Beautiful Losers

 

The poem “Invictus” is widely popular in Britain. Prince Harry took the title for his “Invictus Games.”

I find it Satanic. It expresses the attitude of the unrepentant narcissist. It is like the words that Milton puts in the mouth of Satan in Paradise Lost: “I would rather rule in Hell than serve in Heaven.”

Out of the night that covers me,
      Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
      For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
      I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
      My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
      Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
      Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
      How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
      I am the captain of my soul.

This is someone choosing to go to Hell.

I get a whiff of the same brimstone from Rudyard Kipling. I defend him from the usual charges, of being intellectually trite and of being racist. I don’t believe he is. But I cannot warm to “If,” reputedly the single most popular poem in the UK. This does not, to me, speak well of the British character:

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

… If you can fill the unforgiving minute
    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   
    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

This is too proud. This is the triumph of the will.

Rather, we are to be as little children. Rather, true courage is to surrender our will to God. Rather, there is a crack in everything.

For that is how the light gets in.

All of Us Command?

I am grateful to the Canadian Senate for throwing a wrench into the attempt to change the words of the Canadian national anthem, from “true patriot love in all thy sons command” to “true patriot love in all of us command.”

The argument for changing it is, of course, that referring only to “sons” is sexist.

I have written on this before:

But consider what is happening here: men are being commanded, given orders. Is it really a greater subjugation for women not to be subjugated?

And again, they are being given orders by Canada. Is Canada male or female? At a minimum, why assume she is male? I have always assumed she was female in this anthem. Like Marianne, Britannia, Athena, and Columbia.

If it were a male giving the orders, and women who were to obey his commands, would the feminists be happier?

But my reason for objecting to the change is not this: this merely demonstrates that the change is not meaningful.

My problem is with the poetry of the thing.

Concreteness, specific detail, evokes images in the mind. This is a big part of how poetry works. “Sons” evokes an image. “Us” does not. These new words are the words of a bureaucrat, not a poet. They deaden the song.

Then there are the sound values.

“All thy sons command” is strong and euphonious. Notice, those who have ears to hear, how the succeeding initial consonants, “th,” “s,” and “c,” move the tongue progressively further back in the mouth, like an orderly march. It is the second best bit, poetically, in the anthem, next to “true north strong and free.” “All of us command” is just words.

People do not hear or care, because people these days do not understand poetry. But we have little enough poetry in our lives.

And too much politics.