Sufi parable | I will lift up mine eyes | Zen | Dover Beach | Divine Love | Jesuit prayer | Song of the Broad-axe Love bade me welcome | Silent Noon | Congruence | Clouds | Why?
"Satan in Glory: Thou wast perfect before Iniquity was found in thee" from a painting by William Blake (1757 - 1827) - calendar for 2001 by Inkgroup
Held in the Blake collection at the Tate Gallery
Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning If I lack'd anything.
A guest, I answer'd, worthy to be here: Love said, you shall be he. I the unkind, ungrateful: Ah, my dear, I cannot look on thee. Love took my hand, and smiling did reply, Who made the eyes but I?
Truth Lord, but I have marr'd them: let my shame Go where it doth deserve. And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame? My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat. So I did sit and eat.
George Herbert
I may shock some by juxtaposing this picture of Satan in Glory (see discussion) with the text of an exquisite, mystical poem by George Herbert. The poem was set to music by Ralph Vaughan-Williams as one of his Five Mystical Songs.
I spotted the picture before I knew its subject. William Blake's painting conveyed to me just how I wanted to illustrate the poem - the visual image of light breaking out of the darkness. And isn't Satan splendid? - Youthful, vigorous, proud, purposeful, neither male nor female and yet both - a harbinger of light.
"Thou wast perfect [ ] till Iniquity was found in thee" is the saying that goes with the painting (Ezekiel 28 v 15). Could this be the developing consciousness of Man, of his power and potential, before he realized what lay in the blackness from which he had emerged?
The music and words are contrapuntal to the image. Is the urge to power, driven by earthly desires, ultimately empty? The poem reflects on what is the consequence of this realization - influenced, no doubt, by George Herbert's own experience. Blake raged against such a philosophy, himself inspired by personal and political circumstances.
If our experience teaches us that pride falls, that using others for gratification and achievement of one's own ends does not bring self-fulfillment, what do you have left but Love? For a parallel reading in the gospels, see Matthew 4, vv 1-11.
Love is the whole of life, and you must welcome it. This is the starting point for a new vision, in which all paradoxes are resolved and possibilities are endless, but ordered. How can one be forgiven if one has done nothing to be forgiven for? How can one know the glow of kindness if there is no need to be kind? How can one change things if one does not feel anger or desire?
We need to know our own unbridled passions and desires before we can freely choose our paths. We must listen to the urge to grow within us but must also accept the consequences of our action or inaction. Such is the existential view.
Julian of Norwich, the medieval English mystic, offered a perspective, which in some sense might be considered heretical. If "All shall be well " (see Revelations of Divine Love), then 'evil' and 'sin' are permitted in order to strengthen our inner calm through positive faith in forgiveness. Might not the prosaic passage of time simply show that all things eventually become leveled and that life's aim is to grow in love?
Please also visit Silent Noon, another poem set to music by Vaughan-Williams, which is a companion to this page. The stillness and tenderness of the music evoke the relief to spiritual suffering, which is found in love. Dover Beach, by contrast, is a bleak testament. Humanity can only sustain its integrity by committing itself freely, even in the face of absurdity.
George Herbert and Ralph Vaughan-Williams I compiled these programme notes for a concert, at which Cantamus performed the Five Mystical Songs, in 1996.
"George Herbert (1593-1633) was a younger contemporary of Shakespeare. Educated at Cambridge, he was public orator there from 1619 to 1627. Unable (or unwilling) to realize his ambition for preferment at Court, he turned to the Anglican priesthood and was Rector of Bremerton for the last three years of his life. Herbert was a metaphysical poet concerned with resolving fundamental religious conflicts between the spiritual and physical nature of Man. Much of his poetry uses unusual (to us) imagery, which appealed strongly to the disappointed theist in Vaughan-Williams. Ralph Vaughan-Williams, one of the greatest British composers of the 20th century, completed the five mystical songs in 1911 and conducted the first performance in September of that year during the Three Choirs Festival in Worcester. Of the five settings, Love bade me welcome is perhaps the most enigmatic, reflecting both Herbert's and Vaughan-Williams' pre-occupations with the inner nature of Man. The rapt stillness at its centre - the Act - at which point in the traditionally Edenic key of E, wordless voices intone the O Sacrum convivium, is one of the great moments in Vaughan-Williams."
"George Herbert (1593-1633) was a younger contemporary of Shakespeare. Educated at Cambridge, he was public orator there from 1619 to 1627. Unable (or unwilling) to realize his ambition for preferment at Court, he turned to the Anglican priesthood and was Rector of Bremerton for the last three years of his life. Herbert was a metaphysical poet concerned with resolving fundamental religious conflicts between the spiritual and physical nature of Man. Much of his poetry uses unusual (to us) imagery, which appealed strongly to the disappointed theist in Vaughan-Williams.
Ralph Vaughan-Williams, one of the greatest British composers of the 20th century, completed the five mystical songs in 1911 and conducted the first performance in September of that year during the Three Choirs Festival in Worcester. Of the five settings, Love bade me welcome is perhaps the most enigmatic, reflecting both Herbert's and Vaughan-Williams' pre-occupations with the inner nature of Man. The rapt stillness at its centre - the Act - at which point in the traditionally Edenic key of E, wordless voices intone the O Sacrum convivium, is one of the great moments in Vaughan-Williams."
This recording was published by Hyperion in 1990 and features Thomas Allen, baritone, with The Corydon Singers and the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Matthew Best. CDA66420.
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