The Definition of Love by Andrew Marvell

My Love is of a birth as rare
As 'tis, for object, strange and high;
It was begotten by Despair,
Upon Impossibility.

Magnanimous Despair alone
Could show me so divine a thing,
Where feeble hope could ne'er have flown,
But vainly flapped its tinsel wing.

And yet I quickly might arrive
Where my extended soul is fixed;
But Fate does iron wedges drive,
And always crowds itself betwixt.

For Fate with jealous eye does see
Two perfect loves, nor lets them close;
Their union would her ruin be,
And her tyrannic power depose.

And therefore her decrees of steel
Us as the distant poles have placed,
(Though Love's whole world on us doth wheel),
Not by themselves to be embraced,

Unless the giddy heaven fall,
And earth some new convulsion tear.
And, us to join, the world should all
Be cramp'd into a planisphere.

As lines, so love's oblique, may well
Themselves in every angle greet:
But ours, so truly parallel,
Though infinite, can never meet.

Therefore the love which us doth bind,
But Fate so enviously debars,
Is the conjunction of the mind,
And opposition of the stars.

I am more aware than ever that the poems housed in this blog emphatically do not require my commentary, nor anyone else's, for they speak for themselves with a fluency even the greatest prose cannot hope to emulate. Therefore I do it only for enjoyment, the very act of writing itself. The praxis of hitting buttons in an order such as to produce something slightly intelligible. It's sort of like Guitar Hero in that respect, though one can achieve a perfect score in Guitar Hero which is unattainable in writing, the closest being a poem like the one above. This is probably due to the parameters poetry imposes - there is always the temptation in prose to add another word to a sentence, but poetry rewards the parsimonious more generously. I find it fascinating that this economy does not produce something spartan and dull, not in the right hands at least. Conversely, by cutting out all the gratuities you create a finer distillation of beauty than if you'd tried to say more. Perhaps this should not be unexpected. 

Part of me simply wants to say 'This poem is brilliant because... just look at it!' This would be quite acceptable if I was writing of a painting, but poetry for some reason seems to be seen as more complex than that. To me the words in a poem such as this are expensive paints - they are beautiful in their own way but are most effective when used in tandem. The word 'love' is fine, but nobody would want to see a whole canvas of it. This analogy is not recognised too often, probably because language too often is an exercise in pragmatism. If we had to use paint to order at a restaurant, we might soon tire of seeing paintings. The only way to overcome this would be to use unnecessarily extravagant strokes for the heck of it. This is all poetry is. 

This poem, then, is not deficient in the beauty department. 'Magnanimous Despair alone' is a fantastic, paradoxical line. 'Upon Impossibility', 'Their union would her ruin be', 'And her tyrannic power depose' are other such examples. And of course, like art, we can draw conclusions from the work too. Words are, after all, only symbols. This is a lament for the incompatibility of love and eternity. This is similar to the sentiment expressed in To His Coy Mistress, a poem which still makes me gasp with its grace, in which the poetic voice longs for 'world enough and time' in which to express his love. That poem is rather more sanguine than this one, however. He writes:

'Now let us sport us while we may;

And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.'

This is in clear contrast to the undercurrent of resignation in this poem. There is no suggestion that their love can 'never meet'. But both poems are exquisite, being effectively the two ways of looking at the same reality.