Henry is happy in this poem for a change, because he can
finally envision the end of this long Dream Song toil he’s been so consumed by,
after which he will be able to rest, see old friends, begin maybe to put his
life back together. The drinking that fueled the work also fueled his physical
demise, and if that’s true, then from a vantage point that acknowledges that
life actually means something, it should be a life-affirming thing to be done
with it all. I wonder if there’s even a tenuous hope that with the work over
the drinking might well subside along with it. And by the way, what a dragging
down into mire and fire all that complex of drinking/writing has been! But something
follows that comes out in that last line: “Henry’s work, on the Atlantic shelf
/ will begin to disappear.” Here’s the thing: Even if the work you so suffered
to produce makes it big, if your reputation is established, even if you have
written influential and widely loved lines, your work will still disappear.
Shakespeare became the Bard. His work is starting to be translated into modern
English, the first step in the long slow decline that will eventually lead to
its final loss. Shakespeare is maybe not a good example, since he’s at the top
of the heap still and has plenty of shelf life left. How about Wordsworth,
great but lessly great: Who reads The Prelude
anymore anyway? A handful of grad students a year, that’s who. Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake is brilliant from what I’ve
heard. I can’t read it. No one can. Eventually the societal values that
maintain an artist’s reputation get lost. Then the work is forgotten. Most work
gets forgotten.
It strangely doesn’t seem like a bitter line, coming as it
is at the end of all that other good news, and the looking forward to some
friends, or ex-lovers (who knows?) he may be seeing. The life of being with
friends actually matters more. Of course along the way he counts the number of
real friends he has left, which has this kind of surly wounded quality about it—hardly
anybody likes me anymore, but at least these two do. Oh well. But what matters
is the letting go and the joy of letting go. He’s saying, it’s enough to know I
gave it my all, did what I can do. The life-span of the work, once I’ve turned
it loose, is not something I can control. I’d just like to hang out with some
friends. So it feels to this commentator like a hopeful, life-affirming moment,
and much at odds with much of what had been established before. It’s born out
of a moment of satisfaction.
Anyone who has defended a dissertation knows the feeling.
There’s usually more bullshit to come, of course, just waiting; life can have a
way of backhanding you across the face in the wake of moments of satisfaction
and accomplishment. But the moments themselves, for their moment, gleam bright
and timeless in the memory, and that usually makes them worth the sacrifice
they cost. For all he’s suffered, I guess Henry’s earned this one. So what if
it all gonna disappear? It’s the fact that he did it that matters most. It’s
permanently something the guy could have drawn strength from provided he wasn’t
too hung up on fame and money. Except he was, but that gets set aside here for
a moment. Congratulations Henry! Your “mechanical toils” will be over soon. You’re
seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, and it looks shiny.
Yay, B!
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