An Elegy

SHE fell away in her first ages spring,
Whil’st yet her leaf was green, and fresh her rinde,
And whil’st her branch fair blossoms forth did bring,
She fell away against all course of kind.
For age to die is right, but youth is wrong;         5
She fell away like fruit blown down with wind.
Weep, Shepherd! weep, to make my undersong.

Yet fell she not as one enforc’d to die,
Ne died with dread and grudging discontent,
But as one toil’d with travail down doth lie,
So lay she down, as if to sleep she went,
And closed her eyes with careless quietness;
The whiles soft death away her spirit sent,
And soul assoyld from sinful fleshliness.

Edmud Spenser( 1552?-1599 )

She said that all the time she was up and down to Ceiling Land this fragment of Spenser kept going through her head like a refrain.

"...an undersong of sense which none beside the poetic mind can comprehend.”

Landor.

She was the only person I actually knew who had this experience...I was fascinated by it...she just thought of it as "well there ya go" and was more intrigued by the fact that the Spencer lines kept going around in her head like a refrain and it bugged her that she couldn't remember where it was from....for her to know was more important than the actual dying.

DAPHNAÏDA

V
‘Hencefoorth I hate what ever Nature made,
And in her workmanship no pleasure finde:
For they be all but vaine, and quickly fade,         395
So soone as on them blowes the northern winde;
They tarrie not, but flit and fall away,
Leaving behind them nought but griefe of minde,
And mocking such as thinke they long will stay.

‘I hate the heaven, because it doth withhold         400
Me from my love, and eke my love from me;
I hate the earth, because it is the mold
Of fleshly slime and fraile mortalitie;
I hate the fire, because to nought it flyes,
I hate the ayre, because sighes of it be,         405
I hate the sea, because it teares supplyes.

‘I hate the day, because it lendeth light
To see all things, and not my love to see;
I hate the darknesse and the drery night,
Because they breed sad balefulnesse in mee;         410
I hate all times, because all times doo fly
So fast away, and may not stayed bee,
But as a speedie post that passeth by.

‘I hate to speake, my voyce is spent with crying:
I hate to heare, lowd plaints have duld mine eares:         415
I hate to tast, for food withholds my dying:
I hate to see, mine eyes are dimd with teares:
I hate to smell, no sweet on earth is left:
I hate to feele, my flesh is numbd with feares:
So all my senses from me are bereft.         420

‘I hate all men, and shun all womankinde;
The one, because as I they wretched are,
The other, for because I doo not finde
My love with them, that wont to be their starre:
And life I hate, because it will not last,         425
And death I hate, because it life doth marre,
And all I hate, that is to come or past.

‘So all the world, and all in it I hate,
Because it changeth ever too and fro,
And never standeth in one certaine state,         430
But still unstedfast round about doth goe,
Like a mill wheele, in midst of miserie,
Driven with streames of wretchednesse and woe,
That dying lives, and living still does dye.

‘So doo I live, so doo I daylie die,         435
And pine away in selfe-consuming paine:
Sith she that did my vitall powres supplie,
And feeble spirits in their force maintaine,
Is fetcht fro me, why seeke I to prolong
My wearie daies in dolor and disdaine?         440
Weep, shepheard, weep, to make my undersong.

Edmund Spenser