• Tag Archives Swinburne
  • A Bit of Metaphysics for the Early Afternoon

    Lughnasa                                  Waning Harvest Moon

    “There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval..” – George Santayana

    Could have come from the mouth of a Mexica poet.  I can’t find the poem but I keep coming back in my thought to their metaphysics which makes life the puzzle and death the pregnant, vital reality.

    In another view life is a momentary interlude between a sleep and a sleep.  This is a line from a poet who interested me a lot years back:  Charles Algernon Swinburne.  The line comes from his Atalanata in Calydon:

    …In his heart is a blind desire,
    In his eyes foreknowledge of death;
    He weaves, and is clothed with derision;
    Sows, and he shall not reap;
    His life is a watch or a vision
    Between a sleep and a sleep.