Here we are at no. 400, and I admit I would have hoped for a more, well, celebratory poem. But I'm only the emcee, folks. I'm not sensing a groundswell for more metaphysical poetry, but nevertheless we have on our plate one of the bugbears of literature students, John Donne's "Good Friday, 1613, Riding Westward." The scene is that the speaker finds himself having to go out on business (and riding in the "wrong" direction) on the holiest day of the year for Christians, and he has to handle his unease about that. He manages to do that very elaborately. I'm sure you'll at least agree about that.

Donne has never been popular, except for his "No man is an island" prose piece and his "Death be not proud" sonnet. He published only a few poems during his lifetime, was virtually forgotten for two and a half centuries, and finally was discovered by critics and poets on the early 1900s. Intellectual poets such as T. S. Eliot highly esteemed him.

If one's view is that poetry above all is something to be explicated, Donne is the perfect poet. Anyone brave enough to explicate this? You might notice right off that lines 1-8 are an intricate conceit involving Ptolemaic astronomy.


LET man's soul be a sphere, and then, in this,
Th' intelligence that moves, devotion is ;
And as the other spheres, by being grown
Subject to foreign motion, lose their own,
And being by others hurried every day,
Scarce in a year their natural form obey ;
Pleasure or business, so, our souls admit
For their first mover, and are whirl'd by it.
Hence is't, that I am carried towards the west,
This day, when my soul's form bends to the East.
There I should see a Sun by rising set,
And by that setting endless day beget.
But that Christ on His cross did rise and fall,
Sin had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare I almost be glad, I do not see
That spectacle of too much weight for me.
Who sees Gods face, that is self-life, must die ;
What a death were it then to see God die ?
It made His own lieutenant, Nature, shrink,
It made His footstool crack, and the sun wink.
Could I behold those hands, which span the poles
And tune all spheres at once, pierced with those holes ?
Could I behold that endless height, which is
Zenith to us and our antipodes,
Humbled below us ? or that blood, which is
The seat of all our soul's, if not of His,
Made dirt of dust, or that flesh which was worn
By God for His apparel, ragg'd and torn ?
If on these things I durst not look, durst I
On His distressed Mother cast mine eye,
Who was God's partner here, and furnish'd thus
Half of that sacrifice which ransom'd us ?
Though these things as I ride be from mine eye,
They're present yet unto my memory,
For that looks towards them ; and Thou look'st towards me,
O Saviour, as Thou hang'st upon the tree.
I turn my back to thee but to receive
Corrections till Thy mercies bid Thee leave.
O think me worth Thine anger, punish me,
Burn off my rust, and my deformity ;
Restore Thine image, so much, by Thy grace,
That Thou mayst know me, and I'll turn my face.

W. H. Auden writes, in his "Under Which Lyre: A Reactionary Tract for the Times (Phi Beta Kappa Poem, Harvard, 1946),"

And nerves that steeled themselves to slaughter
Are shot to pieces by the shorter
Poems of Donne

amusing testimony to how hard a time post-World-War-II students had in interpreting poems like "Good Friday, 1613."

If explaining Donne was tough for Auden, I'll pass--thank you.

DWill wrote: You might notice right off that lines 1-8 are an intricate conceit involving Ptolemaic astronomy.

.

Well that certainly does just jump off right at you, doesn't it?!?

Needless to say, this won't go into my portfolio of favorites. All I could really get out of it was an appreciation for his use of direction, movement, turning, detour. Okay, perhaps metaphysical, but this would make a good plea for rush hour as well. I just can't get much out of devotional poetry.

And Gary, thanks for the quote! I love it!

oblivion wrote:

DWill wrote: You might notice right off that lines 1-8 are an intricate conceit involving Ptolemaic astronomy.

.

Well that certainly does just jump off right at you, doesn't it?!?

Needless to say, this won't go into my portfolio of favorites. All I could really get out of it was an appreciation for his use of direction, movement, turning, detour. Okay, perhaps metaphysical, but this would make a good plea for rush hour as well. I just can't get much out of devotional poetry.

And Gary, thanks for the quote! I love it!

You are a hoot. I just have to ask about the "good plea for rush hour" part, which I didn't get and which interests me at least as much as whatever Jack Donne is trying to say in this poem.

Some bad news/good news: we'll see quite a bit more of Mr. Donne in coming months. I think all of the rest are more approachable than "Good Friday."

Oops, sorry, dwill. Was just getting carried away there with Donnegetting metphaysically upset about all of his wrong turns and detours, heading in the wrong direction (spiritually)--West instead of East (away from the spiritaul point of focus)--and outward instead of inward. All of this direction changing and fretting about "the wrong path", so to speak, was making me crave for a standstill of movement. "We'll just stand here in the back-up until you have finally figured out on the map where you're going or at least turned on the gps or asked for directions. Take your time. We can just sit here all day".

Good one! And we should all make the following pledge: "I'm Donne getting metaphysically upset."

DWill wrote:Good one! And we should all make the following pledge: "I'm Donne getting metaphysically upset."

I have to say, it is very nice to see other people involved in this conversation! So often on Passion for Poetry it can feel one sided. Go team!

Saffron wrote: I have to say, it is very nice to see other people involved in this conversation! So often on Passion for Poetry it can feel one sided. Go team!

I don't know how to test it but I would not be surprised if Poetry is not the most lurked of the forums. Many people like to read poetry but hesitate to talk about it.

GaryG48 wrote:

Saffron wrote: I have to say, it is very nice to see other people involved in this conversation! So often on Passion for Poetry it can feel one sided. Go team!

I don't know how to test it but I would not be surprised if Poetry is not the most lurked of the forums. Many people like to read poetry but hesitate to talk about it.

Yes, I believe you are right. I can see that the posts are read many times. In fact when I made my post, I was going to make a comment to the effect that I know many read, but very few post. Come out, come out where ever you are!

I only post when I have something relevant to say...otherwise I feel I'd be wasting time. So, I lurk every time a new post arrives here, but I post when something catches my eye that I want to talk about.

So look out for me, cause I'm always here, in the shadows, watching.