Elegy Written In My Study

My father (z'l) was a writer, an artist, and a lover of British poetry. He could recite, at will, any number of really obscure stanzas. We used to play a game: Name That Poem. I never won. No matter what line I started, he finished. I once played the scene from FINDING FORRESTER where Jamal finishes whatever quote Professor Crawford begins. When he stopped laughing, he asked, "Was someone hanging around your room in Bellmore?" Only he was Jamal and I was Crawford. Not that I minded much; my job was to find really obscure stuff and stump him...which rarely happened.

When he was slowly sliding away from us, I spent a fair amount of time at his bedside reading Tehillim (The Book of Psalms) and poems in his most precious book: An Anthology of English Literature. In the corner of the interior cover, written with a fountain pen (you can tell) in the teeny, tiny precise penmanship that never changed in all those years, was the following

Sidney B. Schwaidelson

338 Starr St.

B’klyn 

Feb 1937

In the lower left corner of the flyleaf was the following written some 10 months later:

whatever the cause! 'Tis lost 'tis o'er
   What matters reason's queries then?
A dream has gone - and is no more:
   'Tis not to cry, to hope - 'tis done.
                                sbs  12/1/37

He said it was about a girl he was trying to date, but broke up with him after one date. He claimed he couldn't remember which one. "There was so many girls who didn't wanna date me because I was short."  Note the date. 83 years ago tomorrow. Also note, that means Dad was 16 years old his freshman year. Short? Nah? He was jailbait!

Growing up, I knew this was an important book. Dad read from it a lot. He, who prided himself on make-up stories (and they were great) read poems to me from this book. This book was so important I made him a felt bookmark for Father's Day for this book. As I got older, he would leave slips of paper in the book for me to find poems that required dissection and discussion. Stuff he was pretty sure I wasn't getting in school, and knew my British grandmother would expect me to mention and discuss at the drop of an opening line. He was right, of course. She would quiz me on what I'd read most recently from the book. She and my dad were always thrilled if I memorized something. It could be Keats or Shelley, Wordsworth or Browning. Didn't much matter. If you gently flip the pages, you can find little notes to himself and questions needing answers. Yes, he wrote in his college textbook....but who didn't? Meanwhile, despite hundreds of poems in the book, the brown felt bookmark always marked the page where Thomas Gray's Elegy could be found.

On that last day, I read him one of his absolute favorites aloud: Tennyson's The Charge of the Light Brigade. I was leaning close to his ear as I read, and when I got to the last line, Honour the Light Brigade. Noble six hundred!  he smiled....and nodded....and checked out again. I sat there for a moment thinking about what to read next. 

This morning, my brother, my sons, and one of my cousins joined me at morning minyan to mark Dad's 5th yahrzeit. Zoom made it possible since we are still not coming together in person as a congregation. But that was okay especially this morning. We were not alone. Dad would've marveled at the technology, and enjoyed that we were gathered at minyan. 

So, in remembering my poetry-loving Dad - may his memory forever be for a blessing - here is the last poem I read to him on that last evening: the one he loved best...even if it was in a churchyard. 

        Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

BY THOMAS GRAY

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

         The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,

The plowman homeward plods his weary way,

         And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimm'ring landscape on the sight,

         And all the air a solemn stillness holds,

Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,

         And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r

         The moping owl does to the moon complain

Of such, as wand'ring near her secret bow'r,

         Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,

         Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap,

Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

         The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn,

         The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed,

The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,

         No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,

         Or busy housewife ply her evening care:

No children run to lisp their sire's return,

         Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,

         Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;

How jocund did they drive their team afield!

         How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,

         Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;

Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile

         The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,

         And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,

Awaits alike th' inevitable hour.

         The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,

         If Mem'ry o'er their tomb no trophies raise,

Where thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault

         The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn or animated bust

         Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?

Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,

         Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

         Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;

Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,

         Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre.

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page

         Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll;

Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,

         And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene,

         The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:

Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen,

         And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast

         The little tyrant of his fields withstood;

Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,

         Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.

Th' applause of list'ning senates to command,

         The threats of pain and ruin to despise,

To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,

         And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes,

Their lot forbade: nor circumscrib'd alone

         Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd;

Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,

         And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,

         To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,

Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride

         With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,

         Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;

Along the cool sequester'd vale of life

         They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect,

         Some frail memorial still erected nigh,

With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,

         Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd muse,

         The place of fame and elegy supply:

And many a holy text around she strews,

         That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,

         This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,

Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,

         Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies,

         Some pious drops the closing eye requires;

Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,

         Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who mindful of th' unhonour'd Dead

         Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;

If chance, by lonely contemplation led,

         Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,

         "Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn

Brushing with hasty steps the dews away

         To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech

         That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,

His listless length at noontide would he stretch,

         And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,

         Mutt'ring his wayward fancies he would rove,

Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,

         Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.

"One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,

         Along the heath and near his fav'rite tree;

Another came; nor yet beside the rill,

         Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;

"The next with dirges due in sad array

         Slow thro' the church-way path we saw him borne.

Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay,

         Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."

THE EPITAPH

Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth

       A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.

Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,

       And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,

       Heav'n did a recompense as largely send:

He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear,

       He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose,

       Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,

(There they alike in trembling hope repose)

       The bosom of his Father and his God.

I put the book down, walked Mom down the hall to the dining room, and returned to Dad's bedside, just in time to watch his last breath leave his body.  I knew he had gone to join the others at Aunt Ruthie's, and I knew he would tell Grandma I read him poetry. I was okay with that. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Should you ever find yourself in England

and you're looking for a lovely day trip,

head up the Thames and make a stop

at Stoke Poges. 

The churchyard is still there.

The picture I took for my Dad.