The Moving Finger Writes; and, Having Writ -- Omar Khayyam

(Poem #545) The Moving Finger Writes; and, Having Writ The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it -- Omar Khayyam

Perhaps the most famous verse of Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat, and with good reason
- it is hard to think of any way in which it could possibly be improved.
That's one of the things I most like about short poems, actually - at
their best, they can attain a self-contained, gemlike perfection[1] that
longer pieces are hard-pressed to match, and the Rubaiyat definitely take
their place among the best of the breed.

Indeed, today's poem has attained an almost proverbial status quite
independent of its Biblical origins (see Notes) - while 'the writing on the
wall' is definitely from the Bible, the image of a Moving Finger has, IMHO,
been popularised far more by Fitzgerald's verse.

[1] yes, we've used the phrase before. It's still the right one :)

Notes:

'Rubaiyat' (singular 'rubai') is simply the name for the verse form (Arabic
'ruba`iyat, singular 'ruba`iyah', a quatrain)

The full title of Fitzgerald's translation (or adaptation, if you prefer) is
'The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam'. The individual rubai are untitled, of
course; I've just followed the standard practice of using the first line as
the title. Also, since we've set a precedent, I've continued to list the
author as Khayyam rather than Fitzgerald.

Today's quatrain is based on a passage from the Old Testament, specifically
Daniel 5. Quoting sections from the King James Version:

  (5:1) Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his
  lords, and drank wine before the thousand. (5:2) Belshazzar, whiles
  he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which
  his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in
  Jerusalem; that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines,
  might drink therein. (5:3) Then they brought the golden vessels
  that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at
  Jerusalem; and the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines,
  drank in them. (5:4) They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold,
  and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone. (5:5) In
  the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against
  the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king's palace: and
  the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. (5:6) Then the king's
  countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints
  of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another. (5:7)
  The king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the
  soothsayers. And the king spake, and said to the wise men of Babylon,
  Whosoever shall read this writing, and shew me the interpretation thereof,
  shall be clothed with scarlet, and have a chain of gold about his neck,
  and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom. (5:8) Then came in all the
  king's wise men: but they could not read the writing, nor make known to
  the king the interpretation thereof.

and later on

  (5:23) But hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they
  have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou, and thy
  lords, thy wives, and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them; and thou
  hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and
  stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy
  breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified: (5:24)
  Then was the part of the hand sent from him; and this writing was written.
  (5:25) And this is the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL,
  UPHARSIN. (5:26) This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath
  numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. (5:27) TEKEL; Thou art weighed in
  the balances, and art found wanting. (5:28) PERES; Thy kingdom is divided,
  and given to the Medes and Persians. (5:29) Then commanded Belshazzar, and
  they clothed Daniel with scarlet, and put a chain of gold about his neck,
  and made a proclamation concerning him, that he should be the third ruler
  in the kingdom. (5:30) In that night was Belshazzar the king of the
  Chaldeans slain.

Biography:

There's an ex.html

Some excerpts

  As one who found the freest current for his delicate and impressionable
  genius in the translation and adaptation of the works of others, Edward
  FitzGerald stands as far aloof from the ordinary activities of the
  literature of his day as his life was remote from that of the world in
  general.

  [...]

  Of work which was entirely original, FitzGerald left little. The charming
  verses, written at Naseby in the spring of 1831 under the influence of
  "the merry old writers of more manly times," and printed in Hone's
  Year-Book under the title The Meadows in Spring, were thought, at their
  first appearance, to be the work of Charles Lamb and were welcomed by
  their supposed author with good-humoured envy. Diffidence of his own
  powers and slowness in composition prevented FitzGerald from rapid
  publication. It was not until 1851 that the dialogue Euphranor appeared, a
  discourse upon youth and systems of education set in the scenery of
  Cambridge, amid the early summer flowering of college gardens and "the
  measured pulse of racing oars." Its limpid transparency of style was not
  achieved without an effort: in 1846, when FitzGerald was writing it, he
  alluded to his difficulties with the task in a letter to his friend Edward
  Cowell, and its ease and clearness, like those of Tennyson's poetry,
  appear to have been the fruit of constant polish and revision.

Links:

  We've run a couple of pieces on the Rubaiyat as a whole (with excerpts):
    poem #162, poem #342.

  While the quatrains are wonderful poems in their own right, they take on a
  whole new dimension when read in the context of the complete Rubaiyat. See
    http://www.arabiannights.org/rubaiyat/index2.html

  There's a searchale KJV at http://www.concordance.com/bible.htm

-martin

Toads -- Philip Larkin

My turn to contribute to the theme:

(Poem #544) Toads Why should I let the toad work Squat on my life? Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork And drive the brute off? Six days of the week it soils With its sickening poison - Just for paying a few bills! That's out of proportion. Lots of folk live on their wits: Lecturers, lispers, Losers, loblolly-men, louts- They don't end as paupers; Lots of folk live up lanes With fires in a bucket, Eat windfalls and tinned sardines- They seem to like it. Their nippers have got bare feet, Their unspeakable wives Are skinny as whippets - and yet No one actually _starves_. Ah, were I courageous enough To shout, Stuff your pension! But I know, all too well, that's the stuff That dreams are made on: For something sufficiently toad-like Squats in me, too; Its hunkers are heavy as hard luck, And cold as snow, And will never allow me to blarney My way of getting The fame and the girl and the money All at one sitting. I don't say, one bodies the other One's spiritual truth; But I do say it's hard to lose either, When you have both. -- Philip Larkin

A typical Larkin poem: dry and to the point, it echoes the quiet desperation
which infuses much of his work. The comparison between the two toads of the
title [1] - the sickening poison of the toad 'work', and the lack of courage of
his own baser self - is not overdone at all; instead, Larkin's matter-of-fact
tone reinforces the sense he is trying to convey.

thomas.

[1] Alliteration watch!

[Assessment]

" ... Philip Larkin is the poet of the emotionally underprivileged. He speaks
for the vast majority of people, for whom life is a series of successive
disillusionments. His poetic personae are invariably unprepossessing - the man
with bicycle clips on his trousers, sitting in an empty church; the outsider,
looking in on the merrymaking of other people; the traveler who has (both
literally and figuratively) missed the boat. Yet if we describe his subject as
being 'the short end of the stick', all we can say is that he has a firm grasp
of it; like Thomas Hardy (one of his early influences), he is an intelligent
skeptic, rather than a shallow cynic or a bitter loser.

Larkin's distaste for the spectacular extends itself to the _manner_ of his
poetry; his verse exhibits the same precision and clarity as does that of Yeats.
His relatively small poetic output reflects his sense of balance and his
attention to detail... "

        -- Gary Geddes, 20th Century Poetry and Poetics

(The above paragraphs are from memory, so they're not verbatim. The overall
sense is correct, though - t.).

Executive -- John Betjeman

My contribution to the work theme...

(Poem #543) Executive I am a young executive. No cuffs than mine are cleaner; I have a Slimline brief-case and I use the firm's Cortina. In every roadside hostelry from here to Burgess Hill The maîtres d'hôtel all know me well, and let me sign the bill. You ask me what it is I do. Well, actually, you know, I'm partly a liaison man, and partly P.R.O. Essentially, I integrate the current export drive And basically I'm viable from ten o'clock till five. For vital off-the-record work - that's talking transport-wise - I've a scarlet Aston-Martin - and does she go? She flies! Pedestrians and dogs and cats, we mark them down for slaughter. I also own a speedboat which has never touched the water. She's built of fibre-glass, of course. I call her 'Mandy Jane' After a bird I used to know - No soda, please, just plain - And how did I acquire her? Well, to tell you about that And to put you in the picture, I must wear my other hat. I do some mild developing. The sort of place I need Is a quiet country market town that's rather run to seed A luncheon and a drink or two, a little savoir faire - I fix the Planning Officer, the Town Clerk and the Mayor. And if some Preservationist attempts to interfere A 'dangerous structure' notice from the Borough Engineer Will settle any buildings that are standing in our way - The modern style, sir, with respect, has really come to stay. -- John Betjeman

Despite the common complaint that having to study poems in school 'ruins'
them, I've always found my textbooks a lovely source of new poets. One such
happy discovery was Betjeman, one of my favourite modern poets, and while
'Executive' is far from his best poem, it was the one that got me hooked on
his work.

The poem's attractions are evident. 'Executive' is not just a good poem; it
is a distinctive one (indeed, much of Betjeman's poetry is - he has a very
distinct and original style, though it is hard to say just what makes it so
individual). The quick-paced, breezy monologue, laden with buzzwords,
captures the image of the yuppie to perfection - note the almost comically
boastful tone, the attention paid to status symbols, and ruthless efficiency
the narrator upholds as an ideal. Note, also, the hilarious parody of
corporate speak in the second verse - indeed, I was surprised to see that
the poem was written back in 1974; a phrase like 'essentially I integrate
the current export drive' seems straight out of Dilbert.

Biography:

Betjeman, Sir John
b. Aug. 28, 1906, London, Eng.
d. May 19, 1984, Trebetherick, Cornwall

British poet known for his nostalgia for the near past, his exact sense of
place, and his precise rendering of social nuance, which made him widely
read in England at a time when much of what he wrote about was rapidly
vanishing. The poet, in near-Tennysonian rhythms, satirized lightly the
promoters of empty and often destructive "progress" and the foibles of his
own comfortable class. As an authority on English architecture and
topography, he did much to popularize Victorian and Edwardian building and
to protect what remained of it from destruction.

The son of a prosperous businessman, Betjeman grew up in a London suburb,
where T.S. Eliot was one of his teachers. He later studied at Marlborough
College (a public school) and Magdalen College, Oxford. The years from early
childhood until he left Oxford were detailed in Summoned by Bells (1960),
blank verse interspersed with lyrics.

Betjeman's first book of verse, Mount Zion, and his first book on
architecture, Ghastly Good Taste, appeared in 1933. Churches, railway
stations, and other elements of a townscape figure largely in both books.
Four more volumes of poetry appeared before the publication of Collected
Poems (1958). His later collections were High and Low (1966), A Nip in the
Air (1974), Church Poems (1981), and Uncollected Poems (1982). Betjemen's
celebration of the more settled Britain of yesteryear seemed to touch a
responsive chord in a public that was suffering the uprootedness of World
War II and its austere aftermath.

Betjeman's prose works include several guidebooks to English counties; First
and Last Loves (1952), essays on places and buildings; The English Town in
the Last Hundred Years (1956); and English Churches (1964; with Basil
Clarke). He was knighted in 1969, and in 1972 he succeeded C. Day-Lewis as
poet laureate of England. [And was succeeded in 1984 by Ted Hughes - m.]

        -- EB

Links

For another biography, see [broken link] http://www.johnbetjeman.com/biograph.htm

And while you're at it, take a look at the rest of the official Betjeman
site: http://www.johnbetjeman.com/

-martin

p.s. Thanks to Thomas for manning the fort while I was away

Will Consider Situation -- Ogden Nash

Guest poem submitted by Vikram Doctor, as part of his
guest theme "Poems at Work":

(Poem #542) Will Consider Situation There here are words of radical advice for a young man looking for a job; Young man, be a snob. Yes, if you are in search of arguments against starting at the bottom, Why I've gottem. Let the personnel managers differ; It,s obvious that you will get on faster at the top than at the bottom because there are more people at the bottom than at the top so naturally the competition at the bottom is stiffer. If you need any further proof that my theory works Well, nobody can deny that presidents get paid more than vice-presidents and vice-presidents get paid more than clerks. Stop looking at me quizzically; I want to add that you will never achieve fortune in a job that makes you uncomfortable physically. When anybody tells you that hard jobs are better for you than soft jobs be sure to repeat this text to them, Postmen tramp around all day through rain and snow just to deliver other people's in cozy air-conditioned offices checks to them. You don't need to interpret tea leaves stuck in a cup To understand that people who work sitting down get paid more than people who work standing up. Another thing about having a comfortable job is you not only accommodate more treasure; You get more leisure. So that when you find you have worked so comfortably that your waistline is a menace, You correct it with golf or tennis. Whereas is in an uncomfortable job like piano-moving or stevedoring you indulge, You have no time to exercise, you just continue to bulge. To sum it up, young man, there is every reason to refuse a job that will make heavy demands on you corporally or manually, And the only intelligent way to start your career is to accept a sitting position paying at least twenty-five thousand dollars annually. -- Ogden Nash

A poem that's evidently the theme song of management institutes (and I say that
being a somewhat unlikely MBA myself).

Vikram.

[thomas adds]

Inflation has not been kind to Ogden Nash - now, how many poets can you say
_that_ about? - ... apart from that, though, this is a wonderfully typical piece
of Nashery. Not as good as some of his best work, but delightful nonetheless.

thomas.

You Will Be Hearing From Us Shortly -- U A Fanthorpe

Guest poem submitted by Vikram Doctor, as part of his
theme "Poems at Work":

(Poem #541) You Will Be Hearing From Us Shortly You feel adequate to the demands of this position? What qualities do you feel you Personally have to offer? Ah. Let us consider your application form. Your qualifications, though impressive, are Not, we must admit, precisely what We had in mind. Would you care To defend their relevance? Indeed. Now your age. Perhaps you feel able To make your own comment about that, Too? We are conscious ourselves Of the need for a candidate with precisely The right degree of immaturity. So glad we agree. And now a delicate matter: your looks. You do appreciate this work involves Contact with the actual public? Might they, Perhaps, find your appearance Disturbing? Quite so. And your accent. That is the way You have always spoken, is it? What Of your education? We mean, of course, Where were you educated? And how Much of a handicap is that to you, Would you say? Married, children, We see. The usual dubious Desire to perpetuate what had better Not have happened at all. We do not Ask what domestic desires shimmer Behind that vaguely unsuitable address. And you were born--? Yes. Pity. So glad we agree. -- U A Fanthorpe

Nothing much to add on this, except it made me laugh out loud when I read it in
the Oxford Book of Work. I love the image it conjures up of a malign interviewer
peering down in disgust at the unfortunate interviewee. I've been there too...

Vikram.