The Coming of Wisdom with Time
(Published 1916)
Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;
Now I may wither into the truth
- W.B. Yeats (1865-1939)
We learn today that David Bowie has released a new record after 10 years. I was never a fan in his earlier incarnations, though was aware of the effect he was having on the new wave of youth which I was already leaving behind at the time. And because his music is woven now into the fabric of the past 45 years, it is impossible to deny his brilliance, and the huge paradox of his revolutionary, esoteric art combined with his appeal to a huge mass audience.
I really like this song “Where are we now”, which is an honest exploration of how it is to start feeling older. The video with it is extraordinary. No vanity, much depth. I particularly like the images of Berlin in the late 1970s, where Bowie lived for 3 years. I feel lucky to have had several trips there in the same era. Didn’t see him though!
The announcement of Bowie’s record was on BBC news in the morning. In the same programme they had Andrew Motion on to talk about a Poetry competition for teenagers. At the end of the interview, and weaving in an earlier comment about age and Bowie, he chose a Hardy poem, which I found I half-remembered as I had learnt it verbatim for my college exams.
I Look Into My Glass
(Published 1898)
I look into my glass,
And view my wasting skin,
And say, "Would God it came to pass
My heart had shrunk as thin!"
For then I, undistrest
By hearts grown cold to me,
Could lonely wait my endless rest
With equanimity.
But Time, to make me grieve,
Part steals, lets part abide;
And shakes this fragile frame at eve
With throbbings of noontide.
- Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
No withering into the truth there, then.
Oddly enough, as part of the focus of past couple of days, on themes of growing older, I was looking at some poems of Yeats, including the short 4-liner above. This one seemed highly appropriate
An Acre Of Grass
(Published 1939)
Picture and book remain,
An acre of green grass
For air and exercise,
Now strength of body goes;
Midnight, an old house
Where nothing stirs but a mouse.
My temptation is quiet.
Here at life's end
Neither loose imagination,
Nor the mill of the mind
Consuming its rag and bone,
Can make the truth known.
Grant me an old man's frenzy,
Myself must I remake
Till I am Timon and Lear
Or that William Blake
Who beat upon the wall
Till Truth obeyed his call;
A mind Michael Angelo knew
That can pierce the clouds,
Or inspired by frenzy
Shake the dead in their shrouds;
Forgotten else by mankind,
An old man's eagle mind.
- W.B. Yeats (1865-1939)
This was part of his “Last Poems” written in 1939, the year of Yeats’ death, and 20 years after “The Coming of Wisdom with Time” (1919) . Here, rather than withering, he is calling out in his old age, to become like these raging figures of old, who “beat upon the wall” to get truth to show itself, so that he can express it, externalise it (in poetry). for fear that his “eagle mind” is forgotten to posterity.
Random thoughts.
- W.B. Yeats (1865-1939)
This was part of his “Last Poems” written in 1939, the year of Yeats’ death, and 20 years after “The Coming of Wisdom with Time” (1919) . Here, rather than withering, he is calling out in his old age, to become like these raging figures of old, who “beat upon the wall” to get truth to show itself, so that he can express it, externalise it (in poetry). for fear that his “eagle mind” is forgotten to posterity.
Random thoughts.
