AH! SUN-FLOWER

Psalm IV

Now I’ll record my secret vision, impossible sight at the face of God.
It was no dream, I lay broad waking on a fabulous couch in Harlem
having masturbated for no love, and read half naked an open book of Blake on my lap
Lo & behold! I was thoughtless and turned a page and gazed on the living Sun-flower
and heard a voice, it was Blake’s, reciting in earthly measure:
the voice rose out of the page to my secret ear never heard before—
I lifted my eyes to the window, red walls of buildings flashed outside, endless sky sad in Eternity
sunlight gazing on the world, apartments of Harlem standing in the universe—
each brick and cornice stained with intelligence like a vast living face—
the great brain unfolding and brooding in the wilderness!—Now speaking aloud with Blake’s voice—
Love! thou patient presence and bone of the body! Father! thy careful watching and waiting over my soul!
My son! My son! the endless ages have remembered me! My son! My son! Time howled anguish in my ear!
My son! My son! my father wept and held me in his dead arms.

Alan Ginsberg, 1960.

The essential nature of a sunflower is that it always turns toward the light. I’m not too familiar with Ginsberg, but in an odd coincidence I had just purchased his Collected Poems: 1947-1980 a few days before In a Dark Time started to take him on. I bought it mostly for “Kaddish,” which was recommended to me by someone I trust as a tour de force in elegy, a favorite genre of mine. Blake never wrote any elegies. He was constantly looking toward the sun. Blake’s sunflower is a complex thing, weary and yet patient.

AH! SUN-FLOWER

Ah Sun-flower! weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the sun:
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the travelers journey is done.

Where the Youth pined away with desire,
And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow:
Arise from their graves and aspire,
Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.

William Blake, Songs of Experience, 1794.

I suppose that like Loren, I find much of Ginsberg’s verse to be simplistic and cartoonish, particularly when compared with his self-proclaimed spiritual father, Blake. To compare them isn’t very fair, but it is inevitable. Ginsberg was certainly a child at Blake’s feet, but he knew that.

For a look at a black and white version of the plate which this poem appears on, click here. If you click the symbol in the upper left, they have a variety of audio versions available, including Ginsberg singing it.

Oh, and for the record: Blake was against masturbation. He thought that religion caused it:

In the secret shadows of her chamber, the youth shut up from
The lustful joy, shall forget to generate. & create an amorous image
In the shadows of his curtains and in the folds of his silent pillow.
Are not these the places of religion? the rewards of continence?
The self enjoyings of self denial? Why dost thou seek religion?
Is it because acts are not lovely, that thou seekest solitude,
Where the horrible darkness is impressed with reflections of desire.

Visions of the Daughters of Albion, 7:5-11