We had a guest for dinner last week. (I mean dinner as in an evening meal - not dinner as used by many to mean lunch). We talked about her cat, and my recent conversion into a vegan, and we landed on the topic of dogs. From there, somehow we landed on 'Elegy Written on the Death of a Mad Dog' by Goldsmith, a poem that I studied in fair detail way back at school.
Dr. Goldsmith (he was a medical doctor, an impoverished one when he was practising) is among my most favourite poets. He spoke like a parrot, but wrote like an angel, so goes his reputation. Look at how David Garrick mocked at him!!
Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll,
Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll.
Did he write like an angel? O, boy, sure he did. Between 1760 and his death, he produced the best of his works: his greatest poems: The Traveller and The Deserted Village; his two great plays: The Good Natured Man and She Stoops to Conquer; and his one unforgettable novel The Vicar of Wakefield. All these are classics in English Literature. I was particularly pleased when providence decided that my first place of work in England was Wakefield!!
Dr Goldsmith makes you think and think hard; he also makes you laugh. Lesser mortals would have perished under the considerable misfortune that he was privy to, before the Muse raised him to the pinnacles of glory. Apparently of extreme hideousness in a society that lays great store by physical charm and body language even today, he wrote of his ugliness: 'An ugly man and a poor man is society only for himself, and such society the world lets me enjoy in great abundance...' Only genius can laugh and make others laugh in the light of such personal disadvantage.
Coming back to his poems, his Elegy is about a mad dog that bit a man in the town of Islington. The dog was friends with a man before a pique began, and the dog bit the man. There was consternation in the town that such a good man could be bitten by a dog, and the simple folk of Islington came to two conclusions: the dog was mad, and sadly, the man will die. The poem ends with an O.Henryish twist:
But soon a wonder came to light,
That showed the rogues they lied:
The man recovered from the bite,
The dog it was that died.
This is classic Goldsmith humour. Earlier in the poem, Goldsmith describes the unfortunate man who was bitten by the dog. Tongue in cheek, he writes:
A kind and gentle heart he had,
To comfort friends and foes;
The naked every day he clad,
When he put on his clothes.
There is humour and profundity spread across The Deserted Village. A poem of enduring value and a must in every anthology of significance, it describes the village of Auburn when the poet returns to it after years of wandering. He describes the village as '...loveliest village of the plain... and goes on :
How often have I loitered o'er thy green,
Where humble happiness endeared each scene!
and more, during the time after work:
While many a pastime circled in the shade,
The young contending as the old surveyed;
But when he returns from his travels, what does he find?
...These were thy charms - but all these charms are fled...
Why have the charms fled? Because, wealth has displaced simple lives, caused destruction and pain. Wealth, transient by nature in its existence, is however perennial in the devastation it causes:
...Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay:
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied...
The poet, away though he was, and therefore spared of the process of decay, is still deeply affected; for he wanted to return to his village at the end of his wanderings:
...I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown,
Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down;
To husband out life's taper at the close, ...
...How happy he who crowns, in shades like these,
A youth of labour with an age of ease; ...
And then an exemplary simile:
...And, as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue,
Pants to the place from whence at first she flew,
I still had hopes, my long vexations past,
Here to return - and die at home at last...
The two characters who are vividly described in the poem are the village preacher and the village school master. The preacher is profound, as a man of God is expected to be. He is a man of limited wants, and hence of unbounded happiness; look at how Goldsmith describes the surpassingly rich preacher:
..A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year: ...
Forty pounds was not wealth, even in those days, but the preacher is rich!! He is rich because, he counts his riches not in pounds, but through the fulfilment of nobler ambition:
...Unpractised he to fawn, or seek for power,
By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,
More skilled to raise the wretched than to rise...
He doesnot judge, for he is only a man of God; and as a true servant of God, he only serves:
...Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.
Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, ...
How does the preacher help the disadvantaged among his flock?
...And, as a bird each fond endearment tries
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies,
He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way...
What about those that are sceptical of God and goodness that came to mock at him?
...Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway,
And fools who came to scoff, remained to pray...
But beyond his worldly calling, which he carries out with no compromise, his thoughts are all with Heaven - (the power of the simile again):
...Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed;
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven.
As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head...
From sadness and seriousness, the poem meanders into frivolity and humour when Goldsmith describes the Village Schoolmaster:
...A man severe he was, and stern to view; ...
...Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace
The day's disasters in his morning face; ...
...Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault...
The village school master reputedly (I would like to draw your attention to the words - the story ran) possesses several skills too:
...'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too;
Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,
And even the story ran that he could gauge:...
And then the capping humorous lines:
...In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill,
For even though vanquished he could argue still;...
...And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew
That one small head could carry all he knew,...
Thereafter, in the poem, we see the stern Dr Goldsmith. He brings in picture after picture in striking contrast, of life as it should have been, and life as it has become. :
...Where village statesmen talked with looks profound,
And news much older than their ale went round.
Imagination fondly stoops to trace
The parlour splendours of that festive place:...
He is unsparing in his criticism of those whose wealth has destroyed the simple happiness of honest folk, and boldly announces where his sympathies lie:
...To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One native charm, than all the gloss of art....
...And, e'en while fashion's brightest arts decoy,
The heart, distrusting, asks if this be joy....
...how wide the limits stand
Between a splendid and a happy land...
He is not fooled by the trappings of pelf and power. He clearly foresees what will happen to a people that forget their roots and warns the rich usurpers:
...This wealth is but a name
That leaves our useful products still the same.
Not so the loss. The man of wealth and pride
Takes up a space that many poor supplied;...
...As some fair female, unadorned and plain
Secure to please while youth confirms her reign,
Slights every borrowed charm that dress supplies,...
...for charms are frail,
When time advances, and when lovers fail,
She then shines forth, solicitous to bless,
In all the glaring impotence of dress: ...
...Thus fares the land, by luxury betrayed;
In nature's simplest charms at first arrayed:
But verging to decline, its splendours rise,
Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise; ...
...The country blooms - a garden, and a grave....
A man who has spent a considerable part of his life in poverty and misery, spurns the call of luxury, for he perceives luxury as the cause of misery.
...O, luxury! thou curst by Heaven's decree,
How ill exchanged are things like these for thee!
How do thy potions, with insidious joy,
Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy! ...
But all hope is not lost. The final victory is still with the faithful. He calls for reinforcements from his only source of aid, his one true and powerful friend, Poetry, to rescue the situation:
...And thou. sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid,
Still first to fly where sensual joys invade;
... let thy voice, prevailing over time,
Redress the rigors of the inclement clime;
Aid slighted truth with thy persuasive strain;
Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain;
...That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay,
As ocean sweeps the laboured mole away;
While self-dependent power can time defy,
As rocks resist the billows and the sky...
Can anyone have doubts about the angelic qualities of Goldsmith's writing?
The Traveller is another scintillating piece of poetry. I will, but quote a few stanzas and leave you to savour the glory that is Goldsmith:
...Such is the patriot's boast where'er we roam,
His first, best country, ever is at home.
And yet, perhaps, if countries we compare,
And estimate the blessings which they share,
Though patriots flatter, still shall wisdom find
An equal portion dealt to all mankind;...
...Wealth, commerce, honour, liberty, content.
Yet these each other's power so strong contest,
That either seems destructive of the rest.
Where wealth and freedom reign, contentment fails,
And honour sinks where commerce long prevails...
...In florid beauty groves and fields appear,
Man seems the only growth that dwindles here.
Contrasted faults through all his manners reign:
