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larryhammerPoetry Monday:
I.M.: Margaritae Sorori, William Henley
A late lark twitters from the quiet skies:
And from the west,
Where the sun, his day's work ended,
Lingers as in content,
There falls on the old, gray city
An influence luminous and serene,
A shining peace.
The smoke ascends
In a rosy-and-golden haze. The spires
Shine and are changed. In the valley
Shadows rise. The lark sings on. The sun,
Closing his benediction,
Sinks, and the darkening air
Thrills with a sense of the triumphing night--
Night with her train of stars
And her great gift of sleep.
So be my passing!
My task accomplish'd and the long day done,
My wages taken, and in my heart
Some late lark singing,
Let me be gather'd to the quiet west,
The sundown splendid and serene,
Death.
Henley, another foundation writer of early Modernism,* is only remembered these days for "Invictus," but for a long time this was his other common anthology piece. "I.M." is "In memoriam," so if my rusty Latin can be trusted, the title is "In memory of Margaret's sister." (Edit: see comments.) The last stanza is carved on the headstone, facing west, over the grave of Henley, his wife, and his daughter Margaret, who died age 5 (after naming Wendy in Peter Pan). Biographies I've found mention no other children, still-born or otherwise.
* Among other things, he was the first English poet to use free verse.
---L.
Subject quote from "Tony," Patty Griffin.
I.M.: Margaritae Sorori, William Henley
A late lark twitters from the quiet skies:
And from the west,
Where the sun, his day's work ended,
Lingers as in content,
There falls on the old, gray city
An influence luminous and serene,
A shining peace.
The smoke ascends
In a rosy-and-golden haze. The spires
Shine and are changed. In the valley
Shadows rise. The lark sings on. The sun,
Closing his benediction,
Sinks, and the darkening air
Thrills with a sense of the triumphing night--
Night with her train of stars
And her great gift of sleep.
So be my passing!
My task accomplish'd and the long day done,
My wages taken, and in my heart
Some late lark singing,
Let me be gather'd to the quiet west,
The sundown splendid and serene,
Death.
Henley, another foundation writer of early Modernism,* is only remembered these days for "Invictus," but for a long time this was his other common anthology piece. "I.M." is "In memoriam," so if my rusty Latin can be trusted, the title is "In memory of Margaret's sister." (Edit: see comments.) The last stanza is carved on the headstone, facing west, over the grave of Henley, his wife, and his daughter Margaret, who died age 5 (after naming Wendy in Peter Pan). Biographies I've found mention no other children, still-born or otherwise.
* Among other things, he was the first English poet to use free verse.
---L.
Subject quote from "Tony," Patty Griffin.
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no subject
Date: 7 November 2016 06:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 November 2016 06:29 pm (UTC)Help, oh classicists reading along?
no subject
Date: 7 November 2016 06:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 November 2016 08:33 pm (UTC)I read both Margaritae and Sorori as dative, for what it's worth.
no subject
Date: 7 November 2016 07:49 pm (UTC)Shine and are changed.
I like that image best.
"I.M." is "In memoriam," so if my rusty Latin can be trusted, the title is "In memory of Margaret's sister."
It could also mean "In memory of sister Margaret." Were there other Margarets in the family?
[edit] If the poem was composed in 1876 and published in 1886, I agree it cannot have been written for his daughter and possibly not for any sibling of hers, since Wikipedia gives Henley's marriage date as 1878. The same article tells me the poet himself had a sister, but does not tell me her name. The internet is being very unhelpful about his family and about his wife's family.
[edit edit] Okay! In this collection of previously unpublished letters, I got a hit for "Margaret Mackie Boyle, Anna Boyle's sister." The same footnotes later tell me "Margaret Mackie Kennedy obtained a divorce from her husband William Wemyss Kennedy on 22 June 1881." I can't find a death date (or a birth date for that matter; I think I need a real library, not the internet), but I'm leaning toward her as the namesake of Henley's daughter and the dedicatee of the poem, especially since I also can find no mentions of other children.
[edit edit edit] I just got a hit for a gravestone for a Margaret Mackie Boyle in Edinburgh, died 1886. Henley's wife's family came from Edinburgh. I can't get a closer look at the photo (if it's even the right one) without a subscription, but it would match the above interpretation.
Which is not good science without substantiation. Does anyone have a biography?
no subject
Date: 7 November 2016 09:48 pm (UTC)Okay, if that really was published in 1886, that changes things -- from my edition of Henley's poems, I was understanding it was written in the mid-90s, which would fit for a daughter. (Which fit nicely into how it's on the family grave -- ah, stories, you mislead us so well.)
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Date: 11 November 2016 06:47 pm (UTC)http://blondesex.twiclub.in/?leaf.eden
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