From My Big Orange Book: Cowper & Gibbings

     Back in the dawn of my internet days, I went nuts with the novelty of hunting down and purchasing hard-to-find and out-of-print books online. Of course, the novelty, fun as it was, didn't squelch my enthusiasm for book hunting in actual book stores. It merely supplemented it.

     Anyhow, in those early days, for some reason I wanted a copy of "The Task"—that monumentally long blank verse poem by William Cowper (pronounced "Cooper," for those who don't already know). Published in 1785, this poem in six books covers a variety of topics from the humble sofa to slavery, from trends to faith, from nature to French politics. It is a poetical compendium of Cowper's philosophies. I did a search through Abebooks and ordered his Complete Poetical Works for a very reasonable price. When it arrived from Colin Martin Books, U.K., I was taken by both its age and its diminutive size. Since I don't have a camera, I'll have to use my powers of description. It measures, in inches, 3 1/2  x 5 1/4 x 1; it is bound in royal blue cloth with embossed boards (there are large ovals on both boards where some sort of image was supposed to have been) and gilding on the spine; all the pages' edges are gilt. It was printed in 1849 and is illustrated throughout with beautiful copper plate engravings protected by tissue paper. The text is so minute, it cannot be read without reading glasses or a magnifying glass. My particular copy has a bookplate on the front pastedown that reads, "Bibliothèque Congregation de Notre Dame, Maison des Oiseaux" (why "The House of Birds," I have no idea), and bears the image of two angels looking up at the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart, which float side by side in a sunburst.

     Though I certainly haven't read "The Task" in its entirety, I do like to read a passage at random every so often. Here's one that hit home with me. I came across it years ago, just before my return to the Catholic Church.

     Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
     Some boundless contiguity of shade,
     Where rumor of oppression and deceit,
     Of unsuccessful or successful war,
     Might never reach me more!  My ear is pained,
     My soul is sick, with every day's report
     Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled.

     I was so struck by this passage, I immediately copied it into both my journal and my Big Orange Book of poetry and quotes that I love.

     On one of my hunts in Houston's Detering Book Gallery back in 2001, I ran across a handful of volumes by one Robert Gibbings, Irish, d. 1958, a major wood engraver and author of travel and natural history. These volumes were once owned by my old ghostly friend Mildred Robertson, of whom I wrote this post. Since Mildred liked them, I'll like them, I thought, and bought the books. I'm so very glad I did—Gibbings, besides being a marvelous artist (his own engravings illustrate the books) was a marvelous writer. It's been many years since I read him, but I remember mentally drifting down the Thames with him through his lyrical descriptions.

Each season of the year, as it comes round, is the best. Each day, each hour that we are alive is the richest. For what is yesterday but a memory, and what is tomorrow—which may never come? ~ from Sweet Thames, Run Softly

     I know many a writer has written of living in the present moment, but Gibbings' version struck just the right note with me. Here's another, less meditative passage, from Sweet Thames, Run Softly:

The rain came down on me one morning so that I shouldn't have been surprised if whales had dropped out of the sky. The river was whipped with such fury that the splash of each splash splashed back again. The surface was like boiling mercury. The rain ran off the sides of my canvas cover like the fountain which played around the Sultan of Cheribon's couch to keep the poor fellow cool in the hot weather, and I was hard put to it to prevent the deluge finding an entry into the boat.

I happened to be tied up at the mouth of a backwater, and I suppose my craft was inconspicuous. Anyway, just as I lifted a corner of the canopy to glimpse if there was a break in the sky, what should I see on the opposite bank but a girl, running fast up-stream, and she with nothing on. It was still raining so hard that I could not see clearly, but instead of the delicate pink which I am led to believe is the usual colour of naked damsels, this naiad was shining all over with the rain, so that she might have been clothed in silver sequins.

Now, said I to myself, is this nature, or am I a gentleman? But before I had reached a conclusion my head touched one of the main supports of the canopy, and a sluice of water into the stern of the boat abruptly changed the subject of my thoughts.

      Oh, Gibbings, you are delightful. I really should read you again. Thank goodness for My Big Orange Book, which reminds me of writers like you and Cowper, who have made such significant impressions on me!



Robert Gibbings