“From office confinement all year long,…”

8 Responses to “From office confinement all year long,…”

1. PostCatholic says:

   29 June 2012 at 4:29 PM

   Beautiful. Reminds me of:

   I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
   And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
   Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
   And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

   And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
   Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
   There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
   And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

   I will arise and go now, for always night and day
   I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
   While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
   I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

   -Yeats, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”
2. Fr. John Zuhlsdorf says:

   29 June 2012 at 4:53 PM

   Post Catholic: Much like, indeed. Some things are universal, across cultures and centuries, aren’t they?
3. PostCatholic says:

   29 June 2012 at 7:04 PM

   Indeed. You might like Mary Oliver’s “The Summer Day,” too. http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/133.html
4. Br. Tom Forde OFM Cap says:

   30 June 2012 at 4:54 AM

   PostCatholic – one of my confreres just said the very same. I think Anuna (uhn-oo-nah) – from an Uaithne Irish for the ‘Fates’- have a beautiful version of the poem but alas I can’t find a version of it on YouTube to link to.

   At them moment I am sitting at the top of the county to the north of Sligo, Donegal, on its North-Western coast, with the rain teeming down. This is typical of the West of Ireland. I guess he wasn’t thinking of that when he wrote the poem. Beautiful piece of work though.

   If you like Yeats as an Irish poet then try Patrick Kavanagh, Austin Clarke, Thomas Kinsella among many others if you haven’t done so already.
5. Supertradmum says:

   30 June 2012 at 11:36 AM

   Yeats was quoted as saying after several years of giving poetry recitals, that he would agree to one, if he did not have to read “Innisfree”. He was thoroughly sick of it. Here is one from Henry Vaughan, one of the Mystical Poets and a Welshman.

   The Waterfall

   With what deep murmurs through time’s silent stealth
   Doth thy transparent, cool, and wat’ry wealth
   Here flowing fall,
   And chide, and call,
   As if his liquid, loose retinue stay’d
   Ling’ring, and were of this steep place afraid;
   The common pass
   Where, clear as glass,
   All must descend
   Not to an end,
   But quicken’d by this deep and rocky grave,
   Rise to a longer course more bright and brave.

   Dear stream! dear bank, where often I
   Have sate and pleas’d my pensive eye,
   Why, since each drop of thy quick store
   Runs thither whence it flow’d before,
   Should poor souls fear a shade or night,
   Who came, sure, from a sea of light?
   Or since those drops are all sent back
   So sure to thee, that none doth lack,
   Why should frail flesh doubt any more
   That what God takes, he’ll not restore?

   O useful element and clear!
   My sacred wash and cleanser here,
   My first consigner unto those
   Fountains of life where the Lamb goes!
   What sublime truths and wholesome themes
   Lodge in thy mystical deep streams!
   Such as dull man can never find
   Unless that Spirit lead his mind
   Which first upon thy face did move,
   And hatch’d all with his quick’ning love.
   As this loud brook’s incessant fall
   In streaming rings restagnates all,
   Which reach by course the bank, and then
   Are no more seen, just so pass men.
   O my invisible estate,
   My glorious liberty, still late!
   Thou art the channel my soul seeks,
   Not this with cataracts and creeks.

   Henry Vaughan (1622-1695)
6. AnAmericanMother says:

   3 July 2012 at 10:03 AM

   supertradmum,
   THANKS for that poem! I had not read Vaughn, but I’m about to . . . :-)

   Thus Kipling, quoting Tusser:

   My friend, if cause doth wrest thee,
   Ere folly hath much oppressed thee,
   Far from acquaintance kest thee
   Where country may digest thee . . .
   Thank God that so hath blessed thee,
   And sit down, Robin, and rest thee.

   . . . the story that goes with it, “An Habitation Enforced”, is worth reading.
7. Supertradmum says:

   3 July 2012 at 10:29 AM

   Lovely, the snippet you sent, and apropos today.
8. PostCatholic says:

   6 July 2012 at 10:26 AM

   I’m a tremendous reader of poetry, Br. Tom Forde OFM Cap. My favorite Irish poets at the moment are Patrick Galvin and Caitriona O’Reilly.