As my mind clears from the haze of this weekend, which ended with a blast of an evensong and a choir party, there are two literary questions that I need answers to. Both of these arose at the party.
Firstly, I was asked about the second verse of the last hymn we sang on the radio yesterday:
For healing of the nations, for peace that will not end.
For love that makes us lovers, God grant us grace to mend.
Weave our varied gifts together: knit our lives as they are spun.
On your loom of life enrol us till the thread of life is run.
O great Weaver of our fabric, bind church and world in one.
Dye our texture with your radiance, light our colours with your sun.
My interlocutor asked me how I could have allowed those first two lines because the phrase God grant us grace to mend seems to suggest that there is something wrong with all the things that come before it. What is wrong with the love that makes us lovers, that needs to be mended?
Now, looking at this today, I find myself wondering whether the grace to mend refers to us, rather than the love of lovers. I’m wondering whether this is using the word mend in a similar way to the way Benedick says, “serve God, love me and mend” in Much ado about Nothing.
In a different conversation, I was asked whether I had read The History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters. My answer was in the affirmative. Indeed, I said, it was all the fault of the woodworm.
So far so good, it was without doubt all the fault of the woodworm. However, I then went on to say assertively that part of the book was about the Achilli Lauro tragedy. My second interlocutor could not remember that bit at all and I found myself wondering whether:
a) I was making this up entirely
b) there is a section in the novel about the Achilli Lauro or
c) there is a section in the novel about a similar kind of raid on a cruise ship.
Come the dawning light of day, I cannot find the novel in question to check.
Any of you literary types (perhaps those who read HD or live in Scotland’s literary hub Dunoon or what have you) help me out with either of these questions?
Bet you all wish you went to parties like this. (And pass the paracetamol, whilst you are at it).
What ho, interlocutor – steady !
I’m sorry for coming in so late – I’ve been out of touch and then decidedly busy.
Going back to the meaning – if one interpreted “For” in the sense of “In order to achieve”, could the first two lines then make sense?
Interesting party!!
I would use different punctuation (such as a comma after line one not a full stop) but whichever way I look at it the piece definitely suggests there’s something wrong with love that makes us lovers. I can’t see any other reading of it unless there’s been a mistranslation somewhere or incredibly bad punctuation which I haven’t noticed yet!
Also as an occasional poet, I find the last line a bit weird. Trying to be over-flowery without getting the image across very well?