Empedocles on Etna is a poem By the Victorian poet Matthew Arnold. Readily I’ll concede that poetry is a criticism of life (his phrase) About as much as red-hot iron Is a criticism of fire,
But we’re in Sicily. The gods are still with us. The sun has warmed the rocks On which we’re lounging, eating goat cheese, drinking new wine. You’re hardly wearing any clothes.
Nobody’s wearing clothes! Neither is anyone Worried about sunlight. This is before Jesus, before Socrates, Before the double onslaught of guilt and rationality
Doomed us (I’m paraphrasing Nietzsche) to believe In the rectification of the world Through knowledge—to live Within the limited circle of soluble problems, Where we may cheerfully say to life
I want you! You’re worth knowing! Empedocles is having a bad day. Once, he was a god; Smart, good-looking, too. You understand how anyone might feel that way
Just being where we are, tasting things, just breathing the air. Above us, Etna’s cone Emits its languorous white plume. Miracles? Mistrust them, says Empedocles. Mind is a spell that governs
Heaven and earth. Is it so small a thing To have enjoyed the sun, To have lived lightly in the spring, To have loved, to have thought, to have done?
Obvious as the answer to this question may be, convincing, too, Empedocles climbs beyond the ashen trees, The potholes red as an open wound, And steps into a cloud. A poem of passive suffering, said Arnold,
Could have no place in his collected poems. No place! His greatest poem! Whose suffering Isn’t passive? What else Could suffering be? One night in Venice
I couldn’t sleep; I heard the bells Of San Giacomo ring four times, then five. I heard the mutter of a boat, two voices, a woman’s and a man’s, Then somehow rising Between them, as from the water itself,
The Chopin barcarolle. Where were they going? Who could they have been? Why were they playing Chopin In their little boat, playing it softly, just for me? Remember
When we lived like forest creatures, You and I, when all We left behind were footsteps Crushed in the wet grass? When I opened my eyes
Sun-stirred water played Across the ceiling; You were asleep. It felt like being In the present, being alive.
"Memories both collective and individual appear and disappear without warning—surrendering one makes room for another—in a meditative work that feels as if it could stop at any moment or continue on forever."
"When a poem begins to pile up the similes, comparing an object to multiple other objects, there’s going to be trouble. Multiple similes signify instability. An emotional shift is likely to take place, a disappearance or a metamorphosis. What we get in the second part of 'The Meadow Mouse' is a disappearance."
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