A VERY QUIET JOY

 

For Christmas, I always put up this exquisite small poem written by a very young English actress, Jill Furse, around 1940. At the outbreak of World War II, Jill married the poet and glass-engraver Laurence Whistler, had a daughter Robin, whom I knew at University, and died soon after giving birth to her son Simon, at the age of 29.

CAROL

 

Beyond this room

Daylight is brief.

Frost with no harm

Burns in white flame

The green holly leaf. 

Cold on the wind’s arm

Is ermine of snow.

 

Child with the sad name,

Your time is come

Quiet as moss.

You journey now

For our belief

Between the rich womb

And the poor cross.

 

Jill Furse (1915-1944)

CAROL

This year, as every year, I celebrate Christmas with an homage to the peerless Jill Furse, whose husband, Laurence (later Sir Laurence) Whistler, glass engraver and poet, it was my privilege to know. His account of their brief marriage, The Initials in the Heart, is an intimate, tender and painful love-story.


CAROL

Beyond this room
Daylight is brief.
Frost with no harm
Burns in white flame
The green holly leaf.
Cold on the wind’s arm
Is ermine of snow.

Child with the sad name,
Your time is come
Quiet as moss.
You journey now
For our belief
Between the rich womb
And the poor cross.

Jill Furse (1915-1944)

CHRISTMAS AND BEYOND

CAROL

 Beyond this room

Daylight is brief.

Frost with no harm

Burns in white flame

The green holly leaf.

Cold on the wind’s arm

Is ermine of snow.

Child with the sad name,

Your time is come

Quiet as moss.

You journey now

For our belief

Between the rich womb

And the poor cross.

Jill Furse (1915-1944)

Jill Furse (granddaughter of the poet Sir Henry Newbolt) was a young actress of great promise who married glass-engraver and poet Laurence Whistler. Their brief but idyllic marriage was cut short by her death after the birth of their second child, and was exquisitely described by Whistler in his book The Initials in the Heart. I was privileged to know both Whistler and his daughter, and have always loved this little poem Jill wrote in their secluded cottage in Devon. 

I used to wonder at the ending, but have come to understand what was doubtless elementary to all but me: that the Incarnation implies the Crucifixion. If the almighty and everlasting God of the entire universe (and possibly of a few others also) decides, in His son, to take upon him, not a human form but human substance, human life itself; if Deus homo factus est; then that human life implies a human death. The rich womb opens the way to the poor cross. 

And the poor cross, of course, is not the end. Et resurrexit tertia die: Christmas points to Good Friday, but Good Friday points to Easter morning. Laurence, who wrote some very moving poems after her death, died in December 2000. It is a good thought that they are now reunited.

POIGNANT AND FINE

Every year on Christmas Day, I put up a small poem by the late Jill Furse, which moved me when I first read it nearly fifty years ago and still moves me today. Jill Furse, a young and brilliant actress, was the beloved first wife of the poet and glass-engraver Sir Laurence Whistler. She died just after giving birth to her second child, at the age of 29. I strongly recommend Whistler's The Initials in the Heart, a beautifully-written account of their marriage. 

CAROL

Beyond this room

Daylight is brief.

Frost with no harm

Burns in white flame

The green holly leaf. 

Cold on the wind’s arm

Is ermine of snow.

Child with the sad name,

Your time is come

Quiet as moss.

You journey now

For our belief

Between the rich womb

And the poor cross.

Jill Furse (1915-1944)

UNFORGOTTEN POETRY: LAURENCE WHISTLER

Sir Laurence Whistler (1912-2000) was a miraculous glass-engraver, who has appeared on my blog before and will do so again, since I had the privilege of his acquaintance in my youth. He was also a fine poet, who invented a new form of the sonnet. Here is a poem I have always loved, from his volume  Audible Silence (Hart-Davis, 1961).

The Guest

Build the pillows plump as mushrooms,
Folding down the elated sheet.
Look to all courtesies of night-time:
Lemon to sip, petit beurre to eat.
Try the bedside lamp. Lay out
Towels large as a cloud and kind.
Bring to the dressing-table one rose—
And read the same thought in the mirror’s mind.
For he is expected. Can joy do less,
When it may not spread carpets and fall at his feet?

Strip the pillow, fold the bedding,
Draw a dust-sheet over the bed.
Release to their holes around the house
The books that flocked to his midnight head.
Pick up scraps of a letter. Empty
A vase where pins and pennies confer.
Then slide the curtains: keep that sun
From whitening chintz and wall-paper.
For he is gone. Now if any good thing
Was left for the saying, it stays unsaid.

And all the day we were brimming with plans
To entertain him and keep him near;
And half the night were examining ways
To relish him better, eye and ear.
Was there ever a moment when anyone said,
‘Relax. He is here!’?

Usque ad senectutem et canos Deus ne derelinquas me:

donec adnuntiam brachium tuum generationi

cunctisque qui venturi sunt fortitudines tuas.