9 Comments
⭠ Return to thread

I’ll confess I read this as a sleep aid- I had galloping insomnia and it looked dry as dust. How wrong can you be. Beautiful and fascinating.

Expand full comment
author

Ha! That made me laugh. Thank you.

Expand full comment

No, thank you! Still turning the poem over in my head.

Expand full comment
author

Herbert's poem is genuinely mysterious. Ultimately, I suspect there was a personal reference of some kind -- that it links to a conversation or in-joke or something of the sort with Bacon. Occasional verse for a specific person is often the hardest to interpret for this reason.

Expand full comment

Lost in time… how frustrating. Or perhaps leaves more room for the imagination.

Expand full comment
author

I spent ages this week trying to work out whether a Latin poem about being saved by a dolphin (!) written by an English chaplain in Russia in 1618 for a Dutch envoy who was passing through was actually a poem about being saved by a dolphin, or some sort of elaborate allegory of European politics. Still have no idea!

Expand full comment

What the….?? Please make that your next stack!

Expand full comment
author

I think it'll probably be the one after next but we'll see!

Expand full comment

Very much looking forward to it.

Expand full comment
Error