I quoted, yesterday, the Ivyberry passage from Tennyson's 1880 poem, De Profundis. Today I'd like to say something about what it means, which I will do beneath the image of (21st century) London at Christmas. Ivy berries (the phrase is not typically written as one word outside poetry) are symbolic of an ability to thrive even in difficult conditions. In the context of this poem, ivy berries appear right after a reference to grapes. Tennyson is writing from out of the depths of his own experience as, at this time, a man of 71. "Out of the depths," of course, is the literal English language meaning of the title. Anyway: young folk, strike out into the world! It is your own responsibility to choose between a life of leisure, drinking the fruit of the grape, and a more rigorous challenging life, symbolically drinking of the Ivyberry. W hatever you do, you will help express the fullness of God who is the fountain of which we are all but droplets. Soon t...
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Let me preface the verse with a bit of Ivyberry. Live thou, and of the grain and husk, the grape And Ivyberry, choose; and still depart From death to death through life and life, and find Nearer and ever nearer Him who wrought Not matter, nor the finite-infinite, But this main miracle, that thou art thou, With power on thine own act and on the world. Tennyson
Some words from Tennyson for my readers, Christian or otherwise (theists or otherwise). Let me preface the verse with a bit of Ivyberry. Live thou, and of the grain and husk, the grape And Ivyberry, choose; and still depart From death to death through life and life, and find Nearer and ever nearer Him who wrought Not matter, nor the finite-infinite, But this main miracle, that thou art thou, With power on thine own act and on the world.