Meditation XVII
By John Donne
From Devotions upon Emergent Occasions

No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were:
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.

The Background

“No Man Is an Island” is neither a proverb nor a poem. It’s a famous line by the English poet, John Donne in his “Meditation XVII.” John Donne wrote a famous prose work titled Devotions upon Emergent Occasion in 1624 which contains “Meditation XVII.” The work is a series of reflections which he wrote as he recovered from a serious illness. Each part of the work is divided into Mediation, a Prayer and an Expostulation. Mediation XVII is a part of the entire prose work which contains the quote: “No man is an island.” The phrase sounds like, and is, an old proverbial expression. Oddly, although it was coined in the 17th century, it only began to be used widely in the second half of the 20th century. This usage started around 1940 but was probably accelerated by the release of a film of the same name in 1962.

In “Meditation XVII,” Donne compares mankind to a continent. He sees each person as part of the continent and not as an island. He maintains that when a clod breaks off from any continent, such a continent becomes lesser than as it was initially. By this assertion, Donne is referring to the effect of death. When someone dies, mankind which he sees as a continent becomes shortened by that death of the individual.

“No man is an island” is the first of two proverbial phrases from “Meditation XVII.” The second was the inspiration for Ernest Hemingway’s 1940 novel For Whom The Bell Tolls. Just as Devotions upon Emergent Occasion is regarded as one of Donne’s greatest works, For Whom The Bell Tolls likewise is regarded as one of Hemingway’s best works. There’s some debate about what precisely what Donne meant by the phrase “for whom the bell tolls.” Some think that Donne was simply pointing out people’s mortality and that when a funeral bell was heard it was a reminder that we are nearer death each day, that is, the bell is tolling for us. Others view it more mystically and argue that Donne is saying we are all one and that, when one dies, we all die a little. This isn’t as bleak as it might sound, as the counterpoint would be that there is some part of the living in the dead and that we continue a form of life after death.

From the above, we can deduce some interpretations. “Meditation XVII” suggests that human beings should not live in isolation. We’re all interconnected to one another. No one stands alone like an island that is surrounded only by the sea. We need one another to survive in life. At a time like this, we should all remember that every human life is sacred.

Annabel Lee
by Edgar Allan Poe

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we—
Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

This has always been a favorite poem of mine. I will never forget, when I was in high school, I was part of the Model Senate at Birmingham-Southern College. I was Senator Howell Heflin from Alabama, each of us got to portray our preferred senator. The Republicans had just taken over the Senate back then. Alabama’s other senator Richard Shelby has changed parties to join the Republicans so as to be in the majority again. I think this was in 1995. Anyway, the Democrats were filibustering one of the Republican bills, and a guy portraying Senator Paul Simon (I remember because both always wore a bow tie) stood up and recited “Annabel Lee” over and over until the Republicans could muster a cloture vote. So, this poem always sticks in my mind when I think back on that.

If—
Rudyard Kipling – 1865-1936

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling’s (1865-1936) inspirational poem ‘If’ first appeared in his collection ‘Rewards and Fairies’ in 1909. The poem ‘If’ is inspirational, motivational, and a set of rules for ‘grown-up’ living. Kipling’s ‘If’ contains mottos and maxims for life, and the poem is also a blueprint for personal integrity, behavior and self-development. ‘If’ is perhaps even more relevant today than when Kipling wrote it, as an ethos and a personal philosophy. Lines from Kipling’s ‘If’ appear over the player’s entrance to Wimbledon’s Centre Court – a poignant reflection of the poem’s timeless and inspiring quality.

George Gray
By Edgar Lee Masters – 1868-1950

I have studied many times
The marble which was chiseled for me–
A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.
In truth it pictures not my destination
But my life.
For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;
Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid;
Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.
Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.
And now I know that we must lift the sail
And catch the winds of destiny
Wherever they drive the boat.
To put meaning in one’s life may end in madness,
But life without meaning is the torture
Of restlessness and vague desire—

It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.

Love Without Death
Dust will be, but dust in love.
~Quevedo
__________

I love and the love I feel
I exist, I have life
and I’m burning my escape
ever born.
I love and every moment
love, my death is urged,
a love without measure
in continual burning.
But when love and do not try
because my body off
absorbent earth again:
everything will be devoured,
but not the burning love
dust of my love.

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, I wanted to feature a Mexican poet. Elías Nandino (1900-1993) was a surgeon from Mexico who was also a poet. Nandino worked as a surgeon at different hospitals during most of his life, during which he also wrote poetry. He was also open about his homosexuality in a time when it was dangerous to do so, but amazingly this did not affect his career as a surgeon.

His early poetry was rather sombre, focusing on topics like death, nighttime and dreams. From the 1950s his poetry became more personal, whereas his later poems combined eroticism and metaphysics.

A Dream Within a Dream
By Edgar Allan Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow —
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand —
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep — while I weep!
O God! Can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

The Rainbow
by Effie Waller Smith

Love is a rainbow that appears
When heaven’s sunshine lights earth’s tears.

All varied colors of the light
Within its beauteous arch unite:

There Passion’s glowing crimson hue
Burns near Truth’s rich and deathless blue;

And Jealousy’s green lights unfold
‘Mid Pleasure’s tints of flame and gold.

O dark life’s stormy sky would seem,
If love’s clear rainbow did not gleam!

Effie Waller Smith, born January 6, 1879, is the author of Rosemary and Pansies (Gorham Press, 1909), Rhymes from the Cumberland (Broadway Publishing Company, 1904), and Songs of the Month (Broadway Publishing Company, 1904). She died on January 2, 1960.

Pangur Bán
By Anonymous
Translated by Seamus Heaney

• From the ninth-century Irish poem

Pangur Bán and I at work,
Adepts, equals, cat and clerk:
His whole instinct is to hunt,
Mine to free the meaning pent.

More than loud acclaim, I love
Books, silence, thought, my alcove.
Happy for me, Pangur Bán
Child-plays round some mouse’s den.

Truth to tell, just being here,
Housed alone, housed together,
Adds up to its own reward:
Concentration, stealthy art.

Next thing an unwary mouse
Bares his flank: Pangur pounces.
Next thing lines that held and held
Meaning back begin to yield.

All the while, his round bright eye
Fixes on the wall, while I
Focus my less piercing gaze
On the challenge of the page.

With his unsheathed, perfect nails
Pangur springs, exults and kills.
When the longed-for, difficult
Answers come, I too exult.

So it goes. To each his own.
No vying. No vexation.
Taking pleasure, taking pains,
Kindred spirits, veterans.

Day and night, soft purr, soft pad,
Pangur Bán has learned his trade.
Day and night, my own hard work
Solves the cruxes, makes a mark.

About This Poem

This Old Irish poem was written by a monk about his cat, in around the 9th century, and found in a monastery in Austria. (Pangur Bán is the name of the monk’s cat.) Describing the life of the monk in his study with his cat as his happy companion, this pet poem has everything for the pet-lover and book-lover. Just as the scholar goes in search of knowledge, so his faithful companion goes in search of mice.

Here’s a bonus picture today, because we all need a fluffy kitten sitting on a stack of books.

Do not go gentle into that good night
By Dylan Thomas – 1914-1953

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

About This Poem:
“Do not go gentle into that good night” is a poem in the form of a villanelle(one of my favorite forms of poetry), and the most famous work of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (1914–1953). Though first published in the journal Botteghe Oscure in 1951, it was written in 1947 when Thomas was in Florence with his family. It was published, along with other stories previously written, as part of Thomas’ In Country Sleep, And Other Poems of 1952. The poem was also included in Collected Poems, 1934–1952, first published by Dent in 1952.

It has been suggested that the poem was written for Thomas’ dying father, although he did not die until just before Christmas 1952. It has no title other than its first line, “Do not go gentle into that good night”, a line that appears as a refrain throughout the poem along with its other refrain, “Rage, rage against the dying of the light”.

Alone
by Maya Angelou

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don’t believe I’m wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can’t use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They’ve got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I’ll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
‘Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

With so many people these days under a stay at home order, it can feel awfully lonely to some. Some of us live alone and are a bit introverted, but lets not forget those extraverts out there who need socialization. If you can reach out to someone who you know needs that extra socialization, reach out to them and let them know they are not alone.