Ballad of the Goodly Fere

Ezra Pound

Simon Zelotes speaking after the Crucifixion. Fere=Mate, Companion.

Ha’ we lost the goodliest fere o’ all
For the priests and the gallows tree?
Aye lover he was of brawny men,
O’ ships and the open sea.

When they came wi’ a host to take Our Man
His smile was good to see,
“First let these go!” quo’ our Goodly Fere,
“Or I’ll see ye damned," says he.

Aye he sent us out through the crossed high spears
And the scorn of his laugh rang free,
“Why took ye not me when I walked about
Alone in the town?” says he.

Oh we drank his “Hale” in the good red wine
When we last made company,
No capon priest was the Goodly Fere
But a man o’ men was he.

I ha’ seen him drive a hundred men
Wi’ a bundle o’ cords swung free,
That they took the high and holy house
For their pawn and treasury.

They’ll no’ get him a’ in a book I think
Though they write it cunningly;
No mouse of the scrolls was the Goodly Fere
But aye loved the open sea.

If they think they ha’ snared our Goodly Fere
They are fools to the last degree.
“I’ll go to the feast," quo’ our Goodly Fere,
“Though I go to the gallows tree.”

“Ye ha’ seen me heal the lame and blind,
And wake the dead," says he,
“Ye shall see one thing to master all:
‘Tis how a brave man dies on the tree.”

A son of God was the Goodly Fere
That bade us his brothers be.
I ha’ seen him cow a thousand men.
I have seen him upon the tree.

He cried no cry when they drave the nails
And the blood gushed hot and free,
The hounds of the crimson sky gave tongue
But never a cry cried he.

I ha’ seen him cow a thousand men
On the hills o’ Galilee,
They whined as he walked out calm between,
Wi’ his eyes like the grey o’ the sea,

Like the sea that brooks no voyaging
With the winds unleashed and free,
Like the sea that he cowed at Genseret
Wi’ twey words spoke’ suddently.

A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea,
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.

I ha’ seen him eat o’ the honey-comb
Sin’ they nailed him to the tree

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A thought:

I was introduced to this poem by Debbie Pienezza, a friend and co-teacher at Brockbank 

Junior High.  I love this picture of Christ as a good friend and companion, a strong man of

courage who loved the open sea. 

Love

George Herbert

Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew backLove bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back compare Song of Solomon 5:6. "I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had with drawen himself" (Authorized Version, 1611). "Bade" is past tense of "bid," and in Herbert's time was pronounced like "bad."

                              Guilty of dust and sin.

But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slackslack hesitant. Compare Herbert's use of the word in his poem The Church-Porch: "Who keeps no guard upon himself, is slack, / And rots to nothing at the next great thaw." (Perirrhanterium 24, lines 139-140)

                             From my first entrance in,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,

                             If I lacked any thing.If I lacked any thing. echoes a version of Psalm 23, which begins: "The Lorde is my shepehearde: therfore can I lack nothing" (Psalms in the Version of the Great Bible, 1539)

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:

                             Love said, You shall be he.

I the unkindunkind undutiful., ungrateful? Ah my dearAh my dear Hopkins adopts this phrase in "The Windhover". As Norman H. MacKenzie notes, "Hopkins as an undergraduate was strongly attracted to George Herbert, an anglican divine and poet, and traces of that influence can be found throughout his writings".,

                             I cannot look on thee.

Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,

                             Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marredmarredto mar: "to do fatal or destructive bodily harm" (OED, 4a) them: let my shame

                             Go where it doth deserve.

And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?

                             My dear, then I will serveI will serve compare Luke 12:37. "Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord when he commeth, shall find watching: Verily, I say unto you, That he shall gird himself, and make them to sit downe to meat, and will come foorth and serve them." (Authorized Version, 1611) Compare also to the second stanza of Herbert's poem "Faith": "Hungry I was, and had no meat: / I did conceit a most delicious feast; / I had it straight, and did as truly eat, / As ever did a welcome guest.".

You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat: You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat: compare Luke 12:37. "Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord when he commeth, shall find watching: Verily, I say unto you, That he shall gird himself, and make them to sit downe to meat, and will come foorth and serve them." (Authorized Version, 1611) Compare also to the second stanza of Herbert's poem "Faith": "Hungry I was, and had no meat: / I did conceit a most delicious feast; / I had it straight, and did as truly eat, / As ever did a welcome guest."

                             So I did sit and eat.

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I learned about George Herbert in a literature class at Stonybrook University on Long Island in New York..  This is my favorite of his poems.  I feel so like that..."guilty of dust and sin" but indeed, I am so  grateful to have been invited to "sit and eat" these many years.; 

Musee des Beaux Arts

W. H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.   

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I learned of this poem, also,  in a literature class at  Stonybrook in the 1980s.  Sariah gave me an oil giclee of this Peter Breugel painting for Christmas, 2013. I like a lot of Breugel's paintings, but this one is so illuminated by Auden's poem.  I love poetry that tells so beautifully about true and important things.