literary passport

paradise lost #22

Now conscience wakes despair
That slumbered, wakes the bitter memorie
Of what he was, what is, and what must be
Worse; of worse deeds worse sufferings must ensue.

Satan has found out where Paradise is and is winging his way to our destruction as Book IV opens. Is he a happy traveler in bringing us our doom and his vengeance upon the creator? No, Milton won’t have that at all.

paradise lost #21

Glad was the Spirit impure as now in hope
To find who might direct his wandering flight
To Paradise the happie seat of Man,
His journies end and our beginning woe.

Satan has made it through chaos and night, glimpsed the gate of heaven and taken a walk on the sun, but he’s still lost. Mankind, even when he was in Paradise, is the tiniest speck in the vast unknown of the created and chaos.

paradise lost #20

All who have thir reward on Earth, the fruits
Of painful Superstition and blind Zeal,
Naught seeking but the praise of men, here find
Fit retribution, emptie as thir deeds

When Milton decides to let loose upon those who would try to make paradise on this lowly, fallen planet he pulls no punches.

paradise lost #19

He with his whole posteritie must dye,
Dye hee or Justice must

There are two different dispensations with a third hovering above, between, and through Book III of Paradise Lost. 

paradise lost #18

        I made him just right,
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.

Free will. Now, here’s one tough cookie if you’re going to be putting words into God’s mouth. The problem is easy to see and every school child eventually poses the conundrum to their parents…

paradise lost #17

        but thou
Revisit’st not these eyes, that rowle in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn

Milton’s blindness is a tragic motif that runs throughout his poetry. There are moments when Paradise Lost steps away from its epic theme and addresses this personal loss.

paradise lost #16

For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four Champions fierce
Strive here for Maistrie, and to Battel bring
Thir embryon Atoms

We have arrived at one of the most horrific parts of Paradise Lost: Satan’s journey though the abyss and his meeting with Sin and Death.

a little visit to Dave Oliphant's "Woodville"

Woodville is a small town in East Texas. A small town where you might not think much happens. But life happens in Woodville, history happens in Woodville, reflection happens in Woodville. In fact, Woodville is the "alpha and omega of them all." All of what? All of the thirty poems about Texas towns and cities that Dave Oliphant brought together for his volume of memories. The memories in "Woodville" run in a group of unrhymed quatrains with a strong feel of iambic pentameter. There is no punctuation and no capitalization except for proper names. We are lost in thought. Thought that begins with the physical act of moving a china shelf from one side of the room to another, or at least the request that the china shelf be moved. For the wood in the shelf is East Texas yellow pine with concentric rings each holding its own history.

How many years? The poet begins with three, since that is when the shelf was found at a garage-sale. And with history we’re off to the races. Suddenly we are at the kitchen sink with the poet as he uses a knife to conduct the savage rhythms of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring playing on the radio. But this is more than personal history; this is mythic history writ large, for the music

     rips & tears into & through
all four seasons with their sun & rain
soaked by the rhythmic rise & fall
of that composer’s primitive strains

We are at the beginning and the end of everything. The virgin sacrifice, the call to the muse, the fertility of the poet’s knife as it rises and falls to the strains of Stravinsky’s earth-shattering invocation of death and rebirth.

paradise lost #15

As if (which might induce us to accord)
Man had not hellish foes anow besides,
That day and night for his destruction waite.

Well, that’s just not fair! After describing the fiery lake and the tortures the fallen angels are enduring, Milton turns and tells us that people should be more like these creatures.

paradise lost #14

The bold design
Pleas’d highly those infernal States, and joy
Sparkl’d in all thir eyes; with full assent
They vote

I’m always amazed at how close to a democracy Hell looks during the debate about whether to go to war or stay at home and mope.