‘How deep yon azure dyes the sky,
Where orbs of gold unnumbered lie,
While through their ranks in silver pride
The nether crescent seems to glide.
The slumb’ring breeze forgets to breathe,
The lake is smooth and clear beneath,
Where once again the spangled show
Descends to meet our eyes below.’
(lines 9-16)
A
Night-Piece on Death
Thomas
Parnell (1679-1718)
(published 1722)
Surely the eighteenth century was the great age
for poetic descriptions of landscape: in just a few lines Thomas Parnell
captures his reader and takes them out by the hand to wander through a cool,
still night. This is not a long poem,
but it has a lot to say. It also has a
lot of really splendid images: when he begins by describing ‘the blue taper’s
trembling light’ (line 1), for example, we can instantly see inside his cosy
little study, and see the frail quiver of the candle flame. Parnell writes that ‘No more I waste the
wakeful night’ (line 2), and he doesn’t waste words either.
The poem starts off late at night in a study; the
poet has been reading the works of ‘The schoolmen and the sages’ (line 4),
trying to find the path to wisdom. But ‘at
best’, he decides, such books can only ‘point […] the longest way’ (line 6). The real way to understand the world here ‘below’
the heavens, is to go outside and experience it first hand: ‘How deep yon azure
dyes the sky, / Where orbs of gold unnumbered lie’ (lines 9-10). Beautiful, isn’t it?
 |
| Thomas Parnell. Image courtesy of Encyclopaedia Britannica. |
Then as he walks he sees ‘a place of graves’ (line
19), and gently the poem grows more solemn.
Another subtle shift here is that the poem suddenly begins to address
the reader (or, to use the jargon, talking in the second person):
‘There pass, with melancholy state,
By all the solemn heaps of fate,
And think, as softly-sad you tread
Above the venerable dead,
“Time was, like thee they life possessed,
And time shall be, that thou shalt rest.”’
(lines 23-28)
Ok, so it sounds a little gloomy perhaps; but it’s
also a fair point. It’s also interesting
that Parnell is now addressing his reader directly. Somewhat paradoxically, he has now become
like the ‘schoolmen and sages’ whose books he had been reading, as he now
begins to write about the knowledge and wisdom he has gained through his
midnight ramblings. (Needless to say,
late-night wanderings around graveyards are NOT recommended for today’s readers!)
To Parnell, the graves are a symbol of labour at
rest. Once again his delightful turn of
phrase produces such poignant images as ‘The flat smooth stones that bear a
name, / The chisel’s slender help to fame’ (lines 33-34). As is frequently the case with graveyard
poetry in the eighteenth-century, the emphasis is firmly upon death as a social
leveller – in this graveyard are the poor, the ‘middle race of mortals’, and
those who ‘in vaulted arches lie’ (lines 37 & . 40). The rich and great might try to preserve
their fame after death through elaborate tombs, but as Parnell neatly notes they
are those ‘Who, while on earth in fame they live, / Are senseless of the fame
they give’ (lines 45-6). The ‘they’ in
the second line here refers to the ‘Arms, angels, epitaphs and bones’ (line 43)
that adorn the graves of the rich. In
other words, while alive, these people paid little or no attention to the fame
of their ancestors, proclaimed in the same manner in which they themselves have
since attempted to proclaim theirs. It’s
a bit of a sweeping swipe at the aristocracy, but all the same rather cleverly
put.
Then things get a bit more spooky, as he imagines
the ghosts rising up from their graves as ‘pale Cynthia fades’ (line 47); Cynthia
here refers to the moon, via Greek mythology. The poet hears ‘a voice begin’ (line 55), and
the lines between imagination and the supernatural become delightfully
blurred. The voice is that of Death, the
‘King of Fears’ (line 62), but the words he speaks are rather less terrifying
than might be expected. According to
this voice, ‘Death’s but a path that must be trod, / If man would ever pass to
God’ (lines 67-8). Mocking the traditional
eighteenth-century funeral fare of ‘flowing sable stoles, / Deep pendant
cypress, mourning poles’ (lines 71-2) and so on, the voice then proceeds to
paint a rather cheery picture of death that draws upon Christian religious
belief in rebirth and resurrection.
Accordingly, the voice suggests that life is like a long prison sentence
from which worthy souls may ‘Spring forth to greet the glitt’ring sun’ after
death, and ultimately ‘mingle with the blaze of day’ (lines 82 & 90). Certainly a very upbeat ending for a poem
that is, essentially, all about death!
Thomas
Parnell (1679-1718)
If you want
to find out more about Thomas Parnell:
(Encyclopaedia Britannica – a bit like Wikipedia,
but sounds more intellectual!)
You can
find this poem:
(Can’t wait to start reading? Know how you feel… Check out this free copy
online at the Poetry Foundation!)
(English Poetry 1579-1830: a fascinating database
of poetry with a healthy smattering of notes and commentary. Compiled by David Hill Radcliffe, Virginia
Tech. Great stuff!!)
David Fairer & Christine Gerrard (eds), Eighteenth-Century Poetry: An Annotated
Anthology 3rd ed. (Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2015) pp. 66-67.
(Want a copy you can hold in your hand? This anthology has this poem and loads more
inside! It’s often used as a student text, so check for second-hand copies on
eBay or similar before purchasing if you’re shopping on a budget!)
Information
for this blogpost came from the following source:
Bryan Coleborne, ‘Parnell, Thomas (1679-1718), poet and essayist’, Oxford Dictionary
of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/21390>
[accessed 18 Jan 2016]
(If you are fortunate enough to have a
subscription to this database, or to study at an institution that does, do have
a read: it’s a fascinating little article!)
