The Fredösphere

Richard Hickox is making excellent recordings these days, and among them is one I found at the library, this collection of songs by Gerald Finzi.  If you like, follow the link and listen to a bit of the first song, "To A Poet A Thousand Years Hence," although it is not my favorite Finzi song by a long shot.  Nevertheless, I am grateful to him for introducing me to a mesmerizing, melancholy poem.

To A Poet A Thousand Years Hence

I who am dead a thousand years,
And wrote this sweet archaic song,
Send you my words for messengers
The way I shall not pass along.

I care not if you bridge the seas,
Or ride secure in the cruel sky,
Or build consummate palaces
Of metal or of masonry.

But have you wine and music still,
And statues and a bright-eyed love,
And foolish thoughts of good and ill,
And prayers to them who sit above?

How shall we conquer? Like a wind
That falls at eve our fancies blow,
And old Maeonides the blind
Said it three thousand years ago,

O friend unseen, unborn, unknown,
Student of our sweet English tongue,
Read out my words at night, alone:
I was a poet, I was young.

Since I can never see your face,
And never shake you by the hand,
I send my soul through time and space
To greet you. You will understand.

This poem was written by James Elroy Flecker (1884-1915).  Look again at those dates -- as you might guess, he was consumed by the Great Meat Grinder.  As a friend said to me, "cruel skies indeed!"