The Dazzling Dusk

Last updated on: November 18, 2013 at 4:08 pm by Fred Sanders

The Dazzling Dusk 2013-11-18T16:08:00-07:00 Fred Sanders

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

There are a few lines from a poem by Coventry Patmore that stick in my mind for their remarkable, evocative power. I first read them in a 1939 anthology by Walter de la Mare called Behold This Dreamer, a rambling collection of prose and poetry about “Reverie, Night, Sleep, Dream, Love-Dreams, Nightmare, Death, the Unconscious, the Imagination, Divination, the Artist, and Kindred Subjects.”

Smitten by the lines, I looked up Coventry Patmore and found that the lines were from the very long poem “The Angel in the House,” much of which I found uncongenially treacly. So I retreated from Patmore and stuck with the judicious selection of de la Mare. Less is more. In fact, one of the things I like about these lines of verse is that they capture the quintessence of romanticism, and I think I can see in them something that Wordsworth, though a finer poet, can’t manage to get across in a hundred pages.

Here are those lovely lines:

And then, as if I sweetly dream’d,
I half-remember’d how it seem’d
When I, too, was a little child
About the wild wood roving wild.
Pure breezes from the far-off height
Melted the blindness from my sight,
Until, with rapture, grief, and awe,
I saw again as then I saw.
As then I saw, I saw again
The harvest-waggon in the lane,
With high-hung tokens of its pride
Left in the elms on either side;
The daisies coming out at dawn
In constellations on the lawn;
The glory of the daffodil;
The three black windmills on the hill,
Whose magic arms, flung wildly by,
Sent magic shadows o’er the rye.
Within the leafy coppice, lo,
More wealth than miser’s dreams could show,
The blackbird’s warm and woolly brood,
Five golden beaks agape for food;
…
And, dearer far than anything,
Came back the songs you used to sing.
(Ah, might you sing such songs again,
And I, your child, but hear as then,
With conscious profit of the gulf
Flown over from my present self!)
And, as to men’s retreating eyes,
Beyond high mountains higher rise,
Still farther back there shone to me
The dazzling dusk of infancy.
Thither I look’d, as, sick of night,
The Alpine shepherd looks to the height,
And does not see the day, ’tis true,
But sees the rosy tops that do.

Literature

Previous Post

November 15, 2013

God Went Bowling

Next Post

November 29, 2013 First Lines of Theology Books

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Art Avant-Garde Blog Culture Education Education Literature Misc. Misc. On This Day Philosophy Podcasts Politics Theology Uncategorized

Select a Month March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does Jesus teach about serving others?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Only serve the rich Serve only family Whoever wants to be great must be a servant Never serve