Robert,

I so enjoy your erudite selections each month, and this one seems well-timed: while all the hobbit children are arriving, plump and tanned, in composition courses the shire over (I start tomorrow morning) you raise the spector of good grammar. . . And Herbert himself seems to be well aware of the relationship of grammatical forms to the content of life when he writes:

My body to this school, that it may learn
To spell his elements, and find his birth
Written in dusty heraldry and lines . . .

My question -- on a dash and with the phone ringing -- would be: if death drives all, why should we succumb to its forms -- the tameness of ash and turning from lust? (Or do I , again, misread?)

Life favors life -- grammar is usage -- and is a less exacting master.

I loved this post as back to school inspiration, too. Thanks, Robert! And also noticed/was interested in the progress of the dust - which Herbert twice rhymes with "trust" and then, dramatically, pairs in its final appearance - with lust. I read the death of lust as a relief, given his choice of "free from," and thought it was meaningful that Herbert gives death, rather than life (or our bodies), "incessant motion." I guess he's suggesting that instead of fighting what can't be fought, we keep in mind our final destinations (loved the idea of reciting this during turbulence), especially when our flesh is busy growing fat and wanton in its cravings. Even though - or maybe because - death's motion is fed by the exhalation of our crimes, we'll all come to tame ash in the end and death will keep moving. Rachel

Your post leads to further questions of grammar and pronoun reference that Robert, limited to a brief introduction, didn't have space to discuss. But they're not simple matters in this poem.

While that my soul repairs to her devotion,
Here I entomb my flesh, that it betimes
May take acquaintance of this heap of dust,
To which the blast of Death's incessant motion,
Fed with the exhalation of our crimes,
Drives all at last. Therefore I gladly trust

So far, no problem: soul is feminine (her), flesh is neuter (it), Death of indeterminate gender

My body to this school, that it may learn
To spell his elements, and find his birth
Written in dusty heraldry and lines;
Which dissolution sure doth best discern,
Comparing dust with dust and earth with earth.
These laugh at jet and marble, put for signs,

Here, body is, like flesh in first stanza, is neuter; but does it become masculine in line 2 (“his elements”), or does “his” refer back to Death? (Hard to see how this second reading would work, but why the shift from neuter to masculine?)

Is “dissolution” the subject or the object of the verb “discern”?

What is the referent of “These”: the body’s elements? Dust and earth? Dissolution and the body?

To sever the good fellowship of dust,
And spoil the meeting: what shall point out them,
When they shall bow, and kneel, and fall down flat
To kiss those heaps which now they have in trust?
Dear flesh, while I do pray, learn here thy stem
And true descent, that, when thou shalt grow fat,

Here, “them” in line two apparently refers to the headstones, but grammatically one would expect it to have the same referent as “These” in the last line of the preceding stanza.

And wanton in thy cravings, thou mayst know
That flesh is but the glass which holds the dust
That measures all our time; which also shall
Be crumbled into dust. Mark here below
How tame these ashes are, how free from lust,
That thou mayst fit thyself against thy fall.

“Thou mayst know / that flesh . . .” But “Thou” refers to flesh, so the sense is “Flesh, thou mayst know that flesh . . .”—it’s reflexive, circular.

Speaking of reflexivity, the reflexive use of “fit” (“fit thyself”) is unusual: does it mean to adapt oneself? To proportion oneself? To prepare oneself? The sense requires some pondering to discern.

Surly, I Jest.

I think it’s time to put my ass in motion.
I thought that I might free myself from lust.
At least I can get over that strange notion
That rhyming shall with fall is true I trust.

Shall: My friend Sal is an excellent pal…
Fall: That’s what we do after the last call…

Then maybe it’s my head that needs repairing,
Head in hands I’m sure my ass will follow.
Head held in hands and truly beyond caring,
Wish I was the guy in Sleepy Hollow

In a way you are asking a philosophical question, Mgerard-- about awareness of mortality. Your question leads me to think about the difference between, on the one hand, a more general awareness of death, which Herbert actually tries to sharpen, and on the other hand the more specific, more painful, already-sharp awareness of a particular death. We call it "a loss." Herbert's notion seems to be that inevitable loss is ameliorated or counterbalanced by understanding.

That idea is tied up, for me, in the implications and associations of "lines": the dusty lines are partly the lines incised in stone, to tell the "lines" of descent and lineage-- described by Herbert in lines of verse. As in a lot of the English poetry of this period (I'm thinking of Ben Jonson's poem on the death of his first son) "Church Monuments" works hard to distinguish what is descended from dust and returns to dust from what can read and understand and write and create. As Tomas Morin points out in another thread here, words like "fat" are part of trying to refresh and re-invigorate this traditional, even conventional idea.

Hap,

The sounds no longer quite align

For readers in 2009,

Though probably they did agree

When voiced in 1633.

To my own response, mgerard, I'll add a recommendation of Lloyd Schwartz's post emphasizing Herbert as instructing himself, admonishing himself, with "more wisdom than moralizing":

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I'll offer my take on a few of your questions, Paul ... I've de-bolded your bold and bolded my comments:

While that my soul repairs to her devotion,
Here I entomb my flesh, that it betimes
May take acquaintance of this heap of dust,
To which the blast of Death's incessant motion,
Fed with the exhalation of our crimes,
Drives all at last. Therefore I gladly trust

So far, no problem: soul is feminine (her), flesh is neuter (it), Death of indeterminate gender

My body to this school, that it may learn
To spell his elements, and find his birth
Written in dusty heraldry and lines;
Which dissolution sure doth best discern,
Comparing dust with dust and earth with earth.
These laugh at jet and marble, put for signs,

Here, body is, like flesh in first stanza, is neuter; but does it become masculine in line 2 (“his elements”), or does “his” refer back to Death? (Hard to see how this second reading would work, but why the shift from neuter to masculine?)

"his elements" refers, in my mind, to Death - which was not 'neuter' in the first stanza but rather indeterminate, with no pronoun yet referring back to Death until here, and now it's established as masculine.


Is “dissolution” the subject or the object of the verb “discern”? still pondering that one, but I lean toward "subject" in a transcendental kind of way, where the implied subject of 'discern' is really a myriad of forces ... To me, "dissolution sure" here means "certain/inevitable dissolution" and it's that 'fact' which does the discerning - and allows us to fathom the discerning of what to make of the realities of dust and earth and the fate of life

What is the referent of “These”: the body’s elements? Dust and earth? Dissolution and the body?
For me, "These" seem to be dust and earth

To sever the good fellowship of dust,
And spoil the meeting: what shall point out them,
When they shall bow, and kneel, and fall down flat
To kiss those heaps which now they have in trust?
Dear flesh, while I do pray, learn here thy stem
And true descent, that, when thou shalt grow fat,

Here, “them” in line two apparently refers to the headstones, but grammatically one would expect it to have the same referent as “These” in the last line of the preceding stanza.
Not sure why grammar would make it need to be same referent as for "These" - I agree, for now, that it refers to headstones.

And wanton in thy cravings, thou mayst know
That flesh is but the glass which holds the dust
That measures all our time; which also shall
Be crumbled into dust. Mark here below
How tame these ashes are, how free from lust,
That thou mayst fit thyself against thy fall.

“Thou mayst know / that flesh . . .” But “Thou” refers to flesh, so the sense is “Flesh, thou mayst know that flesh . . .”—it’s reflexive, circular.
For me, not quite circular. I think he's speaking to his particular flesh and wishing it to learn the message of all flesh, of flesh as a concept, ... To me, the poet has gone to philosophical jelly of sorts upon a lingering deliberation of "ashes to ashes, dust to dust" ... and this poem has resulted from it ... To me, the "while I do pray" in penultimate stanza, alludes back to the first stanza's "While that my soul repairs to her devotion,..." His soul is inside the church praying for salvation, while his flesh is lingering here in the church graveyard reckoning with the meaning of the Biblical lines "dust to dust" (and hence the plethora of 'dusty' references - which I was going to comment on but Woskin already had (the movement from linking dust and trust toward linking dust and lust) ... And in that sense (moving on to your last question...

Speaking of reflexivity, the reflexive use of “fit” (“fit thyself”) is unusual: does it mean to adapt oneself? To proportion oneself? To prepare oneself? The sense requires some pondering to discern.

I read this as meaning "to prepare oneself" ... There's almost a pantheism here, it seems, a notion of soul in everything including dust ... The poet beseeches his flesh to see lessons in how to leave earthly life in the "tame"ness of ashes/dust ... wishing to find succor, it seems, in the idea of tameness/calmness that will both compensate for the loss of lust for life and also make lust seem very 'passé' (so to speak) ... thus to let go of lust, to see it as that which will be left behind ... and so not to anguish at its loss ... Ending the poem with "thy fall" (and the only slant rhyme - the second noteworthy aspect of rhyme in the poem, the first being the re-use of 'dust' 3 times) would seem to evoke Satan's fall as well ... and there would seem, by contrast, to be a 'lusty' one, who anguished and belabored his fall and wreaked much havoc from it ... So perhaps that a contrastive invocation here, that his own flesh cede more gracefully into its fall...

my 2 c's ...

Don't miss the recent exchanges re body, soul, "I," flesh, on this post:

<link>

I have met this poem before and enjoyed revisiting it. The comments are all excellent, as usual, but dualism invariably sends my mind a-reeling. Mark (and Matthew and Luke and John) here below as I just try to right a poor rhyme:

And wanton in thy cravings, thou mayst know

That flesh is but the glass, which holds the dust

That measures all our time; which also palls

And crumbles into dust. Mark here below

How tame these ashes are, how free from lust,

That thou mayst fit thyself against thy falls.

eastern take on a bit:

still flesh devalued

sentience withstands the sting

tipping pallbearers

PB:
"Though probably they did agree
When voiced in 1633".

(Perhaps you can prove that to me...?)

Hi Paul, I looked up “Shall” and “fall” to see if I could find any supporting evidence for this point of view and I failed. I looked at Merriam-Webster and Free Dictionary. I’ll toss the ball back to you, if you feel any obligation for the burden of proof.
Maybe… “Shall Fall” was done a ‘purpose, pretty much sums up the poem’s theme, in my book.
It gets better: palls and falls are indeed better; even if shall and fall rhymed… Imagine that.

Hi Robert, did you know that in some Asian cultures they tip the pallbearers? In western culture, and in my experience, it is considered to be an honor. I have been so honored more times than I care to count. And, according to Wikipedia, the tipping of pallbearers in Asian cultures needs a citation.

I think I have heard of Eastern European Jews tipping people who come to mourn, free-lance, at memorial services. And in the period when Purgatory was a powerful force in European cultures, didn't the Church profit from being left property in wills, specifically for prayers to speed the decedent's progress from Purgatory to Paradise? (It ill becomes the Poetry Editor to be a fountain of vague, quasi-scholarly lore: but there you are. Or I am.

I was at a burial service recently. It seemed to me that every ritual gesture was an attempt to recognize the scale of any one person's time and activities-- writing, pallbearing, growing fat and wanton, going to the Sierras like Jim Powell in his poem, studying Zen like Paul Breslin, diving into the Fray as I am-- and the contrasting immensity of Time.

A couple of posts above I think are worth attending to:

<link>

<link>

"It seemed to me that every ritual gesture was an attempt to recognize the scale of any one person's time and activities-- writing, pallbearing, growing fat and wanton, going to the Sierras like Jim Powell in his poem, studying Zen like Paul Breslin, diving into the Fray as I am-- and the contrasting immensity of Time."

Yes, Robert, exactly--that is beautifully and truly said.