When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defac’d
The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age;
When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed
And brass eternal, slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the wat’ry main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded to decay;
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate —
That Time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death, which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.
Allen Ginsberg on Shakespeare’s Sonnets (continuing from here)
AG; But foreboding comes on and in Sonnet 64 which we have here –“When I have…” – this is on page 214 –
What it is (is) there’s a kind of poignancy here when he realizes that he had something extraordinary, that he achieved something extraordinary in the poetry, he’s really had, like, a hundred-percent human adventure, and that he’s seen the height of human possibility and love (he thinks), or the height of bliss, the height of pleasure, and that it’s already beginning to crumble, that it’s not substantial, that it’s impermanent or transitory, that it’s the very nature of existence that it be so, and therefore it becomes even more dear while it’s going on. He suddenly realizes that he’s still got the chance to make out even though they’re both going to be swallowed in the shadow, even though it’s all going to fall apart, one way or another, whether, you know, physically they die, or they fall apart, or.. they’re not so., not so.. they grow old, or, you know, they lose their teeth – “When I have seen by times fell hand defaced – (“Fell” means..what it says here – well, destroying, but it’s more maleficent, malicious, or cruel, or – “the fell hand of the tyrant” – right? – the..destructive, I said – (destroying it says), destructive, rather than destroying, I guess. “When I have seen the hungry ocean gain/Advantage on the kingdom of the shore/And the firm soil win of the wat’ry main,/Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;/When I have seen such interchange of state,/Or state itself confounded to decay/Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate –/That Time will come and take my love away/This thought is as a death, which cannot choose/But weep to have that which it fears to lose. ( to have right now – “fear to lose” – so, I suppose, what? to get back on it as a..) – “Sometime lofty tower(s)” – (like.. lofty tower(s), like.. a railroad station in Albany – “When Sometime lofty towers I see down-razed/And brass eternal, slave to mortal rage” (that’s pretty funny – probably brass, brass trumpets?, brass instruments?, brass..doors)
PO: Lanterns?
AG: Lanterns, doors..
PO: Pots?
AG: Brass..
PO: Candle-holders?
Student: Drinking goblets,
AG; Goblets, yeah, but brass (which is really strong) and brazen – brazen doors – brass doors – that is, wooden doors with brass or iron, or wooden doors with brass binding around them (are) strongest by.. – defaced by “mortal rage”, “eternal brass slave to mortal rage” (in other words, longer, enduring, not eternal but enduring brass, “slave to mortal…” – someone gets mad and melts it all down, or batters in the gate, or throws the cups over a cliff, or puts a hole in the pot, or…it’s funny “..brass eternal slaves to mortal rage” (total durable solid brass-like hard, slave to somebody’s yelling! – (So) back to the breath again, or back to the breath that penetrates through matter, or back to emotion which penetrates through matter and destroys matter, emotion-destroying-matter – an interesting idea – “,,brass eternal slaves to mortal rage” (in other words weak, flowery, skinny people who with all that anger could actually destroy brass imagery). And then the hungry ocean eating up the sea-shore and the sea-shore, or different kinds of shore, filling up in the ocean, – “Increasing store with loss, and loss with store” (that’s clear? – increasing the store of ocean with a loss, or the store of shore with a loss to the ocean – That’s just logopoeia again – “Increasing store with loss, and loss with store”) – “When I have seen such interchange of state” (like (Richard) Nixon being knocked over) – “interchange of state” (“state” meaning “State”, the big State, and also state of things). – ”Or state itself confounded to decay” (Germany after Hitler?, America, right now?, the “state itself confounded to decay”, in the newspaper headlines, in every direction.) – “Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate“ (that’s really pretty – again, logopoeia – and melopoeia – “Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate” (think, think about it, or muse on it) – “That time will come and take my love away” – (or That time will come, or That time will come and take my love away”. So that’s the logopoeia..)
But what’s really pretty, however – “This thought is as a death, which cannot choose/But weep to have that which it fears to lose” (So it becomes even more poignant and dear and sharp and feeling-full to be in the presence of the one he loves, when, you know it’s not going to last, and there’s only this moment, and you’d better seize the moment, or better get with it right now, or better understand it now, or.. suddenly just is invaded by the feeling of the reality of the moment, knowing that it’s only here now and not going to be after. And so that increases the desperation to make out while he’s still alive, while they are both of them relatively young).
[Audio for the above can be heard here, beginning at approximately forty-seven-and-a-half minutes in and concluding at approximately fifty-four-and-a-quarter minutes in]