:: the eternal surge of time and tide ::

once upon a time, something really super-awesome happened to me.

it was like this.

for years and years (or more like year and a half) I had been searching for a. e. housman's a shropshire lad. searching. every library, every bookstore, and I could find no copy anywhere.
(pause, for a sad face.)

and then last week, an idea of uncommon brilliance burst upon me and I asked for the housman call number at my university's library. wonder of wonders...
they not only had an entire shelf of housman works and commentaries and criticisms, they had THREE COPIES of a shropsire lad! embarrassment of riches. I had a glorious time reading it, and lived happily ever after. yay!

in all seriousness, though, I rediscovered 'on wenlock edge', a poem I must have read hundreds of times but whose impact I'd never really absorbed. I kept reading it over the next few days, trying to soak in the genius, the wistful, solemn, suddenness of it all, but I had this nagging sense I'd read this poem in a different form before. long story long, I went looking for a millay parallel (you know my obsession with good ol' edna st. vincent) and came upon 'if still your orchards bear'. your task: read both. then come back here, if you feel like it.

both poems are incredible. their deceitfully simple formats hide complex thoughts -- maybe because I'm still struggling to grasp the full import of their meanings, but the emotional power still hits me every time.
   both poems seem to flow from a heart-trouble. each speaker mentions a personal difficulty: "the thoughts that hurt him, they were there....then was the Roman, now 'tis I" and "I cannot think your thoughts will be much different from mine....supposing in ten thousand years, men ache, as they do now" -- but each is universally applied. the speakers may have varied "memories hard to bear" and "thoughts that hurt", but at the same time, don't we all have "things that [we] could not bear, and live"? "men ache," says millay, and that's true of all men at all times, no matter the specific cause. one speaker looks forward, the other looks back, but both discover the same truth: "there is nothing new under the sun".
 
both poems, interestingly, use nature -- orchards & fruit, wind & storms & landscape -- as the constant, even in its changes. in housman's poem, the trees are the men and the wind is their life, an outside force that spends itself and leaves the trees (no pun intended) silent, unmoved, and in a way unchanged; eternal. as if the ranks of men are always there, animated as separate beings, but ultimately ever-passing. in millay's poem, the tree is human life; trouble is the fruit, held & warmed & owned by the human hand.

I think ultimately the focuses of the poems are fundamentally different: millay gently sympathizes with every centuries' daily struggles, housman subtly emphasizes the brevity of man's life. but the similarity occurs as both throw light on their own trouble by speaking of universal difficulties, however vague and unspecific these "difficulties" may be.
   it is through the vagueness of their difficulties that they speak of ours. on one hand, the authors make these things universal, a large, human turmoil that spans the ages -- perhaps eternal "who are we? what are we? where are we?" questions. but both poets also make it a more personal thing, for them and (since I can't speak for you) for me: subtly relating their parts in mankind's ever-recurring troubles, but a relation general enough for a broader reader interpretation. people can universally relate to these personal troubles, in part because they're not specifically stated. I have "memories hard to bear at noon, at moonlight harder still"; perhaps small struggles, but I imagine everyone does. this poetic generalization works because I know my memories without having them dictated to me by the author's single and particular viewpoint. I place my own history in the words to "bring the eternal note of sadness in" as I more fully realize each poem's thrust: changes and troubles and lives come and go, and the ages roll on towards eternity.
   the thing is, neither the speaker nor the subjects are emotionally connected at all. housman will never know the roman whose ashes have been buried for thousands of years; millay doesn't know the "brother" who might stand here when her ashes have been buried for thousands of years; and neither of them knows me, just as I don't know them or you. even in our connected humanness and the difficulties we all experience because of life, there is an impassable separation between us that cannot be bridged.

I'm struggling to clearly explain what I mean and I am becoming incredibly redundant. this is shaping into an all-around rough week for me.
   just enjoy and appreciate the incredible insights these two very different people had into the human condition: the personal sorrows which fundamentally, deeply relate all humankind to one another, and the loneliness that forever separates them.

*hey, you're awesome if you can identify the byron quote. BYRON YEAH MAN

:: excuse-y fluff. skip it ::

if I could type a guilty face, I would totally type it here.

like, I have been so lax about posting that for the past few days weeks months I've been avoiding thinking about this whole blog because I feel like such a slacker. I could come up with some plausible excuses, like, I did just get a job on top of my Very Stressful (Graphic Design Entry Of-Which-Only-15-People-Are-Accepted-From-The-Current-45-Attending) Class.
   but at the same time, that feels kind of cheap. I should find time, make time, you know? :/

in other news, we had three snow days this week because of the crazy cold and snow, so I got some fantastic amounts of homework done and managed to read the three musketeers (EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!). I should have taken notes so that I could write something cohesive and intelligent about it after the fact, but honestly. I was so absorbed by the thrilling story I don't think I would have had the patience for that. did I ever say what I thought of count of monte cristo, like, a year ago? well, whatever I said, this is so much better I can't even explain how gorgeous your hair is.

if rating the characters counts as something intelligent (why did I even say that, of course it doesn't) then I will merely nominate athos for my favorite musketeer; planchet for my favorite valet; lady clark and felton for my third and fourth favorite characters, respectively; and everyone else an even second.

dumas is incredible, guys. I need a loud, obnoxious bumper sticker for the extent of my obsession.

anyway, snow days! I currently have a poetry post in the works, but I'm sorry I can't promise any more-frequent posting. I'd love to have the time, trust me, but right now I have too many other responsibilities. wait until all the season of snows and sins is over.

ugh, an education. amirite? x)