"Once, in autumn, I saw the sun
pause in the wrinkles of a tree
like passion on an old man’s face...."
What lines! You feel the rough skin of the trees rubbing on words. As if the universe of words overstepping the universe of things !
***
It seems there are quite a number of victims of History in the field of thought. One such seems to be Herbert Spencer. He is one who wrote about evolution years before Darwin. But of course minus the part of natural selection. But more comprehensive than Darwin's, in that, Herbert Spencer was able to talk about evolution in the spheres of society, culture. What he wrote seems to be that evolution works towards more perfection, from the gross and banal and militant towards being more cooperative, finer and humane mutual transactions. But, lo...! history being sometimes reckless and devoid of any considering... has branded HS with the idea of 'social darwinism'.
( History..! sometimes you do not read your texts well... be good and behave well..! :-) )
*
A great philosopher of the logical positivist school, A J Ayer, was uncompromising in his stand that statements which do not lend themselves to empirical verification or analytical exercise are quite meaningless. A great hit at the traditional metaphysics indeed. He was not a shy away philosopher when he confronted the unwanted advances of Mike Tyson on a new model in a party given by a fashion designer, saying 'I suggest we talk about this like rational men'.
Just one year before his death, A J Ayer had a near-death experience. On recovery he said that the experience slightly weakened his conviction that his genuine death will be the end of him. Later he opined that he should have rather told instead 'my experiences have weakened, not my belief that there is no life after death, but my inflexible attitude towards that belief'.
Strange! We demand that we should experience ourselves to accept anything. But will we allow ourselves to accept our experiences?
*
Francis Thompson is as usual rocking! He has always an unexpected twist and tinge of mystic note.
This is unusual about poets -
'Thou canst foreshape thy word;
The poet is not lord
Of the next syllable may come
With the returning pendulum;
And what he plans to-day in song,
To-morrow sings it in another tongue.
Where the last leaf fell from his bough,
He knows not if a leaf shall grow;
Where he sows he doth not reap,
He reapeth where he did not sow;
He sleeps, and dreams forsake his sleep
To meet him on his waking way.'
How different in tone and timbre this one ! --
'I sprinkled a few drops of verse,
And said to Ruin: 'Quit thy hearse;'
To my Loved: Pale not, come with me;
I will escort thee down the years.
With me thou walk'st immortally.'
And in the Echo of Victor Hugo these beautiful lines --
'Life's a veil the real has:
All the shadows of our scene
Are but shows of things that pass
On the other side the screen.
Time his glass sits nodding by;
'Twixt its turn and turn a spawn
Of universes buzz and die
Like the ephemeris of the dawn.'
***
This is unusual about poets -
'Thou canst foreshape thy word;
The poet is not lord
Of the next syllable may come
With the returning pendulum;
And what he plans to-day in song,
To-morrow sings it in another tongue.
Where the last leaf fell from his bough,
He knows not if a leaf shall grow;
Where he sows he doth not reap,
He reapeth where he did not sow;
He sleeps, and dreams forsake his sleep
To meet him on his waking way.'
How different in tone and timbre this one ! --
'I sprinkled a few drops of verse,
And said to Ruin: 'Quit thy hearse;'
To my Loved: Pale not, come with me;
I will escort thee down the years.
With me thou walk'st immortally.'
And in the Echo of Victor Hugo these beautiful lines --
'Life's a veil the real has:
All the shadows of our scene
Are but shows of things that pass
On the other side the screen.
Time his glass sits nodding by;
'Twixt its turn and turn a spawn
Of universes buzz and die
Like the ephemeris of the dawn.'
***
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