A Meaningful Quatrain
Fred talks about the quatrain that gives this blog its name.
He thinks bleak, but in my perverse and obstinate view, I find it sublimely beautiful and an encouragement in the carpe diem form. The particular obscure "Oh Make Haste!" at the end--could it not refer to the momentary taste itself? A twisted, perhaps a tortured reading, but one that bears careful scrutiny amid the other quatrains that in a singularly un-Muslim way hard on the "Seize the Day" theme.
And if it all is for a momentary taste of being--what a wonderful and beautiful blessing. "A momentary taste of being from the well amid the waste." I picture a bleak gray landscape suddenly transformed.
I picture also the daily trudge through life, that suddenly is opened up in experience and in literature, by a momentary takes of being.
Bleak sounding, but it resonates with me as the experience of a day and it holds open the prospect that if we could learn but to live our lives would be linked chains of these tastes of being. But being the deadened and jaded people we tend to be--a momentary taste is all we can hope for because our very attitudes make a waste of the rest.
But go and enjoy Fred's take--you'll learn a great deal.
He thinks bleak, but in my perverse and obstinate view, I find it sublimely beautiful and an encouragement in the carpe diem form. The particular obscure "Oh Make Haste!" at the end--could it not refer to the momentary taste itself? A twisted, perhaps a tortured reading, but one that bears careful scrutiny amid the other quatrains that in a singularly un-Muslim way hard on the "Seize the Day" theme.
And if it all is for a momentary taste of being--what a wonderful and beautiful blessing. "A momentary taste of being from the well amid the waste." I picture a bleak gray landscape suddenly transformed.
I picture also the daily trudge through life, that suddenly is opened up in experience and in literature, by a momentary takes of being.
Bleak sounding, but it resonates with me as the experience of a day and it holds open the prospect that if we could learn but to live our lives would be linked chains of these tastes of being. But being the deadened and jaded people we tend to be--a momentary taste is all we can hope for because our very attitudes make a waste of the rest.
But go and enjoy Fred's take--you'll learn a great deal.
Steven,
ReplyDeleteThis is a puzzling quatrain. I considered your view, as, frankly, it did fit best with numerous previous quatrains which did espouse the carpe diem theme. But, the flow seems to go with the bleaker view--of wishing for death. I wonder if some future quatrains will show this theme, especially in the later editions.
It's very possible that he did have the carpe diem theme in mind but didn't realize that it wasn't clear to others. Perhaps at the end, he may have realized it, which could account for the unusual revision that occurred in a late edition, when most changes took place in the second edition.