Lifted Up

I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.

John 12:32

Uplifted

Beyond the mystic’s hope I hope
To know the higher sky
To live and breathe that vaulted slope
Where seraphs joyous fly

O raise me from this solemn earth
And place me in the blue
And grant renewal, newer birth
And clad me in thy hue

Let henceforth fairer blue skies reign
Where fowl in cadence stroll
Release me from this bond, this chain
This flesh, and free my soul

Let bright blue stars their auras lend
Whose phosphor lights I see
And all those truths that do transcend
Ah, draw them unto me

-jwm



Of the Poem (Parameters and Notes):

Stanza: Ballad, Common Measure, Quatrain
Meter: Alternates between a tetrameter (8 syllables per line), and a trimeter (6 syllables)
Rhyme Scheme: abab per individual stanza

I wrote this poem as a sort of counter-sequel to a poem I wrote and dedicated to Anne Sexton.

I named the poem, Touch the Sky. That particular poem speaks on Sexton’s desire to kill herself ('to negate flesh') and my astonishment and grief that she did. It's pretty good, you should check it out.

The imagery employed in that poem is somewhat similar to the imagery employed in this one- namely, sky verses earth. The difference between the two poems, however, and the reason this current one is a counter-sequel, is that Sexton literally took her life to escape this earthly realm, while this poem speaks of the desire to be one with God and everything that pertains to Him, the desire to cast off- not kill- the flesh.

Hope you guys like it. Happy National Poetry Month!!


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About the sub-quote, it’s from John 12:32 and refers to Jesus’ crucifixion. While acknowledging the historical reference of the verse, I’ve always found a symbol (in fact, many symbols) hidden away in that statement. This particular poem is inspired by one of those interpretations.

The ‘earth’ represents the flesh, or that which is merely corporeal, or worldly. The 'sky' represents the spirit and that which is spiritual or heavenly.

To be ‘lifted up from the earth’ signifies a receding or drawing away from things of the flesh, or that which is worldly. At the same time, it also represents an increase in that which is spiritual and heavenly (since the ‘lifting up’ is a lifting up toward the sky).

I take, in this particular case, the word ‘man’ to symbolize spiritual truths; and so, to ‘draw all men unto me’ simply signifies exposure to spiritual truths, truths that transcend that which is merely corporeal.

The crucifixion itself was an actual act of sacrifice, and therefore, latent in the poem is the idea that departing from the base things of the flesh to attain the noble things of the spirit requires sacrifice.

Interestingly, and I love this fact, the words ‘holy’ and ‘saint’ and ‘sanctification’ all imply a state of separation in the Bible- that is, a separation and departure from that which is not of God. This poem implies that idea of separation, a separation that brings one closer to God, and one that increases propriety. In fact, the point of the poem is exceedingly akin to one of my favorite quotes:

We ought to fly away from the earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise.
-Plato-

Comus in the Margins

There's a poem quoted in the margins of one of Benjamin Jowett's translations of the works of Plato- specifically the book of Phaedo. The quote there was to serve as a comparison to what Socrates was elaborating on, namely, how some spirits are still so carnally-minded after death that they are so weighed down by it that they cannot ascend to the heavenly world ...

But the soul which has been polluted, and is impure at the time of her departure, and is the companion and servant of the body always, and is in love with and fascinated by the body and by the desires and pleasures of the body, until she is led to believe that the truth only exists in a bodily form, which a man may touch and see and taste, and use for the purposes of his lusts,—the soul, I mean, accustomed to hate and fear and avoid the intellectual principle, which to the bodily eye is dark and invisible, and can be attained only by philosophy;—do you suppose that such a soul will depart pure and unalloyed?

She is held fast by the corporeal, which the continual association and constant care of the body have wrought into her nature.

And this corporeal element, my friend, is burdensome and weighty and earthly, and is visible; a soul thus hampered is depressed and dragged down again into the visible world, because she is afraid of the invisible and of the other world- prowling about tombs and sepulchers, near which, as they tell us, are seen certain ghostly apparitions of souls, spectres emanating from souls that have not departed pure, but still retain something of the visible element: which is why they can be seen.

-Phaedo, 80

Jowett, or perhaps the publishers, thought that a good comparison of the thought above might be found in a section of a poem entitled Comus, and so it was inserted …

But, when lust,
By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk,
But most by lewd and lavish act of sin,
Lets in defilement to the inward parts,
The soul grows clotted by contagion,
Imbodies, and imbrutes, till she quite lose
The divine property of her first being.
Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp
Oft seen in charnel-vaults and sepulchers,
Lingering and sitting by a new-made grave,
As loth to leave the body that it loved,
And linked itself by carnal sensuality
To a degenerate and degraded state.

-Comus, 469

Now I can’t be certain of the exact time I first read those lines, but it was definitely prior to 1995, and therefore prior to my formal introduction to poetry. I mention this because the poet who wrote those lines, John Milton, is the selfsame poet whose works pulled me deep into the realm of poetry years later (which I mention in an earlier post).

I should probably be clear on something here, or rather on two points.

First of all, John Milton is a man- no more and no less than I am. Although he happens to be my favorite poet, my praises to him resemble that of praises I’d render to a friend.

Nevertheless, and secondly (and the self-reflecting point of this post), I find it fascinating that his poetic influence reached further back than I had imagined. I must have read and reread that margin note twenty times or more, and never once- until recently- did it occur to me to find out who was responsible for those lines.

It goes without saying, when I did find out who was responsible for those lines, it reaffirmed the aesthetic preference I have for his style of writing- not to mention I was amazed and happy about it.

One of the very first things I did when I set this blog up was to indicate why poetry interests me. I wrote:

My longstanding interest in philosophy and theology- both sparked by my interest and belief in God- are what brought me to poetry, hence here.

Isn’t it delightfully coincidental that my first exposure to Milton was while reading Phaedo years ago- a deeply philosophical work whose subject revolves around the question of life after death and immortality? I believe that it’s questions like these, ultimately, that brought me to poetry … even more so, respectfully, than Milton.


Side Note: The above link under Phaedo leads to an awesome lecture that I recommend checking out.

In an Artist's Studio: Rossetti Poem

One face looks out from all his canvasses,
One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans;
We found her hidden just behind those screens,
That mirror gave back all her loveliness.
A queen in opal or in ruby dress,
A nameless girl in freshest summer greens,
A saint, an angel; -- every canvass means
The same one meaning, neither more nor less.
He feeds upon her face by day and night,
And she with true kind eyes looks back on him
Fair as the moon and joyfull as the light;
Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim;
Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright;
Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.


Of the Poem:

This happens to be the very first one of Christina Rossetti’s poems that I came to read. While reading it, what first came to mind was the kind of insatiable passion that consumes a person so much so that the object of their desire is reflected in everything they see, hear, or do.

Next was my thought of Plato, who believed that the beautiful objects we behold in our existence are no more than mere reflections or copies of a higher Beauty- a Beauty whose eternal idea and form transcend the temporal and spacial beauties we see in this all too human realm.

Although Christina's poetic use of an artist's studio is quite natural (considering her background with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood), that very first impression mentioned above was not that it represented a particular artist, or a woman, or even art itself ... rather, it seemed to represent an obsession of passion, and not necessarily in the negative sense of obsession. Turns out that initial thought might not have been far off from the poet's intention.

Her brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, was one of the leading artists of the Brotherhood and had a many young ladies to model for his works. One in particular was Elizabeth Siddal- a somewhat tall, slender, beautiful girl with 'copper' color hair. He was immediately taken by her. And after a short period of modeling for him, he dropped almost all of his other models, and stopped her from modeling for fellow artists. She became very quickly his sole consuming subject- not only in his drawings and paintings, but his poems too.

Unfortunately, Siddal's story is a sad one. Already prone to melancholy and illness, the still birth of her daughter only served to exasperate her problems. After becoming pregnant again, Siddal overdoses on laudanum. It's unclear whether or not this was an accident.

In 1863, a year after her death, Dante produced Beata-Beatrix (the painting above), where his beloved 'Lizzy' bore representation of a praying Beatrice. There's no question that the bulk of Dante's works of art centered on Elizabeth Siddal, that there was within him an insatiable desire to know her beauty and represent it in those works. Obviously I don't know the finer details of their relationship, but I'd like to imagine a time that they were immutably in love, so that even when apart they were together. Edith Piaf's song, Tu Es Partout, contains lyrics to the like:

Tu es partout car tu es dans mon coeur
Tu es partout car tu es mon bonheur
Toutes les choses qui sont autour de moi
Meme la vie ne represente que toi
Des fois je reve que je suis dans tes bras
Et qu'a l'oreille tu me parles tout bas
Tu dis des choses qui font fermer les yeux
Et moi je trouve ca merveilleux

English Translation:

You are everywhere because you are in my heart
You are everywhere because you are my happiness
Everything that is around me
Even life does not represent you
Sometimes I dream that I am in your arms
And you speak softly in my ear
You tell me things that make me close my eyes
And I find that marvelous

I imagine that this is the point of Rossetti's poem (that is, provided it's devoid of sarcasm) ...