Virtue

SWEET day, so cool, so calm, so bright!
The bridal of the earth and sky--
The dew shall weep thy fall to-night;
For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,
Thy root is ever in its grave,
And thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie,
My music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like season'd timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.

-George Herbert

I wish this R. Vaughan Williams character actually included the 2nd stanza of this poem in his piece "Sweet Day". Ugh, and even more so, I wish he actually kept the real title for the poem. I saw no need to change it. Was it convenience? We'll never know.

Herbert' exploration of the ephemeral human life is probably a common theme in his life, considering he left his comfortable parliamentary job to enter the priesthood, his original intention. In this poem, He discusses three things of nature - days, roses, and spring - that are only doomed to die.

In the first stanza, the day "fall[s] tonight". Daylight only lasts for so long. And as the sun rotates in the sky, the day must also turn into night. Humanity works in cycles, too. Dawn, high noon, dusk/twilight - all are metaphors commonly used to describe a period in a person's life. And I'm not sure whether it's "punny" that he describes the "dew" as "weeping", for the dew itself is... wetness. Maybe the evening dew will resort to proliferating itself as a signal of its sorrow. But I dunno, just the personification of "weeping dew" is striking and gives the reader pause.

The rose is, like a human, an organic substance, of the earth and having the ability to reproduce. I'm not really sure what to make of the clause "whose...eye". I'll research that later. But the most striking part of this stanza is the phrase "thy root is forever in its grave". Roses, unlike humans, are not ambulatory creatures. Where they are planted, there they die, also. But maybe we're akin in that we are born in these bodies and die in these bodies. We die as we exist, and we're unable to escape our own fate because we're born into it. Our "roots" are in our own frail mortal bodies, frail and impeding.

"Sweet spring" is described by the two succeeding appositives. The first contains the two elements described the preceding stanzas, and the other is a more definite appositive metaphor, comparing "spring" to a "box of sweets". The image of spring being a "box of sweets" is further reinforced in the pun "closes". A box, of course, opens and closes. But this word also serves a dual purpose in playing off the "music" reference in its definition as a musical term, meaning stopping of a phrase of music in a piece. "Closes", like "fall" and "grave", it serves as the indicator of ending and death. The speaker changes subject of the final clause from singular to "all", since he states that spring contains both the metaphysical element of "day" and the organic element of the "rose".

I'm not too sure what to make of the last stanza. He's obviously commenting on the endurance of humanity, being able to live on like "seasoned timber". But I don't want to attempt analysis right now.

If I knew more music theory, I definitely would enjoy/be better at analyzing the poem contextually as a musical piece. I guess there are some obvious elements there, like decrescendo-ing on all the parts with the word "die". Is Vaughan trying to be ironic that we end the quietest (pppp) on "lives"? He probably just wanted to sound better overall, rather than put too much effort in adapting the lyrics musically. Probably the only other things I can point out is the breath at the end of "closes" (ha! because its a partial close!) and the mood change of the last stanza, which is very different from the earlier ones. Hm. Hopefully I can get more out of this musically. I'll probably ask Brendan about certain chords and stuff tomorrow when he comes over.

I miss English classes. Le sigh.