Richard Vallance
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Vallance Review 36
August 2004
Robert Silliman Hillyer
There is a Season, Turn, Turn, Turn
To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time for every purpose, under Heaven [1]
§62 Time, which destroys the beauty and the use of the story of particular facts, stript (sic) of the poetry which should invest them, augments that of Poetry and forever developes (sic) new and wonderful applications of the eternal truth which it contains
RPO: Percy Bysshe Shelley, Defence of Poetry (1821)
The Poet
Robert Silliman Hillyer (1895-1961) may well be counted in that constellation of "Silver" poets of the Twentieth Century, some of whose sonnets we have had occasion to critique in previous Vallance Reviews [2], and all of whom seem to have been rather sadly neglected in the recent annals of poetic criticism from the mid-Twentieth Century to the present day. The poetry, and indeed the sonnets of these truly gifted poets does not deserve to be casually set aside or blithely ignored. It is certainly worthy of more than merely passing critical appraisal. Certain "post-modernist " critics might be sorely tempted to dismiss the well-turned lyrics of such poets as too old-fashioned or irrelevant to "modern literature" (whatever that is). Or they might be inclined, rather spuriously, to ignore the altogether shining merits of the sonnets even of such great poets as Edna Saint-Vincent Millay, simply for being formalist; thus, strictly speaking, outside the pale of their critical acumen. We do ourselves a disservice perhaps when we ignore the great contributions formalist poetry has made to the world's poetic opus in the Twentieth Century, and an even greater one if we choose to delude ourselves into thinking that only hep, "in" or avant-garde free verse poetry is, as it were, "the only way to fly". Yet, can such dismissive critical attitudes towards more "traditional" formal verse, including the sonnet, ultimately stand the litmus test of their relevance, as forms per se, to the "modern world", especially this day and age? If anything, largely thanks to the populist influence of the Internet, formalist verse has made a startling comeback in the early Third Millennium.
In his own time, Robert Silliman Hillyer clearly distinguished himself as one of an inner circle of eight "Harvard Poets" early in the last century, who banded together as a coterie to publish the anthology of poetry, Eight Harvard poets, Cuthbert Wright. New York, L. J. Gomme, 1917. The other seven poets involved in the project were S. Foster Damon, J. R. Dos Passos, R. S. Mitchell, William A. Norris, Dudley Poore and none other than E. Estlin Cummings (e.e. cummings) [3]. Robert Hillyer went on to distinguish himself as the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1934 for his Collected Verse [4].
The Sonnet
From Robert Silliman Hillyer: Sonnets and Other Lyrics (1917)
(being the first of 34 sonnets in this collection)
A Synopsis of the Sonnet
Surely this exquisitely turned sonnet speaks more than mere volumes for itself.
It is said, "a picture is worth a thousand words", but it may also be just as well asserted, at least by those of us who are professed sonneteers, "a sonnet is worth a thousand, thousand words". And if any sonnet can be said to vividly illustrate this novel twist to the old adage, surely Robert Sillyer's "Seasons" sonnet does.
Purists of the sonnet form, as they so imagine it, will surely balk at the apparent metrical peculiarities besetting the rhythmical structure of this superficially "irregular" sonnet, which Robert Hillyer has the audacity to begin with two consecutive dactyls in the very first verse, viz; "Quickly and pleasantly..." Those disconcerting first two feet of the opening verse are shot off as a rapid-fire double dactylic, each dactyl consisting of one stressed syllable followed by two neatly clipped unstressed ones [5].
To such purists, this is paramount to a stylistic gaffe or even a sheer blunder. Yet, to those of us who are all too familiar with the obvious quirks of many a famous sonneteer, not to say the least such stellar poets as William Shakespeare himself, John Milton, Gerard Manley Hopkins (with his notorious "sprung" rhythms), Rupert Brooke and Walter de la Mare, to name but a few, such metrical aberrations as found in many a sonnet by these and several other historic greats come, not as any surprise or shocker, but rather as, to quote Silliman's own words, "swift winds that none may hope to flee."
That is precisely his whole point! Our jack-be-nimble sonneteer (naughty boy!) is playing with our sense of rhythm, and indeed with our mental and emotional preconceptions concerning "proper" iambic metrical patterns, so sacred, from the rather limited perspective of our sonnet "purist" colleagues, to the "true" sonnet (whatever that is!) Let me be frank. So many stellar sonneteers have historically broken the mold of the "standard" iambic monody, and so often that it behooves us to at least consider that just maybe they might have done so intentionally and indeed, with tongue in cheek. Let alone from the rhythmic and metrical perspective, this whole sonnet is driven along "wave on wave" by our poet's obvious delight in passionately advocating his whole theme, none other than this, that:
...let us be gods of stone,
And set our images beyond the years... (italics mine)
Through the medium of those startling metaphorical contrasts he brings into play in this masterpiece of a sonnet, Robert Hillyer establishes a nervous tension between the volatile flight of the seasons as they pile up one upon the other through the saecula (centuries) and the apparent immutability of Eternity itself, against which Time, "the one (seemingly at least) unconquerable foe" sets us up for Death. Yet, like John Donne (ca. 1572-1631) so many centuries before him, who once declared, and once and for all time, in his brilliant tour de force of sonnet, "Death Be Not Proud":
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
Robert Hillyer will not brook either the frittering away of his life or that of his beloved or of any living being in the face of the relentless onslaught of the hyper accumulating seasons, or the tyranny of Time itself, which presumes to efface our humanity in the hollow triumph of death.
Nor does he even seem willing to submit to the overweening sway of Eternity, mistress and arbiter of all life on Earth and in the Universe as well as of Time itself. Time, in the long run, simply fails to be "the one unconquerable foe" it stacks itself up to be; for it ends up as nothing in the face of Eternity.
And even Eternity itself, the alpha and omega of all existence, would seem in the end to pale into insignificance in the face of the poet's determination, united as he is in sacred love with his beloved, who it would appear is on a plane abstracted almost to the unassailable purity of Petrarch's Laura. Strikingly, Hillyer comes to much the same conclusion as had his great forbear, Francesco Petrarch seven centuries before him, when the sublime Italian had stood trimphantly on the summit of Mount Ventoux in Southern France. Like Petrarch, our latter day sonneteer uncannily repeats that same moment of humanity's final victory over its own failures, its own mortality, by taking hand in hand his "Fair child of loveliness" (what an exquisite phrase!) And why does he so insist? -- to fearlessly face and hence annihilate "these endless fears" which so beset our common humanity. It is precisely just by facing and surmounting such fears, no matter how emotionally overwhelming, crushing even, they may seem to be, and by overcoming them with the determination of our human will, that they become "nought to us", and we, like the Christ who walked upon the very waters of life itself, can flatly declare, with no longer a tinge of remorse or of loss, that we very well may now:
... set our images beyond the years
On some high mount where we can be alone;
Historical Precendents To Hillyer's Seasons
Of course, Robert Hillyer's seasonal sonnet is not without its precedents. The theme, in fact, has been a mainstay of the sonnet literature since the very earliest sonneteers appeared on the scene. Francesco Petrarch was seen to address the matter head on in several of his sonnets. Of these, one in particular stands out as perhaps the model, the template, as it were, of all seasonally driven sonnets since. I refer, of course, to Petrarch's truly luminescent sonetto LXI (61),
Benedetto sia 'l giorno, et 'l mese, et l'anno,
et la stagione, e 'l tempo, et l'ora, e 'l punto,
e 'l bel paese, e 'l loco ov'io fui giunto
da'duo begli occhi che legato m'ànno;
Transliteration into English by Richard Vallance (December 2003)
As blessèd be our days or months or years,
as blessèd are our seasons' landscapes timed
to recollect those moments where my fears
found your eyes shunning verses love had rhymed.
Richard Vallance has transliterated this astonishing sonnet into his own English and French versions in the Winter, 2004 issue of SONNETTO POESIA [6]. Whether or not Robert Hillyer was familiar with this sonnet in particular is perhaps a moot point (though I quite suspect he was). Hillyer's sonnet falls squarely into the tradition established by the maestro, Petrarch, seven centuries before him. In other words, his latter day 20th. Century sonnet neatly fits "the template".
But Petrarch was far from being the only Renaissance sonneteer to have penned strikingly haunting sonnets on the seasons. He was in splendid company. Such greats as Joachim du Bellay and Pierre de Ronsard in France, and Sir Thomas Wyatt, Edmund Spenser and William Shakespeare in England, were to follow squarely in his footsteps. Allow me to illustrate with just a few examples from the English Renaissance. Shakespeare, as those of us who are more than even passingly familiar with his sonnet repertoire are well aware of, dashed off plenty of "seasonal" sonnets. I should like to draw your undivided attention to just a few of the more striking. There is, for instance, his Sonnet XII,
When I do count the clock that tells the time... [7]
and again, just a little further on down the line, Sonnet XIV,
Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck... [8]
and yet again, this time specifically focussing on the fell impact of Autumn on our frail humanity, his brilliant Sonnet 73,
That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang .
which I previously reviewed in great depth in Vallance Review 26, October 2003. Suffice it to say, Shakespeare really had his thumb on the pulse of the seasons and their profound psychic influence on our mortal frames.
An Unparalleled Stroke of Genuis
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741): le quattro stagioni: the sonnets!
Can you imagine my utter astonishment when I stumbled willy-nilly upon a phenomenon which I could never have, even in my wildest dreams, imagined myself? As improbable as it may at first sight seem, Antonio Vivaldi not only composed the concerti for "le quattro stagioni" (The Four Seasons), he even composed the lyrics for the music! What is even more astounding is that he chose to set the lyrics to sonnets. It almost sounds like a Ripley's "Believe it or not". Although his sonnets are not, by any real stretch of the imagination, stellar examples of the "seasonal affective" genre, they are nevertheless a testimony to the musical genius of one of the world's greatest composers of all time. Vivaldi's sunny, irrepressibly cheerful Italian disposition shines through these 4 sonnets, one per season, in which he vividly portrays in highly descriptive brushstrokes the scenes that presented themselves to his passionate mind's eye, each in succession for all four seasons. They make for refreshing, albeit superficial reading. We must, however, keep in mind that Vivaldi was first and foremost a musician and only secondarily a poet, let alone a sonneteer. Even in this light, his cycle of 4 seasonal sonnets makes for most pleasurable reading in accompaniment to his concerti, le quattro stagioni. If you can read Italian, and would like to experiment with the idea, novel as it is, you might do well to listen, as have I, to all four of Vivaldi's exquisite concerti, while actually reading the sonnets along with them.
To whet your appetite, I cite here some of his more inspired verses, along with my prose transliterations of each, from each of his 4 season sonnets in turn.
And why not listen to an excerpt from Vivaldi's "la primavera" while you read on?
Just click on this LINK, amazon.com. Vivaldi. Four Seasons, scroll half way down the page, and then select any movement you wish to listen to from Vivaldi's "la primavera". Enjoy and read along!
la primavera:Indi tacendo questi, gl' Augelletti;
Tornan' di nuovo al lor canoro incanto:
Then indeed, as they die away (the thunderstorms), the Little Birds;
They return again to their enchanting song:
l'estate:
E piange il Pastorel, perche sospesa
Teme fiera borasca, e 'l suo destino;
And how the Shepherd weeps, for does he not fear
The fearful storm about to strike, and fear for his own fate?
l'autunno:
Celebra il Vilanel con balli e Canti
Del felice raccolto il bel piacere
The Peasant rejoices over the joyous harvest
So pleasing to him with dance and Song
l'inverno:
Quest' é 'l verno, mà tal, che gioja apporte.
That's Winter for you, yet it still brings (us) joy.
Ah, for just a taste of that irrepressible Italian flair for life's finer moments, we've only to turn to the cheering eyes of this great Italian composer!
The Age of Romanticism
Naturally enough, the great Age of Romantic Poetry was not without its champions of the sonnet for all seasons and all time. I shall merely cite one particularly stunning example of a typically illustrative seasonal sonnet of the early Nineteenth Century. I refer, of course, to John Keats' deeply stirring, hauntingly beautiful sonnet:
If anything, this masterful sonnet is at least on a par with Francesco Petrarch's previously cited in this review [6], and is the imaginative equal of William Shakespeare's equally brilliant tour de force, Sonnet 73 (also referenced above). Plenty of other examples of Romantic Era sonnets turning on the theme of the seasons and the inexorable march of time abound, but I leave it up to you, our reader(s), to ferret out a few more to read on your own.
The Twentieth Century
And, not to be outdone, the 20th. Century also boasts many, many sonnets lamenting the relentless passage of the seasons and the onslaught of time and age on powerless humanity. Again, I could cite numerous examples, but again I choose to highlight just one amongst several which might just as readily leap to mind. This too is another star in the heavens of the sonnet repertoire. I refer to none other than Edna Saint-Vincent Millay's exquisitely nuanced psychological sonnet,
You go no more on your exultant feet...
But you were something more than young and sweet
And fair,-and the long year remembers you. [11]
Turn, Turn, Turn yet again and we are on a new threshold of Time,
The Outset of the Third Millennium!
Just as there have been so many historical precedents for Robert Hillyer's deeply touching sonnet, the tradition of the seasonally inspired sonnet, ensconced in the framework of Time and of Eternity, continues unabated right on down through the halls of time to the present day, and doubtless shall continue to do so even beyond.
I should like to draw your attention to two sonnets in particular composed since the outset of the 21st. Century. The first of these is by yours truly himself, a sonnet which I am bold to cite for the simple reason that I, the poet who composed it, was specifically inspired, indeed, I should even go so far as to assert, fired by Robert Hillyer, to write it, squarely based as it is on his own, which I have had not the slightest qualm quoting outright:
The other sonnet is by none other than Richard Vallance's copatriot, Richard Doiron of Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada, two of whose lovely sonnets you may recall we just reviewed at some length in the July 2004 Vallance Review. What strikes me as really uncanny is the way in which Richard Doiron so clearly echoes the sentiments I myself expressed in my (slightly) earlier sonnet. Allow me to illustrate with this passage from his sonnet:
a sonnet
Beyond the then, there always will be now
Beyond the now, there always will be then.
... passim...
We need to learn the endlessness of time
Eternity before as well as aft.
The mountain’s high with always more to climb.
Let some presume to make that climb a craft
We call it time; it’s featured in the frame
It’s just a noun so that it has a name.
© by Richard Doiron July 16, 2004
Touché!
CONCLUSIONS
Hillyer's sonnet is nothing short of an imaginative and a poetic tour de force of the first order. While Robert Hillyer may be classed in the constellation of the Silver Poets, this one sonnet in particular stands out head and shoulders over all his others, and is, to my mind at least, one of the truly Golden Sonnets of the ages.
It makes you almost wonder: are sonneteers more than merely poets? Sometimes, I think, they must be more than merely that. Perhaps they are even tantamount to being musicians, or at least quasi musicians to humankind's inner ear, as previous Vallance Reviews have set out to illustrate on more than just one occasion [13]. We might even venture to assert that Hillyer's lovely sonnet ranks as a lyrical encomium of the Eternal staying power of Love in the face of the relentess march of the seasons on our lives, and at the onslaught of Time on us, which eventually must bring our lives to an abrupt end in the inscrutable face of Eternity itself. If indeed, "Time is no lover", then, as Robert Hillyer surely begs the question, who is? While so much of humankind yet fails the litmus test, "Are we the lover(s)?", I am still bold to make the claim, rash as it may perhaps seem, that we, the world's poets, and more than all the poets, the Neo-Romantics of the early Third Millennium, are at the vanguard of the world's most impassioned lovers, whose voices are heard redounding through the halls of Eternity.
Did not Percy Bysshe Shelley speak similar words of prophecy, when in his Defence of Poetry (1821), he boldly asserted?
§164 The imagination beholding the beauty of this order, created it out of itself according to its own idea: the consequence was empire, and the reward everliving fame. §165 These things are not the less poetry quia carent vate sacro {{i.e., "because they lack a sacred poet"}}. They are the episodes of that cyclic poem written by Time upon the memories of men. §166 The Past, like an inspired rhapsodist, fills the theatre of everlasting generations with their harmony.
I for one truly believe he did. And Robert Hillyer's inspired sonnet re-echoes the utter magic of Shelley's prophetic vision, yet in terms far more lyrical, because Hillyer has set Shelley's critical notions to verse.
What could be more lyrical than that? What more, you may well ask? Well, patience, my friends! You shall see soon enough for yourselves, when in the September Vallance 2004 Review we turn our undivided attention to yet another musical lyric, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's exquisitely rendered translation of Casimir's AD LYRAM (1646), an impassioned païen to life and the power of love that serves to echo and re-echo the profound nonverbal message, as it were, Robert Silliman Hillyer has so brilliantly conveyed to us in this, his sonnet here reviewed.
Ad Lyram
And, to prepare yourself the way, why not read Coleridge's "Ad Lyram", along with Casimir's Latin original and my transliteration into English linear prose of the latter's poem in the latest issue of SONNETTO POESIA ISSN 1705-4524, Vol. 3, no. 3, Summer 2004, pg. 2?
Ainsi soit-il. And on that note, I say, "Amen"!
© by Richard Vallance, July 28 2004, with the editorial assistance of Richard Doiron (Canada), and Jim Dunlap and Esther Cameron, editor of Neovictorian/Cochlea (USA)
REFERENCES & NOTES:
[1] Song Lyrics: There is a Season (Turn, Turn, Turn). Pete Seeger, from his CD, "If I Had a Hammer: Songs of Hope and Struggle"
[2] Some of the Twentieth Century's "Silver" poets I have previously reviewed in the Vallance Review are: Walter de la Mare (1873-1956), in "The Sonnet as the Landscape of Mystery", Vallance Review 12, August 2002, Rupert Brooke (1887-1915), in Vallance Review 14, November 2002 and Alan Seeger in Vallance Review 32, April 2004 and Vallance Review 33, May 2004
[3] Leaves of an Hour: Exhibits, Brown University Library
[4] Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1918-2003
[5] Dactyl (Guide to Literary Terms, Jack Lynch)
[6] SONNETTO POESIA. ISSN 1705-4524. Vol. 3, no. 1, Winter = l'hiver 2004, pg.6 5, Italy = l'Italie = l'Italia
[7] Shakespeare's Sonnets: the Amazing Website. Sonnet XII, "When I do count the clock that tells the time,...
[8] Shakespeare's Sonnets: the Amazing Website. Sonnet XIV, "Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck"
[9.1] la primavera - l'estate - l'autunno - l'inverno: Vivaldi, Four Seasons a Year"> (The Four Seasons Sonnets by Antonio Vivaldi, Op. 8, nos. 1-4: 1723)
or, if you prefer:
[9.2] The Free Access Dictionary: Antonio Vivaldi's, "The Four Seasons" (Le quattro Stagioni) sonnets by the composer
[10] The Human Seasons: John Keats
[11] Bartelby.com">Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring. Sonnet III, from: Edna Saint-Vincent Millay (1892-1950). Renascence and Other Poems. 1917
[12] "philos sophia" = ancient Greek = "love of wisdom"
[13] To reference previous Vallance Reviews specifically dealing with the sonnet as music and with the phenomenon of sonneteers as potential musicians or at the very least, quasi-musicians, may I refer you to the following Vallance Reviews?
[13.1] Vallance Review 5, January 2002: Sharps & Flats, by Jim Dunlap
[13.2] Vallance Review 11, July 2002, When is a Sonnet a Song? Sara Russell, "Pianissimo"
[13.3] Vallance Review 28, December 2003, "All Glory, Laud and Honour to Thee, Redeemer King!
[13.4] Vallance Review 32, April 2004, Alan Seeger, a Modern "Renaissance Poet"?
The Vallance Review is frequently cited in our Canadian sonnet journal, SONNETTO POESIA ISSN 1706-4524. To read the current issue or any back issues, you may visit the sonnet journal's Home Page here:
SONNETTO POESIA ISSN 1705-4524
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