Tuesday, May 15, 2018

SUNFLOWER

I was delighted to hear this little poem spoken in a movie I recently viewed. The film Leonie is a semi-biographical account of a poet, his editor and their son the sculptor, Isamu Noguchi. When Leonie Gilmore was in Japan teaching English to a poet friend of Yone Noguchi, her student quoted the Blake poem out of respect for the English poet.

Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Plate 43, (E 25)
AH! SUN-FLOWER
"Ah Sun-flower! weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the Sun:
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the travellers journey is done.

Where the Youth pined away with desire,
And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow:
Arise from their graves and aspire,
Where my Sun-flower wishes to go."


Wikipedia Commons
Fitzwilliam Museum
Songs of Innocence and of Experience
Plate 43
The sunflower who daily follows the path of the sun as it traverses the firmament, longs to complete its travels in time and reach the sweet golden clime of Eternity. The Youth and the Virgin trapped in emotion and the body likewise seek to be released from the prison-house of time to enter their Eternal home. 
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