Know Thyself

by Alexander Pope (1688 – 1744)

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act or rest,
In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast,
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reasoning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such
Whether he thinks too little or too much:
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused, or disabused;
Created half to rise and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!

Crossing the Bar

CROSSING THE BAR

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.

written 1889 by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

(the illustration above was published in Punch magazine on 15 October 1892, nine days after Tennyson\’s death)

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Advice from Marine Safety Victoria:

What is a bar?

A bar is an accumulation of sand or silt at the entrance of a river, creek, lake or harbour.
Examples of bars located in Victorian waters are: Port Phillip Heads, Lakes Entrance, Patterson River, Anderson’s Inlet, Barwon Heads, McLaughlins Beach, Port Albert.

WHY ARE BARS DANGEROUS?

Conditions prevailing on a bar can cause steep and often breaking seas. For this reason it is important to take a number of precautions and manoeuvre the vessel with extreme caution.
Crossing a bar is a job for an experienced vessel handler.

EXERCISE EXTREME CAUTION

Conditions on a bar change quickly and without warning. The skipper’s experience and vessel type should be taken into account when a bar crossing is considered. No amount of experience or boat type makes crossing a bar safe when the conditions are marginal or adverse. No situation warrants taking the risk.

If In Doubt – Don’t Go Out. Once started, you are committed to crossing the bar.

The Passionate Man’s Pilgrimage

pilgrims at Santiago de Compostela, Spain

The Passionate Man’s Pilgrimage

by Sir Walter Ralegh

[Supposed to be written by one at the point of death]

Give me my scallop shell of quiet,

My staff of faith to walk upon,

My scrip of joy, immortal diet,

My bottle of salvation,

My gown of glory, hope’s true gage,

And thus I’ll take my pilgrimage.

Blood must be my body’s balmer,

No other balm will there be given,

Whilst my soul, like a white palmer,

Travels to the land of heaven;

Over the silver mountains,

Where spring the nectar fountains;

And there I’ll kiss

The bowl of bliss,

And drink my eternal fill

On every milken hill.

My soul will be a-dry before,

But after it will ne’er thirst more;

And by the happy blissful way

More peaceful pilgrims I shall see,

That have shook off their gowns of clay,

And go apparelled fresh like me.

I’ll bring them first

To slake their thirst,

And then to taste those nectar suckets,

At the clear wells

Where sweetness dwells,

Drawn up by saints in crystal buckets.

And when our bottles and all we

Are fill’d with immortality,

Then the holy paths we’ll travel,

Strew’d with rubies thick as gravel,

Ceilings of diamonds, sapphire floors,

High walls of coral, and pearl bowers.

From thence to heaven’s bribeless hall

Where no corrupted voices brawl,

No conscience molten into gold,

Nor forg’d accusers bought and sold,

No cause deferr’d, nor vain-spent journey,

For there Christ is the king’s attorney,

Who pleads for all without degrees,

And he hath angels, but no fees.

When the grand twelve million jury

Of our sins and sinful fury,

’Gainst our souls black verdicts give,

Christ pleads his death, and then we live.

Be thou my speaker, taintless pleader,

Unblotted lawyer, true proceeder,

Thou movest salvation even for alms,

Not with a bribed lawyer’s palms.

And this is my eternal plea

To him that made heaven, earth, and sea,

Seeing my flesh must die so soon,

And want a head to dine next noon,

Just at the stroke when my veins start and spread,

Set on my soul an everlasting head.

Then am I ready, like a palmer fit,

To tread those blest paths which before I writ.

(photo – pilgrims at Santiago de Compostela, Spain)

There are some men …

Mount Barker, South Australia

by Leonard Cohen

There are some men
who should have mountains
to bear their names to time.

Grave-markers are not high enough
or green,
and sons go far away
to lose the fist
their father’s hand will always seem.

I had a friend:
he lived and died in mighty silence
and with dignity,
left no book, son, or lover to mourn.

Nor is this a mourning-song
but only a naming of this mountain
on which I walk,
fragrant, dark, and softly white
under the pale of mist.
I name this mountain after him.

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The photo above shows ‘Womma Mu Kurta’ (the Mountain on the Plain) – more familiarly known as Mount Barker, named for Capt. Collet Barker (1784-1831), 39th Foot Regiment, whose resting place somewhere near the mouth of the River Murray is unknown.  Capt. Barker’s epitaph, the final quote in his journal, consists of the first two lines of Alexander Pope‘s “Ode on Solitude“:

“Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me dye;
Steal I from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lye.”

Jonathan Swift … on Politicks

Swift

The wily Shafts of State, those Juggler’s Tricks
Which we call deep Design and Politicks
(As in a Theatre the Ignorant Fry,
Because the Cords escape their Eye
Wonder to see the Motions fly)
Methinks, when you expose the Scene,
Down the ill-organ’d Engines fall;
Off fly the Vizards and discover all,
How plain I see thro’ the Deceit!
How shallow! and how gross the Cheat!. . .
Look where the Pulley’s ty’d above!
Great God! (said I) what have I seen!
On what poor Engines move
The Thoughts of Monarchs, and Design of States!
What pretty Motives rule their Fates!
How the mouse makes the mighty mountains shake!
Away the frighten’d Peasants fly,
Scar’d at th’ unheard-of Prodigy,
Expect some gigantic son of Earth;
Lo, it appears!
See, how they tremble! How they quake!
Out starts the little beast, and mocks their idle fears.

from Jonathan Swift‘s Ode to the Honourable Sir William Temple (Section VII)
written at Moor-Park, June 1689

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) was Secretary to Sir William Temple (statesman, diplomat and author: 1628-1699) at Moor Park 1689-94 and 1696-99. Dr Swift was a cleric, later famed as an political pamphleteer, satirist and Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin). His best known work is Gulliver’s Travels - see Wikipedia synopsis .

Seek Knowledge unto China … entry for June 14, 2007

hoopoe

The birds of the world gather to search for their king, the mysterious Simorgh. The hoopoe (photo left), who summons them to the quest, speaks below.

It was in China, late one moonless night,
The Simorgh first appeared to human sight –
He let a feather float down through the air,
And rumours of its fame spread everywhere;
Throughout the world men separately conceived
An image of its shape, and all believed
Their private fantasies uniquely true!
(In China still this feather is on view,
Whence comes the saying you have heard, no doubt,
“Seek Knowledge, unto China seek it out.”)
If this same feather had not floated down,
The world would not be filled with His renown –
It is a sign of Him, and in each heart
There lies this feather’s hidden counterpart.
But since no words suffice, what use are mine
To represent or to describe this sign?
Whoever wishes to explore the Way,
Let him set out – what more is there to say?

from Farid ud-Din Attar’s “The Conference of the Birds“

(translation by Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis)

Windswept autumnal day at Port Noarlunga

Port Noarlunga jetty

Great to view from the warmth and protection of the car whilst driving along the clifftop above Port Noarlunga.

Reminded me of Adam Lindsay Gordon’s poem, “The Swimmer” (final verses):

See! girt with tempest and wing’d with thunder,
And clad with lightning and shod with sleet,
The strong winds treading the swift waves sunder
The flying rollers with frothy feet.
One gleam like a bloodshot sword-blade swims on
The sky-line, staining the green gulf crimson,
A death stroke fiercely dealt by a dim sun,
That strikes through his stormy winding-sheet.

Oh! brave white horses! you gather and gallop,
The storm sprite loosens the gusty reins;
Now the stoutest ship were the frailest shallop
In your hollow backs, or your high arch\’d manes.
I would ride as never a man has ridden
In your sleepy, swirling surges hidden,
I would ride as never a man has ridden
To gulfs foreshadow’d through straits forbidden,
Where no light wearies and no love wanes.
Where no love wanes.

Or perhaps even more of Judith Wright’s “The Surfer”:

…

For on the sand the grey-wolf sea lies, snarling,
cold twilight wind splits the waves’ hair and shows
the bones they worry in their wolf-teeth. O, wind blows
and sea crouches on sand, fawning and mouthing;
drops there and snatches again, drops and again snatches
its broken toys, its whitened pebbles and shells.

Ballooning in Burma

ballooning in Burma

From Persian looms the silk he wove
No Weaver meant should trail above
The surface of the earth we tread,To deck the matron or the maid.
But you ambitious, have design'd
With silk to soar above mankind:--
On silk you hang your splendid car
And mount towards the morning star.

[poem by Philip Freneau - To Mr. Blanchard, the Celebrated Aeronaut in America]

High Flight

Morning Glory cloud formation

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds, – and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air ….

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew -

And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

- Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, Jr. (1922-1941), No.412 Squadron RCAF

Morning glory cloud formation

Treasure Island

Treasure Island

A poem by Robert Louis Stevenson at the front of his tale “Treasure Island”

TO THE HESITATING PURCHASER

If sailor tales to sailor tunes,
Storm and adventure, heat and cold,
If schooners, islands, and maroons,
And buccaneers, and buried gold,
And all the old romance, retold
Exactly in the ancient way,
Can please, as me they pleased of old,
The wiser youngsters of today:

–So be it, and fall on! If not,
If studious youth no longer crave,
His ancient appetites forgot,
Kingston, or Ballantyne the brave,
Or Cooper of the wood and wave:
So be it, also! And may I
And all my pirates share the grave
Where these and their creations lie!