11.3.14

A poem for this month; November by Helen Hunt Jackson.


This is the treacherous month when autumn days
With summer’s voice come bearing summer’s gifts.
Beguiled, the pale down-trodden aster lifts
Her head and blooms again. The soft, warm haze
Makes moist once more the sere and dusty ways,
And, creeping through where dead leaves lie in drifts,
The violet returns. Snow noiseless sifts
Ere night, an icy shroud, which morning’s rays
Will idly shine upon and slowly melt,
Too late to bid the violet live again.
The treachery, at last, too late, is plain;
Bare are the places where the sweet flowers dwelt.
What joy sufficient hath November felt?
What profit from the violet’s day of pain?


Jackson was a 19th century poet from the US who advocated for the Native Americans. Some of her novels were popular enough to draw visitors to California, to see places mentioned in the books. Her writing began after the deaths of her first husband and both of her sons. It occurs to me that non-fiction book I read recently about Native American policy in the US, which I can't remember and of course I didn't write down the title in my book list, so that's no help.


I like to read a piece of whatever type without context, because it becomes whatever I can make it in my head. Adding context sometimes changes my theories, sometimes augments them. Often it gives something I would not have guessed at, originally. I saw this poem first in my "poem-a-day" email, which is fabulous for a moment of quiet away from the work day. I assumed, given the focus on nature, female author, style, and melancholy, that it was a work in a Victorian style, where women wrote about metaphorical death, nature, and love. I am glad to know there is more to Jackson than that. This poem is part of her Calendar of Sonnets, written in 1886. Here a few more works from Jackson, they are of a similar style and subject matter, but I believe have a depth to them.


Danger


With what a childish and short-sighted sense

Fear seeks for safety; recons up the days

Of danger and escape, the hours and ways

Of death; it breathless flies the pestilence;

It walls itself in towers of defense;

By land, by sea, against the storm it lays

Down barriers; then, comforted, it says:

"This spot, this hour is safe." Oh, vain pretense!

Man born of man knows nothing when he goes;

The winds blow where they list, and will disclose

To no man which brings safety, which brings risk.

The mighty are brought low by many a thing

Too small to name. Beneath the daisy's disk

Lies hid the pebble for the fatal sling.



Morn

In what a strange bewilderment do we

Awake each morn from out the brief night's sleep.

Our struggling consciousness doth grope and creep

Its slow way back, as if it could not free

Itself from bonds unseen. Then Memory,

Like sudden light, outflashes from its deep

The joy or grief which it had last to keep

For us; and by the joy or grief we see

The new day dawneth like the yesterday;

We are unchanged; our life the same we knew

Before. I wonder if this is the way

We wake from death's short sleep, to struggle through

A brief bewilderment, and in dismay

Behold our life unto our old life true.