[Redbook5:340-341][19880904:2022h]{Emptiness
of the Spirit
[continued
(8)]}[4th
September 1988]
.2022
[continued]
‘MERROW
DOWN’
(Just
So Stories)
‘THERE
runs a road by Merrow Down -
A
grassy track today it is -
An
hour out of Guildford Town,
Above
the river Wey it is.
Here,
when they heard the horse-bells ring
The
ancient Britons dressed and rode,
To
watch the dark Phoenicians bring
Their
goods along the Western Road.
Yes,
here, or hereabouts, they met
To
hold their racial talks and such -
To
barter beads for Whitby jet,
And
tin for gay shell torques and such.
But
long and long before that time
(When
bison used to roam on it)
Did
Taffy and her Daddy climb
That
Down, and had their home on it.
Then
beavers built in Broadstonebrook
And
made a swamp where Bramley* stands;
And
bears from Shere would come and look
For
Taffimai where Shamley stands.
The
Wey, that Taffy called Wagai,
Was
more than six times bigger then;
And
all the tribe of Tegumai
They
cut a noble figure then !
II
Of
all the Tribe of Tegumai
Who
cut that figure, none remain, -
On
Merrow Down the cuckoos cry -
The
silence and the sun remain.
But
as the faithful years return
And
hearts unwounded sing again,
Comes
Taffy dancing through the fern
To
lead the Surrey spring again.
Her
brows are bound with bracken-fronds,
And
golden elf-locks fly above;
Here
eyes are bright as diamonds
And
bluer than the sky above.**
In
mocassins and deer-skin cloak,
Unfearing.
free, and fair she flits,
And
lights her little damp-wood smoke
To
show her Daddy where she flits.
For
far – oh, very far behind,
So
far she cannot call to him,
Comes
Tegumai alone to find
The
daughter that was all to him!’
[–
Rudyard Kipling]***
I
suppose that both Nostalgia and Melancholy are veiled manifestations
of the Emptiness of the Spirit, although neither convey its fulness
[sic].
I tend to think of John Betjeman’s verse as the perfection of
Nostalgia; for consideration of Melancholy, one should presumably
read Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy,**** although I haven’t.
*[The
writer of this journal used to drive through Bramley on his way
between his home in Wales and the family home in Sussex several times
each year during the first decade and more of the current
millennium.]
**{cf
[[Redbook5:291-292][19880815:0935i]{Undine
(2) [continued]}[15th August 1988]]
291}
***[See
fn#*** to [Redbook5:336-341][19880904:2022]{Emptiness of the
Spirit}[4th September 1988]]
ref
[[Redbook5:336-341][19880904:2022]{Emptiness
of the Spirit}[4th September 1988]]
336
T[imes]
L[iterary] S[upplement] 19901221-27:1367[:] John Bayley, reviewing
Pinney, Ed, The Letters of Rudyard Kipling, Vol 1: 1872-89; Vol II:
1890-99: ‘The second volume ends in 1899, just after Kipling had
recovered from the bout of pneumonia which killed his eldest daughter
Josephine, the little girl who was “all
the world to me”,
as he had been writing to his old friend Stalky, now Captain
Dunsterville of the 20th
Punjab Native Infantry, only the day before he was struck down.’
This poem is almost unbearably poignant <901225>
cf
III [[Redbook3:9-10][19860907:0612b]{A
Dream: [(1)] The Bishop, the Priest and the Pale Spirit}[7th
September 1986],]
9; & Pray. <901225>
****(Or
was his Melancholy our (or my) Depression? <880905>)
[
“‘Merrow
Down
1902
(Notes
by Philip Holberton, August 4th 2014, from the Kipling Society’s
website: http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/rg_merrow1.htm)
Publication
The
poem first appeared in the Just So Stories in 1902. Part 1 follows
the story “How the First Letter was Written” and Part 2 comes
after the next story “How the Alphabet was Made”. They have no
title there. They appear as “Merrow Down” when collected in Songs
from Books and subsequently in Inclusive Verse, Definitive Verse, and
the Sussex and Burwash editions. When “How the First Letter was
Written” was printed in the Ladies’ Home Journal in December 1901
it did not have the poem with it. “How the Alphabet was Made” was
not published in a magazine before it appeared in the book.
Background
The
final verse of Part 2 must be the saddest verse in all Kipling’s
works. Josephine, his much-loved eldest daughter, died of pneumonia
in March 1899. (Kipling had pneumonia at the same time and almost
died as well. It was some time before his doctors would allow him to
be told of her death.) This poem shows how very deeply he still
missed her three years later.
Most
critics agree that Kipling’s story “They”, published in 1904,
is part of his on-going process of grieving. The narrator comes
across a house inhabited by the ghosts of dead children, recognises
his own daughter among them, and realises that he must not come
again. Lord Birkenhead (p. 314) links the story and the poem:
‘Kipling’s tender, personal side, so fiercely guarded, so much
his own secret property, was revealed cautiously in the allegory
“They”, and more fully in “Merrow Down”.’”
]
[See
[Redbook5:343][19880905:1150]{Emptiness
of the Spirit (2)}[5th
September 1988]]
[PostedBlogger30for31032019]
