Uncertain Poetic Bloodlines

I read an article this week, like this one, about a series of experiments which have produced amazing results of rejuventation from giving young blood to old mice. Experimentation is to continue, using humans rather than mice. Among a thread of commentary I noticed some unfamiliar lines from a poem.

The lines quoted by that commenter were these:

"They bled an old dog dry yet the exchange rills
Of young dog blood gave but a month's desires.
The waste remains, the waste remains and kills."

Down a rabbit hole I fell.

I had to discover the rest of that poem. Having discovered it to be William Empson's "Missing Dates", written in 1937, I also discovered that it is in the poetic form known as "villanelle". (There was a villanelle in Thursday's post too, by the way.)

I enjoy poetry, but am not educated to the point where I can recognise the many and varied poetic forms that have developed over the centuries. The limerick, elegy, sonnet and ode are just about my limit - I've added one more to that list via this particular rabbit hole.

The full poem/villanelle by William Empson goes like so:

Missing Dates

Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills.
It is not the effort nor the failure tires.
The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.

It is not your system or clear sight that mills
Down small to the consequence a life requires;
Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills.

They bled an old dog dry yet the exchange rills
Of young dog blood gave but a month's desires.
The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.

It is the Chinese tombs and the slag hills
Usurp the soil, and not the soil retires.
Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills.

Not to have fire is to be a skin that shrills.
The complete fire is death. From partial fires
The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.

It is the poems you have lost, the ills
From missing dates, at which the heart expires.
Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills.
The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.


On its surface, fairly depressing!


William Empson said of his poem:

I don't think anything needs explaining except that I believe I had actually read a piece of scientific research about changing an old dog's blood with a young one's. And the Chinese tombs - it's a legend that they can't go on farming because the land gets covered with sacred ancestors' tombs which is not true, incidentally. But that's all that needs explaining I think. It's called 'Missing Dates', which is failing to meet appointments, you understand.

And from HERE:

At the time, Empson had turned 30 and returned to London from a teaching position in Japan; he would soon be on his way to China. He uses English literary allusions, contemporary medical experimentation, and Chinese and Buddhist traditions to reflect on the loss of poetic power and personal human decay.

Another perspective:

This poem means different things to different people, and was almost certainly written with this intention as is hinted on the linked page. It is very often interpreted almost literally these days, when we are all concerned about pollution. But it was written in 1937, when pollution was not a general topic of concern.

To me (and my perspective will not be shared by many others, I realise) this is a poem about the Church of England in particular and the failure of Christian churches worldwide to spread a message of love rather than nitpicking and backbiting. The waste, the waste!

Also, there's this:

Empson’s attempt to reconcile opposing forces may have led to his fascination with Buddhism. Such a philosophical acceptance of human suffering as a way of apprehending reality so appealed to Empson that he put together “The Faces of Buddha,” a collection of articles written in Japan and China; the manuscript, however, is regrettably lost. In “Missing Dates” (1937), the despairing refrain of the poem laments that despite humanity’s efforts “the waste remains, the waste remains and kills.” Whether the ambiguous key word here denotes emptiness, exhaustion, loss, or prodigality, its reality is fatal; nirvana is unattainable. Furthermore, in his published collections of poetry, Empson chose for an epigraph Buddha’s “Fire Sermon,” recognizing, as did Eliot, that modern humanity shares a universal dilemma.

How would I interpret the poem?
Hmmm...Metaphor for negativity of any kind, in absolutely any situation. Its waste remains and kills.

Any other interpretations spring to mind?