Joys are like oil ; if thrown upon the tide
Of flowing life, they mix not, nor subside;
Griefs are like waters on the rivers thrown,
They mix entirely, and become its own.
George Crabbe 'Infancy - A Fragment'
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- http://www.blog.co.uk/user/justgrrl
- 2008-06-04 @ 19:51:01
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rubychoo
- 2008-06-05 @ 23:55:03
I think that first stanza lovely though it is, could be readily reversed and make more sense to readers...
People are not generally aware of their joys and would be hard put to describe 'a joy', whereas griefs are little identifiable islands of comprehensive pain...
I wasn't manipulating the poem.
I think Crabbe felt that people are inherently incapable of understanding joy because we're not infused with it, but we should still recognise and embrace it where we can.
As in Masefield...
'Best trust the happy hours...' -
still (reading further), we are told bitters CAN be mixed with joy though...
"So many a day, in life’s advance, I knew;
So they commenced, and so they ended too.
All Promise they – all Joy as they begun!
But Joy grew less, and vanished as they ran!
Errors and evils came in many a form, -
The mind's delusion, and the passions storm.
The promised joy, that like this morning rose,
Broke on my view, then clouded as its close;
E’en Love himself, that promiser of bliss,
Made his best days of pleasure end like this:
He mixe'd his bitters in the cup of joy,
Nor gave a bliss uninjured by alloy."