Just in Time!

     Today is a Sunday, which means it's my last chance to avoid screwing up the "Poem of the Week" feature.   Fortunately, I've got one.  Last weekend, I came across a painting in an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum about French landscape painting around the end of the 18th century.  The exhibit was fairly small (only one room), and many of the pieces were pleasant scenes of Roman ruins or rustic life; there were Italian country houses at sunset, Romantic images of Apennine bandits, and one of monks milling around the door of their chapel, which I liked very much.  But one seemed unusually dark and grim: a man carrying a shroud-wrapped woman through the night.  Upon closer inspection I learned that it was inspired by the life and works of Edward Young, an English poet (and later a clergyman) who had to carry his step-daughter's corpse to a Protestant cemetery when she was denied burial in the Lyon's Catholic cemetery.  Some time later he wrote a nine-part poem called The Complaint, or Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality.  I confess I have only read the first part, and I hope in time to finish the entire poem. But here it is:

Night the First

By Nature's law, what may be, may be now;

There's no prerogative in human hours:

In human hearts what bolder thought can rise,

Than man's presumption on tomorrow's dawn?

Where is tomorrow? In another world.

For numbers this is certain; the reverse

Is sure to none; and yet on this perhaps,

This peradventure, infamous for lies,

As on a rock of adamant we build

Our mountain hopes; spin out eternal schemes,

As we the fatal sisters would outspin,

And, big with life's futurities, expire.

   Not even Philander had bespoke his shroud;

Nor had he cause, a warning was denied;

How many fall as sudden, not as safe?

As sudden, though for years admonished home:

Of human ills the last extreme beware,

Beware, Lorenzo! a slow-sudden death.

How dreadful that deliberate surprise?

Be wise today, 'tis madness to defer;

Next day the fatal precedent will plead;

Thus on, till wisdom is pushed out of life:

Procrastination is the thief of time,

Year after year it steals, till all are fled,

And to the mercies of a moment leaves

The vast concerns of an eternal scene.

If not so frequent, would not this be strange?

That 'tis so frequent, this is stranger still.

   Of man's miraculous mistakes, this bears

The palm, "That all men are about to live,"

For ever on the brink of being born:

All pay themselves the compliment to think

They, one day, shall not drivel; and their pride

On this reversion takes up ready praise;

At least, their own; their future selves applauds;

How excellent that life they ne'er will lead?

Time lodged in their own hands is folly's vails;

That lodged in Fate's, to wisdom they consign;

The thing they can't but purpose, they postpone;

'Tis not in folly, not to scorn a fool;

And scarce in human wisdom to do more:

All promise is poor dilatory man,

And that through every stage: when young, indeed,

In full content, we sometimes nobly rest,

Unanxious for ourselves; and only wish,

As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise:

At thirty man suspects himself a fool;

Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;

At fifty chides his infamous delay,

Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;

In all the magnanimity of thought

Resolves, and re-resolves:then dies the same. 

(taken from The Longman Anthology of Poetry, 2006)

       I am cautious of looking for morals in this or any other work;  I think it is possible that one might  learn from a piece of art without its having taught us anything.  And this belief applies especially to something like this poems, which contains aphorisms that have become proverbs or morals.  It isn't appropriate, I think, to consider this an instructive poem simply because we are instructed by it.  Furthermore, I hardly think I am unique in being reminded by this poem not to permit myself to postpone what I must do and what I want to do, either out of laziness or because I think I will have the time to do it later.  What I find perplexing, however, is the tension between the wisdom of prompt action and the concern (not expressed in this poem, I think) that such wisdom can interfere with the enjoyment of action and can dispel the foolish but important belief of the young that their time is almost unlimited.  Not to waste time is, of course, the ideal arrangement, as is not delaying without cause.  But acting or doing from the (correct) knowledge that we are all running out of time seems... well, unsettled.  I've had periods when even a moment's inaction seemed like a terrible loss of time, but I was barely able to remember that my actions could have value in themselves, that I could profit from them enjoy them, and that I could get more satisfaction from them than simply striking them off the endless to-do list.  And what is more, maturity, adulthood, growing up - these depend in no small part on one's coming to understand that his time is limited.  It's something everyone must learn at one point or another, but I don't know whether being told that is a suitable substitute for coming to understand it oneself.  Since childhood I have been told not to procrastinate, not to delay, and that "wisdom" seemed for the most part like an invasive interference with my own arrangements. It's only in the last years, months even, that I've come to understand what it means to use my time well;  this blog is a reflection of that understanding.  But none of the admonitions of my parents or Edward Young could have brought me to this point, even though I knew they were correct.  I heard them, and I often agreed with them, but I couldn't have understood them.

King Richard's Bones

     In a previous post, I mentioned that I had all sorts of things to write about but not enough time to write about them.  In the past few days, however, as busy as I've been on account of Nemo, the blizzard, the real reason for not posting is that I have not had the presence of mind to write anything.  On my daily to-do list, I've entered "blog" for days now, and it's been transposed from list to list.  I just couldn't quiet my mind enough to think, or perhaps my mind was too quiet.  I'm not sure.  Since the one of the purposes of this project is to practice quieting my mind, I guess I failed the first test, but now that I've got the energy and the interest, I will post some of the things that have been percolating.  For organizational reasons, I'll post them discretely.
      
     To begin, I'd like to share something that is by now old news.  A week ago today, researchers confirmed that the bones discovered underneath a parking lot in Leicester are in almost certainly those of Richard Plantagenet, duke of Gloucester and later king of England.  They've been lying under the soil since the 22nd or 23rd of August, 1485.  Five hundred twenty-seven and one-half years.  For me, this discovery is somewhat more than an interesting historical development.  Almost fifteen years ago, when I was about ten years old, I attended the annual reenactment of the Battle of Bosworth Field, held on what is believed to be the site of the battle.  The thrills and regalia of such an event would have delighted any boy my age, but I was struck by the intense loyalty many of the observers showed towards Richard and the House of York.  While there has for some decades been a Richardian faction in academia, these observers, who seemed to be regular, ordinary people, had no apparent cause for attachment to Richard, and indeed they should by rights have been turned off by the centuries of defamation Richard's name has endured.  But Leicestershire was one of the strongholds of the Yorkist cause, and I have come to think that their loyalty is a touching vestige of an earlier age; that their White Rose badges, their scorn for the "Welsh milksop" are part of an atavistic sense of loyalty that had survived 500 years of political and social tumult.

    Since that reenactment,  my mind has often returned to the war between the Red Rose and the White.  That storied conflict has so captured my imagination that its participants are to me no longer simply historical figures but almost legendary ones, and the history itself is filled with the drama, the complexity, the valor, and the curious irony that fiction attempts with much effort and contrivance to imitate. When the time came to write my undergraduate thesis in History, my mind turned to the Wars of the Roses and the House of York, and though the historiographical component of thesis-writing was pleasantly diverting, it was the attainment of more information, the indulgence of my fascination with this period, that pleased me most.  And throughout my studies, I have found myself in the Yorkist camp, with Hastings and Devereux and Herbert, with the Fetlock, the White Boar, and the Sun-in-Splendor.  So as I see Richard as he is now, his bones chipped and yellowed with age, I think of him as he was 500 years ago, surrounded by Stanley's men, his crowned helmet caught in a thornbush, Sir Percival struggling to raise the Royal Banner even as his legs are hewn off, and I think of the Leicestermen who are loyal to him centuries later.  The White Rose blooms still.

Richard III Discovered

Big Bear

     It's been a few days since my last post, but for once I can say that the interval is due not to laziness or a mental drought but because I was too busy in the evenings to devote adequate time to writing worthwhile posts.  I've got a bunch of things to put up, and they'll probably get posted in a rather disjointed way.  I guess I'll start with the flashiest.

     In mid-January I flew to Los Angeles to visit family, and a few of us went skiing for us in Big Bear (elevation 8,000 ft.), which lies in the San Bernadino National Forest a few hours North-east of LA.  I'd only once skied outside the North-eastern states, and I was looking forward to the famous Western snow.  In the event I found the snow unremarkable, but the landscape was quite extraordinary, and I managed to take a few half-decent shots.

 The mountain stands above a large lake (also called Big Bear), which was largely frozen thanks to the cold snap that weekend.

 I've always loved bare conifers.

 I took this photo looking East up Bear Valley.  I was struck by how beautifully it stretched off toward the horizon, and it was a delight to drive along it on the way home.

The image here didn't resolve as clearly as I'd hoped, but in the middle of the valley was a rocky height on which were perched a number of homes.  I was very much reminded of Edoras when looking at it.

A nice glade.  I tried to ski in a bit further, but the ground didn't take to my downhill skis too well.

Looking Southwest from Big Bear.  This was at the top of the mountain, and the crest in the distance was even larger and more jagged.  I wish I'd had the time to climb up there.

     One of the most remarkable parts of the trip was the descent from San Bernadino into the Mojave Desert.  Regretfully, I was not in the frame of mind to take photographs, and so I have no record of that part of the trip, for which I kick myself now.