Time and Memory

If Only ...

If only we could meet again
And curse the days of yore
Forget them and anew begin
And love, and love restore

 

If only we could change the past
And meet again in love
And shun our former ills at last
And all the pain thereof

Our hearts renewed could reunite
And one, and one could be
And we could live in love's dear light
Through all eternity

But time will not assuage the pain
That memory holds dear
And though reunion I might fain
I fain it false, I fear

-jwm

Love's Secret

Never seek to tell thy love,
Love that never told can be;
For the gentle wind doth move
Silently, invisibly.

I told my love, I told my love,
I told her all my heart,
Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears.
Ah! she did depart!

Soon after she was gone from me,
A traveller came by,
Silently, invisibly:
He took her with a sigh.

Of the Poem:

Love that is desperate is deplorable- it crowds out the emotional rapture that gentle affection evokes. That seems to be the point of Blake's poem here … let me explain.

Advice goes out in the first stanza: Never seek to tell thy love / Love that never told can be. As we’ll see in the following stanza, the ‘telling’ Blake refers to is that unduly adulation that suffocates the beloved; it is that almost servile disposition that begs and begs the for the love of the beloved. Never do this, says Blake’s voice. In modern day terms: desperation is a turn off.

Love, line 2 implores, is made possible where a desperation for it lacks (i.e. love that is not desperate can be). When love is rightly expressed through the silent and invisible speech of affection it is felt much like a “gentle wind” is felt (lines 3 & 4) – indeed, it is itself gentle, and not in the least imposing. But we see the transgression of this made in lines 5 & 6.

“I told!” “I told!” “I told!” … a wearying barrage of proclamations that, as said earlier, suffocates the beloved, and is deplorable. It becomes so unbearable to the young lady that she’s finally reduced to trembling, coldness, and even fear! Invariably he scares her away (line 8).

In the following and final stanza he notices how she’s wooed by a traveler who, following the advice given in the first stanza, expresses his love for her gently- through the silent, invisible speech of affection. (Notice the parallel of words between lines 3 & 4 and lines 11 & 12, and how the ‘sighing’ of line 12 mimics the ‘wind’ of line 3.)

The title of the poem should almost be, The Secret to Attaining Love, or, How Not to Screw It Up. The first stanza is a warning; the second stanza an example of the transgressing the warning; the third, of heeding it and achieving love (all this from the perspective of the transgressor).

Let me know if you guys are digging this poem, or if you have a different take on it (and there are different takes).

Awesome poem, Blake … thanks!

Love Unrequited

I write, and yet I've never wrote
Of heart-felt pain that love has smote,
Or love undying skirting death
Whose deep-blue heart holds heavy breath.
I've never woeful had to write
Of love's dark unrequiting night,
Nor could I fathom this the day
That she would have me so dismayed ..

O my- alas! my heart in throes ..
My soul abandoned to its woes ..
For love long sought seems sought in vain,
And now I'm reeling here in pain.

envoi

Still, even in this pain I pine
To bind with her (her heart to know) ..
And this despite the dismal signs
That warn me she increases woe.

-jwm