Jorge Luis Borges: "Ars Poetica"

Ars Poetica: Jorge Luis Borges 

To gaze at the river made of time and water
And recall that time itself is another river,
To know we cease to be, just like the river,
And that our faces pass away, just like the water.

To feel that waking is another sleep
That dreams it does not sleep and that death,
Which our flesh dreads, is that very death
Of every night, which we call sleep.

To see in the day or in the year a symbol
Of mankind’s days and of his years,
To transform the outrage of the years
Into a music, a rumor and a symbol,

To see in death a sleep, and in the sunset
A sad gold, of such is Poetry
Immortal and a pauper. For Poetry
Returns like the dawn and the sunset.

At times in the afternoons a face
Looks at us from the depths of a mirror;
Art must be like that mirror
That reveals to us this face of ours.

They tell how Ulysses, glutted with wonders,
Wept with love to descry his Ithaca
Humble and green. Art is that Ithaca
Of green eternity, not of wonders.

It is also like an endless river
That passes and remains, a mirror for one same
Inconstant Heraclitus, who is the same
And another, like an endless river.
-- Jorge Luis Borges --
From Dreamtigers,  translated by Harold Morland

What does art do?  Is it just a way of dealing with death or is there more to it than that?  If we were immortal, would there be art?

Robert Frost: "Misgiving"

An Autumn Poem----


Misgiving

All crying, 'We will go with you, O Wind !'
The foliage follow him, leaf and stem;
But a sleep oppresses them as they go,
And they end by bidding him stay with them. 

Since ever they flung abroad in spring
The leaves had promised themselves this flight,
Who now would  fain seek sheltering wall,
Or thicket, or hollow place for the night.

And now they answer his summoning blast
With an ever vaguer and vaguer stir,
Or at utmost a little reluctant whirl
That drops them no further than where they were.

I only hope that when I am free
As they are free to go in quest
Of the knowledge beyond the bounds of life
It may not seem better to me to rest. 

-- Robert Frost --



The usual debate is whether there is life after death.  Is the soul or some sort of life force immortal and does it survive the death of the body?  Frost, being Frost, doesn't see it that way in this poem, naturally.  In the last stanza, Frost's usual place for mischief, he posits it a different way.  He fears that he may follow the lead of leaf and branch and flower and take his final rest instead of attempting to go beyond what knowledge we have gained from life and finding out if there is something more.


A very disturbing thought.  We spend much of our lives wondering about, speculating about, arguing about, even killing others who disagree about the possibility of life after death and then be too tired to find out when we have the opportunity.   Typical Frost--always off on his own somewhere.

Emily Dickinson

This is another of Emily Dickinson 's many poems on death.  It focuses on death as a being restful, a safe shore--a common theme in her poetry.


                    4
On this wondrous sea
Sailing silently,
Ho! Pilot, ho!
Knowest thou the shore
Where no breakers roar --
Where the storm is o'er?

In the peaceful west
Many the sails at rest --
The anchors fast --
Thither I pilot thee --
Land Ho!  Eternity!
Ashore at last!

-- Emily Dickinson --
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
Edited by Thomas H. Johnson
Poem 4, pages 6-7


Death here is seen as a safe harbor, welcomed after the storm of life--one of the most common themes found in her poetry.  I found the reference to the "peaceful west" also intriguing.  Perhaps it has to do with the image of the setting sun, signalling the end of the day, which is also a common image used by many poets--our life span seen as a day.  For example, one finds this in Shakespeare's Sonnet LXXIII; in fact both the setting sun and the west are present.

"In me thou see'st  the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest."


Although the poet is not speaking directly of death, death is lurking in the background for this time is that time just before death, the twilight of one's life.  And, we see similar elements here: a time of rest and a reference to the west. 

While I am clearly in the autumn of my days, I am not looking forward to a rest, just yet. 

   

Serendipity

One of the poet's favorite or at least one of the most frequent themes is death. I think Emily Dickinson wrote several hundred poems on that theme. I suspect that probably every poet of some fame has written at least one or more on death. And, their treatment of death is as varied as they themselves are. Here is one I just discovered that dates back to about 1900 B. C., over four thousand years ago.

Death is Before Me Today

Death is before me today
like health to the sick
like leaving the bedroom after sickness.

Death is before me today
like the odor of myrrh
like sitting under a cloth on a day of wind.

Death is before me today
like the odor of lotus
like sitting down on the shore of drunkenness.

Death is before me today
like the end of the rain
like a man's home-coming after the wars abroad.

Death is before me today
like the sky when it clears
like a man's wish to see home after numberless years of captivity.

-- anon --
c. 1900 B. C.
W. S. Merwin, trans
World Poetry
Katharine Washburn & John B. Major, Editors


The anonymous poet's view is that death is just returning home after a long absence. Taoists say something very similar: we come out of the Void, are here for awhile, and then return to the Void.



But, there's Dylan Thomas, whom I think would not agree.


(from) Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

. . . . .

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Come. bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.



And Emily Dickinson?

Because I could not stop for Death —
He kindly stopped for me —
The Carriage held but just Ourselves —
And Immortality.

We slowly drove — He knew no haste —
And I had put away
My labor — and my leisure too,
For His Civility.

We passed the School where Children strove
At Recess — in the Ring —
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain —
We passed the Setting Sun —

Or rather — He passed Us-
The Dews drew quivering and chill —
For only Gossamer, my Gown —
My Tippet — only Tulle —

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground —
The roof was scarcely visible —
The Cornice — in the Ground

Since then — ‘tis Centuries — and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward Eternity.


I think she and the anonymous Egyptian poet would agree.


And the haiku poets of Japan


A saddening world:
Flowers whose sweet blooms must fall . . .
As we too, alas . . .
-- Issa --



Death-Song

Leaf alone, fluttering
Alas, leaf alone, fluttering . . .
Floating down the wind.
-- anon --


Death-Song

I have known lovers . . .
Cherry-bloom . . . the nightingale . . .
I will sleep content.
-- anon --

Death-Song

If they ask for me
Say: he had some business
In another world
-- Sukan --


Traditionally, haiku poets would, if they were able, write one last haiku, which then became their death song. Ideally it would express their feelings about their impending death.


As for me, well, death is in the future for all of us. It approaches at its own speed and will meet us at its own choosing. There's no need, though, to rush forward to greet it. It will come. Perhaps between now and that day, I may agree with the anonymous Egyptian poet or Emily Dickinson.

But not today.



The haiku are from
A Little Treasury of Haiku
Peter Beilenson, trans.