The earliest sportsman in the earliest dawn,
waking to what redness, waking a killer,
saw the red cane was sweet in his red grip;
the blood of the shepherd matched the blood of the wolf.
But Jonathan Edwards prayed to think himself
worse than any man that ever breathed;
he was a good man, and he prayed with reason-
which of us hasn’t thought his same thought worse?
Each night I lie me down to heal in sleep;
two or three mornings a week, I wake to my sin-
sins, not sin; not two or three mornings, seven.
God himself cannot wake five years younger,
and drink away the venom in the chalice-
the best man in the best world possible.
~ Robert Lowell
By the way, I have dibs on “The Venom in the Chalice” for the title of my Father Dowling mystery novel.
Lowell seems to be colliding and Edwards with Girard.
I was thinking exactly that when I posted it. Well, not ‘colliding’, which is the perfect description of his method in the penultimate period, but Girardian, yeah, definitely.
Now that I think about it, there are a number of reflections on violence in this period, although I’m not sure where he falls on the sacrificial spectrum. One of my favorite lines is I want my words meathooked from the living spear….