The Sunlight on the Garden

I like poetry. I liked it even when I didn't understand it, because good poetry is like music -- you appreciate it by hearing it. I remember one poem that read a long time ago, and have never really forgotten, and it's not a highly fancied one or one that's often fed to students of classics and poetry. It was written by Louis MacNeice and is titled The Sunlight on the Garden.

I am reproducing it here. The first stanza is just beautiful.

The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold,
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon.

Our freedom as free lances
Advances towards its end;
The earth compels, upon it
Sonnets and birds descend;
And soon, my friend,
We shall have no time for dances.

The sky was good for flying
Defying the church bells
And every evil iron
Siren and what it tells:
The earth compels,
We are dying, Egypt, dying

And not expecting pardon,
Hardened in heart anew,
But glad to have sat under
Thunder and rain with you,
And grateful too
For sunlight on the garden.

Beautiful, but vague. Like U2's lyrics. Hence timeless. Apparently, it was written by Louis after his wife had left him for someone else. If that influenced this work, the net effect is saddened. Even without that knowledge, the poem remains nostalgic, a tad wistful and jumps from one idea to another, thought it ends on a positive note. I have drawn pleasure and perhaps strength from it over many years, and at times I've felt that it contains infinite wisdom, constructed as it is with universal themes of loneliness, regret, alienation and acceptance.