National Poetry Day: The House of the Mind

Almost too late — but not quite — I have realised that today, October 6th, is National Poetry Day.  I haven’t managed last year’s effort suggesting ten poems worth reading, but instead, here is a poem whose eye-watering beauty and simplicity I came across the other day. 

It is the work of Joseph Beaumont (1616-1699) who, for all that he was Master of Jesus College, Cambridge, and then of Peterhouse, was content to distil into these four seamlessly-wrought quatrains quite a direct meaning, a quite uncynical, heartening idea.  And why shouldn’t he have been?  He has not left in a single loose end or spare word, and yet it is not at all sparse or thin.  How moving, too, is that English restraint — a mode familiar and understandable to me — that he allows to give way to emotion only in the penultimate couplet, and in a way that is all the more moving for its quietness.

I think that this poem ought to be much better known.  Happy National Poetry Day!

The House of the Mind — Joseph Beaumont

As earth’s pageant passes by,
Let reflection turn thine eye
Inward, and observe thy breast;
There alone dwells solid rest.
That’s a close immurèd tower
Which can mock all hostile power:
To thyself a tenant be,
And inhabit safe and free.
Say not that this house is small,
Girt up in a narrow wall;
In a cleanly sober mind
Heaven itself full room doth find.
Th’ infinite Creator can
Dwell in it, and may not man?
Here content make thy abode
With thyself and with thy God.

Ten Poems for National Poetry Day

Since it is National Poetry Day, there is no excuse not to compile a list (though inexhaustive) of some favourite poems that I think are worth sharing.  I think they might also appeal to any readers who consider themselves new to, or unfamiliar with poetry… or even ‘averse to verse’!  If they can be read online, I have given links to them.  Here they are:

1. ‘Moonlit Apples’ — John Drinkwater.  A poem to be whispered at midnight… ‘And quiet is the steep stair under.’
2. ‘Paddington: Mother and Son’ — John Masefield.  Perhaps the simplest and the greatest war poem I know; its whole weight rests on the slow and remorseless beat of the four final words.  It is not online but is included in this anthology; a good local library ought to have a copy.
3. ‘The Trees’ — Philip Larkin.  Why is it that only Larkin’s sour poetry ever seems to be quoted?  He was capable of sincerely beautiful poetic utterances: this is an example.
4. ‘In Memoriam: Easter, 1915’. — Edward Thomas.  Another war poem whose weight rests upon a few words, ‘left’, ‘should’ and ‘never’, and whose meaning drops into the mind slowly but catastrophically.  I have written about it more here.
5. ‘A Chorus’ — Elizabeth Jennings.  This poem sets off with great momentum and soaring majesty but gradually lowers its voice until, in the last lines, both its subject matter and its register are intimate and almost confessional.
6. ‘The Old Liberals’ — John Betjeman.  It can be read about half-way down this page.  I find this poem very moving, even though I still don’t completely understand it and am not sure how seriously to take it.  ‘Sad as an English autumn, heavy and still’ is one of the truest lines of poetry I have ever come across.  And there is something about the easy conversational glibness of saying ‘Ask at the fish and chips in the Market Square’ that is also powerfully sorrowful.
7. ‘Pilgrimages’ — R.S. Thomas.  It is about Bardsey Island, the ‘island of twenty thousand saints’, just off the edge of the Lleyn Peninsula at the tip of N. Wales.
8. ‘Love bade me welcome’ — George Herbert.  Another intimate poem: its gentleness has survived intact for nearly four centuries.  ‘But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack / From my first entrance in […]’ is a line so light and so even that its gentle beauty could easily go unnoticed.  And neither has time diminished the anguished remorse and disbelief in the protest ‘I, the unkinde, ungratefull?’.  Ralph Vaughan Williams also set it to music.
9. ‘Woolgathering’ — Wilfrid Wilson Gibson.  It can be read halfway down this page.  A whimsical utterance in plain English which can easily be learnt by heart.
10. ‘A Gable Wall’ — Maolsheachlann O Ceallaigh.  This poem, full of movement, lifts up ordinary life in order to celebrate it, as does most of his poetry.  I always enjoy, and strongly recommend, the rest of his blog as well.

There are many other poems that I could have mentioned… doubtless I will find an excuse to post them in the future!