The text
on this page is from David Lavery, "An Owen Barfield Readers
Guide." Seven 15 (1998): 97-112.
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A Barfield Sampler.
Ed. Jeanne Clayton Hunter and Thomas Kranidas. Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1993.
Fruit
in a blossom
And
petals in a seed,
Reeds
in a river-bed,
Music
in a reed,
Stars
in a firmament
Shining
in the night,
Sun
in a galaxy
And
planet in its light,
Bones
in the rosy blood
Like
land in the sea,
Marrow
in a skeleton--
And
I in Me.
("In,"
An Owen Barfield Sampler 54)
If Lewis and Barfield
had been asked back in their Oxford days what in their fondest dreams the future
would hold for them, it is likely that they would have both confessed to the
desire to become creative writers. Though both ended up holding down different
"day jobs," Lewis nevertheless did become a creative writer,
publishing novels, science-fiction, and children’s literature, though his
aspiration to be a poet as well never quite materialized. Though not as prolific
as Lewis, Barfield, too, continued to write fiction and poetry, though most of
it was completed in the first half of his life. Tom
Kranidas’ and Jeanne
Clayton Hunter’s An Owen Barfield Sampler, a true labor of love and
the result of at least two decades of gleaning and gathering, puts together in
one volume a substantial portion of Barfield’s belletristic writing, including
the novella "Night
Operation," the short story "Dope"
(which had in its day been praised by none other than T.
S. Eliot), and a good deal of Barfield’s often exquisitely beautiful, and
surprisingly autobiographical, lyric poetry. Kranidas’s and Hunter’s
introduction is one of the best concise overviews of Barfield’s work
available.
Table of Contents
POETRY
Day
Sonnet: Once, once, this evening, let me
say: I love you
Translation from Petrarch: Amor, ed io si
pien di meraviglia
La Dame A Licorne
Sonnet: How shall I work that she may not
forget
The Silent Piano (For E. B.)
Michaelmas
Bad Day
Song of the Bakerloo
The Song They Sing
Flirting
Girl in Tube
A Visit to Beatrice
Can Light be Golden?
Pollaiuolo’s Apollo and Daphne
Sonnet: I am much inclined towards a life
of ease
The Angry Boffin
Sapphics
Emeritus (on not trying to publish verse)
Fifty-Three
Al Fresco (on Modern Poetry)
The Queen’s Beast (1954)
Escape
You’re Wrong
Funeral Oration
Medusa
Song of Anger
Hagar and Ishmael
I. Hagar and Ishmael
II. The Spy
III. Ishmael
Gender
The Merman
Enlightenment
At a Promenade Concert
The Milkmaid and the Unicorn
Video Meliora
Sonnet: Where can we hope to swim in love’s
bright wave?
“How dolefully you raked into a blaze”
Sonnet: When the too-muchness of this
angry trade
The Song of Pity or The Compassionate
Society
Speech by a Gadarene Cabinet Minister
Sonnet: You said, and not as one
exaggerating
The Sonnet and Its Uses
Rust
In
Mr. Walker
The Coming of Whitsun
Risen
Washing of Feet
Sacrament
Gizeh
Beatitude
A Meditation
From Orpheus: A Verse Drama Act II (lines
89-259)
Closing lines from “Riderson
Pegagus”
PROSE
Short Stories
Dope
The Devastated Area
Mrs. Cadogan
Two Prophetic Nouvelles
- The Rose on the
Ash-Heap (from the novel in manuscript English People)
- Night Operation
Afterword by Owen
Barfield
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