It’s time to have some fun and get philosophical. Maybe it’s the summer time blues. Maybe it’s the mushy poetry I’ve been reading. The summer evenings drive me to my record player, a book, and an easy chair on my decking, taking me on a journey into the past. My book of metaphysical poetry was one of the first books I read when I studied for my history and literature degree. When I open it I see the notes I made on dog-eared pages some 30 years ago, the poetry on each page, hundreds of years old. The records I play (of course they are called vinyl now, not LPs) transport me back to happy times and not such happy times. The lyrics bouncing back at me when I turn up the volume of Born to Run are 50 years old, but somehow Bruce Springsteen’s lyrics merge with the words of the poem I have just read.
How can the 17th century poetry of Andrew Marvel sound like the lyrics of a 1984 Rock and Roll song? But they do. Here’s Marvel pleading “To His Coy Mistress” for a little bit of loving, way back in 1681.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball:
And tear our pleasures with rough strife,
Through the iron gates of life,
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run
Here’s Bruce doing the same:
Oh, some day girl I don’t know when
We’re gonna get to that place
Where we really wanna go
We’ll walk in the sun
But till then tramps like us
Baby we were born to run
Can we see Bruce’s rock n rollin protagonists in the pages of 17th century metaphysical poetry? I think we can. Consider the provocative words in John Dunne’s poem (1633) “To His Mistress Going to Bed” It has all the ingredients of a raunchy Springsteen rock song. There’s just one thing on this guy’s mind:
Cast all, yea, this white linen hence;
There is no penance, much less innocence.
To teach thee I am naked first: why then
What needs thou have more covering than a man?
It’s not hard to see how this might merge with any number of Bruce’s more explicit love songs, but Cover Me comes to mind:
Hold me in your arms, let’s let our love blind us,
shut the door and cover me.
Ah, looking for a lover who will come on in and cover me
While we are here, let’s get back to nature, in all its metaphorical and metaphysical glory. Andrew Marvel finds himself in ‘The Garden’ (1681) mingling images of sexual love with the Garden of Eden.
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
The nectarine and the curious peach
Into my hands themselves do reach
Stumbling on melons, as I pass…
Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Secret Garden’ has the same sensual presence as Marvel’s 17th century poem. Released as a single in 1995, Bruce saw the song’s popularity flourish after it featured in the 1996 film Jerry Maguire. Consider these words:
And her eyes’ll say
She’s got a secret garden
Where everything you want
Where everything you need
Will always stay a million miles away
And there you have it. A bit of fun for the start of summer. Music, nature and a little bit of loving. If you like my take on Metaphysical poetry and the rock n rollin Bruce Springsteen just drop a comment.
[Metaphysical Poetry, (2006) Colin Burrow, London, Penguin Classics. Born to Run(1975) Bruce Springsteen. Cover Me (1984) Bruce Springsteen, from the album Born in the USA. Secret Garden (1995) Bruce Springsteen, from Greatest Hits album]
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