Aaron and George

{The Aaron in the poem below is quite real; my mother claimed she was descended from him.}

Bad enough to have a king who’d gone mad

But little harm was done. He did not declare war

Against Luxembourg nor insist that women

Be allowed to manage their own property.

No, a mad king had his points, uniting the country.

Even the Radicals could pity an aging man

Whom Reason had abandoned. Worse, though,

Was when he began to fly – not sensibly

In one of Montgolfier’s balloons – but as if he

Was himself a balloon, his heels lifting off the ground

His body softly rising towards the ceiling.

A window left incautiously open meant gardeners

Crick-necked from peering at the tree-tops.

He had feared not madness but blindness

And that, too, came in time.

He had provided against it by memorizing

All of Handel’s keyboard music

Which he played like a king

With great assurance but not very well

Charles James Fox sent a note to William Pitt

That he had heard of a man in Germany –

A Jew; a rabbi of all things! named Aaron

Witnesses swore he floated when he prayed

No matter how many rocks the rebbetzin

Sewed into his pockets. The diplomat sent

To bid Aaron come to Whitehall found

That the rabbi was already on his way.

He died en route; a minyan appeared from somewhere

(The peasants swore no other Jews had been

Within miles of the town where he died),

Bathed his corpse; kept it company through the night;

Buried it properly, and with due respect.

Good enough, but mercy is a harsh mistress

And Aaron not a man to leave his errand

Incomplete. His soul crossed the Channel

In the last of the old boats which had once

Carried all the dead of Gaul to Albion.

They had given up treating the King by now

Accepting that he was mad. He spent his days

In a shabby robe, unshaved, a rope trailing

From his left ankle so that he might the easier

Be hauled down if he started floating too high.

(There was some fear that he might drift to France

Which was not a friendly place for kings just then).

The King knew the ghosts who crowded round him

Were not real. They fled when Aaron walked through them

A bold raven fluttering the phantom peacocks.

Most of the notes the King’s youngest daughter kept

Are still locked up. It is thought that the King

Taught Aaron the harpsichord. It is known

(You can find it in the Princess Lieven’s letters,

Who had it from the Duke of York) that the King

Died peacefully, recognizing his son who said

His long-bearded father had had at the end

“As fine a rabbi’s head as you could imagine.”

Wordsworth

According to the statistician, this blog has been read three times in Germany. Trending at last! Apparently bringing Crescentia onboard was a good move. Meanwhile, a poem about William Wordsworth:

According to the poet Robert Southey

His friend Wordsworth had no sense of smell.

Many things now make sense to me;

Why Wordsworth was so vain; so humorless;

Why the great poems were all written

In the first half of his long life.

Imagine a world with no smells!

No fresh bread in the wind; no sweat;

He would never, an old man, awaken

Having dreamt he breathed again

The scent of his lover’s hair.

Just once, Southey goes on, Wordsworth

Received the gift; one warm afternoon

Standing next to a rose bush.

What was it like? asked Southey

And was told it was as if

Heaven had thrown wide its gates.

A fine thing, the smell of roses,

But one breath of them, for a lifetime?

St. Peter saw the swinging gate

And pushed it shut.

On Time

ON TIME

“time, time,” said old king tut

“is something i ain’t got anything but.”

--archie the cockroach

            I have been reading a book about the Black Death; someone must, or such books will cease being written and the memory of the disaster will fade and fray, until there is only the thought of a grey or yellow death, or perhaps a pale peach death, with stripes, suitable for summer wear. In it, the author mentions a road in Italy where, on certain afternoons, Time can be seen thinking about itself. The image is arresting, and seems to confirm what I have often thought about Time. Not truly an abstraction, we have shaped it and made it a sort of greater cousin of ours, and it shows human tendencies, including a propensity for boredom and self-absorption.

            Consider what generations of observation have taught us. Time is often loath to move; it hangs heavy on the hands. It scorns courtesy; along with the tide, it waits for no man. Ralph Hodgson called it an old gypsy, which seems right enough. Gypsies know time well enough not to be over-awed by it and its pretensions to rule. The bells in a W.H. Auden poem whirr and chime in warning: “Oh, let not Time deceive you! You cannot conquer Time!”

            It has even been known to fly, though no one says whether it flies to or away from something. Perhaps there is a hint in the Latin: Tempus Fugits, wherein Time doesn’t fly but flees, a fugitive (though from what would Time flee? And does it carry us along in simple mercy, so we don’t see the face of what comes after it?) Leigh Hunt called it a thief. John Ford, who wore a melancholy hat, spoke of a man who shook hands with Time. Indeed, Time was very present in great Elizabeth’s day; Walter Raleigh spoke of her as a lady who had been surprised by Time (I doubt she shook Time’s hand, but perhaps she gave it her hand to kiss).

            Shakespeare has little patience with Time, offering in his sonnets to defeat it by the sheer power of his language. Thus, as the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations affirms, he calls it sluttish (Sonnet 17), thievish (Sonnet 77), and possessed of a fell hand (Sonnet 64). It is a cormorant (Love’s Labor Lost), injurious (Troilus and Cressida) and not only envious but prone to calumny (Sonnet 171). It is dangerous to waste it, for it may turn and waste in return (Richard II). Still, Shakespeare’s Time has it’s less fearsome side. It has a wallet (Troilus and Cressida) and a whirligig (Twelfth Night). It sets clocks (King John)  and, though out of joint (Hamlet), is like a fashionable host (Sonnet 165).

            The poets who have sighted Time have given us enough information about its possessions that we could write its will. (Surely it has not long to live? We know that it is twice as old as Petra, that rose-red city half as old as Time). It has horses, a winged chariot, a cave,  a wheel, a river, a trumpet, rags, corridors, whips, a fool, a eunuch, a tooth (and that a sharp one). No wonder Keats saw it aching; the Reverend Richard Jago described Time as having a leaden foot.

            Among the Victorians, Tennyson knew Time for a maniac scattering dust, but Disraeli thought him a good physician, and Gladstone said “Time is on our side.” The important question is, is it the maniac or the physician we have with us?

            Time is golden, bald and has a noiseless foot. He is a kind friend, a liar, and (oddly) a sandpile. He is a peddler, deals in dust. He will come and take  my love. Though he is said to be money, Shakespeare said he is broke, and he is sometimes threadbare. Bartlett’s index assures us that there is Time to be a saint, to be born, to be happy, to be old, to begin anew, to dance, to die, to hear bird music, to laugh, to mourn, to remember, to weep. There is time to serve and sin, to stand and to stare, to stop a revolution, to wallop and to stigmatize.

           

            Time must have an end.

The old grey goose anatomised

This was written years ago to amuse someone who was too polite to admit she wasn’t much amused. Now it is your turn to not be much amused

        Heard in my head last night, as I sometimes do, a rendition of “Go Tell Aunt Rhody”, sung by a voice that was 2/3 Paul Robeson and 1/3 Placido Domingo (The even tenor of my days used to be a bass, but now uses a bucket to carry a tune). This morning on the train I found myself (I was right next to a small Japanese woman, in the middle of the train car) thinking of the lyrics with ludicrous attention.

Go tell Aunt Rhody

Go tell Aunt Rhody

Go tell Aunt Rhody

The old grey goose is dead.

        A command given in a plaintive tune. To whom? Probably a child; the giving of such an abrupt command to an adult would be an insult in most circumstances. The name Aunt Rhody, and the fact that we’re concerned with a goose, suggests rural surroundings. Rhody may be a genuine aunt, or simply an older woman of the neighborhood. The tune, which has no mockery in it, suggests that the goose’s demise must be taken with the utmost seriousness. An old goose, perhaps more canny than most (grey being Wisdom’s color, the color of Athena’s eyes). Death has come into the garden,, and wisdom is no defense.

The one she’d been saving

The one she’d been saving

The one she’d been saving

To make a feather-bed.

        It’s hard to believe that anyone could plan to make a feather bed from a single goose, no matter how well-plucked. Various possibilities suggest themselves. 1. Aunt Rhody is 5 or 6 inches tall (perhaps a field-sprite of some kind?) 2. Aunt Rhody makes miniature furniture. 3. Aunt Rhody is insane. (Note that none of these hypothesi exclude either or both of the other two. Aunt Rhody may be an insane miniature supernatural creature who makes furnishings for doll houses). Or perhaps the intent is ironic – the goose was Rhody’s last possession, and the meaning is that the last hope of comfort is gone from her.

The goslings are weeping

The goslings are weeping

The goslings are weeping

Because their mammy’s dead.

        Geese are not outside the circle of life. Death makes us all equal in the grief of those who love us.

The gander is mourning

The gander is mourning

The gander is mourning

Because his wife is dead.

        Microcosms repeat macrocosms. The goose had a husband, not a mere mate, and he mourns. (How? Black wing-band? Bordered stationary?) Note that the truth of this statement is bolstered; said three times, we know it to be true. (See The Hunting of the Snark)

Go tell Aunt Rhody

Go tell Aunt Rhody

Go tell Aunt Rhody

The old grey goose is dead.

        We return to our beginning. The old grey goose is dead. Aunt Rhody (whom, we now realize, may be God, Who observes the sparrow when it falls, the grey goose when it dies) survives.

The Blog acquires protection

One of the joys of operating a blog – even an unread one – is that the editorial whee! becomes allowable. Thus: “We wish everyone a happy Valentine’s Day,” or  “We are pleased to announce that the blog has adopted its first saint:”

"Little is known of St. Crescentia" says the footnote
And why would a footnote lie to me?
It goes on to explain that it is thought her death
Was once recorded on a tumulus near Paris.
This is the 21st century, though; the internet
Will tell me what the footnote cannot.
Crescentia, I learn, was St. Vitus' nanny
And is now deemed fictitious. Vitus, however
Remains the patron saint of actors, dancers, comedians
And epileptics. He protects against oversleeping ,
Animal attacks and being struck by lightning.
He is also the patron saint of Bohemia.
All very well, even fascinating, and I will surely
Invoke good St. Vitus the next time I am attacked
By an animal during a thunderstorm
Or if I worry lest a Czech dancer oversleep.

But back to Crescentia, who is obviously
The Moon, early or late in her month.
She will be this blog's patron.
Also the patron of things that wax and wane
Or are reborn after vanishing altogether.
If I had made the Moon a saint -- even if it was after
A long night of drinking -- not lightly
Would I evict her from my calendar.

One of the perks of being a saint is the ability to bilocate – be in two places at the same time. Thus, St. Crescentia , in addition to protecting this blog, will be available at surprisingly reasonable rates to other blogs, weddings, feasts and cameo appearances in dreams.

Private Means, On His Deathbed, Talks To Stevie Smith

Private Means, On His Deathbed, Talks To Stevie Smith

            When I was young and thought the world, if ‘twere wise, would fashion itself to my whim, I took a fancy for a soldier’s life, and ‘listed with one of the ignorant armies, which were always recruiting. The confused alarums were music to my unformed soul, and no one could beat me in Struggle and Flight. Still, after a bit, the clashing by night began to tell on me. Even the Sergeant Major, that mighty man, could not tell me why it always had to be at night. Couldn’t we clash, say at noon once in a while, saving the nights for carousing. “I’m sure,” I told him, that Arnold wouldn’t mind; it almost scans:

            With confused alarums of struggle and flight

            Where ignorant armies carouse by night.

            I still feel that the thing has a much friendlier feel to it, but he would have none of it. I fell into bad company, and when I wasn’t clashing I took to the companionship of the camp followers. Lovely they were, but all flawed in character. None but the meaner beauties of the night for the enlisted man! One of them, Miss Deborah Lint, became my boon companion. She had a tongue like a tailor’s awl, I’ll grant you, but I’d simply clash and so not hear a word. After our first child was born, we both settled some. She became sort of an irritable beauty of the late afternoon, and I applied for a transfer to one of the badly informed armies. The hours were far more regular, and the alarums less confusing. Too, we didn’t perform our exercises on the beach, which was all gravy as far as I was concerned. Sand don’t half foul up your equipment!

            It ain’t been a bad old life, all in all. I moved up through the ranks, retiring as aide to General Disaster, and Deb --- well, I’d take her over the moon any day, if the moon were on offer. I know I haven’t much time left, but I’ve few complaints, Miss Smith, and I’m right pleased to know you plans to put me in one of your poems.

Two page views from Germany

Or so Google tells me. Either sheer accident or there are two Germans also wondering why the rabbits would want to hide Spain. Or perhaps just one who wanted to double-check. This seems the more likely explanation; if you, lone German reader, find out what the rabbits are up to, please let me know.