#301

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An interesting Dream Song about St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin and Jonathon Swift, who had once served as the Dean of St. Patrick’s and is buried there. He is buried next to one of his “enigmatic ladies” “the giant presences / chained to St. Patrick’s, tumultuous, serene, / their mighty stint done, larger in stone than life.” That may be true—“larger in stone” really being a reference to the legacy and reputation of Swift, recognized three hundred years after his death as among the greatest writers in English, still read, still admired, still remembered. But is this stone-symbolized legacy of Swift’s larger than his life was? Depends on who you talk to, I suppose. Somebody might mention that Swift lived a successful and dramatic life, moving in high royal circles, angering queens with his satire, a leading political, religious and literary figure. He made money and lived a life with some financial security and modest luxury. But for B., reputation being larger than actual life turns out to be very important. Swift’s portrait graced the Irish £10 bank note. Now that means legacy!

Henry of course had visited St. Patrick’s on his journey to Ireland to have tea with Yeats thirty years before. Nothing in St. Patrick’s has changed, and nothing of Swift’s reputation has changed in a mere thirty years either.

The last stanza is really interesting because of the undeniable correspondences B. sees with the great writer, Swift:

            His frantic huge mind left him long before the end,

            he wandered mad through the apartments but once was seen

            to pause by a shelf & look

            at a copy of the Tale of a Tub: he took it down

            & was heard to mutter ‘What a genius was mine

            when I wrote down that book.’

Swift had lost his mind toward the end of his life and was declared mad and committed to an asylum. It’s a poignant moment in the poem when in a fleeting moment of clarity he comments on the book he wrote when he was young and strong. I’ve written and published a few things, and some I even like. What will it be like when I’m no longer capable of the effort and creativity it took to do that work? Do you look back proudly, or do you lament that you can’t do it any longer and will never again? Maybe it’s both. There is a kind of sad, wistful pride here, so I think it has to be a mixture of both. B. uses the scene with Swift because it approaches what he’s feeling as well. He calls himself a wreck, he’s been in and out of hospitals for years, and his major work is nearing completion. He did indeed win some high lauds and accolades, so it was reasonable to think that something of a legacy might have been established. While artists of the stature of Jonathon Swift only come along once or twice in a century, B. has still earned the right to at least make the comparison. And there is that sadness approaching—whatever it added up to, his life, it’s close to being over. His literary reputation and his legacy will be taking over soon. Addiction, ambition, and madness notwithstanding, it’s an honest human moment.