Introibo ad altare dei

La información general sobre la asignatura tal como nos ha sido entregada para este encargo, se encuentra aquí a golpe de click.

Comenzamos con un ejercicio muy sencillo. Léase el siguiente poema y averígüese todo lo que se pueda sobre su autor. Y recuérdese que saber del autor ha de sert también saber de su época y de muchas otras cosas. Nótese que tales tareas en estos tiempos de Internet no son, en principio, demasiado difíciles. Otra cuestión es dar sentido a todos los datos que consigamos, para decirlo un tanto a la violeta, hacer que esa información sea conocimiento.

Y, desde luego, releámoslo y profundicemos también en el texto. Descríbase su estructura, sus versos, su lenguaje, búsquese la referencia o el significado de los nombres propios que aparecen en él, íntentese hablar de lo que dice, no hay que vacilar si se trata de meterse en algún jardín si la ocasión lo favorece. ¿Nos vale lo que se pide en el párrafo anterior para lo que se solicita en este? Díscutase que necesitamos saber para hacer todo esto de una manera eficaz, de modo que valga la pena escuchar o leer nuestros argumentos. 

The Garden

How vainly men themselves amaze

To win the palm, the oak, or bays,

And their uncessant labours see

Crown’d from some single herb or tree,

Whose short and narrow verged shade

Does prudently their toils upbraid;

While all flow’rs and all trees do close

To weave the garlands of repose.

Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,

And Innocence, thy sister dear!

Mistaken long, I sought you then

In busy companies of men;

Your sacred plants, if here below,

Only among the plants will grow.

Society is all but rude,

To this delicious solitude.

No white nor red was ever seen

So am’rous as this lovely green.

Fond lovers, cruel as their flame,

Cut in these trees their mistress’ name;

Little, alas, they know or heed

How far these beauties hers exceed!

Fair trees! wheres’e’er your barks I wound,

No name shall but your own be found.

When we have run our passion’s heat,

Love hither makes his best retreat.

The gods, that mortal beauty chase,

Still in a tree did end their race:

Apollo hunted Daphne so,

Only that she might laurel grow;

And Pan did after Syrinx speed,

Not as a nymph, but for a reed.

What wond’rous life in this I lead!

Ripe apples drop about my head;

The luscious clusters of the vine

Upon my mouth do crush their wine;

The nectarine and curious peach

Into my hands themselves do reach;

Stumbling on melons as I pass,

Ensnar’d with flow’rs, I fall on grass.

Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,

Withdraws into its happiness;

The mind, that ocean where each kind

Does straight its own resemblance find,

Yet it creates, transcending these,

Far other worlds, and other seas;

Annihilating all that’s made

To a green thought in a green shade.

Here at the fountain’s sliding foot,

Or at some fruit tree’s mossy root,

Casting the body’s vest aside,

My soul into the boughs does glide;

There like a bird it sits and sings,

Then whets, and combs its silver wings;

And, till prepar’d for longer flight,

Waves in its plumes the various light.

Such was that happy garden-state,

While man there walk’d without a mate;

After a place so pure and sweet,

What other help could yet be meet!

But ’twas beyond a mortal’s share

To wander solitary there:

Two paradises ’twere in one

To live in paradise alone.

How well the skillful gard’ner drew

Of flow’rs and herbs this dial new,

Where from above the milder sun

Does through a fragrant zodiac run;

And as it works, th’ industrious bee

Computes its time as well as we.

How could such sweet and wholesome hours

Be reckon’d but with herbs and flow’rs!

Ahora váyase al título de esta entrada. ¿De dónde proviene? ¿Nos debe recordar a algún literato o novela?