To finish off my month of looking at William Cowper, here is an essay that I have written on his life and work – an attempt to draw together the threads of life that was simultaneously dark and beautiful. I hope you find it a helpful read.
Sonnet for Nat
Today I had a day of study, working on an assignment for my Masters degree that is due in two and a half weeks. My brain began the day as slop, and by the end was sloppier still, not helped by the fact that most of the reading involved trying to understand Ludwig Wittgenstein (a hard task even with a fully in-tact brain). Discussing with my friend Nat the phenomenon of days when our brains explode from study, we agreed to each write a sonnet about the experience. Here is my offering.
Sonnet for Nat The day of minds exploding is a drag, Entangling all coherence in its grip, Reducing robes of intellect to rags And draining wisdom’s torrent to a drip. The day of minds exploding is a pest, Appearing right when time can least be spent In mindless faffing, coffee breaks and “rest”, (Much steam let off and spleen poured through the vent Of Facebook statuses and Twitter feeds); The day of minds exploding is a flop. It sends us off down garden paths’ false leads; It takes our thoughts and turns them into slop. No mind left, we must find another way To write that blasted thousand-word essay.A Fable (After William Cowper’s “The Poet, the Oyster and the Sensitive Plant”)
Although best known for his more serious work, William Cowper was also a master of comic verse. His most famous comic poem was the hilarious tale, based on a true story, of John Gilpin – well worth a read if you don’t know it already. However, he wrote a number of very clever minor poems too. To reflect the diversity of his work, I’ve chosen to base my fourth and final Cowper-inspired poem on one of his lesser-known poems, the bizarrely titled “The Poet, the Oyster and the Sensitive Plant“. I’ve followed the spirit and style of the original quite closely, but have tried to turn it around to make a bit more fun of poets than Cowper’s poem did. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
A Fable (After “The Poet, the Oyster and the Sensitive Plant”) A rock lay weeping on the shore Where waves would thrash and breakers roar, Eroding slowly, pock-marked, bare, Defenseless in the sea and air. “It hurts,” he said, “to be so beat. I cannot think; I cannot eat. My pores are always full of salt; I think – I fear – it is my fault. These waves: they laugh and hurl at me; I sigh and wish I were a tree.” A tree nearby heard what he cried And, feeling vomitous inside, (Not knowing that he quoted Herbert) Called out to him, unperturbéd: “What are you going on about? You are a fool, without a doubt. So you think trees have all the fun? Well, let’s see how you find the sun When it burns down on your poor trunk, Or when the bluebirds leave their junk Entangled in your precious leaves –” So airing years and years of griefs, The tree hurled spleen upon the rock Which, pock-marked all the more from shock, Decided that it might be prudent To be silent like the student Who knows too well the warning signs Of teachers threatening lunch-times, And so he let the tree then finish, Hoping that this might diminish All his arboreal rage. But then a poet, from backstage, Emerged, with pen in hand, a flower In his hair. Inside the bower Of the writhing, angry tree, He sat and moaned in poetry. He moaned about the scars of man; He moaned in lines that didn’t scan; He moaned about his love’s defeat; He moaned in anapestic feet, In trochees and in iambs too, In meters wilder than a zoo; He moaned so loud and so dramatic That the tree, always emphatic, Dropped a branch onto his head And, wishing every poet dead, Said, “Shut up, won’t you? You try being Inanimate and always breathing All the hot air people speak. And did you know that poets reek? Why can’t you wash once for a change?” The rock, watching this frank exchange (Or monologue, the poet would Correct us, as all poets should), Decided it was not so bad, This oceanic life he had, And thought it best to just ignore Their fight and sit upon the shore.Solitude and Grace (After William Cowper’s “The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk”)
One of William Cowper’s more famous poems, “The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk” takes on the perspective of the real-life inspiration for Robinson Crusoe, a buccaneer cast away on an island in the South Pacific for four years. Though much less famous than Defoe’s novel, Cowper’s poem brought English the saying, “The monarch of all I survey”. I have used that as the starting point for my poem, also an exploration of solitude but from a different angle to Cowper’s.
Solitude and Grace
(After William Cowper’s “The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk”)
This is the kingdom I have found;
I claim it as my own, my flag
Is planted firmly in its ground;
I own its every hill, each crag.
I alone have scaled these ravines;
I know their contours and their depths.
Their grooves are friends to me, their veins
Run through me, and bind like threads.
The walls, the mountains of my mind,
Are boundaries which no-one can scale;
I keep each thought safely inside,
Secure from victory, sure to fail.
The desert sands, the highest hills,
The isolated islands and
The widest seas: these are my fill,
My world within my hand.
The Body, broken into shards,
Does not console me; I am king
Of all that loneliness discards,
Hiding from every breathing thing.
The eyes of day are far from here:
Hands cannot hold my messiness
And voices cannot reach my ear,
No knowing smiles, no caring threats.
But water pours sometimes into
These caverns and these crevasses,
Water washing, reaching out to
Sea, eternal, vast, the masses
Of my heavy days and years
Floating for that moment in
A current of free-flowing tears,
My rock-walls wearing thin.
The ocean’s body then reminds me
Of a space much wider than
The closed parameters I see,
Much wider even than the span
Of years, of fear, of solitude;
And so I turn my anxious gaze
Past my kingdom’s finitude,
Into the vista of His grace –
It frightens, then, to see beyond
The comfort of my walls, my towers,
Where I have safely hidden from
The shine of sun, the scent of flowers;
But still I am drawn into light,
My kingdom pulled away from me,
All I have known – my pain, my pride –
Pulled out to Grace’s sea.
Buried Above Ground (After William Cowper’s “Sapphics”)
I suspect that one of the darkest poems in the English language is William Cowper’s “Lines Written During a Period of Insanity”, or, as it is sometimes more tactfully called, “Sapphics”. Written after his first suicide attempt, the poem deals with the idea of eternal condemnation which was one of his greatest fears. In the form of four “Sapphic” stanzas, it uses a complex rhythm, demonstrating what a master Cowper was of poetic form, even when in the darkest possible place. It is a hard poem to read, an even harder poem to imitate. But here is my attempt at the task, and my attempt to shed some light into a very dark poem.
Buried Above Ground (After “Lines Written During a Period of Insanity”) Abiram, swallowed up by earth, was taken Into the fiery core, our spinning planet Not pausing to release him from its vortex; I too am drawn in. The Potter’s Field received Judas’ silver, His body taken into soil, the true cost Of what he bought Caiaphas with a swift kiss From betraying lips. I would have taken less than thirty pieces; I have betrayed my Saviour for a trinket. So I, like Judas and like dead Abiram, Deserve gravity. There is no soil to bury my betrayal Or hide the bones that I have stripped of all flesh. Only the night can for a time disguise them, Soon to be found out. Bright light – only when You enter my insides Can darkness’ strong pull on me be halted. Only if You come swiftly with Your promise Will the vortex stop.Clouds and Crowns No.7
No longer sure that clouds say what is true,
I look upon the crown of golden days
And see instead a stretching, open haze,
A space which does not shift for signs of You.
Eternity confuses me; I view
The openness of time with halting gaze,
A rupturing of boundaries, blinding daze,
The fear of endless sky with nothing new.
Yet I am held and do not feel the arms;
I wander, yet remain somehow still here,
Cradled in infinity’s vast plans,
Dying, growing old, yet cupped in palms
Which gather clouds and shape the endless spheres,
Sometimes the doorways to imagined lands.
Clouds and Crowns No.6
And I am caught by wonders of new birth,
Not knowing yet how quickly all things die,
Assuming as I run that I can fly,
That life springs always out in vibrant mirth.
Still all my dreams are equal in their worth;
The clouds collect expectant in the sky,
With promises and oceans to supply,
And mouths to fill, and dreams of spreading girth.
Yet sometimes, passing over, they forget
To bring the restoration they assure,
The sky returned to flatness and to blue,
And I am left in dryness and in heat,
The rules of mind unsettled, insecure,
No longer sure that clouds say what is true.
Clouds and Crowns No.5
The overture of forests, dead, remade,
Whispers pianissimo through leaves.
Although the burnt-out wilderness still grieves
And ashen dust hangs densely in the shade,
The smallest stems of green, a micro-glade,
Peek out through fire-black trunks in smoky breeze,
The first-fruits of our chlorophyll reprieves,
The peaceful eye after the storm is paid.
All this shakes truth into my watching eye,
A child-explorer longing for new lands.
As eucalypts bring me back to the earth
And disappointment whimpers like a sigh,
Green miracles are woven by Your hands
And I am caught by wonders of new birth.
Clouds and Crowns No.4
And nothing pure dies when safe in truth,
For truth and life flow from the same deep spring,
Restoring, making new each broken thing,
Our death and dying fading into youth.
And if our doubting hearts required proof,
The flowers promise too what time can bring:
A crown of roses for a weary king
And harvest plenty for a gleaning Ruth.
Though as the clouds recede in summer’s drought
And fire burns the grounds of trusting hearts,
The promise of the years may seem to fade.
But still wild flowers grow without a doubt
And even fire plays its giving part,
The overture of forests, dead, remade.
Clouds and Crowns No.3
And You can reign, though nailed to a tree,
A truth my mind cannot as yet contain,
Defying my small child’s concept of “reign”,
A word that conjures up the king in me:
King of the hills, imagination’s sea;
The waves cow-tow, the soil receives my train,
My dreams subduing everywhere I deign
To stretch my sceptre out with eager glee.
My crown is borrowed and the years will go
The way of flesh, of dust, of floating clouds,
And time will wrinkle what now stretches smooth.
Still, the Queensland evergreens all know
That growth continues as winter resounds,
And nothing pure dies when safe in truth.
The Consolations of Writing 