Saturday, February 29, 2020

A lost alchemical poem of Raleigh's

I dreamt that I had acquired a rare old book entitled Ralegh the Alchemiste, which quoted these lines of Sir Walter Raleigh's poetry and interpreted them as a reference to the alchemical process of nigredo ("blackening").
I hope when I die, and the Ages doe roll,
My Bodie will blacken and turne into Coale :
Then Ile looke from the Doore of my heauenly Home,
And pitie the Miner a digging my Bones.
Doesn't that almost sound as if Raleigh could have written it?

In the waking world, of course, these lines are not Raleigh's but come from the 1946 folk song "Dark as a Dungeon" by Merle Travis, later sung by Tennessee Ernie Ford, Johnny Cash, and many others. I'm partial to Jerry Garcia and David Grisman's version myself.


4 comments:

Bruce Charlton said...

I agree, it's plausible as Ralegh at his most uninspired. Ralegh only wrote a few/ couple of good poems, but these are as good as anything!

Wm Jas Tychonievich said...

Agreed. Even his best poem, "The Passionate Man's Pilgrimage," is only good in places.

Bruce Charlton said...

This one is my favourite:

https://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2010/10/two-dust-poems-by-sir-walter-raleigh.html

Wm Jas Tychonievich said...

Yes, that one is short enough to be entirely perfect.

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