Today is July 19 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “How often do you resign yourself to the shutting away of life?”
Poets often contemplate the meaning of life. Two such poets that mused on the end of life were Edna St. Vincent Millay and Alfred Lord Tennyson.
American poet and playwright Edna St. Vincent Millay received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry, and was also known for her feminist activism.
In 1904, her mother Cora officially divorced Millay's father and, with Millay’s two sisters, moved often living in poverty. Cora travelled with a trunk full of classic literature, including Shakespeare and Milton, which she read to her children.
The family settled in a small house on the property of Cora's aunt in Camden, Maine, where Millay would write the first of the poems that would bring her literary fame. The three sisters were independent and spoke their minds, which did not always sit well with the authority figures in their lives.
After graduating Vassar College Millay moved to New York City and continued to write poetry. One of Millay’s well-known poems is Dirge Without Music where she writes “I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground. So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind; into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned with lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned. Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave. Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind; quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave. I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.”
In his poem Ulysses, written in 1833 and published in 1842 in his well-received second volume of poetry, British poet Alfred Lord Tennyson echoed similar thoughts and wrote “Though much is taken, much abides; and though; We are not now that strength which in old days; Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are, One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will; To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
In his poem Ulysses, written in 1833 and published in 1842 in his well-received second volume of poetry, British poet Alfred Lord Tennyson echoed similar thoughts and wrote
“Though much is taken, much abides; and though; We are not now that strength which in old days; Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are, One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will; To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
Successful people who Millay and Tennyson who navigated the chaos understood the value of living, dreaming, wishing, thinking, and doing until they are no more. How often do you resign yourself to the shutting away of life?