Fugue #112

Bluebook, Ana’s loopy handwriting:

Wordsworth’s "Ode: Intimations of Immortality" also addresses the past/present problem. Mr. W. complains, "The things which I have seen I now can see no more." Shelley’s "To Wordsworth" later observes that W. has wept about the departure of things that "never may return; / childhood and youth, friendship and love’s first glow," which have fled like dreams from the light of conscious day.

(In that poem, Shelley is also demonstrably p.o.’d that Mr. W. had abandoned some more liberal ideas as he aged, but that is beyond the scope of this question.)

Certainly, beauty fades, and life is short, but W. offers a solution - namely, "We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind."

What remains behind. What if instead of whingeing about the transitory nature of things, we took up the challenge: I can no longer see those things, so I will try to find ways to remember them. Memories, and pictures that help jog our memories. That’s it. That’s what they’re for. To link us to the past and thereby make us stronger.