Malapropos

Here, then, at home, by no more storms distrest,
Folding laborious hands we sit, wings furled;
Here in close perfume lies the rose-leaf curled,
Here the sun stands and knows not east nor west,
Here no tide runs; we have come, last and best,
From the wide zone through dizzying circles hurled,
To that still centre where the spinning world
Sleeps on its axis, to the heart of rest.

Lay on thy whips, O Love, that we upright,
Poised on the perilous point, in no lax bed
May sleep, as tension at the verberant core
Of music sleeps; for, if thou spare to smite,
Staggering, we stoop, stooping, fall dumb and dead,
And, dying, so, sleep our sweet sleep no more.

Jeg kom på Harriet Vane og Wimseys sonett ganske malapropos da jeg leste om noe annet i dag, men aldri så malapropos at det ikke er godt for noe. Jeg har nemlig alltid vært veldig svak for Harriets oktett, men aldri fått noe særlig ut av Wimseys (very conceited, metaphysical) sekstett. Men med litt graving på internett fant jeg følgende fortolkning her:

I think the sestet means that you can only have an ALIVE kind of stillness as long as you're spinning. If you stop spinning, the top falls over, and then you're merely dead. Love is what motivates us to keep spinning (love of a person, passion for a cause, etc); hence its whips. Paradoxically, you can only find and hold your real still center if you are in motion, living and acting in the world, rather than by sitting very still.

Heureka! Selvsagt var det det Wimsey hadde å si! Ja, ja, jeg har jo bare hatt Gaudy Night som yndlingsbok i 16 år eller noe.