I only met
Kathleen Raine once, shortly before she died. Even as an old person towards the
latter stage of her life she carried a strong inner fire in her eyes. Beneath
this wonderful old lady was an Initiate of Dion Fortune’s Society of the Inner
Light. A great critic, poet and writer, she did much to illuminate our
understanding and appreciation of the works and lives of such giants as William
Blake and W.B. Yeats. She was truly passionate about and very much influenced
by both these earlier poets. The influence of Plotinus and a deep vein of Neo-Platonism
also ran through her work.
Born in
London at the start of the 20th Century, where she grew up, as a young adult
she drifted rather erratically from job to job. Through one of these later jobs
she chanced upon a meeting with a relative of the great Indian mystic Rama
Coomaraswamy Tambimuttu, who invited her to contribute her poetry to his new
magazine, "Poetry London". Getting involved in that magazine, she
very quickly developed a lifelong passion for all things Indian. In some
respects she was bitten by the same bug as Gustav Holst and Willie Yeats.
By her late
twenties she was producing some very good poetical work. In 1943 she published
her first collection of poetry, "Stone and Flower", which was
illustrated by the fantastic British artist and sculptor Barbara Hepworth.
Three years later she released a further collection called "Living in
Time," following this with "The Pythoness" in 1949.
She married
twice, both experiences being particularly dull and unsatisfactory, leaving her
to later describe the experiences as being, "as if I were living in
someone else's dream.” Domestic bliss was clearly not going to be hers. Her
unhappiness in these relationships led to a platonic romance with the writer
Gavin Maxwell. Her friendship with Maxwell greatly helped to inspire her work
in “The Year One, 1952”, which not surprisingly she released in the year 1952. Kathleen
often stayed with Gavin Maxwell on the magical island of Sandaig in the
Scottish Islands. Their relationship ended in 1956 when Kathleen lost his pet
otter, Mijbil, who was later to inspire his best-selling book beloved by many
British children, “Ring of Bright Water”. Later that year she published a book
of poems called, “Collected Poems.”
In 1973 she
began her autobiography which was finally published in 1977. Never one to rest
one’s own laurels, three years later, in 1980, she founded her own magazine to
help articulate her extensive and compelling world view. It was called
“Temenos”. Since then it has grown into the Temenos Academy - www.temenosacademy.org
During her
productive life Kathleen won several awards, including the Harriet Monroe Prize
and the Queens Gold Medal for Poetry in 1992. In 2000, she was awarded the CBE
- Commander of the British Empire. It wasn’t only the English who appreciated
her work. She was won the Edna St. Vincent Millay Prize from the American
Poetry Society, as well as being made Commandeur of L’Ordre des Arts et des
Lettres.
Finally, in
July 2003, she passed over to the other side for a well deserved rest – in some
respects a young 95!
While I love
many of her poems much more than the following one, “Harvest” seems the most
appropriate one to share at this time of the year on the Malvern Hills.
Harvest
Day is the hero's shield,
Achilles' field,
The light days are the
angels.
We the seed.
Against eternal light and
gorgon's face
Day is the shield
And we the grass
Native to fields of iron,
and skies of brass.
~
Kathleen Raine
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