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| “The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,
And all the sweet serenity of books” (stanza 21) from "Morituri Salutamus: Poem for the 50th Anniversary of the Class of 1825 in Bowdoin College" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow **************** Last week, I was translating this same phrase: Hail, Caesar! "Avē Imperātor / Caesar moritūrī tē salūtant" ["Hail, Emperor / Caesar, those who are about to die salute you"] |
In addition to appreciating the sweet serenity of books, Longfellow also grasped the frustrating impossibility of ever completing one's "to - do" list. He doesn't mention books specifically, but you know they are there, waiting to be read, everywhere you turn: "By the bedside, on the stair"! And all those amazon deliveries: "At the threshold, near the gates":
Something Left Undone
Labor with what zeal we will,
Something still remains undone,
Something uncompleted still,
Waits the rising of the sun.
By the bedside, on the stair,
At the threshold, near the gates,
With its menace or its prayer,
Like a mendicant it waits:
Waits, and will not go away, —
Waits, and will not be gainsaid.
By the cares of yesterday
Each to-day is heavier made,
Till at length it is, or seems,
Greater than our strength can bear, —
As the burden of our dreams,
Passing on us everywhere;
And we stand from day to day
Like the dwarfs of times gone by,
Who, as Northern legends say,
On their shoulders held the sky.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882)
poet and an educator best known for
"Evangeline," “Paul Revere’s Ride,” “The Song of Hiawatha,”
and "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day"
*******************
It seems that Longfellow has captured the
19th Century version of the Pink Floyd song:
Time
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshine, staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long, and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say
Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
And when I come home cold and tired
It's good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells
