{Emptiness of the Spirit [continued (8)]}[4th September 1988]

[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 20^th 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}[7^th 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]