A Psalm of Life

A Psalm of Life

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

                     'Life that shall send A challenge to its end, And when it comes, say, 'Welcome, friend.''
WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN SAID TO THE PSALMIST
             I Tell me not, in mournful numbers,

Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem.

II Life is real—life is earnest—

And the grave is not its goal:
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul.

III Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

Is our destin'd end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow

Find us farther than to-day.

IV Art is long, and time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating

Funeral marches to the grave.

V In the world's broad field of battle,

In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!

Be a hero in the strife!

VI
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!

Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act—act in the glorious Present!

Heart within, and ['Verse**] o'er head!

VII
Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us

Footprints on the sands of time.

VIII
Footprints, that, perhaps another,

Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwreck'd brother,

Seeing, shall take heart again.

IX
Let us then be up and doing,

With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,

Learn to labor and to wait.

** Original version read "God o'er head'. Changes are my own. 

The Time Before Death

The Time Before Death
by Kabir (version by Robert Bly)

Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!
Think . . . and think . . . while you are alive.
What you call “salvation” belongs to the time
before death.

If you don’t break your ropes while you’re alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the should will rejoin the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten—
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the
City of the Death.

If you make love with the divine now, in the next
life you will have the face of satisfied desire

So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is,
Believe in the Great Sound!

Kabir says this: When the Guest is being searched for
it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that
does all the work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.

I want to be with people who submerge

To be of use

by Marge Piercy

The people I love the best

jump into work head first

without dallying in the shallows

and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.

They seem to become natives of that element,

the black sleek heads of seals

bouncing like half submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,

who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,

who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,

who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge

in the task, who go into the fields to harvest

and work in a row and pass the bags along,

who stand in the line and haul in their places,

who are not parlor generals and field deserters

but move in a common rhythm

when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.

Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.

But the thing worth doing well done

has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.

Greek amphoras for wine or oil,

Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums

but you know they were made to be used.

The pitcher cries for water to carry

and a person for work that is real.

Give thanks and lie down in peace, Having seen your salvation.

Atlantis

by W. H. Auden

Being set on the idea

Of getting to Atlantis,

You have discovered of course

Only the Ship of Fools is

Making the voyage this year,

As gales of abnormal force

Are predicted, and that you

Must therefore be ready to

Behave absurdly enough

To pass for one of The Boys,

At least appearing to love

Hard liquor, horseplay and noise.

Should storms, as may well happen,

Drive you to anchor a week

In some old harbour-city

Of Ionia, then speak

With her witty sholars, men

Who have proved there cannot be

Such a place as Atlantis:

Learn their logic, but notice

How its subtlety betrays

Their enormous simple grief;

Thus they shall teach you the ways

To doubt that you may believe.

If, later, you run aground

Among the headlands of Thrace,

Where with torches all night long

A naked barbaric race

Leaps frenziedly to the sound

Of conch and dissonant gong:

On that stony savage shore

Strip off your clothes and dance, for

Unless you are capable

Of forgetting completely

About Atlantis, you will

Never finish your journey.

Again, should you come to gay

Carthage or Corinth, take part

In their endless gaiety;

And if in some bar a tart,

As she strokes your hair, should say

"This is Atlantis, dearie,"

Listen with attentiveness

To her life-story: unless

You become acquainted now

With each refuge that tries to

Counterfeit Atlantis, how

Will you recognise the true?

Assuming you beach at last

Near Atlantis, and begin

That terrible trek inland

Through squalid woods and frozen

Thundras where all are soon lost;

If, forsaken then, you stand,

Dismissal everywhere,

Stone and now, silence and air,

O remember the great dead

And honour the fate you are,

Travelling and tormented,

Dialectic and bizarre.

Stagger onward rejoicing;

And even then if, perhaps

Having actually got

To the last col, you collapse

With all Atlantis shining

Below you yet you cannot

Descend, you should still be proud

Even to have been allowed

Just to peep at Atlantis

In a poetic vision:

Give thanks and lie down in peace,

Having seen your salvation.

All the little household gods

Have started crying, but say

Good-bye now, and put to sea.

Farewell, my dear, farewell: may

Hermes, master of the roads,

And the four dwarf Kabiri,

Protect and serve you always;

And may the Ancient of Days

Provide for all you must do

His invisible guidance,

Lifting up, dear, upon you

The light of His countenance.

Parable of the Madman

The Parable of the Madman

- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900)

Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek God!"---As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated?---Thus they yelled and laughed

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him---you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.

"How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us---for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto."

Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars---and yet they have done it themselves.

It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: "What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?"

that's why they're called nobodies. Failures are unforgettable.

Failure - Philip Schultz

To pay for my father's funeral
I borrowed money from people
he already owed money to.
One called him a nobody.
No, I said, he was a failure.
You can't remember
a nobody's name, that's why
they're called nobodies.
Failures are unforgettable.
The rabbi who read a stock eulogy
about a man who didn't belong to
or believe in anything
was both a failure and a nobody.
He failed to imagine the son
and wife of the dead man
being shamed by each word.
To understand that not
believing in or belonging to
anything demanded a kind
of faith and buoyancy.
An uncle, counting on his fingers
my father's business failures—
a parking lot that raised geese,
a motel that raffled honeymoons,
a bowling alley with roving mariachis—
failed to love and honor his brother,
who showed him how to whistle
under covers, steal apples
with his right or left hand. Indeed,
my father was comical.
His watches pinched, he tripped
on his pant cuffs and snored
loudly in movies, where
his weariness overcame him
finally. He didn't believe in:
savings insurance newspapers
vegetables good or evil human
frailty history or God.
Our family avoided us,
fearing boils. I left town
but failed to get away.

further reading

meeting with the dark side of the moon

"So we do not descend to the bottom of the hill merely by seeing the dark side of ourself, or our friends, difficult as that is, Baba Yaga, in Russian tales, asks: Are you here to pursue a good deed or to shirk it? We reach the bottom when Baba Yaga's hostile boar energy has completely replaced - for a time - childlike eros which each of us felt when our mother set a breast to our mouth, or later set a cup of milk down for us at the table, or when our first marvelous girlfriend beckoned us to bed. These loves are all well; but descent is complete when both have been replaced by the boar-tusked, hog bristled, big-mouthed, skull-necklaced, insanely high-spirited energy of Baba Yaga.

Something wants us there, wants the meeting with the Dark Queen, wants the boar to open his mouth, wants Grendel's pool to fill with blood, wants the swords to melt, wants the Giantess to put the boy in her sack.

Young men in our culture often imagine, when they look forward to meeting Baba Yaga, that they can "kill" her. They imagine annihilation, total victory; but the stories make clear that such fantasies belong to the uninitiated men. The only solution to power of the witch is for the young man to develop energy as great as hers, as harsh, as wild, as shrewd, as clear in its desire. When a young man arrives at her house, proves himself to be up too her level of intensity, purpose, and respect for the truth, she will sometimes say, "Okay, what do you want to know?" -- Robert Bly from "Iron John"

And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns

Locksley Hall (an excerpt)

- Alfred Lord Tennyson

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;

...
Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.

There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.
...
. . . Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns.

Full Text

Long live the weeds

Inversnaid

- Gerard Manley Hopkins

This darksome burn, horseback brown,

His rollrock highroad roaring down,

In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam

Flutes and low to the lake falls home.

A windpuff-bonnet of fawn-froth

Turns and twindles over the broth

Of a pool so pitchblack, fell-frowning,

It rounds and rounds despair to drowning.

Degged with dew, dappled with dew

Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,

Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,

And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.

What would the world be, once bereft

Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,

O let them be left, wildness and wet;

Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

"Darksom" = 'dark' + 'handsome', "Burn" = small stream, "Coop" = "enclosed hollow" (definition from Hopkins' notebook), "Twindles" = a mixture of 'twists', "Windpuff-bonnet" = froth which sits on the water like a hat; or rides it like a sail (an older meaning of bonnet), 'twitches' and 'dwindles', "Degged" = sprinkled (Scots dialect), "Groins" = curved edges, "Braes" = steep bank or hillside (Scots dialect),

via

the wind left. And I wept. And I said to myself

The Wind, One Brilliant Day

- Antonio Machado

Translated by Robert Bly

The wind, one brilliant day, called

to my soul with an odor of jasmine.

"In return for the odor of my jasmine,

I'd like all the odor of your roses."

"I have no roses; all the flowers

in my garden are dead."

"Well then, I'll take the withered petals

and the yellow leaves and the waters of the fountain."

the wind left. And I wept. And I said to myself:

"What have you done with the garden that was entrusted to you?"

Life is always on the edge of death...

“The real damage is done by those millions who want to ‘survive.’ The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves—or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honour, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small.

"It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you. But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn."

Sophie Scholl: Die letzten Tage (2005). Quote from Sophie Scholl, a student leader of the peaceful anti-government resistance group the White Rose in 1940s Germany. She was a biology major at the University of Munich. She was beheaded by the National Socialists in February, 1943.

via

The Garden

- Hafiz (1320 - 1389)

Translated by Robert Bly

The garden is breathing out the air of Paradise today,
Toward me, a friend with a sweet nature, and this wine.

It's all right for the beggar to brag that he is a King today.
His royal tent is a shadow thrown by a cloud; his throne room is a sown field.

This meadow is composing a tale of a spring day in May;
The serious man lets the future go and accepts the cash now.

Do you really believe your enemy will be faithful to you?
The candle the hermit lights goes out in the worldly church.

Make your soul strong then by feeding it the secret wine.
When we have turned to dust, this rotten world will press our dust into bricks.

My life is a black book. But don't rebuke me too much.
No person can ever read the words written on his own forehead.

When Hafez's coffin comes by, it'll be all right to follow behind.
Although he is a captive of sin, he is on his way to the Garden.

A Farm For The Future

When you strip without being ashamed

37. His disciples said, "When will you appear to us, and when will we see you?"

Jesus said, "When you strip without being ashamed, and you take your clothes and put them under your feet like little children and trample then, then [you] will see the son of the living one and you will not be afraid."

48. Jesus said, "If two make peace with each other in a single house, they will say to the mountain, 'Move from here!' and it will move."

53. His disciples said to him, "Is circumcision useful or not?"

He said to them, "If it were useful, their father would produce children already circumcised from their mother. Rather, the true circumcision in spirit has become profitable in every respect."

54. Jesus said, "Congratulations to the poor, for to you belongs Heaven's kingdom."

112. Jesus said, "Damn the flesh that depends on the soul. Damn the soul that depends on the flesh."

113. His disciples said to him, "When will the kingdom come?"

"It will not come by watching for it. It will not be said, 'Look, here!' or 'Look, there!' Rather, the Father's kingdom is spread out upon the earth, and people don't see it."

via The Gospel of Thomas

the line's open, though the higher purposes are away from their desks

Self Help

- William Matthews

It would be good to feel good about yourself for good.

The air is slurred, the seas are fouled, the body

the soul wrangle constantly, like Freud and Jung

in their endless duet from Ll Cuore in Maschera.

Can it be, that fully and accurately to throb, woofer

and tweeter pulsating as one, with your own emotions

is the fullest expression of the life force,

or whichever whispers over the dark waters set all

this lavish and heartbreaking fuss in motion? There must be

some higher purpose to whose faint signal you could,

so to speak, tune yourself in. You'd need ears like a pair

of vacuum cleaners. Maybe the static and dry-icy gossip

of space would come to seem comforting, and anomalous

noises, such as the one that sounded like the thinnest film

of foil, as long as a galaxy perhaps, being unwrinkled

for recycling, would also seem comforting, like a dial

tone: the line's open, though the higher purposes are away

from their desks. Despite the expense and crimped ear,

you would stay on the line, steadfast and unnumbable,

alert for the faintest bruit; might not the most minuscule

dapples of sound turn out to be duff-begrimed specklets

of instruction? You want to be one on whom nothing

was lost, but space never sleeps and you do, adrift,

with a dark and a lit side, and a noiseless momentum.

But wait. At last there's a message, faint as the rasp

of a match being struck on the bottom of a well, and it's

for you. Eat less flesh. Compare yourself carefully

to your neighbor. Don't tread on me. Let there be ego

where one there was id. Know what free advice is worth.

God weeps for the helpless, and without a sound.