"That the red life from out a man may flow

"When smitten by his brother.” True, his race

"Bore each one stamped upon his new-born face

"A copy of the brand no whit less clear;

"But every mother held that little copy dear.

"Thus generations in glad idlesse throve,

"Nor hunted prey, nor with each other strove;

"For clearest springs were plenteous in the land,

"And gourds for cups; the ripe fruits sought the hand,

"Bending the laden boughs with fragrant gold;

"And for their roofs and garments wealth untold

"Lay everywhere in grasses and broad leaves:

"They labored gently, as a maid who weaves

"Her hair in mimic mats, and pauses oft

"And strokes across her hand the tresses soft,

"Then peeps to watch the poised butterfly,

"Or little burthened ants that homeward hie."

That "maid who weaves Her hair in mimic mats" evokes Africa, where braiding of hair isn't the simple one or two braids the rest of the world is content with; so if thus is the subconscious memory, Eden must gave been therein, or an island off African coast, if not Africa itself. The continent still bears innocence of an Eden with species wild abounding and humans living in harmony, except where spoiled by colonial rulers from Europe, and their heritage.

Recent discoveries under ocean speak of another continent off East coast of Africa, now mostly submerged, that smaller islands of Seychelles and Madagascar and so on are a clue to; and Tamil lore speaks of a continent (that they originated from, migrating to India some time as continents travelled, submerged, and more?), named Kumaarikhanda. Was this Eden?

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Then it changes, and again, there's the motif of connection of an angry god of Cain's past land, evoked by death that was unknown to his descendents, bringing memories of a curse!

"Time was but leisure to their lingering thought,

"There was no’ need for haste to finish aught;

"But sweet beginnings were repeated still

"Like infant babblings that no task fulfil;

"For love, that loved not change, constrained the simple will.

"Till, hurling stones in mere athletic joy,

"Strong Lamech struck and killed his fairest boy,

"And tried to wake him with the tenderest cries,

"And fetched and held before the glazed eyes

"The things they best had loved to look upon;

"But never glance or smile or sigh he won.

"The generations stood around those twain

"Helplessly gazing, till their father

"Cain Parted the press, and said, “He will not wake;

"This is the endless sleep, and we must make

"A bed deep down for him beneath the sod;

"For know, my sons, there is a mighty God

"Angry with all man’s race, but most with me."

This is the memory carried by Cain, of "a mighty God, Angry with all man’s race, but most with me." Nothing godly about this one, unless he's merely one of the Gods, and not one of the greater ones.

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And more - it isn't merely memory, or fear, but a certainty, of persecution, and of wrath, but more, of extermination -

"I fled from out His land in vain!—’tis

"He Who came and slew the lad; for

"He has found This home of ours, and we shall all be bound

"By the harsh bands of His most cruel will,

"Which any moment may some dear one kill.

"Nay, though we live for countless moons, at last

"We and all ours shall die like summers past.

"This is Jehovah’s will, and He is strong;

"I thought the way I travelled was too long

"For Him to follow me: my thought was vain!

"He walks unseen, but leaves a track of pain,

"Pale Death His footprint is, and He will come again!”"

What is mirrored here seems far more a memory of a persecution of a race, that has gone on for well over centuries before two millennia that they were driven from their homeland. So one wonders, did George Eliot write this based on bible, and therefore was the twentieth century culminating in genocide something that mirrored a past memory that's recorded in the bible, with what's called a god only a mighty and terrible Lord of a land?

The flight of Cain from Eden, is that really the migration East that's visible in the obvious connection between populations of Africa, Australia, Fiji, Andaman and Nicobar, and , not all, but a large section of, Tamil people of India?

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"And a new spirit from that hour came o’er

"The race of Cain: soft idlesse was no more,

"But even the sunshine had a heart of care,

"Smiling with hidden dread-a mother fair

"Who folding to her breast a dying child

"Beams with feigned joy that but makes sadness mild.

"Death was now lord of Life, and at his word

"Time, vague as air before, new terrors stirred,

"With measured wing now audibly arose

"Throbbing through all things to some unknown close."

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"Now glad Content by clutching Haste was torn,

"And Work grew eager, and Device was born.

"It seemed the light was never loved before,

"Now each man said, “Twill go and come no more.”

"No budding branch, no pebble from the brook,

"No form, no shadow, but new dearness took

"From the one thought that life must have an end;

"And the last parting now began to send

"Diffusive dread through love and wedded bliss,

"Thrilling them into finer tenderness.

"Then Memory disclosed her face divine,

"That like the calm nocturnal lights doth shine

"Within the soul, and shows the sacred graves,

"And shows the presence that no sunlight craves,

"No space, no warmth, but moves among them all;

"Gone and yet here, and coming at each call,

"With ready voice and eyes that understand,

"And lips that ask a kiss, and dear responsive hand.

"Such granite as the plunging torrent wears

"And roaring rolls around through countless years.

"But strength that still on movement must be fed,

"Inspiring thought of change, devices bred,

"And urged his mind through earth and air to rove

"For force that he could conquer if he strove,

"For lurking forms that might new tasks fulfil

"And yield unwilling to his stronger-will."

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George Eliot describes each brother by turn - Jabal the shepherd with magic handling of all animals, till he reared canines domesticated from wild wolves, and Tubal-Cain the handler of tools who crafted things from earth.

"Such Tubal-Cain. But Jubal had a frame

"Fashioned to finer senses, which became

"A yearning for some hidden soul of things,

"Some outward touch complete on inner springs

"That vaguely moving bred a lonely pain,

"A want that did but stronger grow with gain

"Of all good else, as spirits might be sad

"For lack of speech to tell us they are glad."

....

"Jubal, too, watched the hammer, till his eyes,

"No longer following its fall or rise,

"Seemed glad with something that they could not see,

"But only listened to—some melody,

"Wherein dumb longings inward speech had found,

"Won from the common store of struggling sound.

"Then, as the metal shapes more various grew,

"And, hurled upon each other, resonance drew,

"Each gave new tones, the revelations dim

"Of some external soul that spoke for him:

"The hollow vessel’s clang, the clash, the boom,

"Like light that makes wide spiritual room

"And skyey spaces in the spaceless thought,

"To Jubal such enlarged passion brought,

"That love, hope, rage, and all experience,

"Were fused in vaster being, fetching thence

"Concords and discords, cadences and cries

"That seemed from some world-shrouded soul to rise,

"Some rapture more intense, some mightier rage,

"Some living sea that burst the bounds of man’s brief age."

Story of Jubal is that of discovery of an inner realm, that of music, as told by George Eliot.

"Then with such blissful trouble and glad care

"For growth. within unborn as mothers bear,

"To the far woods he wandered, listening,

"And heard the birds their little stories sing

"In notes whose rise and fall seem melted speech—

"Melted with tears, smiles, glances—that can reach

"More quickly through our frame’s deep-winding night,

"And without thought raise thought’s best fruit, delight.

"Pondering, he sought his home again and heard

"The fluctuant changes of the spoken word:

"The deep remonstrance and the argued want,

"Insistent first in close monotonous chant,

"Next leaping upward to defiant stand

"Or downward beating like the resolute hand;

"The mother’s call, the children’s answering cry,

"The laugh’s light cataract tumbling from on high;

"The suasive repetitions Jabal taught,

"That timid browsing cattle homeward brought:

"The clear-winged fugue of echoes vanishing;

"And through them all the hammer’s rhythmic ring.

"Jubal sat lonely, all around was dim,

"Yet his face glowed with light revealed to him:

"For as the delicate stream of odor wakes

"The thought-wed sentience, and some image makes

"From out the mingled fragments of the past,

"Finely compact in wholeness that will last,

"So streamed as from the body of each sound

"Subtler pulsations, swift as warmth, which found

"All prisoned germs and all their powers unbound,

"Till thought self-luminous flamed from memory,

"And in creative vision wandered free.

"Then Jubal, standing, rapturous arms upraised,

"And on the dark with eager eyes he gazed,

"As had some manifested god been there."

"Such patience have the heroes who begin,

"Sailing the first toward lands which others win.

"Jubal must dare as great beginners dare,

"Strike form’s first way in matter rude and bare,

"And, yearning vaguely toward the plenteous choir

"Of the world’s harvest, make one poor small lyre.

"He made it, and from out its measured frame

"Drew the harmonic soul, whose answers came

"With guidance sweet and lessons of delight

"Teaching to ear and hand the blissful Right,

"Where strictest law is gladness to-the sense,

"And all desire bends toward obedience.

"Then Jubal poured his triumph in a song—

"The rapturous word that rapturous notes prolong

"As radiance streams from smallest things that burn,

"Or thought of loving into love doth turn.

"And still his lyre gave companionship

"In sense-taught concert as of lip with lip."

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Here shows bias of West, again - literally, for West. This is strange, considering Nordic latitudes hunger for the light and warmth they need, and it's brought by sun sun that rises East- but this glory of West viewed each evening, however beautiful, only brings the dreaded darkness and cold, especially dreadful for the dark Nordic latitudes.

"He who had lived through twice three centuries,

"Whose months monotonous, like trees on trees

"In hoary forests, stretched a backward maze,

"Dreamed himself dimly through the travelled days

"Till in clear light he paused, and felt the sun

"That warmed him when he was a little one;

"Knew that true heaven, the recovered past,

"The dear small Known amid the Unknown vast,

"And in that heaven wept. But younger limbs

"Thrilled toward the future, that bright land which swims

"In western glory, isles and streams and bays,

"Where hidden pleasures float in golden haze."

No, it's not primitive natural instinct, this glorification of West - it has to be about a prehistoric migration East and a nostalgic memory if West, thus recounted in Cain being driven East of Eden.

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"The sun had sunk, but music still was there,

"And when this ceased, still triumph filled the air:

"It seemed the stars were shining with delight

"And that no night was ever like this night."

"“Hearing myself,” he said, “I hems in my life,

"And I will get me to some far-off land,

"Where higher mountains under heaven stand

"And touch the blue at rising of the stars,

"Whose song they hear where no rough mingling mars

"The great clear voices. Such lands there must be,

"Where varying forms make varying symphony

"Where other thunders roll amid the hills,

"Some mightier wind a mightier forest fills

"With other strains through other-shapen boughs;

"Where bees and birds and beasts that hunt or browse

"Will teach me songs I know not. Listening there,

"My life shall grow like trees both tall and fair

"That rise and spread and bloom toward fuller fruit each year.”

"He took a raft, and travelled with the stream

"Southward for many a league, till he might deem

"He saw at last the pillars of the sky,

"Beholding mountains whose white majesty

"Rushed through him as new awe, and made new song

"That swept with fuller wave the chords along,

"Weighting his voice with deep religious chime,.

"The iteration of slow chant sublime.

"It was the region long inhabited

"By all the race of Seth; and Jubal said,

"“Here have I found my thirsty soul’s desire,

"Eastward the hills touch heaven, and evening’s fire

"Flames through deep waters, I will take my rest,

"And feed anew from my great mother’s breast,

"The sky-clasped Earth, whose voices nurture me

"As the flowers’ sweetness doth the honey-bee.”

"He lingered wandering for many an age,

"And, sowing music, made high heritage

"For generations far beyond the Flood

"For the poor late-begotten human brood

"Born to life’s weary brevity and perilous good.

"And ever as he travelled he would climb

"The farthest mountain, yet the heavenly chime,

"The mighty tolling of the far-off spheres

"Beating their pathway, never touched his ears.

"But wheresoe’er he rose, the heavens rose,

"And the far-gazing mountain could disclose

"Nought but a wider earth; until one height

"Showed him the ocean stretched in liquid light,

"And he could hear its multitudinous roar,

"Its plunge and hiss upon the pebbled shore:

"Then Jubal silent sat, and touched his lyre no more.

"He thought, “The world is great, but I am weak,

"And where the sky bends is no solid peak

"To give me footing, but instead, this main

"Like myriad maddened horses thundering o’er the plain."

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"The way was weary. Many a date-palm grew,

"And shook out clustered gold against the blue,

"While Jubal, guided by the steadfast spheres,

"Sought the dear home of those first eager years,

"When, with fresh vision fed, the fuller will

"Took living outward shape in pliant skill;

"For still he hoped to find the former things,

"And the warm gladness recognition brings.

"His footsteps erred among the mazy woods

"And long illusive sameness of the floods,

"Winding and wandering. Through far regions, strange

"With Gentile homes and faces, did he range,

"And left his music in their memory,

"And left at last, when nought besides would free

"His homeward steps from clinging hands and cries,

"The ancient lyre. And now in ignorant eyes

"No sign remained of Jubal, Lamech’s son,

"That mortal frame wherein was first begun

"The immortal life of song. His withered brow

"Pressed over eyes that held no lightning now,

"His locks streamed whiteness on the hurrying air,

"The unresting soul had worn itself quite bare

"Of beauteous token, as the outworn might

"Of oaks slow dying, gaunt in summer’s light.

"His full deep voice toward thinnest treble ran:

"He was the rune-writ story of a man."

"And so at last he neared the well-known land,

"Could see the hills in ancient order stand

"With friendly faces whose familiar gaze

"Looked through the sunshine of his childish days;

"Knew the deep-shadowed folds of hanging woods,

"And seemed to see the selfsame insect broods

"Whirling and quivering o’er the flowers—to hear

"The selfsame cuckoo making distance near.

"Yea, the dear Earth, with mother’s constancy,

"Met and embraced him, and said, “Thou art he!

"This was thy cradle, here my breast was thine,

"Where feeding, thou didst all thy life intwine

"With my skly-wedded life in heritage divine.”"

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"The word was “Jubal!”.. “Jubal” filled the air,

"And seemed to ride aloft, a spirit there,

"Creator of the choir, the full-fraught strain

"That grateful rolled itself to him again.

"The aged man adust upon the bank—

"Whom no eye saw—at first with rapture drank

"The bliss of music, then, with swelling heart,

"Felt, this was his own being’s greater part,

"The universal joy once born in him."

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"His voice’s penury of tones long spent,

"He felt not; all his being leaped in flame

"To meet his kindred as they onward came

"Slackening and wheeling toward the temple’s face:

"He rushed before them to the glittering space,

"And, with a strength that was but strong desire,

"Cried, “I am Jubal, I! . . . I made the lyre!”"

"The tones amid a lake of silence fell

"Broken and strained, as if a feeble bell

"Had tuneless pealed the triumph of a land

"To listening crowds in expectation spanned.

"Sudden came showers of laughter on that lake;

"They spread along the train from front to wake

"In one great storm of merriment, while he

"Shrank doubting whether he could Jubal be,

"And not a dream of Jubal, whose rich vein

"Of passionate music came with that dream-pain,

"Wherein the sense slips off from each loved thing,

"And all appearance is mere vanishing."

....

"Two rushed upon him: two, the most devout

"In honor of great Jubal, thrust him out,

"And beat him with their flutes. ’Twas little need;

"He strove not, cried not, but with tottering speed,

"As if the scorn and howls were driving wind

"That urged his body, serving so the mind

"Which could but shrink and yearn, he sought the screen

"Of thorny thickets, and there fell unseen.

"The immortal name of Jubal filled the sky,

"While Jubal lonely laid him down to die.

"He said within his soul, “This is the end:

"O’er all the earth to where the heavens bend

"And hem men’s travel, I have breathed my soul:

"I lie here now the remnant of that whole,

"The embers of a life, a lonely pain;

"As far-off rivers to my thirst were vain,

"So of my mighty years nought comes to me again."

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"Because thou shinest in man’s soul, a god,

"Who found and gave new passion and new joy

"That nought but Earth’s destruction can destroy.

"Thy gifts to give was thine of men alone:

"’Twas but in giving that thou couldst atone

"For too much wealth amid their poverty.”—"

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October 05, 2021 - October 05, 2021.

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Other Poems

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Agatha.

Armgart. : I. II. III. IV. V.

How Lisa Loved the King.

A Minor Prophet.

Brother and Sister.

Stradivarius.

A College Breakfast-Party.

Two Lovers.

Self and Life.

“Sweet Endings Come and Go, Love.”

The Death of Moses.

Arion.

“O May I Join the Choir Invisible.”

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Agatha,

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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?

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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."

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

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?

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

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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Armgart

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An idle curiosity to begin with - prompted by the startling realisation that Armgart is supposed to be a name of a young woman, not a castle or village or a post in military! Apart from the fact that one never heard of it, despite being familiar with Germany after residence of years and several visits - Hildegard, yes, but Armgart, no - one has to wonder why George Eliot picks these weird names for her characters. Casaubon, Bulstrode, Lydgate, and now Armgart?!

But coming to the soul and substance of this play in verse, one has to wonder if Ingmar Bergman conceived his Autumn Sonata inspired by this. The dialogue in scene two, between the Graf and Armgart, seem to have inspired the tacit condemnation, almost crucifixion that Bergman had the senior woman go through, confronted by her daughter.

I recall the argument between three students after watching the film, where two argued and one stayed quiet, able to comprehend other two. The younger male repeated his plea about the film being good because it was artistic; the young woman, older than other two, denounced it for the treatment of any woman with a superlative capability, as a bad wife and mother who neglects a home, husband and children.

In a country where a mom calling is a joke, understood in the sense of her being a bore tolerated reluctantly by the males, there is no winning for any females - there's only the ever racing for popularity until one is "pinned", can flash a ring - bigger the stone, better, even if the guy is idiot insufferable - and and proceeds post a white wedding to a career of housekeeping, children, and keeping oneself in latest fadhion, always fearing the straying of glances of the male owner.

And if she does dare to excel at anything - other than Apple pies, of course - she must, at all costs, be stopped; girls are told - not only in U.S., but Europe too - that science is unfeminine, one can't be good at it if one is not a dyke, and final word, one won't be 'popular', i.e., won't find a mate; next, there's harassment of every kind, by male colleagues and female sisterhood left behind, to bend one to their will, in every way possible, with lies if necessary.

Final condemnation is in the form it takes in this play, of course, in scene three - adapted in some form or another in most films and t.v. serials of U.S. and even Indian films - whereby a successful woman is depicted either as a terrible person, or merely ambitious but incapable, crashing in her career, and of course, weeping!

Yes, careers can and do fail; but it's only made into a moral lesson inflicted on females; males can crash and fail too, but are depicted - if not just to turn round and succeed, to be applauded - with sympathy, and often enough to be seen as victims of some woman's fault, if not worse.

Some of the Indian adaptations of Autumn Sonata - one in Hindi, and before that, Unique April in Bengali - are better, in softening the condemnation if any, to a personal grievance by the daughter(s), with the maternal response in the latter bonding the two, and in the former, a discussion in the former awakening the daughter in to understanding, with the mother niw abke to accept responsibility and care of the younger daughter, freeing the elder to her own life.

George Eliot here avoids the condemnation, but scene three has the confrontation between the two women - which Ingmar Bergman turned into accusation spree by daughter against mother - much more real, sympathetic, and focused on a crash suffered by one flying high, rather than heaping on her sins of omission, of not having been perfect in caring for everyone around. George Eliot, to begin with, has her refrain from marrying, and giving up the security of being a Grafina, rather than give up a career - while Ingmar Bergman turned it into a saga about a wife (of an accountant and a mother of two daughters) and a brilliant concert pianist who neglects the home, husband and children, throughout life.

Armgart ends well, with the Graf going to India, leaving the question about a future together postponed, while Armgart decides to rake up teaching as her own teacher did to devote himself to her talent, and going to Freiburg for the purpose. Author explains it for the play, but what was George Eliot's fascination for Freiburg, used in two of the poems, Agatha and Armgart, in this collection, The Legend of Jubal?

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

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October 04, 2021 - October 04, 2021.

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How Lisa Loved the King,

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

Really sweet story, and for another rare instance, told sweetly by George Eliot, whose lines flow much better than her norm.

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

"Six hundred years ago, in Dante’s time,

"Before his cheek was furrowed by deep rhyme;

"When Europe, fed afresh from Eastern story,

"Was like a garden tangled with the glory

"Of flowers hand-planted and of flowers air-sown,

"Climbing and trailing, budding and full-blown,

"Where purple bells are tossed amid pink stars,"

....

"Six hundred years ago, Palermo town Kept holiday.

"A deed of great renown, A high revenge, had freed it from the yoke

"Of hated Frenchmen; and from Calpe’s rock

"To where the Bosporus caught the earlier sun,

"’Twas told that Pedro, King of Aragon,

"Was welcomed master of all Sicily,—

"A royal knight, supreme as kings should be

"In strength and gentleness that make high chivalry.

"Spain was the favorite home of knightly grace,

"Where generous men rode steeds of generous race;

"Both Spanish, yet half Arab; both inspired

"By mutual spirit, that each motion fired

"With beauteous response, like minstrelsy

"Afresh fulfilling fresh expectancy."

....

"And in all eyes King Pedro was the king

"Of cavaliers; as in a full-gemmed ring

"The largest ruby, or as that bright star

"Whose shining shows us where the Hyads are.

"His the best genet, and he sat it best;

"His weapon, whether tilting or in rest,

"Was worthiest watching; and his face, once seen,

"Gave to the promise of his royal mien

"Such rich fulfilment as the opened eyes

"Of a loved sleeper, or the long-watched rise

"Of vernal day, whose joy o’er stream and meadow flies."

....

"Whose passion is but worship of that Best

"Taught by the many-mingled creed of each young breast?

"’Twas gentle Lisa, of no noble line,

"Child of Bernardo, a rich Florentine,

"Who from his merchant-city hither came

"To trade in drugs; yet kept an honest fame,

"And had the virtue not to try and sell

"Drugs that had none. He loved his riches well,

"But loved them chiefly for his Lisa’s sake,

"Whom with a father’s care he sought to make

"The bride of some true honorable man,—

"Of Perdicone (so the rumor ran),

"Whose birth was higher than his fortunes were,

"For still your trader likes a mixture fair

"Of blood that hurries to some higher strain

"Than reckoning money’s loss and money’s gain.

"And of such mixture good may surely come:

"Lord’s scions so may learn to cast a sum,

"A trader’s grandson bear a well-set head,

"And have less conscious manners, better bred;

"Nor, when he tries to be polite, be rude instead.

"’Twas Perdicone’s friends made overtures

"To good Bernardo; so one dame assures

"Her neighbor dame, who notices the youth

"Fixing his eyes on Lisa; and, in truth,

"Eyes that could see her on this summer day

"Might find it hard to turn another way.

"She had a pensive beauty, yet not sad;

"Rather like minor cadences that glad

"The hearts of little birds amid spring boughs:

"And oft the trumpet or the joust would rouse

"Pulses that gave her cheek a finer glow,

"Parting her lips that seemed a mimic bow

"By chiselling Love for play in coral wrought,

"Then quickened by him with the passionate thought,

"The soul that trembled in the lustrous night

"Of slow long eyes. Her body was so slight,

"It seemed she could have floated in the sky,

"And with the angelic choir made symphony;

"But in her cheek’s rich tinge, and in the dark

"Of darkest hair and eyes, she bore a mark

"Of kinship to her generous mother-earth,

"The fervid land that gives the plumy palm-trees birth.

"She saw not Perdicone; her young mind

"Dreamed not that any man had ever pined

"For such a little simple maid as she:

"She had but dreamed how heavenly it would be

"To love some hero noble, beauteous, great,

"Who would live stories worthy to narrate,"

....

"Who conquered every thing beneath the sun,

"And somehow, some time, died at Babylon

"Fighting the Moors. For heroes all were good

"And fair as that archangel who withstood

"The Evil One, the author of all wrong,—

"That Evil One who made the French so strong;

"And now the flower of heroes must he be

"Who drove those tyrants from dear Sicily,

"So that her maids might walk to vespers tranquilly.

"Young Lisa saw this hero in the king;

"And as wood-lilies that sweet odors bring

"Might dream the light that opes their modest eyne

"Was lily-odored; and as rites divine,

"Round turf-laid altars, or ’neath roofs of stone,

"Draw sanctity from out the heart alone

"That loves and worships: so the miniature

"Perplexed of her soul’s world, all virgin pure,

"Filled with heroic virtues that bright form,

"Raona’s royalty, the finished norm

"Of horsemanship, the half of chivalry;

"For how could generous men avengers be,

"Save as God’s messengers on coursers fleet?—

"These, scouring earth, made Spain with Syria meet

"In one self-world where the same right had sway,

"And good must grow as grew the blessed day.

"No more: great Love his essence had endued

"With Pedro’s form, and, entering, subdued

"The soul of Lisa, fervid and intense,

"Proud in its choice of proud obedience

"To hardship glorified by perfect reverence.

"Sweet Lisa homeward carried that dire guest,

"And in her chamber, through the hours of rest,

"The darkness was alight for her with sheen

"Of arms, and plumèd helm; and bright between

"Their commoner gloss, like the pure living spring

"’Twixt porphyry lips, or living bird’s bright wing

"’Twixt golden wires, the glances of the king

"Flashed on her soul, and waked vibrations there

"Of known delights love-mixed to new and rare:

"The impalpable dream was turned to breathing flesh,

"Chill thought of summer to the warm close mesh

"Of sunbeams held between the citron-leaves,

"Clothing her life of life. Oh! she believes

"That she could be content if he but knew

"(Her poor small self could claim no other due)

"How Lisa’s lowly love had highest reach

"Of wingèd passion, whereto wingèd speech

"Would be scorched remnants left by mounting flame."

....

"She watched all day that she might see him pass

"With knights and ladies; but she said, “Alas!

"Though he should see me, it were all as one

"He saw a pigeon sitting on the stone

"Of wall or balcony: some colored spot

"His eye just sees, his mind regardeth not.

"I have no music-touch that could bring nigh

"My love to his soul’s hearing. I shall die,

"And he will never know who Lisa was,—

"The trader’s child, whose soaring spirit rose

"As hedge-born aloe-flowers that rarest years disclose.

"“For were I now a fair deep-breasted queen

"A-horseback, with blonde hair, and tunic green,

"Gold-bordered, like Costanza, I should need

"No change within to make me queenly there:

"For they the royal-hearted women are

"Who nobly love the noblest, yet have grace;

"For needy suffering lives in lowliest place,

"Carrying a choicer sunlight in their smile,

"The heavenliest ray that pitieth the vile.

"My love is such, it cannot choose but soar

"Up to the highest; yet forevermore,

"Though I were happy, throned beside the king,

"I should be tender to each little thing

"With hurt warm breast, that had no speech to tell

"Its inward pang; and I would soothe it well

"With tender touch, and with a low soft moan

"For company: my dumb love-pang is lone,

"Prisoned as topaz-beam within a rough-garbed stone.”

"So, inward-wailing, Lisa passed her days.

"Each night the August moon with changing phase

"Looked broader, harder, on her unchanged pain;

"Each noon the heat lay heavier again

"On her despair, until her body frail

"Shrank like the snow that watchers in the vale

"See narrowed on the height each summer morn;

"While her dark glance burnt larger, more forlorn,"

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

"Father and mother saw with sad dismay

"The meaning of their riches melt away;

"For without Lisa what would sequins buy?

"What wish were left if Lisa were to die?

"Through her they cared for summers still to come,

"Else they would be as ghosts without a home

"In any flesh that could feel glad desire.

"They pay the best physicians, never tire

"Of seeking what will soothe her, promising

"That aught she longed for, though it were a thing

"Hard to be come at as the Indian snow,

"Or roses that on Alpine summits blow,

"It should be hers. She answers with low voice,

"She longs for death alone—death is her choice;

"Death is the king who never did think scorn,

"But rescues every meanest soul to sorrow born."

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

"“What is it, Lisa?”—“Father, I would see

"Minuccio, the great singer; bring him me.”

"For always, night and day, her unstilled thought,

"Wandering all o’er its little world, had sought

"How she could reach, by some soft pleading touch,

"King Pedro’s soul, that she who loved so much,"

....

"Minuccio, entreated, gladly came.

"(He was a singer of most gentle fame,

"A noble, kindly spirit, not elate

"That he was famous, but that song was great;

"Would sing as finely to this suffering child

"As at the court where princes on him smiled.)

"Gently he entered and sat down by her,

"Asking what sort of strain she would prefer,—

"The voice alone, or voice with viol wed;

"Then, when she chose the last, he preluded

"With magic hand, that summoned from the strings

"Ærial spirits, rare yet palpable wings

"That fanned the pulses of his listener,

"And waked each sleeping sense with blissful stir.

"Her cheek already showed a slow, faint blush;

"But soon the voice, in pure, full, liquid rush,

"Made all the passion, that till now she felt,

"Seem but as cooler waters that in warmer melt.

"Finished the song, she prayed to be alone

"With kind Minuccio; for her faith had grown

"To trust him as if missioned like a priest

"With some high grace, that, when his singing ceased,

"Still made him wiser, more magnanimous,

"Than common men who had no genius.

"So, laying her small hand within his palm,

"She told him how that secret, glorious harm

"Of loftiest loving had befallen her;

"That death, her only hope, most bitter were,

"If, when she died, her love must perish too

"As songs unsung, and thoughts unspoken do,

"Which else might live within another breast."

....

"He sought a poet-friend, a Siennese,

"And “Mico, mine,” he said, “full oft to please

"Thy whim of sadness I have sung thee strains

"To make thee weep in verse: now pay my pains,

"And write me a canzòn divinely sad,

"Sinlessly passionate, and meekly mad

"With young despair, speaking a maiden’s heart

"Of fifteen summers, who would fain depart

"From ripening life’s new-urgent mystery,—

"Love-choice of one too high her love to be,—

"But cannot yield her breath till she has poured

"Her strength away in this hot-bleeding word,

"Telling the secret of her soul to her soul’s lord.”

"Said Mico, “Nay, that thought is poesy,

"I need but listen as it sings to me.

"Come thou again to-morrow.” The third day,

"When linked notes had perfected the lay,

"Minuccio had his summons to the court,

"To make, as he was wont, the moments short

"Of ceremonious dinner to the king.

"This was the time when he had meant to bring

"Melodious message of young Lisa’s love;

"He waited till the air had ceased to move

"To ringing silver, till Falernian wine

"Made quickened sense with quietude combine;

"And then with passionate descant made each ear incline."

.....

"Love, thou didst see me, light as morning’s breath,

"Roaming a garden in a joyous error,

"Laughing at chases vain, a happy child,

"Till of thy countenance the alluring terror

"In majesty from out the blossoms smiled,"

....

"Tell him, O Love, I am a lowly maid,

"No more than any little knot of thyme

"That he with careless foot may often tread;

"Yet lowest fragrance oft will mount sublime

"And cleave to things most high and hallowèd,

"As doth the fragrance of my life’s springtime,

"My lowly love, that, soaring, seeks to climb

"Within his thought, and make a gentle bliss,

"More blissful than if mine, in being his:

"So shall I live in him, and rest in Death."

"The strain was new. It seemed a pleading cry,

"And yet a rounded, perfect melody,

"Making grief beauteous as the tear-filled eyes

"Of little child at little miseries.

"Trembling at first, then swelling as it rose,

"Like rising light that broad and broader grows,

"It filled the hall, and so possessed the air,

"That not one living, breathing soul was there,

"Though dullest, slowest, but was quivering

"In Music’s grasp, and forced to hear her sing.

"But most such sweet compulsion took the mood

"Of Pedro (tired of doing what he would)."

....

"He called Minuccio, and bade him tell

"What poet of the day had writ so well;

"For, though they came behind all former rhymes,

"The verses were not bad for these poor times.

"“Monsignor, they are only three days old,”

"Minuccio said; “but it must not be told

"How this song grew, save to your royal ear.”

"Eager, the king withdrew where none was near,

"And gave close audience to Minuccio,

"Who meetly told that love-tale meet to know."

....

"He answered without pause, “So sweet a maid,

"In Nature’s own insignia arrayed,

"Though she were come of unmixed trading blood

"That sold and bartered ever since the flood,

"Would have the self-contained and single worth

"Of radiant jewels born in darksome earth.

"Raona were a shame to Sicily,

"Letting such love and tears unhonored be:

"Hasten, Minuccio, tell her that the king

"To-day will surely visit her when vespers ring.”

"Joyful, Minuccio bore the joyous word,

"And told at full, while none but Lisa heard,"

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

"She listened till the draughts of pure content

"Through all her limbs like some new being went—

"Life, not recovered, but untried before,

"From out the growing world’s unmeasured store

"Of fuller, better, more divinely mixed."

....

"She asked to have her soft white robe and band

"And coral ornaments; and with her hand

"She gave her long dark locks a backward fall,

"Then looked intently in a mirror small,

"And feared her face might, perhaps, displease the king:

"“In truth,” she said, “I am a tiny thing:

"I was too bold to tell what could such visit bring.”

"Meanwhile the king, revolving in his thought

"That innocent passion, was more deeply wrought

"To chivalrous pity; and at vesper-bell,

"With careless mien which hid his purpose well,

"Went forth on horseback, and, as if by chance

"Passing Bernardo’s house, he paused to glance

"At the fine garden of this wealthy man,

"This Tuscan trader turned Palermitan;

"But, presently dismounting, chose to walk

"Amid the trellises, in gracious talk

"With this same trader, deigning even to ask

"If he had yet fulfilled the father’s task

"Of marrying that daughter, whose young charms

"Himself, betwixt the passages of arms,

"Noted admiringly. “Monsignor, no,

"She is not married: that were little woe,

"Since she has counted barely fifteen years;

"But all such hopes of late have turned to fears;

"She droops and fades, though, for a space quite brief,—

"Scarce three hours past,—she finds some strange relief.”

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

"And that same day, ere the sun lay too warm

"On southern terraces, a messenger

"Informed Bernardo that the royal pair

"Would straightway visit him, and celebrate

"Their gladness at his daughter’s happier state,

"Which they were fain to see. Soon came the king

"On horseback, with his barons, heralding

"The advent of the queen in courtly state;

"And all, descending at the garden gate,

"Streamed with their feathers, velvet, and brocade,

"Through the pleached alleys, till they, pausing, made

"A lake of splendor ’mid the aloes gray;

"When, meekly facing all their proud array,

"The white-robed Lisa with her parents stood,

"As some white dove before the gorgeous brood

"Of dapple-breasted birds born by the Colchian flood.

"The king and queen, by gracious looks and speech,

"Encourage her, and thus their courtiers teach

"How, this fair morning, they may courtliest be,

"By making Lisa pass it happily.

"And soon the ladies and the barons all

"Draw her by turns, as at a festival

"Made for her sake, to easy, gay discourse,

"And compliment with looks and smiles enforce;

"A joyous hum is heard the gardens round;

"Soon there is Spanish dancing, and the sound

"Of minstrel’s song, and autumn fruits are pluckt;

"Till mindfully the king and queen conduct

"Lisa apart to where a trellised shade

"Made pleasant resting. Then King Pedro said,—

"“Excellent maiden, that rich gift of love

"Your heart hath made us hath a worth above

"All royal treasures, nor is fitly met

"Save when the grateful memory of deep debt

"Lies still behind the outward honors done:

"And as a sign that no oblivion

"Shall overflood that faithful memory,

"We while we live your cavalier will be;"

....

"But there still rests the outward honor meet

"To mark your worthiness; and we entreat

"That you will turn your ear to proffered vows

"Of one who loves you, and would be your spouse

"We must not wrong yourself and Sicily

"By letting all your blooming years pass by

"Unmated: you will give the world its due

"From beauteous maiden, and become a matron true.”

"Then Lisa, wrapt in virgin wonderment

"At her ambitious love’s complete content,

"Which left no further good for her to seek

"Than love’s obedience, said, with accent meek,—

"“Monsignor, I know well that were it known

"To all the world how high my love had flown,

"There would be few who would not deem me mad,

"Or say my mind the falsest image had

"Of my condition and your loftiness.

"But Heaven has seen that for no moment’s space

"Have I forgotten you to be the king,

"Or me myself to be a lowly thing—

"A little lark, enamoured of the sky,

"That soared to sing, to break its breast, and die.

"But, as you better know than I, the heart

"In choosing chooseth not its own desert,

"But that great merit which attracteth it:

"’Tis law, I struggled, but I must submit,

"And having seen a worth all worth above,

"I loved you, love you, and shall always love."

"But that doth mean, my will is ever yours,

"Not only when your will my good insures,

"But if it wrought me what the world calls harm:

"Fire, wounds, would wear from your dear will a charm.

"That you will be my knight is full content,

"And for that kiss,—I pray, first, for the queen’s consent.”

"Her answer, given with such firm gentleness,

"Pleased the queen well, and made her hold no less

"Of Lisa’s merit than the king had held.

"And so, all cloudy threats of grief dispelled,

"There was betrothal made that very morn

"’Twixt Perdicone, youthful, brave, well-born,

"And Lisa whom he loved; she loving well

"The lot that from obedience befell.

"The queen a rare betrothal ring on each

"Bestowed, and other gems, with gracious speech.

"And, that no joy might lack, the king, who knew

"The youth was poor, gave him rich Ceffalù

"And Cataletta,—large and fruitful lands,—

"Adding much promise when he joined their hands.

"At last he said to Lisa, with an air

"Gallant yet noble, “Now we claim our share

"From your sweet love, a share which is not small;

"For in the sacrament one crumb is all.”

"Then, taking her small face his hands between,

"He kissed her on the brow with kiss serene,—

"Fit seal to that pure vision her young soul had seen.

"And many witnessed that King Pedro kept

"His royal promise. Perdicone stept

"To many honors honorably won,

"Living with Lisa in true union.

"Throughout his life, the king still took delight

"To call himself fair Lisa’s faithful knight;

"And never wore in field or tournament

"A scarf or emblem, save by Lisa sent.

"Such deeds made subjects loyal in that land;

"They joyed that one so worthy to command,

"So chivalrous and gentle, had become

"The king of Sicily, and filled the room

"Of Frenchmen, who abused the Church’s trust,

"Till, in a righteous vengeance on their lust,

"Messina rose, with God, and with the dagger’s thrust."

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October 03, 2021 - October 03, 2021.

Purchased January 21, 2021.

Kindle Edition, 58 pages

Published March 24th 2011

(first published 1869)

Original Title

How Lisa Loved The King

ASIN:- B004TRGU5E

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

A Minor Prophet

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Where and how would George Eliot even hear of a vegetarian?

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

One doesn't know if George Eliot is trying to be outlandish, satirical, or just trying to write humour, but it isn't funny in the opening line.

"I have a friend, a vegetarian seer,

"By name Elias Baptist Butterworth,

A harmless, bland, disinterested man,

"Whose ancestors in Cromwell’s day believed

"The Second Advent certain in five years,

"But when King Charles the Second came instead,

"Revised their date and sought another world:

"I mean—not heaven but—America.

"A fervid stock, whose generous hope embraced

"The fortunes of mankind, not stopping short

"At rise of leather, or the fall of gold,

"Nor listening to the voices of the time

"As housewives listen to a cackling hen,

"With wonder whether she has laid her egg

"On their own nest-egg. Still they did insist

"Somewhat too wearisomely on the joys

"Of their Millennium, when coats and hats

"Would all be of one pattern, books and songs

"All fit for Sundays, and the casual talk

"As good as sermons preached extempore."

Nowhere could a European have even heard of anyone vegetarian, except in India, during the lifetime of George Eliot or before - it's Beatles who made India and yoga fashionable, and until then attitude towards India varied from fraud a la Macaulay to contempt a la most racist colonial invaders to reverence a la some evolved souls including a few of the great German authors - so her opening line is nothing but contempt of an ignorant racist for an ancient culture far more evolved, and rich in treasure of knowledge, than she and her nation could have imagined. And until central heating, hot water and greater ease of shipping came in, which wasn't until middle of twentieth century, a vegetarian diet wasn't possible in Europe; it would have been very difficult in most parts of U.S., too.

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

And she continues ridiculing things far beyond grasp of most of West-

"So the Thought-atmosphere is everywhere:

"High truths that glimmered under other names

"To ancient sages, whence good scholarship

"Applied to Eleusinian mysteries—

"The Vedas—Tripitaka—Vendidad—

"Might furnish weaker proof for weaker minds

"That Thought was rapping in the hoary past,

"And might have edified the Greeks by raps

"At the greater Dionysia, if their ears

"Had not been filled with Sophoclean verse.

"And when all Earth is vegetarian—

"When, lacking butchers, quadrupeds die out,

"And less Thought-atmosphere is reabsorbed

"By nerves of insects parasitical,

"Those higher truths, seized now by higher minds

"But not expressed (the insects hindering),

"Will either flash out into eloquence,

"Or better still, be comprehensible

"By rappings simply, without need of roots."

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

Funny how things reverse, and what she thought once funny has now come to be dead serious, but in a very different way.

"’T is on this theme—the vegetarian world—

"That good Elias willingly expands:

"He loves to tell in mildly nasal tones

"And vowels stretched to suit the widest views,

"The future fortunes of our infant Earth—

"When it will be too full of human kind

"To have the room for wilder animals.

"Saith he, Sahara will be populous

"With families of gentlemen retired

"From commerce in more Central Africa,

"Who order coolness as we order coal,

"And have a lobe anterior strong enough

"To think away the sand-storms. Science thus

"Will leave no spot on this terraqueous globe

"Unfit to be inhabited by man,

"The chief of animals: all meaner brutes

"Will have been smoked or elbowed out of life."

Well, ordering cool in Sahara isn't that different from routinely air conditioned homes, offices and cars, across Southern U.S.- especially Texas. And feeding humans, environmental science tells us, will be better and cheaper with a more vegetarian diet, if not completely vegetarian one. Meat industry is laying oceans waste, apart from other concerns.

"No lions then shall lap Caffrarian pools,

"Or shake the Atlas with their midnight roar:

"Even the slow, slime-loving crocodile,

"The last of animals to take a hint,

"Will then retire forever from a scene

"Where public feeling strongly sets against him.

"Fishes may lead carnivorous lives obscure,"

Well, several species have gone extinct, beginning during era of colonial expansion, from Dodo onwards; concern about this turned matters around for whales, but thanks to British, lions of India are in fact on verge of extinction.

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

"Imagination in that distant age,

"Aiming at fiction called historical,

"Will vainly try to reconstruct the times

"When it was man’s preposterous delight

"To sit astride live horses, which consumed

"Materials for incalculable cakes;

"When there were milkmaids who drew milk from cows

"With udders kept abnormal for that end

"Since the rude mythopoeic period

"Of Aryan dairymen who did not blush

"To call their milkmaid and their daughter one—

"Helplessly gazing at the Milky Way,

"Nor dreaming of the astral cocoa-nuts

"Quite at the service of posterity."

Well, it isn't quite fable yet, but it's almost there. Riding horses is far more expensive than driving, especially in U.S.; dairies In most of industrial world use machines for milking. And what she meant by astral cocoa-nuts, who knows!

"By dint of diet vegetarian

"All will be harmony of hue and line,

"Bodies and minds all perfect, limbs well-turned,

"And talk quite free from aught erroneous.

"Thus far Elias in his seer’s mantle:

"But at this climax in his prophecy

"My sinking spirits, fearing to be swamped,

"Urge me to speak.

“High prospects, these, my friend,

"Setting the weak carnivorous brain astretch;

"We will resume the thread another day.”

"“To-morrow,” cries Ellas, “at this hour?”

"“No, not to-morrow—I shall have a cold—

"At least I feel some soreness—this endemic—

"Good-by.”"

After this, George Eliot's verses flow.

"For purest pity is the eye of love

"Melting at sight of sorrow; and to grieve

"Because it sees no sorrow, shows a love

"Warped from its truer nature, turned to love

"Of merest habit, like the miser’s greed.

"But I am Colin still: my prejudice

"Is for the flavour of my daily food.

"Not that I doubt the world is growing still

"As once it grew from Chaos and from Night;

"Or have a soul too shrunken for the hope

"Which dawned in human breasts, a double morn,

"With earliest watchings of the rising light

"Chasing the darkness; and through many an age

"Has raised the vision of a future time

"That stands an Angel with a face all mild

"Spearing the demon. I too rest in faith

"That man’s perfection is the crowning flower,

"Toward which the urgent sap in life’s great tree

"Is pressing—seen in puny blossoms now,

"But in the world’s great morrows to expand

"With broadest petal and with deepest glow."

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

"Yet, see the patched and plodding citizen

"Waiting upon the pavement with the throng

"While some victorious world-hero makes

"Triumphal entry, and the peal of shouts

"And flush of faces ‘neath uplifted hats

"Run like a storm of joy along the streets!

"He says, “God bless him!” almost with a sob,

"As the great hero passes; he is glad

"The world holds mighty men and mighty deeds;

"The music stirs his pulses like strong wine,

"The moving splendour touches him with awe—

"’T is glory shed around the common weal,

"And he will pay his tribute willingly,

"Though with the pennies earned by sordid toil.

"Perhaps the hero’s deeds have helped to bring

"A time when every honest citizen

"Shall wear a coat unpatched. And yet he feels

"More easy fellowship with neighbours there

"Who look on too; and he will soon relapse

"From noticing the banners and the steeds

"To think with pleasure there is just one bun

"Left in his pocket, that may serve to tempt

"The wide-eyed lad, whose weight is all too much

"For that young mother’s arms: and then he falls

"To dreamy picturing of sunny days

"When he himself was a small big-cheeked lad

"In some far village where no heroes came,

"And stood a listener ’twixt his father’s legs

"In the warm fire-light while the old folk talked

"And shook their heads and looked upon the floor;

"And he was puzzled, thinking life was fine—

"The bread and cheese so nice all through the year

"And Christmas sure to come! Oh that good time!

"He, could he choose, would have those days again

"And see the dear old-fashioned things once more.

"But soon the wheels and drums have all passed by

"And tramping feet are heard like sudden rain:

"The quiet startles our good citizen;

"He feels the child upon his arms, and knows

"He is with the people making holiday

"Because of hopes for better days to come.

"But Hope to him was like the brilliant west

"Telling of sunrise in a world unknown.

"And from that dazzling curtain of bright hues

"He turned to the familiar face of fields

"Lying all clear in the calm morning land.

"Maybe ’t is wiser not to fix a lens

"Too scrutinizing on the glorious times

"When Barbarossa shall arise and shake

"His mountain, good King Arthur come again.

"And all the heroes of such giant soul

"That, living once to cheer mankind with hope,

"They had to sleep until the time was ripe

"For greater deeds to match their greater thought.

"Yet no! the earth yields nothing more Divine

"Than high prophetic vision—than the Seer

"Who fasting from man’s meaner joy beholds

"The paths of beauteous order, and constructs

"A fairer type to shame our low content.

"But prophecy is like potential sound

"Which turned to music seems a voice sublime

"From out the soul of light; but turns to noise

"In scrannel pipes, and makes all ears averse."

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

"Presentiment of better things on earth

"Sweeps in with every force that stirs our souls

"To admiration, self-renouncing love,

"Or thoughts, like light, that bind the world in one,—

"Sweeps like the sense of vastness, when at night

"We hear the roll and dash of waves that break

"Nearer and nearer with the rushing tide,

"Which rises to the level of the cliff

"Because the wide Atlantic rolls behind,

"Throbbing respondent to the far-off orbs."

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October 04, 2021 - October 04, 2021.

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

Brother and Sister

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

Even right at the beginning, one cannot help marvelling about how much better these verses are, compared to most of her work, poetry or prose - for once, she's writing from her heart, not caring about impressing anyone, and her verses flow so very smooth, as a brook would in a bed of its own, undisturbed!

"I cannot choose but think upon the time

"When our two lives grew like two buds that kiss

"At lightest thrill from the bee’s swinging chime,

"Because the one so near the other is.

"He was the elder and a little man

"Of forty inches, bound to show no dread,

"And I the girl that puppy-like now ran,

"Now lagged behind my brother’s larger tread.

"I held him wise, and when he talked to me

"Of snakes and birds, and which God loved the best,

"I thought his knowledge marked the boundary

"Where men grew blind, though angels knew the rest.

"If he said Hush! I tried to hold my breath;

"Wherever he said Come! I stepped in faith."

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

"Long years have left their writing on my brow,

"But yet the freshness and the dew-fed beam

"Of those young mornings are about me now,

"When we two wandered toward the far-off stream

"With rod and line. Our basket held a store

"Baked for us only, and I thought with joy

"That I should have my share, though he had more,

"Because he was the elder and a boy.

"The firmaments of daisies since to me

"Have had those mornings in their opening eyes,

"The bunchèd cowslip’s pale transparency

"Carries that sunshine of sweet memories,

"And wild-rose branches take their finest scent

"From those blest hours of infantine content."

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

"Our mother bade us keep the trodden ways,

"Stroked down my tippet, set my brother’s frill,

"Then with the benediction of her gaze

"Clung to us lessening, and pursued us still

"Across the homestead to the rookery elms,

"Whose tall old trunks had each a grassy mound,

"So rich for us, we counted them as realms

"With varied products: here were earth-nuts found,

"And here the Lady-fingers in deep shade;

"Here sloping toward the Moat the rushes grew,

"The large to split for pith, the small to braid;

"While over all the dark rooks cawing flew,

"And made a happy strange solemnity,

"A deep-toned chant from life unknown to me."

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

"Our meadow-path had memorable spots:

"One where it bridged a tiny rivulet,

"Deep hid by tangled blue Forget-me-nots;

"And all along the waving grasses met

"My little palm, or nodded to my cheek,

"When flowers with upturned faces gazing drew

"My wonder downward, seeming all to speak

"With eyes of souls that dumbly heard and knew.

"Then came the copse, where wild things rushed unseen,

"And black-scathed grass betrayed the past abode

"Of mystic gypsies, who still lurked between

"Me and each hidden distance of the road.

"A gypsy once had startled me at play,

"Blotting with her dark smile my sunny day."

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

Here she's suddenly old, wise, especially at the ending line of this verse.

"Thus rambling we were schooled in deepest lore,

"And learned the meanings that give words a soul,

"The fear, the love, the primal passionate store,

"Whose shaping impulses make manhood whole.

"Those hours were seed to all my after good;

"My infant gladness, through eye, ear, and touch,

"Took easily as warmth a various food

"To nourish the sweet skill of loving much.

"For who in age shall roam the earth and find

"Reasons for loving that will strike out love

"With sudden rod from the hard year-pressed mind?

"Were reasons sown as thick as stars above,

"’Tis love must see them, as the eye sees light:

"Day is but Number to the darkened sight."

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

What a serene portrayal here, bringing her depiction alive along with ones own hours of youth, however little the two had in common.

"Our brown canal was endless to my thought;

"And on its banks I sat in dreamy peace,

"Unknowing how the good I loved was wrought,

"Untroubled by the fear that it would cease.

"Slowly the barges floated into view

"Rounding a grassy hill to me sublime

"With some Unknown beyond it, whither flew

"The parting cuckoo toward a fresh spring time.

"The wide-arched bridge, the scented elder-flowers,

"The wondrous watery rings that died too soon,

"The echoes of the quarry, the still hours

"With white robe sweeping-on the shadeless noon,

"Were but my growing self, are part of me,

"My present Past, my root of piety."

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

And here, a moment of young years captured, where vision of a child suddenly widens to a vast, taking in universe, for ever remembered.

"Those long days measured by my little feet

"Had chronicles which yield me many a text;

"Where irony still finds an image meet

"Of full-grown judgments in this world perplext.

"One day my brother left me in high charge,

"To mind the rod, while he went seeking bait,

"And bade me, when I saw a nearing barge,

"Snatch out the line lest he should come too late.

"Proud of the task, I watched with all my might

"For one whole minute, till my eyes grew wide,

"Till sky and earth took on a strange new light

"And seemed a dream-world floating on some tide—

"A fair pavilioned boat for me alone

"Bearing me onward through the vast unknown."

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

Typical, of sisters who grow up with a brother slightly older. The last line, again, is from that vast vision capturing the child of one's past being, and widening view to the universal.

"His sorrow was my sorrow, and his joy

"Sent little leaps and laughs through all my frame;

"My doll seemed lifeless and no girlish toy

"Had any reason when my brother came.

"I knelt with him at marbles, marked his fling

"Cut the ringed stem and make the apple drop,

"Or watched him winding close the spiral string

"That looped the orbits of the humming top.

"Grasped by such fellowship my vagrant thought

"Ceased with dream-fruit dream-wishes to fulfil;

"My aëry-picturing fantasy was taught

"Subjection to the harder, truer skill

"That seeks with deeds to grave a thought-tracked line,

"And by What is, What will be to define."

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

"School parted us; we never found again

"That childish world where our two spirits mingled

"Like scents from varying roses that remain

"One sweetness, nor can evermore be singled.

"Yet the twin habit of that early time

"Lingered for long about the heart and tongue:

"We had been natives of one happy clime

"And its dear accent to our utterance clung.

"Till the dire years whose awful name is

"Change Had grasped our souls still yearning in divorce,

"And pitiless shaped them in two forms that range

"Two elements which sever their life’s course.

"But were another childhood-world my share,

"I would be born a little sister there.”"

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

October 04, 2021 - October 04, 2021.

Kindle Edition, 11 pages

Published October 15th 2014

by The Perfect Library

ASIN:- B00OL0RAMQ

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

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

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4271768989

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Stradivarius.

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

STRADIVARIUS.

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

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

A College Breakfast-Party.

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

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

A COLLEGE BREAKFAST-PARTY

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

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.

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

"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."

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

"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.”

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

"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.”"

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

"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."

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

"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 03, 2021.

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

Two Lovers.

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

TWO LOVERS

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

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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Self and Life.

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

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

“Sweet Endings Come and Go, Love.”

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

SWEET ENDINGS COME AND GO, LOVE

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

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

The Death of Moses.

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

THE DEATH OF MOSES.

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

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

Arion.

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

Arion.

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

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

“O May I Join the Choir Invisible.”

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

O MAY I JOIN THE CHOIR INVISIBLE!

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

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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October 01, 2021 - October 05, 2021.

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

Paperback, 48 pages

Published October 24th 2008

by Dodo Press (first published 1867)

ISBN:- 1409943704

(ISBN13: 9781409943709)

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

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4272904919

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October 01, 2021 - October 05, 2021.

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

Paperback

Published January 11th 2016

by Leopold Classic Library

ASIN:- B01AGQ16O6

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

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4272905127

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Reviews - Books I Read - DRJG

Tuesday, October 5, 2021

The Legend of Jubal, and Other Poems (1874)(Poetry by George Eliot); by George Eliot.

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