{"id":1177,"date":"2008-04-08T00:19:15","date_gmt":"2008-04-08T04:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/?p=1177"},"modified":"2008-04-08T00:19:15","modified_gmt":"2008-04-08T04:19:15","slug":"the-poets-testament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/2008\/04\/08\/the-poets-testament\/","title":{"rendered":"The Poet’s Testament"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Santayana began as a poet, and, though he came to be known as philosopher, teacher and critic, a poet he remained. There was nothing blank, free or modern about his verses’; they rhymed, and what he had to say often sounded like a translation from the Latin classics, with which he was intimately familiar. When he died in Rome last month at 88, this poem, entitled The Poet’s Testament, was found among his papers. Read at his funeral in place of a religious service, it reminded many a listener of the work of Catullus, who wrote of life and death in the Alban Hills more than 2,000 years ago.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(from Time<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The Poet’s Testament<\/strong><\/p>\n

I give back to the earth what the earth gave,
\nAll to the furrow, none to the grave,
\nThe candle’s out, the spirit’s vigil spent;
\nSight may not follow where the vision went.<\/p>\n

I leave you but the sound of many a word
\nIn mocking echoes haply overheard,
\nI sang to heaven. My exile made me free,
\nfrom world to world, from all worlds carried me.<\/p>\n

Spared by the furies, for the Fates were kind,
\nI paced the pillared cloisters of the mind;
\nAll times my present, everywhere my place,
\nNor fear, nor hope, nor envy saw my face.<\/p>\n

Blow what winds would, the ancient truth was mine,
\nAnd friendship mellowed in the flush of wine,
\nAnd heavenly laughter, shaking from its wings
\nAtoms of light and tears for mortal things.<\/p>\n

To trembling harmonies of field and cloud,
\nOf flesh and spirit was my worship vowed.
\nLet form, let music, let all quickening air
\nFulfil in beauty my imperfect prayer.<\/p>\n

–George Santayana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

George Santayana began as a poet, and, though he came to be known as philosopher, teacher and critic, a poet he remained. There was nothing blank, free or modern about his verses’; they rhymed, and what he had to say often sounded like a translation from the Latin classics, with which he was intimately familiar. When he died in Rome… Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[194,264],"class_list":["post-1177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-poem","tag-santayana","xfolkentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5UQvw-iZ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}