Realms of Loss

Realms of Loss Liz Jenkin

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I measure every Grief I meet With narrow, probing, eyes I wonder if It weighs like Mine Or has an Easier size. *** The Grieved - are many - I am told There is the various Cause Death - is but one - and comes but once And only nails the eyes There’s Grief of Want - and grief of Cold A sort they call “Despair” There’s Banishment from native Eyes In sight of Native Air And though I may not guess the kind Correctly - yet to me A piercing Comfort it affords In passing Calvary To note the fashions - of the Cross And how they’re mostly worn Still fascinated to presume That Some - are like my own -

Emily Dickinson (1862) I measure every Grief I meet (extract)

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Pressed by the Moon, mute arbitress of tides, While the loud equinox its power combines, The sea no more its swelling surge confines, But o’er the shrinking land sublimely rides.

The wild blast, rising from the western cave, Drives the huge billows from their heaving bed; Tears from their grassy tombs the village dead, And breaks the silent sabbath of the grave!

With shells and sea-weed mingled, on the shore, Lo! their bones whiten in the frequent wave; But vain to them the winds and waters rave; They hear the warring elements no more: While I am doomed, by life’s long storm oppressed, To gaze with envy on their gloomy rest.

Charlotte Turner Smith (1789) Written in the Church Yard at Middleton in Sussex

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There, where the rusty iron lies, The rooks are cawing all the day.

Perhaps no man, until he dies, Will understand them, what they say.

The evening makes the sky like clay.

The slow wind waits for night to rise.

The world is half content. But they Still trouble all the trees with cries, That know, and cannot put away, The yearning to the soul that flies From day to night, from night to day.

Charles Hamilton Sorley (1915) Rooks

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I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky, And at every drifting cloud that went With sails of silver by.

I walked, with other souls in pain, Within another ring, And was wondering if the man had done A great or little thing, When a voice behind me whispered low, “That fellow’s got to swing.”

Dear Christ! the very prison walls Suddenly seemed to reel, And the sky above my head became Like a casque of scorching steel; And, though I was a soul in pain, My pain I could not feel.

Oscar Wilde (1898) Ballad of Reading Gaol – I (extract)

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Wondrous is this masonry, broken by the Fates; the fortifications have given way, the buildings raised by giants are crumbling. *** The owners and builders are perished and gone, held fast in the earth’s embrace, the ruthless clutch of the grave, while a hundred generations of mankind have passed away.

Unknown (8th Century) The Ruin (extract)

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O Thou, to whom in the olden times was raised Yon ample Mound, not fashion’d to display An artful structure, but with better skill Piled massive, to endure through many an age, How simple, how majestic is thy tomb!

When temples and when palaces shall fall, And mighty cities moulder into dust, When to their deep foundations Time shall shake The strong-based pyramids, shall thine remain Amid the general ruin unsubdued, Uninjured as the everlasting hills, And mock the feeble power of storms and Time.

William Crowe (1788) Silbury Hill

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Abodes of men irregularly massed Like trees in forests, - spread through spacious tracts.

O’er which the smoke of unremitting fires Hangs permanent, and plentiful as wreaths Of vapour glittering in the morning sun.

And, wheresoe’er the traveller turns his steps He sees the barren wilderness erased, Or disappearing *** I grieve, when on the darker side Of this great change I look; and there behold Such outrage done to nature as compels The indignant power to justify herself; Yea, to avenge her violated rights.

For England’s bane.

William Wordsworth (1814) The Excursion (extract)

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They were ours as a gift But never to keep As they close their eyes Forever to sleep

Unknown (n.d.)

Don’t Cry For The Horses (extract)

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Delve into the multifaceted theme of loss through the transformative lens of infrared photography. From the profound ache of losing a loved one to the poignant erosion of heritage and culture, this collection of ethereal photographs explores the intangible nature of loss and invites us to contemplate our personal and collective experiences.

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Liz Jenkin 2024