From somewhere, quite recently, I have absorbed the idea that at death the soul leaves the body via the ear. I think it was in a fiction by John Riley. At the time I thought it a most original thought, I wonder now if John (if it was John, I become more and more certain) was displalying his wide scope of knowledge, being aware that this belief was at one time "common knowledge". Perhaps it goes back to the Greeks?
I took the trouble to look for how the rhymes were set up in this poem and compare them to the Merrill rhymes. Traherne hasn't been strict. The initial scheme one thought was established in S1 was abandoned in the remaining stanzas unless some of the pronunciations have changed radically--many did, as we know by reading Shakespeare. But here the difference seems too great.
This isn't a poem or poet I would, left to my own devices, linger over long, so I'm glad to have been "compelled" to consider it and I hope to remedy my ignorance as more qualities come to light. I feel more able to engage with Donne, Herbert, Suckling but the fault doubtless lies with me.
I have my guesses about who contributed it (and who contirbuted the Fishsong entry) and will continue to be amazed at the broad and deep range of knowledge, in poetry and otherwise, exhibited by members of this esteemed congregation, the Eratosphere.
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