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No Going Back
We feel our lives are slowly closing round
Us when the nights grow longer than the days,
When winter brings us sadness and malaise,
And all around us is a chill profound.
Across the moss the hare limps and the hound,
No heart to follow, with his master stays,
And grazing the horizon all the rays
Of Phoebus cannot gild the sallow ground.
It only comes with wisdom and with age,
The failings of our wasted lives engage
Our thoughts, so full of longings that we might
Have done things differently with second sight.
A different tack we’d take, another track,
Too late to find there is no going back.
.
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Knowing When We Are Blest
The trick it seems to me it is to know
Beyond a shadow of a doubt that we
Are really truly blest as we can be
And absolutely certain we are so.
To know at any moment we can show
That we are cheerful, revel in a sea
Of bliss, not being barely briefly free
From sorrow, for an instant clear of woe.
To be aware our feelings at the time
Could not be merrier: if we could climb
Out of the Slough of Despond and could shout,
With lungfuls of God’s clean fresh air breathed out,
That “It is I, and joyful you can see,
If I could fly no happier would I be.”
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Peter Hartley is a retired painting restorer. He was born in Liverpool and lives in Manchester, UK.
I applaud the heartrending sentiments that only a true warrior and poet could pen, and recognition of that one spark of beauty, a last dream. Would life be different if young dreaming foresaw this fate?. Stirring and beautifully done. G.
I’m loving both of these, Peter. I think that winter, especially living in the northern latitudes, tends to be a time of self-recrimination and rumination. “No Going Back” grabbed me from the start. I re-read it several times. The second stanza is powerful. I like what you did with the closing couplet of “Knowing …”. The title says it all. I guess you could say that any day above ground’s a good day. Two philosophical gems.
Very fine metrically. And a melancholic painter’s touch. These are very good poems, but as a Poet wrote somewhere”
Every day some soul is paired
a burden to be borne,
with a joy to be shared –
and from every night each soul is spared
with grace to bear the breaking mourn.
This life cannot cull its disparate parts
to frame a form time forgets to deface.
Let us keep the Beauty that is creation in our ken, and all else falls into its proper place: not regret nor rue, but wonder as the principium, the lasting source.
I always enjoy your contributions!
“No Going Back” is an extraordinarily beautiful expression of a thought that can seem inexpressibly sad. I love the hare and the hound, clearly drawn from your long experience of animals and outdoor chill. The following lines are magnificent: “And grazing the horizon all the rays /Of Phoebus cannot gild the sallow ground.” What a turn for a sonnet!
It’s good to have your answer to the first poem in “Knowing When We Are Blest,” with the implication that we are always blest. “If I could fly, no happier would I be” is a resonant line for both of us, I believe. It made me smile to think that I would like to travel, but can’t think of many desired destinations because airport authorities might lock me up in quarantine if not put me on a return plane. I suspect you can’t even think of making it to the airport–after having flown all over the world before now. But we are both very much blessed, and I thank you for composing the reminder to revel in my sea of bliss.
Peter, I read these two moving, philosophical pieces after watching a wonderful film, “The Alpinist,” about a young Canadian who travelled the world to climb solo some phenominal, and often ice-bound summits. His joy for life was snuffed out at the age of 26 in an Alaskan avalanche. I suppose he would never have known the reflections we oldies have on what might have been. Stood atop Shutlingsloe yesterday in a howling north wind, my own “Slough of Despond” was lifted and “God’s clean air” was certainly breathed out. I love these two Peter. Well done.
Peter, these are philosophical poems of great merit, and your second poem is a seamless extension of the first. The internal rhymes in “No Going Back” add one more element to an already captivating piece.
That is one long, deadly, dark winter, in “No Going Back.” I can feel the chill from here. I can’t think of a better elucidation of the hopeless grimness of regret, that not only is it too late to go back, it’s too late even to find there’s no going back. It makes me hope for the narrators that they recognize that fact, and go forward instead.
Well, I’m glad someone else agrees with me…..
Both of these were elegant and poignant, though I did wonder for a moment whether, in line six of the former one, “heart” should have been “hart.” I like the way you bend sonnets to your own purposes, without necessarily sticking to any particular fixed type.
Peter, the pairing of these philosophical sonnets is perfection. “No Going Back” reads smoothly, beautifully, an oh so sorrowfully. The chill winter backdrop enhances the poem’s message and paints a vivid picture of regret and realization. Like Margaret, I love “And grazing the horizon all the rays /Of Phoebus cannot gild the sallow ground.” A magnificent image that elevates the message to lofty heights.
“Knowing When We Are Blest” makes me think of the fine line we tread between happiness and despair and serves to remind me of the wonders that shine amid the woes.
Peter, you are a very fine poet indeed, and it’s a privilege to read your works on this site. Thank you!