Our Town by Thornton Wilder

Source of book: I own this. 

Last year, our library sale had a huge collection of Library of America hardbacks for sale at crazy-low prices ($3-5 a book). While I couldn’t get all of them, I did pick up a couple dozen to add to my collection. Two of those add up together to be the major works of Thornton Wilder. 

Because of the Covid-19 shutdown, I have been unable to see live theater for a couple months. (Kudos to local thespians for all the fun stuff they are doing online - you guys and gals are one of the best things about this town!) Instead, I have been reading more drama. 

I like this cover because it captures the sparse set, the use of the stars as a theme, 

and the way it asks the audience to fill in the scene from imagination.

I decided to read Our Town for two reasons. First, it is one of Wilder’s best known works - and it won a Pulitzer. But also, the movie version features the music of Aaron Copland, which I got to play a bit of for a movie concert back in the day. 

A small-town orchestra to go with a small town.

In addition to the play itself, I read the additional materials in this volume: three short pieces by Wilder on the play, plus part of the correspondence between Wilder and producer Sol Lesser as they worked together to revise the screenplay for the movie. 

First performed in 1938, Our Town seems fairly tame by today’s standards. But at the time, it was unusual and experimental. There is no scenery, a few chairs and tables for props, and the “Stage Manager” breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience throughout. Questions from carefully planted members of the “audience” also ask questions in the first act. These innovations seem normal now, over 80 years later, but were hardly usual at the time. The play also seems traditional in its values, but was perhaps a bit shocking to a 1930s audience. I’ll get to why on that later. 

The play is set in the fictional town of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, at the turn of the 20th Century. It is one of those “typical” New England towns with white clapboard houses, just changing over from horses to cars, and so on. To go with this idea and the sparse staging, Wilder directed that “It is important to maintain a continual dryness of tone, -- the New England understatement of sentiment, of surprise, of tragedy. A shyness about emotion.” 

In addition, as the state manager notes that the town is putting in a new bank with a time capsule (so popular in those days), and that this play can serve as a corrective to all the “official” stuff: a record of everyday life. 

And so the play is, in a way. But it isn’t just a snapshot of small-town New England and its ordinary folk denizens. It actually carries a modern (and timeless) message about the importance of valuing everyday life, and living in the moment. 

The play is in three acts. The first is that snapshot of two families in Grover’s Corners, those of prominent but not wealthy citizens: the doctor, and the newspaper publisher. Their children are tweens and teens, and it is clear that the doctor’s son may have a crush on the publisher’s daughter. One of the questions from the “audience” and the response are rather amusing.

LADY IN A BOX: Oh, Mr. Webb [the publisher]? Mr. Webb, is there any culture or love of beauty in Grover’s Corners?

MR WEBB: Well, ma’am, ther ain’t much--not in the sense you mean. Come to think of it, there’s some girls that play the piano at High School Commencement; but they ain’t happy about it. No, ma’am, there isn’t much culture; but maybe this is the place to tell you that we’ve got a lot of pleasures of a kind here: we like the sun comin’ up over the mountain in the morning, and we all notice a good deal about the birds. We pay a lot of attention to them. And we watch the change of the seasons; yes, everybody knows about them. But those other things--you’re right, ma’am,--there ain’t much.--Robinson Crusoe and the Bible; and Handel’s “Largo,” we all know that; and Whistler’s “Mother”--those are just about as far as we go.

This is a fun link to The Moonstone and the use of Robinson Crusoe as a sacred text. 

In the second act is the wedding between George and Emily, with a flashback in the middle to how they realized they loved each other. This act is pretty emotionally complex, with both George and Emily appearing afraid of marriage and commitment at the last moment, revealing their feelings to the audience through monologues with the scene frozen. 

Personally, this felt weird to me, because my own experience with marriage was so different. Neither of us had anything resembling cold feet or fear about marriage. (Irritation at the wedding planning process yes - we have agreed to elope if we ever renew our vows…) We weren’t naive, either. We both knew each other well, and had both good judgment and great chemistry on our side. Likewise, there was no fear of the honeymoon. And we had a blast in every possible way. Obviously marriage isn’t one long ecstasy - we have had our tough moments too - but we both have had more fun than we expected too. 

Perhaps one telling exchange here is in the incident where George and Emily realize they love each other. George has been so focused on baseball that he has gotten a reputation as stuck up. Emily calls him out, and he feels the weight of it. 

EMILY: I always expect a man to be perfect and I think he should be.

GEORGE: Oh . . . I don’t think it’s possible to be perfect, Emily.

EMILY: Well, my father is, and as far as I can see your father is. There’s no reason on earth why you shouldn’t be too.

GEORGE: Well, I feel it is the other way round. That men aren’t naturally good; but girls are. 

EMILY: Well, you might as well know right now that I’m not perfect. It’s not as easy for a girl to be perfect as a man, because we girls are more--more--nervous.--Now I’m sorry I said all that about you. I don’t know what made me say it.

This is a well-written exchange. Both are expressing flawed views - based on gender essentialism of course - that interfere with their ability to really see the other. But they are still a good match, and legitimately good kids. Wilder handles dialogue like this in such an understated way, but with a lot more nuance when you think carefully about it. A good pair of actors could take these lines in different directions, for sure. 

In the third act, we learn that thirteen years later, Emily has died in childbirth (sorry about the spoiler, but the play is 80 years old…) Several of the other characters are dead now as well, and resting in the graveyard. They are conscious, but waiting. Not waiting for judgment, but for the future. A future when they will see clearly and become most themselves. This is in contrast to the living, who live “in closed boxes” - caskets of their own, where they cannot see the big picture. Emily goes back to her twelfth birthday (against the advice of the other dead), and receives not pleasure, but horror at seeing how everyone fails to live in the moment, but are so distracted as to not really see or hear each other. 

This is the bit that I mentioned above that probably seemed controversial at the time. Wilder explains in the other materials, however, that it wasn’t his idea exactly - it’s from Purgatory. (Wilder does not appear to have been religious in the usual sense, but the play itself assumes some sort of transcendence and religious truth.) The positive vision of the future as the time when we all see clearly face to face rather than darkly through a glass is why I cannot say the play is in the least pessimistic. It is rather positive overall. 

The ending differs in the movie: Emily turns out to have dreamt of her death instead, and she is given a chance to live with the insight. The correspondence between Wilder and Lesser discusses this change - which Wilder approved of completely. In his view, the screen and the stage were different, and expectations were different, and killing a beloved character didn’t fit with the message of the play when done on screen. In the stage version, Wilder felt that it was clearly metaphorical, and the death of Emily was easily seen as a “death comes for us all” moment. 

By the way, the correspondence is fascinating. The portion reprinted was selected to represent the discussion of bigger ideas, rather than fine details, but there is a lot left of the viewpoints of the two men regarding the differences between stage and screen, particularly the different ways to convey the sense of the whole town from scenes which see only small places. Both men clearly care about the final product - and see it as fine art, not mere flashy entertainment. They both are congenial and admire each other. It was a good working partnership. 

It would be interesting to see Our Town on stage some time. Perhaps one of our local theater groups will take on the challenge someday.

One final note: Wilder is one of a very few who have won three or more Pulitzer prizes, and the only one to have won for both drama and a novel. Our Town was the second of the three. His 1927 novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey was the first, and the third was the play The Skin of Our Teeth. Both are on my eventual reading list.

 

Poems Second Series by Emily Dickinson

Source of book: I own this.

Although I have been a used book shopper since childhood (it runs in the family), I didn’t spend my hard-earned money on a new book until my teens.

The very first new book I purchased myself was this one - a Courage Classics hardback edition of Emily Dickinson’s Collected Poems. Dickinson was my first poetic love (followed immediately thereafter by Christina Rossetti.) I can even remember the first poem that spoke to me in that way - my first time, so to speak. It was Dickinson’s “The Bee,” contained in the poetry volume of The Junior Classics - a collection I still own. (Okay, I basically stole it from my parents…) That opening line, “Like trains of cars on tracks of plush” is still amazing. I believe I wrote something for a school assignment about it at one point. But anyway, I knew the moment I read it that I loved Dickinson and always would.

While I have read from this book many times before, I didn’t really start to sit down and systematically read through my poetry collection until 2010, when I started writing about my reading. I decided that the occasional browsing was nice enough, but too sporadic and unfocused to really plumb the depths of the poetic tradition. Since that time, my book pile on the nightstand has contained a volume of poetry, and most nights when I read, I start off with a few pages of poetry. Best of all are the evenings when the kids are in bed, and Amanda is either working, reading in the library, or knitting while streaming something. Because then I can read aloud and hear the cadence of the language roll off of me.

My particular collection of Dickinson is perhaps not the best. It follows the pattern of the early publications, and contains “the first four” of her collections as they were released. (First Series, Second Series, Third Series, and The Single Hound, plus her essays.) Unfortunately, it also follows the original editions in “fixing” her punctuation to match 19th Century standards. Thus, the dashes are replaced by boring commas and periods. I am not certain if the book contains all her poems or not, or how many are missing. But, it is a hardback, and must contain at least 500 or so poems - I haven’t yet found a poem that isn’t in there, so it may be complete. Also, it was affordable to a teen, and was in stock at the local independent bookstore. So I definitely do not regret getting it.

Each of the first three books are subdivided into sections: Life, Love, Nature, and Time and Eternity. Not all poems fit cleanly into these categories, of course, and I found a few that I thought would have fit better in other places. But blame Dickinson’s sister and later editors for the groupings. You can read my thoughts on the First Series of poems here.

Here are the poems which stood out to me most this time. It was difficult to narrow it down to this few, because so many are profound and meaningful to me. Throughout, I have used the numbering in my collection. Dickinson did not give her poems titles - those were supplied later. I have attempted to find versions online with the correct dashes wherever possible.

Life I.

I’m Nobody! Who are you?

Are you – Nobody – too?

Then there’s a pair of us!

Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!

How public – like a Frog –  

To tell one’s name – the livelong June –  

To an admiring Bog!

I have to wonder if Dr. Seuss had this in mind with Yertle the Turtle. While I am not quite as introverted as Dickinson, I share her dislike of celebrity.

This one is a bit of a gem. Every time I read it, I am struck with a renewed wonder at its depth of perception.

Life VI.

We play at paste,

Till qualified for pearl,

Then drop the paste,

And deem ourself a fool.

The shapes, though, were similar,       

And our new hands

Learned gem-tactics

Practising sands.

Or how about this one:

Life IX.

I can wade grief,

Whole pools of it,—

I ’m used to that.

But the least push of joy

Breaks up my feet,        

And I tip—drunken.

Let no pebble smile,

’T was the new liquor,—

That was all!    

Power is only pain,        

Stranded, through discipline,

Till weights will hang.

Give balm to giants,

And they ’ll wilt, like men.

Give Himmaleh,—        

They ’ll carry him!

This one bears a bit of pondering. I’m not sure whether I agree or not - for me. Dickinson’s own experience is another thing altogether. But the idea that we can move impossible mountains - but not handle joy - has a certain deeper truth in it.

Life XXXV.

EACH life converges to some centre

Expressed or still;

Exists in every human nature

A goal,    

Admitted scarcely to itself, it may be,        

Too fair

For credibility’s temerity

To dare.    

Adored with caution, as a brittle heaven,

To reach        

Were hopeless as the rainbow’s raiment

To touch,    

Yet persevered toward, surer for the distance;

How high

Unto the saints’ slow diligence        

The sky!    

Ungained, it may be, by a life’s low venture,

But then,

Eternity enables the endeavoring

Again.

There are so many good things going on in this poem. The message, of course, is amazing. The language is evocative. But notice too the form. The odd lines all end with a feminine rhyme. The even lines (except for the second) consist of a single iamb. These lines are therefore emphasized, drawing out the key meaning from each couplet. The poet also chooses either four or five feet for the longer lines, and as far as I can tell, there is no specific pattern intended. The length, though, does dictate exactly how contrasting the short lines are, and thus how much emphasis they get when read aloud.

Moving on to the poems in the “Love” section, here is one which imagines marriage as a shockingly mutual transaction. Dickinson uses the language of commerce to describe what is so obviously not transactional. This is metaphor that rises to the level of a paradox.

Love IV.

I gave myself to him,

And took himself for pay.

The solemn contract of a life

Was ratified this way.    

The wealth might disappoint,        

Myself a poorer prove

Than this great purchaser suspect,

The daily own of Love    

Depreciate the vision;

But, till the merchant buy,     

Still fable, in the isles of spice,

The subtle cargoes lie.    

At least, ’t is mutual risk,—

Some found it mutual gain;

Sweet debt of Life,—each night to owe,        

Insolvent, every noon.

Not too bad for a woman who appears to have never had a romantic relationship - and indeed seemed ill at ease around other humans.

Dickinson’s nature poems have always thrilled me. She spent hours in her garden, and clearly had a keen eye for detail. Many of these struck me as quotable, but I had to pick just my favorites of this reading.

Nature XIII.

ONE of the ones that Midas touched,

Who failed to touch us all,

Was that confiding prodigal,

The blissful oriole.    

So drunk, he disavows it        

With badinage divine;

So dazzling, we mistake him

For an alighting mine.    

A pleader, a dissembler,

An epicure, a thief,—     

Betimes an oratorio,

An ecstasy in chief;    

The Jesuit of orchards,

He cheats as he enchants

Of an entire attar       

For his decamping wants.    

The splendor of a Burmah,

The meteor of birds,

Departing like a pageant

Of ballads and of bards.        

I never thought that Jason sought

For any golden fleece;

But then I am a rural man,

With thoughts that make for peace.    

But if there were a Jason,     

Tradition suffer me

Behold his lost emolument

Upon the apple-tree.

I don’t know exactly which species of oriole inspired this poem, but it fits both of the common species in my part of the world. Such as this Hooded Oriole I captured at Cesar Chavez National Monument.

“A Narrow Fellow In The Grass” is definitely one of Dickinson’s best known poems. For good reason, as it captures a moment so memorably.

Nature XXIV.

A narrow Fellow in the Grass

Occasionally rides -

You may have met him? Did you not

His notice instant is -

The Grass divides as with a Comb,

A spotted Shaft is seen,

And then it closes at your Feet

And opens further on -

He likes a Boggy Acre -  

A Floor too cool for Corn -

But when a Boy and Barefoot

I more than once at Noon

Have passed I thought a Whip Lash

Unbraiding in the Sun

When stooping to secure it

It wrinkled And was gone -

Several of Nature’s People

I know, and they know me

I feel for them a transport

Of Cordiality

But never met this Fellow

Attended or alone

Without a tighter Breathing

And Zero at the Bone.

One of the most memorable moments of my own life is the solar eclipse of 2017 - which the kids and I traveled to eastern Oregon to view. There is absolutely nothing like it, and I highly recommend seeing one if you possibly can. Dickinson wrote a total of four poems that mention eclipses. I was unable to determine if she ever saw one in person, but I did turn up an interesting connection. Mabel Loomis Todd is best known for editing and publishing Dickinson’s poems. But she was also a skilled science writer. Married to a philandering astronomer, she was well versed (and experienced) in eclipses - she wrote an entire book on them. (She also had a long affair with Dickinson’s brother, so that was how they came to know each other…) So, it is possible that Dickinson based her eclipse poems not on her own experience, but that of her friend. Whatever the case, I think that she captured something of the feel of an eclipse in this poem.

Nature XXXIV.

It sounded as if the Streets were running

And then - the Streets stood still -

Eclipse - was all we could see at the Window

And Awe - was all we could feel.

By and by - the boldest stole out of his Covert

To see if Time was there -

Nature was in an Opal Apron,

Mixing fresher Air.

The next poem describes a storm - I quote it here mostly for the fantastic description of lightning as a beak and a claw.

Nature XXXVII.

The wind begun to rock the grass

With threatening tunes and low,--

He flung a menace at the earth,

A menace at the sky.

The leaves unhooked themselves from trees

And started all abroad;

The dust did scoop itself like hands

And throw away the road.

The wagons quickened on the streets,

The thunder hurried slow;

The lightning showed a yellow beak,

And then a livid claw.

The birds put up the bars to nests,

The cattle fled to barns;

There came one drop of giant rain,

And then, as if the hands

That held the dams had parted hold,

The waters wrecked the sky

But overlooked my father's house,

Just quartering a tree.

I want to end with a couple of the “Time and Eternity” poems. These too are usually excellent. Dickinson thought about death a lot, and had a rather agnostic view of eternity. I have heard the term used “The Big Perhaps,” which might be a less poetic version of “The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn / No traveller returns” but is a pretty good description nonetheless. Even for those of us who believe in an afterlife, those of us who think carefully and deeply have to admit that we have less certainty about this than we often pretend. Dickinson likewise left things pretty ambiguous in her poems. Which is one reason they feel so timeless. While she often alludes to eternity, more of her poems on death focus on those left behind, as in this gem.

Time and Eternity XIII.

DEATH sets a thing significant

The eye had hurried by,

Except a perished creature

Entreat us tenderly    

To ponder little workmanships        

In crayon or in wool,

With “This was last her fingers did,”

Industrious until    

The thimble weighed too heavy,

The stitches stopped themselves,      

And then ’t was put among the dust

Upon the closet shelves.    

A book I have, a friend gave,

Whose pencil, here and there,

Had notched the place that pleased him,—        

At rest his fingers are.    

Now, when I read, I read not,

For interrupting tears

Obliterate the etchings

Too costly for repairs.

This last one is just fantastic. It is sure a vast distance from the pleasant and accessible nature poems. Between the unorthodox meter and the gothic language and the insight into our darkest selves, this is one reason that I keep returning to Dickinson. I almost don’t even want to comment further on it, so I will just leave it here. Enjoy.

Time and Eternity XXIX.

One need not be a Chamber—to be Haunted—

One need not be a House—

The Brain has Corridors—surpassing

Material Place—

       

Far safer, of a Midnight Meeting

External Ghost

Than its interior Confronting—

That Cooler Host.

       

Far safer, through an Abbey gallop,

The Stones a'chase—

Than Unarmed, one's a'self encounter—

In lonesome Place—

       

Ourself behind ourself, concealed—

Should startle most—

Assassin hid in our Apartment

Be Horror's least.

   

The Body—borrows a Revolver—

He bolts the Door—

O'erlooking a superior spectre—

Or More—

Stiff by Mary Roach

Source of book: I own this.

I have to confess, there is something that makes me very sad about writing this post. To wit: I have now read all of Mary Roach’s books, and there are no more to read. I can only hope that Grunt, published in 2016, isn’t the last one she writes.

I first came to love Mary Roach via Bonk, her extremely irreverent look at the dark corners of copulation - as part of her research, she had a live MRI of her and her husband, um, in flagrante delicto, taken. Okay, so it was also part of a legitimate research project - which she of course volunteered for because that is what she does. It kind of made some waves, and I read about it somewhere, and decided to read the book. At that point, I read it on the sly, because I was embarrassed to tell anyone other than my wife about it. (I didn’t blog about it at the time for that reason.) Now, of course, having given sex ed to my five kids, and having essentially been evicted from our former church for political reasons, I would totally review the book in all its glory.

What did happen, though, is that I got a taste of Roach’s writing, and proceeded to read Gulp (about the digestive system), Spook (about paranormal research), Packing for Mars (about the gross parts of the space program), and Grunt (about the military.) In all of these books, Roach essentially finds the weirdest, craziest, creepiest, and darkly humorous things about her topic. Or, you might say, she pokes a broom under the dressers and in the corners to see what runs out. 

 

Stiff is Roach’s first book, written after years as a writer for Salon, New York Times Magazine, Outdoors, and Vogue among others. In some ways, it is her least irreverent. On the one hand, it might be because she didn’t feel as comfortable in her most snarky voice until she had a successful bestseller. On the other, perhaps the very topic of human cadavers inspired a certain respectfulness - and that is probably the best explanation. It is a sensitive topic, which Roach deals with...well, like Mary Roach would deal with such a topic. By finding all kinds of gross, fascinating, and disturbing, yet scientifically legitimate (for the most part) approaches to dead bodies. So, for example, while the 19th Century experiments in crucifixion seem more lurid than scientific in our time, they were treated very seriously back then. But there is a lot more than that. Roach starts with the way that cadavers are used for medical training, and ends with modern approaches to more environmentally friendly disposal techniques. Along the way, she looks at cadaver stealing, crash test research, organ donation, military research, and head transplants, to name a few.

This book, obviously, isn’t for the faint of stomach. Roach is nearly impervious to squeamishness. But she certainly is an entertaining, enlightening, and downright funny writer.

Epigrams and Elegies by John Donne

Source of book: I own this.

John Donne and I go way back. I remember reading a sonnet somewhere in my early days of discovering poetry before age 10. He was a bit over my head at the time, but I at least became aware of “Send not to ask for whom the bell tolls…” and “No man is an island” and a few other good lines.

I experienced a larger dose in high school. As I have mentioned, I took video courses from well known fundamentalist curriculum maker, which was a mixed experience. On the one hand, Mr. Collins, who taught two years of English, was a great teacher, and I learned a lot. He also subtly undermined the worst of the flaws in the curriculum itself, which, as I have come to realize, had problems. One of the biggest gaps was the near-lack of 20th Century literature. Likewise, few non-white authors made the cut. The other problem, though, was that the necessity of making everything about their version of religion meant that the facts were often twisted so they wouldn’t undermine the preaching.

In the case of Donne, this was particularly egregious. The claim was that Donne’s life followed the preferred “conversion narrative.” In his wild youth, he chased women (true) and wrote naughty poems; but then he found God, got married, and traded his smutty poetry for exalted religious poetry. This was, technically speaking, bullshit on a stick. Donne did get married (against her parents’ wishes), had a dozen children, most of whom died in infancy, and then was widowed when his wife died giving birth to the last child. (And no wonder, really.) He then lived another 15 years, and continued to write.

At all times: his unmarried youth, his years as a husband, and his long widowhood - he wrote both devotional and risque poems. This fact was highly inconvenient, however, to fundies. After all, in their worldview, it was impossible to be both devout and incontinent, or to be religious and profane at the same time. But Donne was. 

 The young, dashing Donne.

It has been seven years since I read Donne (man, time flies!), so I was overdue to open that book again. You can read my thoughts on his Songs and Sonnets collection here.

Epigrams and Elegies is a convenient way of grouping the two sections I read. The Epigrams are somewhat tongue-in-cheek tributes to the dead. And by this I mean persons ranging from real people to mythological figures to generic characters like “Liar” to inanimate objects.

Here is an example:

“A Burnt Ship”

Out of a fired ship, which by no way

But drowning could be rescued from the flame,

Some men leap'd forth, and ever as they came

Near the foes' ships, did by their shot decay;

So all were lost, which in the ship were found,

      They in the sea being burnt, they in the burnt ship drown'd.

Or how about the wicked humor of this one?

“Antiquary”

If in his study he hath so much care

To hang all old strange things, let his wife beware.

The Elegies are quite a bit different from the Epigrams, and indeed from what you might reasonably expect. An Elegy, poetically speaking, is a poem of serious reflection, typically a lament for the dead. In many cases, they are written in rhymed couplets - many of these fit that pattern - and are expected to lament the death, but end on a note of hope.

Donne smashes this idea to smithereens, choosing to write, not about death, but about love. And not in a way which mourns with hope, but instead takes uses brutally sharp wit and satire to examine the good, bad, and ugly of love, sex, and relationships. Right at the outset, with the elegy entitled “Jealousy,” he speaks to a woman married to an abusive and controlling jealous man, who wishes him dead, and encourages her to come on over and have a little nookie at his place, where the risk is less, rather than doing the deed in the husband’s bed.

Unlike the Elizabethans before him, or the Romantics after him, Donne didn’t exactly butter women up. And when he is mean, he is mean. “The Anagram” is a good example. Donne extols the virtue of a woman that is unattractive, and thus likely to be faithful. The title refers to his description of her face as an anagram: having all the same letters as beauty, but in a mixed up order. It is worth quoting in full.

“The Anagram”

MARRY, and love thy Flavia, for she

Hath all things, whereby others beauteous be;

For, though her eyes be small, her mouth is great;

Though they be ivory, yet her teeth be jet;

Though they be dim, yet she is light enough;        

And though her harsh hair fall, her skin is tough;

What though her cheeks be yellow, her hair’s red,

Give her thine, and she hath a maidenhead.

These things are beauty’s elements; where these

Meet in one, that one must, as perfect, please.

If red and white, and each good quality

Be in thy wench, ne’er ask where it doth lie.

In buying things perfumed, we ask, if there

Be musk and amber in it, but not where.

Though all her parts be not in th’ usual place,  

She hath yet an anagram of a good face.

If we might put the letters but one way,

In that lean dearth of words, what could we say?

When by the gamut some musicians make

A perfect song, others will undertake,    

By the same gamut changed, to equal it.

Things simply good can never be unfit;

She’s fair as any, if all be like her;

And if none be, then she is singular.

All love is wonder; if we justly do  

Account her wonderful, why not lovely too?

Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies;

Choose this face, changed by no deformities.

Women are all like angels; the fair be

Like those which fell to worse; but such as she,  

Like to good angels, nothing can impair:

’Tis less grief to be foul, than to have been fair.

For one night’s revels, silk and gold we choose,

But, in long journeys, cloth, and leather use.

Beauty is barren oft; best husbands say  

There is best land, where there is foulest way.

Oh, what a sovereign plaster will she be,

If thy past sins have taught thee jealousy!

Here needs no spies, nor eunuchs; her commit

Safe to thy foes, yea, to a marmoset.   

Like Belgia’s cities the round country drowns,

That dirty foulness guards and arms the towns,

So doth her face guard her; and so, for thee,

Which forced by business, absent oft must be, S

he, whose face, like clouds, turns the day to night;

Who, mightier than the sea, makes Moors seem white;

Who, though seven years she in the stews had laid,

A nunnery durst receive, and think a maid;

And though in childbed’s labour she did lie,

Midwives would swear, ’twere but a tympany;

Whom, if she accuse herself, I credit less

Than witches, which impossibles confess;

One like none, and liked of none, fittest were;

For things in fashion every man will wear.

Not too different from a certain Jimmy Soul song. Although Donne’s language is much more witty.

Even meaner is “The Comparison.” It is a comparison between the narrator’s mistress (who is all good and divine and beautiful) and the mistress of the person the narrator addresses, who is the opposite. It includes such gems as:

Rank sweaty froth thy mistress’ brow defiles,

Like spermatic issue of ripe menstruous boils...

And also a comparison of her vagina to “the dread mouth of a fired gun.” Yes, Donne could be naughty and mean.

Not all the elegies are in this vein, however. An interesting contrast is this one, extolling the virtue of an older - but not decrepit - woman.

“The Autumnal”

No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace

         As I have seen in one autumnal face.

Young beauties force our love, and that's a rape,

         This doth but counsel, yet you cannot scape.

If 'twere a shame to love, here 'twere no shame;

         Affection here takes reverence's name.

Were her first years the golden age? That's true,

         But now she's gold oft tried and ever new.

That was her torrid and inflaming time,

         This is her tolerable tropic clime.

Fair eyes, who asks more heat than comes from hence,

         He in a fever wishes pestilence.

Call not these wrinkles, graves; if graves they were,

         They were Love's graves, for else he is no where.

Yet lies not Love dead here, but here doth sit

         Vow'd to this trench, like an anachorit;

And here till hers, which must be his death, come,

         He doth not dig a grave, but build a tomb.

Here dwells he; though he sojourn ev'rywhere

         In progress, yet his standing house is here:

Here where still evening is, not noon nor night,

         Where no voluptuousness, yet all delight.

In all her words, unto all hearers fit,

         You may at revels, you at council, sit.

This is Love's timber, youth his underwood;

         There he, as wine in June, enrages blood,

Which then comes seasonabliest when our taste

         And appetite to other things is past.

Xerxes' strange Lydian love, the platan tree,

         Was lov'd for age, none being so large as she,

Or else because, being young, nature did bless

         Her youth with age's glory, barrenness.

If we love things long sought, age is a thing

         Which we are fifty years in compassing;

If transitory things, which soon decay,

         Age must be loveliest at the latest day.

But name not winter faces, whose skin's slack,

         Lank as an unthrift's purse, but a soul's sack;

Whose eyes seek light within, for all here's shade;

         Whose mouths are holes, rather worn out than made;

Whose every tooth to a several place is gone,

         To vex their souls at resurrection:

Name not these living death's-heads unto me,

         For these, not ancient, but antique be.

I hate extremes, yet I had rather stay

         With tombs than cradles, to wear out a day.

Since such love's natural lation is, may still

         My love descend, and journey down the hill,

Not panting after growing beauties. So,

         I shall ebb on with them who homeward go.

That may well be my favorite of the set, although there are so many good ones. Another that caught my attention was this one, with its musing on the dream of love contrasted with reality, and the question of whether one should prefer the love of dreams, or love as it is in reality, with all its pain and difficulty. In this sense, Donne has a very practical approach to love, rather than a dreamy one. His life wasn’t sunshine and rainbows, but he deeply loved his wife, and never quite got over her loss.

“The Dream”

IMAGE of her whom I love, more than she,   

Whose fair impression in my faithful heart

Makes me her medal, and makes her love me,   

As kings do coins, to which their stamps impart

The value; go, and take my heart from hence,    

Which now is grown too great and good for me.

Honours oppress weak spirits, and our sense   

Strong objects dull; the more, the less we see.

When you are gone, and reason gone with you,   

Then fantasy is queen and soul, and all;        

She can present joys meaner than you do,   

Convenient, and more proportional.

So, if I dream I have you, I have you,   

For all our joys are but fantastical;

And so I ’scape the pain, for pain is true;  

And sleep, which locks up sense, doth lock out all.

After a such fruition I shall wake,   

And, but the waking, nothing shall repent;

And shall to love more thankful sonnets make,   

Than if more honour, tears, and pains were spent.  

But, dearest heart and dearer image, stay;   

Alas! true joys at best are dream enough;

Though you stay here, you pass too fast away,   

For even at first life’s taper is a snuff.

Fill’d with her love, may I be rather grown     

Mad with much heart, than idiot with none.

I was also struck by some lines from “The Bracelet.” The basic plot of the poem is that his mistress has lost a gold bracelet which symbolized their love. The narrator rages - but not so much at her, but at the person who stole it. He calls down a series of curses on the the thief, using his imaginative powers well. Here are a few selected lines:

NOT that in colour it was like thy hair,

For armlets of that thou mayst let me wear;

Nor that thy hand it oft embraced and kiss’d,

For so it had that good, which oft I miss’d;

Nor for that silly old morality,       

That, as these links were knit, our love should be,

Mourn I that I thy sevenfold chain have lost;

Nor for the luck sake; but the bitter cost.

…

But O! thou wretched finder whom I hate

So, that I almost pity thy estate,

Gold being the heaviest metal amongst all,

May my most heavy curse upon thee fall.

Here fetter’d, manacled, and hang’d in chains,  

First mayst thou be; then chain’d to hellish pains;

Or be with foreign gold bribed to betray

Thy country, and fail both of it and thy pay.

I should also mention a line from “His Parting From Her” which caught my eye. I don’t know if anyone else remembers the “Spy vs. Spy” cartoons in Mad Magazine back in the 1960s. Well guess what, Donne was there first. The narrator and his mistress have to part, and he mentions that they have kept things carefully secret from her husband: “Have we not kept our guards, like spy on spy?”

There is a line that ends “Julia” that is worth quoting. It is the one elegy which is not clearly one of Donne’s poems. There appears to be a dispute about whether he wrote it or not. I won’t get into it, but just mention that it is a screed against a jealous and nagging woman.

I blush to give her halfe her due ; yet say,

No poison's half so bad as Julia.

I’ll close with the most famous of the elegies: “On Going to Bed.” I think this may have been the first of the “naughty” Donne poems I read. At the time, it was a bit shocking, what with its reference to body parts - and erections. It is a lesson in double entendres. But it is a good one, and now that I don’t have the degree of prudery I was raised with, I find it quite enjoyable.

“On Going to Bed”

Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy,

Until I labour, I in labour lie.

The foe oft-times having the foe in sight,

Is tir’d with standing though he never fight.

Off with that girdle, like heaven’s Zone glistering,

But a far fairer world encompassing.

Unpin that spangled breastplate which you wear,

That th’eyes of busy fools may be stopped there.

Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime,

Tells me from you, that now it is bed time.

Off with that happy busk, which I envy,

That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.

Your gown going off, such beauteous state reveals,

As when from flowery meads th’hill’s shadow steals.

Off with that wiry Coronet and shew

The hairy Diadem which on you doth grow:

Now off with those shoes, and then safely tread

In this love’s hallow’d temple, this soft bed.

In such white robes, heaven’s Angels used to be

Received by men; Thou Angel bringst with thee

A heaven like Mahomet’s Paradise; and though

Ill spirits walk in white, we easily know,

By this these Angels from an evil sprite,

Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.

    Licence my roving hands, and let them go,

Before, behind, between, above, below.

O my America! my new-found-land,

My kingdom, safeliest when with one man mann’d,

My Mine of precious stones, My Empirie,

How blest am I in this discovering thee!

To enter in these bonds, is to be free;

Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be.

    Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee,

As souls unbodied, bodies uncloth’d must be,

To taste whole joys. Gems which you women use

Are like Atlanta’s balls, cast in men’s views,

That when a fool’s eye lighteth on a Gem,

His earthly soul may covet theirs, not them.

Like pictures, or like books’ gay coverings made

For lay-men, are all women thus array’d;

Themselves are mystic books, which only we

(Whom their imputed grace will dignify)

Must see reveal’d. Then since that I may know;

As liberally, as to a Midwife, shew

Thy self: cast all, yea, this white linen hence,

There is no penance due to innocence.

    To teach thee, I am naked first; why then

What needst thou have more covering than a man.

Donne isn’t always the easiest read, and my edition retains his original spelling, which occasionally requires a pause to figure out the meaning. However, his language is so delicious, and his ideas deep and creative. I never fail to enjoy reading his words.