O Death, Where Is Thy Sting?

I began my life reading and enjoying poetry with Rudyard Kipling. I’d already heard plenty from my paternal grandfather quoting at length from Tennyson, Kipling, Stevenson and even Service, among others, but my first poetry reads were Kipling. Soon after, Robert Louis Stevenson and others followed. Here’s an old, old favorite of mine from Stevenson,

Evensong

THE embers of the day are red
Beyond the murky hill.
The kitchen smokes: the bed
In the darkling house is spread:
The great sky darkens overhead,
And the great woods are shrill.
So far have I been led,
Lord, by Thy will:
So far I have followed, Lord, and wondered still.

The breeze from the enbalmed land
Blows sudden toward the shore,
And claps my cottage door.
I hear the signal, Lord – I understand.
The night at Thy command
Comes. I will eat and sleep and will not question more.

While I don’t understand a couple of the word choices (to my mind’s ear, “darkling” doesn’t add much either to the rhythm, or the meaning or visuals for that matter), and when I recite this from memory, I find I often edit those out *heh*, but the images, sounds and feelings of this piece speak to me more and more as the years pass.

I hear the signal, Lord – I understand.
The night at Thy command
Comes. I will eat and sleep and will not question more.

Of course, this was written during Stevenson’s long slide to death as a result of tuberculosis, as was “Requiem,” and they both reflect a growing comfort with approaching death.

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

Quite different to Dylan Thomas’ view (Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night), eh?

Just stuff floating around in my head. Memories. When I was in college, I had a procession of minimum wage jobs to pay my way. One was in a nursing center, as an orderly dealing with “extended care” patients, many of whom nowadays would be in hospice care of some sort, almost all just on a short waiting list for the undertaker’s services. Some would “rage against the dying of the light” while others would reflect the attitudes Stevenson portrayed in these short, powerful pieces.

One dear old soul–in her late 90s with only rare visits from family (she didn’t have many left, it seemed, for some reason, although that seems backward)–was one who vacillated quite a bit between acceptance and rejection of her Final Destination. Nearly every night I worked there, she asked me to recite Tennyson’s Crossing the Bar for her. I ended up writing a tune (and piano accompaniment, although there was no piano available on the floor *heh*) for it, but that’s another story.

Crossing the Bar

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home!

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For though from out our bourn of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.

And what were these poets so confidently “singing” about?

Behold, I tell you a mystery;
we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,
at the last trumpet; for the trumpet shall sound,
and the dead will be raised imperishable,
and we shall be changed.
Then will come about the saying that is written,
“O Death, where is your victory?
O Death, where is your sting?” 1 Corinthians 15:51-52

So, where have my meanderings led me today? To 1 Corinthians 15:58

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

(And yeh, I set that to music at one point, too.)