I started this blog with part of the first line from Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress”
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
Are the first two lines – and they are driving me to distraction!
In an effort to write something – I have been writing about why I am having problems in writing. Luckily I have these spare blogs, once popular, but now in dusty side-roads of anonymity, where I can publish with impunity knowing only a couple of friends and myself will read them – but it is publishing and writing something.
The reason those lines of verse are irritating me seems to be for the same reason I have not been writing or working efficiently. – The series of mini-strokes I have unknowingly had over the years has left a lot of “holes” in my brain – areas where, probably, high blood pressure has damaged the tissue. This seems to have affected my ability to concentrate and parts of my memory.
The great news is that I can stop any further damage and hopefully I can retrain myself to improve memory and ability again. The brain is a wonderful thing and can compensate for a lot of lost or damaged tissue.
But is is not going to be easy. It is like learning again how to think, it is going to be a long process and take years.
So here I am on the first lap. I decided to learn some verses. But holding one line in my head is proving a mammoth task. For five days I have tried to recall the first two lines, and I am only just getting there, but the words slip away in moments.
I can recall verses I learnt many years ago – I still can recite the opening chorus from Henry V learnt when I was 12, but it is hard to recall a series of numbers greater than six in a row I have seen only seconds before.
Oh well – I will keep trying – I will keep training and try to get some intelligence and ability back.
I love the poem, especially as Carole summed it up by saying all it means is “Get Your Knickers Off”
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love’s day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv’d virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am’rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp’d power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.