‘ … if I should go where all is dark, / he makes my darkness light’ ... evening lights on the harbour in Skerries earlier this month (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)
Patrick Comerford
For my reflections and devotions during Lent this year, each day I am reflecting to reflecting on and invite you to listen to a piece of music or a hymn set to a tune by the great English composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958).
This morning [20 February 2015], I have chosen the hymn ‘There is no moment of my life,’ by the late Father William Brian Foley (1919-2000), which is set to the tune ‘Newbury’ in the Irish Church Hymnal (No 19).
This arrangement of ‘Newbury’ by Vaughan Williams is also used in some hymnals as a setting for the hymn ‘Jerusalem, thou city blest’ (see New English Hymnal, No 228) and ‘Ye high and lowly, rich and poor’ by Anne Steele.
This tune is one of the folk melodies arranged by Vaughan Williams. He found the tune in a collection published by Miss MG Arkwright in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society. There it was used for a Christmas carol, ‘There’s six good days set in a week,’ also known as the ‘Hampshire Mummers’ Carol.’
Vaughan Williams harmonised the melody for the English Hymnal in 1906, and set it to ‘The Maker of the sun and moon’ by Laurence Housman (1865-1959):
The Maker of the sun and moon,
The Maker of our earth,
Lo! late in time, a fairer boon,
Himself is brought to birth!
How blest was all creation then,
When God so gave increase;
And Christ, to heal the hearts of men,
Brought righteousness and peace!
No star in all the heights of heaven
But burned to see Him go;
Yet unto earth alone was given
His human form to know.
His human form, by man denied,
Took death for human sin:
His endless love, through faith descried,
Still lives the world to win.
O perfect love, outpassing sight,
O light beyond our ken,
Come down through all the world tonight,
And heal the hearts of men!
This morning’s hymn, ‘There is no moment of my life,’ which is set in the Irish Church Hymnal to ‘Newbury’ by Vaughan Williams, was written by the late Brian Foley. He was born into an Irish family in Liverpool, where he later served as a Roman Catholic priest from 1945.
This hymn is based on the principal theme of Psalm 139, and is one of 14 hymns by Foley in the New Catholic Hymnal (1971). Foley once wrote that he tried to base all his hymn writing “as far as possible on scripture and theology.”
It has an elegant simplicity and a perfect rhythmical structure. In some hymnals it is set ‘My Life in God’ by Elizabeth Poston, but it has been set to other tunes, notably ‘Gerontius’ by JB Dykes (1823-1876).
There is no moment of my life,
no place where I may go,
no action which God does not see,
no thought he does not know.
Before I speak, my words are known,
and all that I decide.
To come or go: God knows my choice,
and makes himself my guide.
If I should close my eyes to him,
he comes to give me sight;
if I should go where all is dark,
he makes my darkness light.
He knew my days before all days,
before I came to be;
he keeps me, loves me, in my ways;
no lover such as he.
Tomorrow: ‘Jerusalem, thou City blest’
20 February 2015
‘Lent as seen through the Movies’:
briefing notes for ‘Tom & Viv’
Patrick Comerford
This year [2015] marks the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the great Anglican poet TS Eliot on 4 January 1965, and the one-hundredth anniversary of his marriage to his first wife Vivienne Haigh-Wood on 26 June 1915.
Brian Gilbert’s 1994 movie Tom & Viv, which we are watching in this series next week [26 February 2015], tells the story of their turbulent relationship. They were married after a brief courtship, and they separated in 1933. But they never divorced, and it was only after Vivienne’s death in 1947 that Eliot married his second wife, Valerie Fletcher (1926-2012).
The film is based on a 1984 play of the same name by the British playwright Michael Hastings, and was adapted as a screenplay by Adrian Hodges.
The film stars Willem Dafoe (TS Eliot), Miranda Richardson (Vivienne Haigh-Wood), Rosemary Harris (Rose Haigh-Wood), Tim Dutton (Maurice Haigh-Wood) and Nickolas Grace (Bertrand Russell). It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Miranda Richardson) and Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Rosemary Harris).
Tom & Viv tells the story of a volatile marriage that was marked by what is ultimately a misdiagnosis of Vivienne as clinically insane. The film revolves not so much around its plot as it does the constant, highly-emoted turns taken among its characters.
TS Eliot (1888-1965) and Vivienne Haigh-Wood (1888-1947) met in rooms in Magdalen College, Oxford, and were married 100 years ago on 26 June 1915, at Hampstead Register Office, London. She was the daughter of Charles Haigh-Wood (Philip Locke), whose mother, Mary Haigh, came from Dublin and inherited seven semi-detached houses in Dún Laoghaire (Kingstown) that gave the family financial stability.
The film is limited to the years of the marriage, from a meeting at Oxford in 1915 until her death in 1947, a span that includes his writing of his best-known poem ‘The Waste Land.’
Their marriage is presented as a series of erratic, embarrassing outbursts on Vivienne’s part, but the film also captures the allure of the life to which Eliot aspired. He travels from the stateliness of Oxford to the country house of the Haigh-Wood family, with its dark wood walls and formal gardens. The Haigh-Wood family and its social standing evoke more passion from Eliot than his wife ever did.
One evening, when her medicine is failing to help, Vivien refers to their friend Bertrand Russell in a loud voice: “Bertie wants to go to bed with me. Did you know that, Tom?” Her mother (Rosemary Harris), with helpless concern, quickly ushers her from the dining room.
No 24 Russell Square, London, where TS Eliot worked for Faber and Faber, is now part of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
She follows Eliot to work at the offices of Faber and Gwyer (later Faber and Faber) at No 24 Russell Square in Bloomsbury and – denied access – she pours hot chocolate into his letter box. His second wife, Valerie, later dismissed the veracity of this episode. She said the doors at Faber were always open and there was never a problem about walking in.
Yet, in this movie, Vivienne ultimately becomes a sympathetic character, a woman misunderstood by medical science and disparaged by her culture. It may have appeared to Eliot and to her family that her behaviour was due to her desire to stake some claim on her husband’s poetic success. But long after she is committed to an asylum, it is discovered that a hormonal imbalance is responsible for her psychiatric instability.
One of the key scenes in Tom & Viv shows a spry and sane Vivienne being asked to solve two difficult logical puzzles. Tom is present during the interrogation. Viv gets one of the answers wrong and is declared insane. A few days later, with his implied consent or acquiescence, she is dragged brutally out of a café (where she has been calmly taking a toast and tea with her friend Louise Purdon) and hauled off in a van.
The makers of Tom & Viv claim it is a “truly passionate, tragic and wonderful story about an extraordinary couple who found great love but couldn’t handle it.” They say it enhances TS Eliot’s reputation by showing how his art grew directly out of his life.
The suffering this couple endured in their marriage undoubtedly contributed to the inspiration of ‘The Waste Land.’ But the film does not suggest this. Instead, Vivienne says “I am his mind” and it claims that not only that she gave him the title ‘The Waste Land’ but that she wrote parts of it too. Indeed, Michael Hastings says one cannot tell the difference between their handwriting on ‘The Waste Land.’
The film has sparked many allegations about Eliot:
1, That he took the credit for writing poetry, notably parts of ‘The Waste Land,’ that were written by Vivienne.
2, That he betrayed his deep love for Vivienne (and his muse) in his eagerness to become a member of the British literary and religious establishment.
3, That he was cold, ruthless and self-absorbed.
4, That he got hold of Vivienne’s money by becoming an executor of her father’s estate.
5, That he incarcerated Vivienne in a mental institution when she was in sound mental health, cruelly refused to visit her, and – while he went on to enjoy world renown – allowed her to languish there for nine years until, cheated and neglected, she died of heart failure at 58.
It appears Eliot continued to care about Vivienne after her breakdown or the breakdown of their marriage. During World War II, he wondered if she should be moved to Brighton or somewhere, with a private nurse, in case of being bombed. But why did he never visit her?
Is there any basis for the chocolate story? It is said that liked vanilla ice cream with hot chocolate sauce. One day he was eating it in a restaurant once when a man opposite said: “I can’t understand how a poet like you can eat that stuff.” With hardly a pause, Eliot retorted: “Ah, but you’re not a poet” … and continued on eating.
Contrary to the depiction of his character in the movie, Vivienne’s brother, Maurice Haigh-Wood, wrote a moving letter he wrote from the trenches in 1917 in the spirit of Wilfred Owen or Siegfried Sassoon. Her father, far from being a despised philistine, was a painter; her mother never reproached Eliot for his treatment of her daughter. Nor did Vivienne resist his going into banking, resent his conversion, or batter at the doors during his baptism and confirmation in 1927.
There are other emphasises that critics see as distortions in the movie. For example, it dramatises the honeymoon in Eastbourne in 1915, but Eliot’s mentor Ezra Pound makes no appearance in the film.
In this film, there is no depiction of the second marriage between TS Eliot and Valerie Fletcher. They married on 10 January 1957, 10 years to the month after Vivienne’s death. This second marriage had only eight years to run. He was plagued by emphysema, and he died on 4 January 1965, at 76. Valerie, then 38, was his literary executor. On the advice of Faber, she gave permission to the makers of Tom & Viv to quote from his poetry.
Valerie Eliot gave her life to protecting his memory and the copyright of his work. As a 14-year-old schoolgirl, Valerie experienced a ‘revelation’ on hearing John Gielgud read ‘Journey of the Magi.’ But she had read Murder in the Cathedral even before hearing Gielgud’s recording, and later sought out the rest of Eliot’s work. At 18, she resolved to work for Eliot. At 22, she became his secretary. At 30, she married him, when he was 68. At 38 she became his widow and his executor.
The greatest distress caused for Eliot’s widow was the thought of a public who do not know TS Eliot’s poetry, or who might be turned off it by Tom & Viv.
Some questions
Was Michael Hastings inspired by a throwaway remark by Edith Sitwell (Linda Spurrier), that “at some point in their marriage Tom went mad and promptly certified his wife”?
Hastings claims that Eliot “Stalinised” Vivienne. In his own entry in Who’s Who, Hastings does not name his first own wife and states baldly: “one d[aughter] by previous m[arriage].” Was he drawn to this by something in his own past?
Did Eliot have relationships with two other women, Mary Trevelyan and Emily Hale? Should the movie ask whether these are just two people who should never have married? Should they each have married someone else?
Is Eliot’s self-pity hinted at by the reproduction of ‘The Martyrdom of St Sebastian’ that hangs over his desk?
Eliot tells a roomful of admirers that “poetry is not an expression of emotion, but an escape from emotion.”
How important to you is poetry in conveying truth that cannot be conveyed in narrative discourse?
Tom and Viv:
Directed by Brian Gilbert.
Screenplay by Michael Hastings and Adrian Hodges.
Based on: Tom & Viv by Michael Hastings.
Music by: Debbie Wiseman.
Cinematography: Martin Fuhrer.
Distributors: Miramax Films.
Release date: 2 December 1994.
Running time: 115 minutes.
Cast:
Willem Dafoe: TS Eliot
Miranda Richardson: Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot
Rosemary Harris: Rose Haigh-Wood
Tim Dutton: Maurice Haigh-Wood
Nickolas Grace: Bertrand Russell
Geoffrey Bayldon: Harwent
Clare Holman: Louise Purdon
Philip Locke: Charles Haigh-Wood
Joanna McCallum: Virginia Woolf
Joseph O’Conor: Bishop of Oxford
John Savident: Sir Frederick Lamb
Michael Attwell: WI Janes
Sharon Bower: Secretary
Linda Spurrier: Edith Sitwell
Roberta Taylor: Ottoline Morrell
Christopher Baines: Verger
Anna Chancellor: Woman
(Revd Canon Professor) Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. These briefing notes were prepared as part of the programme, ‘Lent as seen through the Movies,’ organised by the Lay Training Department at CITI.
‘Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.’
Sunset at Skerries Harbour ... the venue for the Ash Wednesday retreat (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
19 February 2015
5 p.m., Choral Evensong
Readings: Psalm 25; Daniel 9: 1-14; I John 1: 3-10.
This week, there are two themes running through our chapel services:
1, The Spirituality of Movies: I began speaking about this on Monday morning, and this theme continues this evening, with the beginning of Lenten programme of Movies organised by David Browne for the Lay Training programme;
2, Lent: we began Lent with our Ash Wednesday retreat in Skerries yesterday, and from now until Easter we shall be praying the Lenten Collect in Chapel each day, and muting the doxology at the end of Psalms and Canticles, and no longer saying or singing Gloria.
But I want to draw those two themes together at Evening Prayer this evening.
Later this evening, I am handing out briefing notes for next week’s movie, which is Tom & Viv, the story of the fraught an turbulent marriage of TS Eliot and his first wife, Vivienne Haigh-Wood.
They were married 100 years ago, in 1915, and he died 50 years ago, on 4 January 1965. And apart from her health, physical and psychiatric, one of the contributors to the breakdown of their marriage, according to this movie, is Eliot’s conversion to Anglicanism in 1927, 12 years after the marriage.
It is a controversial argument, one that most of the critics and reviewers did not accept, and perhaps one that we shall discuss next week after viewing the movie.
The movie also argues, contentiously, that Viv was Eliot’s muse when it came to writing ‘The Waste Land.’
But Eliot’s conversion to Anglicanism, which was followed immediately by baptism and confirmation, inspired some of his greatest poems, including ‘Journey of the Magi’ and ‘A Song for Simeon,’ as well as what is regarded as his conversion poem, ‘Ash Wednesday.’ This poem has been described as “the greatest achievement of Eliot’s poetry.”
This poem was published in its complete form 1930, three years after his conversion to Anglicanism in 1927 and it appears in his Selected Poems before his other first Christian works, the ‘Ariel Poems,’ including ‘Journey of the Magi’ (1927) and ‘A Song for Simeon’ (1928).
Eliot was baptised by the Revd William Force Stead (1884-1967) in Holy Trinity Church, Finstock, a small and locked village church outside Witney, on 29 June 1927. Stead was a fellow American, a poet and the chaplain of Worcester College, Oxford. It was Stead who first encouraged Eliot to read the poems of George Herbert and John Donne and the sermons of Lancelot Andrewes. A day later, Stead brought Eliot for confirmation in his private chapel by the Bishop of Oxford, Thomas Banks Strong, a former Dean of Christ Church, Oxford.
The complete form of ‘Ash Wednesday’ was first published in April 1930, but three of the five sections had already been published earlier as separate poems between 1927 and 1929.
The poem deals with the struggle that ensues when one who has lacked faith in the past strives to move towards God.
‘Ash Wednesday’ is richly but ambiguously allusive and deals with the aspiration to move from spiritual barrenness to hope for human salvation. The poem is concerned with personal salvation in an age of uncertainty, where the weariness of giving up to a creed weighs heavily on the speaker:
(Why should the agéd eagle stretch its wings?)
“Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?
Eliot’s journey to Christianity was along a long and winding path. Yet this poem, which is not so much about God as a prayer to God, displays a great spiritual maturity in a relatively new convert.
‘Ash Wednesday’ constitutes the greatest leap in Eliot’s verse and life and the greatest pause in his poetic writings before the hiatus between his plays and The Four Quartets.
In ‘Ash Wednesday,’ Eliot’s poetic persona has somehow found the courage, through spiritual exhaustion, to seek faith. That faith demands complete submission, including the admission that faith must ultimately come from without because what is within has been exhausted. ‘Ash Wednesday’ admits powerlessness as a prelude to, or a requirement for, salvation.
Yet if ‘Ash Wednesday’ is about penitence, it is also about repentance. The opening lines, taken from Shakespeare’s Sonnet XXIX, use the verb “turn” three times. “Turn” echoes the Greek word for repentance, μετάνοια (metanoia), literally “changing one’s mind” – as the prophets called on Israel to “turn back, turn from your wicked ways.”
‘Ash Wednesday’ forms a personal liturgy. It is a song of death and hoped-for rebirth, a song of hope while doubting hope, a song of faith while seeking faith, a song of love for one who has known little love, a prayer for mercy that acknowledges mercy as undeserved.
The stairs in the turret in Holy Cross Church, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Most readers are familiar with Eliot’s references to the stairs in ‘Ash Wednesday,’ which recall his life-long preoccupation with Dante, who, in Purgatorio, has seven ascending stairs that encircle Purgatory.
Part I of ‘Ash Wednesday,’ ‘Perch’io non Spero’ (Because I do not hope), was first published in the Spring 1928 issue of Commerce along with a French translation. It draws on a 14th century poem by Guido Cavalcanti, and a versicle prior to the Mass on Ash Wednesday: “Deus tu converses vivificabis nos” (“Lord, thou wilt turn again and quicken us”). It also draws on one of the traditional readings in The Book of Common Prayer for Ash Wednesday (Joel 2: 12-17), which urges a turning – and a re-turning – to God: “Turn ye even to me, saith the Lord, with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning …turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful” (Joel 2: 12, 13).
Part I of ‘Ash Wednesday’ is composed of five stanzas with a couplet from the Anglican liturgy at the end. Each stanza calls for a different renunciation.
The first is renunciation of hope, hope in this world for past diversions that might threaten his new-found faith.
The eagle may be the eagle that represents Saint John the Divine in iconography – the Prologue of his Gospel later punctuates Part V.
Stanza 2 renounces the hope of fulfilment in this world, acknowledging that the “positive hour” of the “one veritable transitory power” is evanescent, thus the seemingly timeless moment of bliss or power in this existence is no longer a hope.
In Stanza 3, he rejoices in his own helplessness to change human condition, and so renounces the blessed face of this world and the voice of temptation within it.
If this sounds self-centred, then in Stanza 4 he defines what this entails: “And pray to God to have mercy upon us.” There is no going back.
Stanza 5 recalls the imagery of Stanza 1:
Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air.
Then comes a direct appeal to God:
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.
The concluding couplet reminds us that now and the hour of our death are really the same, and the pilgrim again asks for mercy.
Throughout the poem Eliot quotes from Dante, the canticle Magnificat, the prologue of Saint John’s Gospel, the Prophet Micah, the Reproaches, and The Book of Common Prayer.
‘At the first turning of the second stair’ ... the stairs to my rooms in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge some years ago (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Ash Wednesday, TS Eliot
I
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?
Because I do not hope to know again
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is nothing again
Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessed face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice
And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us
Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.
Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.
Concluding Hymn:
‘The place of solitude where three dreams cross / Between blue rocks …’ … blue waters and small boats in front of Skerries Sailing Club (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Eliot’s second wife, Valerie Fletcher does not feature in the movie at all, and was offended by the way her husband was portrayed. But in a light moment she once recalled that when he was interviewing her for a job as his secretary, they spent much of the time talking about the poetry of George Herbert.
So our concluding hymn this evening is a poem by George Herbert set to an arrangement by William Sandys, ‘Teach me my God and King’ (Hymn 601).
This reflection was shared at Choral Evensong in the Chapel of the Church of Ireland Theological Institute on 19 February 2015.
Patrick Comerford
19 February 2015
5 p.m., Choral Evensong
Readings: Psalm 25; Daniel 9: 1-14; I John 1: 3-10.
This week, there are two themes running through our chapel services:
1, The Spirituality of Movies: I began speaking about this on Monday morning, and this theme continues this evening, with the beginning of Lenten programme of Movies organised by David Browne for the Lay Training programme;
2, Lent: we began Lent with our Ash Wednesday retreat in Skerries yesterday, and from now until Easter we shall be praying the Lenten Collect in Chapel each day, and muting the doxology at the end of Psalms and Canticles, and no longer saying or singing Gloria.
But I want to draw those two themes together at Evening Prayer this evening.
Later this evening, I am handing out briefing notes for next week’s movie, which is Tom & Viv, the story of the fraught an turbulent marriage of TS Eliot and his first wife, Vivienne Haigh-Wood.
They were married 100 years ago, in 1915, and he died 50 years ago, on 4 January 1965. And apart from her health, physical and psychiatric, one of the contributors to the breakdown of their marriage, according to this movie, is Eliot’s conversion to Anglicanism in 1927, 12 years after the marriage.
It is a controversial argument, one that most of the critics and reviewers did not accept, and perhaps one that we shall discuss next week after viewing the movie.
The movie also argues, contentiously, that Viv was Eliot’s muse when it came to writing ‘The Waste Land.’
But Eliot’s conversion to Anglicanism, which was followed immediately by baptism and confirmation, inspired some of his greatest poems, including ‘Journey of the Magi’ and ‘A Song for Simeon,’ as well as what is regarded as his conversion poem, ‘Ash Wednesday.’ This poem has been described as “the greatest achievement of Eliot’s poetry.”
This poem was published in its complete form 1930, three years after his conversion to Anglicanism in 1927 and it appears in his Selected Poems before his other first Christian works, the ‘Ariel Poems,’ including ‘Journey of the Magi’ (1927) and ‘A Song for Simeon’ (1928).
Eliot was baptised by the Revd William Force Stead (1884-1967) in Holy Trinity Church, Finstock, a small and locked village church outside Witney, on 29 June 1927. Stead was a fellow American, a poet and the chaplain of Worcester College, Oxford. It was Stead who first encouraged Eliot to read the poems of George Herbert and John Donne and the sermons of Lancelot Andrewes. A day later, Stead brought Eliot for confirmation in his private chapel by the Bishop of Oxford, Thomas Banks Strong, a former Dean of Christ Church, Oxford.
The complete form of ‘Ash Wednesday’ was first published in April 1930, but three of the five sections had already been published earlier as separate poems between 1927 and 1929.
The poem deals with the struggle that ensues when one who has lacked faith in the past strives to move towards God.
‘Ash Wednesday’ is richly but ambiguously allusive and deals with the aspiration to move from spiritual barrenness to hope for human salvation. The poem is concerned with personal salvation in an age of uncertainty, where the weariness of giving up to a creed weighs heavily on the speaker:
(Why should the agéd eagle stretch its wings?)
“Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?
Eliot’s journey to Christianity was along a long and winding path. Yet this poem, which is not so much about God as a prayer to God, displays a great spiritual maturity in a relatively new convert.
‘Ash Wednesday’ constitutes the greatest leap in Eliot’s verse and life and the greatest pause in his poetic writings before the hiatus between his plays and The Four Quartets.
In ‘Ash Wednesday,’ Eliot’s poetic persona has somehow found the courage, through spiritual exhaustion, to seek faith. That faith demands complete submission, including the admission that faith must ultimately come from without because what is within has been exhausted. ‘Ash Wednesday’ admits powerlessness as a prelude to, or a requirement for, salvation.
Yet if ‘Ash Wednesday’ is about penitence, it is also about repentance. The opening lines, taken from Shakespeare’s Sonnet XXIX, use the verb “turn” three times. “Turn” echoes the Greek word for repentance, μετάνοια (metanoia), literally “changing one’s mind” – as the prophets called on Israel to “turn back, turn from your wicked ways.”
‘Ash Wednesday’ forms a personal liturgy. It is a song of death and hoped-for rebirth, a song of hope while doubting hope, a song of faith while seeking faith, a song of love for one who has known little love, a prayer for mercy that acknowledges mercy as undeserved.
The stairs in the turret in Holy Cross Church, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Most readers are familiar with Eliot’s references to the stairs in ‘Ash Wednesday,’ which recall his life-long preoccupation with Dante, who, in Purgatorio, has seven ascending stairs that encircle Purgatory.
Part I of ‘Ash Wednesday,’ ‘Perch’io non Spero’ (Because I do not hope), was first published in the Spring 1928 issue of Commerce along with a French translation. It draws on a 14th century poem by Guido Cavalcanti, and a versicle prior to the Mass on Ash Wednesday: “Deus tu converses vivificabis nos” (“Lord, thou wilt turn again and quicken us”). It also draws on one of the traditional readings in The Book of Common Prayer for Ash Wednesday (Joel 2: 12-17), which urges a turning – and a re-turning – to God: “Turn ye even to me, saith the Lord, with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning …turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful” (Joel 2: 12, 13).
Part I of ‘Ash Wednesday’ is composed of five stanzas with a couplet from the Anglican liturgy at the end. Each stanza calls for a different renunciation.
The first is renunciation of hope, hope in this world for past diversions that might threaten his new-found faith.
The eagle may be the eagle that represents Saint John the Divine in iconography – the Prologue of his Gospel later punctuates Part V.
Stanza 2 renounces the hope of fulfilment in this world, acknowledging that the “positive hour” of the “one veritable transitory power” is evanescent, thus the seemingly timeless moment of bliss or power in this existence is no longer a hope.
In Stanza 3, he rejoices in his own helplessness to change human condition, and so renounces the blessed face of this world and the voice of temptation within it.
If this sounds self-centred, then in Stanza 4 he defines what this entails: “And pray to God to have mercy upon us.” There is no going back.
Stanza 5 recalls the imagery of Stanza 1:
Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air.
Then comes a direct appeal to God:
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.
The concluding couplet reminds us that now and the hour of our death are really the same, and the pilgrim again asks for mercy.
Throughout the poem Eliot quotes from Dante, the canticle Magnificat, the prologue of Saint John’s Gospel, the Prophet Micah, the Reproaches, and The Book of Common Prayer.
‘At the first turning of the second stair’ ... the stairs to my rooms in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge some years ago (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Ash Wednesday, TS Eliot
I
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?
Because I do not hope to know again
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is nothing again
Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessed face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice
And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us
Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.
Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.
Concluding Hymn:
‘The place of solitude where three dreams cross / Between blue rocks …’ … blue waters and small boats in front of Skerries Sailing Club (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Eliot’s second wife, Valerie Fletcher does not feature in the movie at all, and was offended by the way her husband was portrayed. But in a light moment she once recalled that when he was interviewing her for a job as his secretary, they spent much of the time talking about the poetry of George Herbert.
So our concluding hymn this evening is a poem by George Herbert set to an arrangement by William Sandys, ‘Teach me my God and King’ (Hymn 601).
This reflection was shared at Choral Evensong in the Chapel of the Church of Ireland Theological Institute on 19 February 2015.
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