Text, Summary and Critical Appreciation of "Swimming Chenango Lake" by Charles Tomlinson

Swimming Chenango Lake by Charles Tomlinson

Winter will bar the swimmer soon.

    He reads the water’s autumnal hesitations

A wealth of ways: it is jarred,

    It is astir already despite its steadiness,

Where the first leaves at the first

    Tremor of the morning air have dropped

Anticipating him, launching their imprints

    Outwards in eccentric, overlapping circles.

There is a geometry of water, for this

    Squares off the clouds’ redundances

And sets them floating in a nether atmosphere

    All angles and elongations: every tree

Appears a cypress as it stretches there

    And every bush that shows the season,

A shaft of fire. It is a geometry and not

    A fantasia of distorting forms, but each

Liquid variation answerable to the theme

    It makes away from, plays before:

It is a consistency, the grain of the pulsating flow.

    But he has looked long enough, and now

Body must recall the eye to its dependence

    As he scissors the waterscape apart

And sways it to tatters. Its coldness

    Holding him to itself, he grants the grasp,

For to swim is also to take hold

    On water’s meaning, to move in its embrace

And to be, between grasp and grasping, free.

    He reaches in-and-through to that space

The body is heir to, making a where

    In water, a possession to be relinquished

Willingly at each stroke. The image he has torn

    Flows-to behind him, healing itself,

Lifting and lengthening, splayed like the feathers

    Down an immense wing whose darkening spread

Shadows his solitariness: alone, he is unnamed

    By this baptism, where only Chenango bears a name

In a lost language he begins to construe –

    A speech of densities and derisions, of half-

Replies to the questions his body must frame

    Frogwise across the all but penetrable element.

Human, he fronts it and, human, he draws back

    From the interior cold, the mercilessness

That yet shows a kind of mercy sustaining him.

    The last sun of the year is drying his skin

Above a surface a mere mosaic of tiny shatterings,

    Where a wind is unscaping all images in the flowing obsidian

The going-elsewhere of ripples incessantly shaping.

 

Summary

The poem begins with an autumnal setting where winter is approaching and will soon "bar the swimmer". The swimmer pauses to read the water's "autumnal hesitations," noting that the surface, despite its appearance of steadiness, is already "jarred" and "astir". This movement is influenced by the first leaves dropping, which anticipate the swimmer's action and launch "eccentric, overlapping circles".

Before entering, the swimmer observes the water’s surface as a kind of organized reflection, termed a "geometry of water". This geometry "squares off the clouds’ redundances" and creates a "nether atmosphere" where reflections are seen as "angles and elongations". Due to this clarity, every reflected tree appears as a "cypress," and every bush that shows the season is transformed into "A shaft of fire". Crucially, the sources emphasize that this effect is a "geometry and not / A fantasia of distorting forms," where the liquid variations remain "answerable to the theme", demonstrating a "consistency, the grain of the pulsating flow".

The shift occurs when the swimmer decides he "has looked long enough", and the "Body must recall the eye to its dependence". The physical act of swimming is violent to the image, as the body "scissors the waterscape apart / And sways it to tatters". Paradoxically, the cold water's "grasp" holds the swimmer to itself, and the swimmer grants this hold, understanding that swimming is a way "to take hold / On water’s meaning" and to move within the water’s embrace. This action leads to a sense of freedom that exists "between grasp and grasping".

As the swimmer executes each stroke, he claims a temporary "space / The body is heir to," which must be "relinquished / Willingly". Immediately behind him, the image that was torn "Flows-to," "healing itself". This surface is visually compared to the "feathers / Down an immense wing" whose shadow highlights the swimmer's solitariness.

The swimmer is "unnamed / By this baptism," but the lake itself, Chenango, bears a name associated with a "lost language" which the swimmer tries to interpret. This language—which his body attempts to frame questions into "Frogwise"—is characterized as a "speech of densities and derisions, of half replies".

Finally, the swimmer confronts the interior cold and "mercilessness" of the element, though this severity also shows "a kind of mercy sustaining him". The scene concludes as the "last sun of the year is drying his skin" above the surface, which is now a "mosaic of tiny shatterings". A wind is at work "unscaping all images in the flowing obsidian," highlighting the constant, involuntary motion of the ripples that are "incessantly shaping".

Critical Appreciation

The poem "Swimming Chenango Lake" gains its power from the precise handling of paradoxical relationships—between observation and action, structure and fluidity, and mercilessness and sustaining mercy.

Imagery and Precision

The language used to describe the water is highly specific and intellectual. The poet establishes the visual reality of reflections not as mere distortion, but as a formal "geometry" that orders the world. This elevates the scene, turning clouds into angles, trees into cypresses, and seasonal foliage into "A shaft of fire". This attention to visual mechanics ensures that the variations in the liquid are grounded in "consistency". The shift in perspective when the swimmer enters is sudden and sensory: the eye cedes control as the body takes over, shattering the previously stable image.

Thematic Exploration: Grasp and Freedom

A core concept is the exploration of how physical engagement leads to philosophical understanding. The act of swimming is equated with taking "hold / On water’s meaning". The swimmer accepts the water’s cold, physical "grasp". This tension between being grasped (held) and actively grasping (moving) is the source of the swimmer's freedom. The sources present the body not just as a tool, but as an agent that seeks understanding, occupying a transient "space" that it is "heir to". The readiness to "relinquish" this space at each stroke further emphasizes the meditative, cyclical nature of the experience.

Language, Identity, and Solitude

The most complex layer involves the theme of naming and communication. The swimmer’s experience is explicitly labelled an "unnamed" baptism, underscoring his solitude. Only the natural world—"Chenango"—retains a name, which serves as a gateway to a "lost language". The sources describe this language as opaque and difficult to interpret ("densities and derisions"), offering only "half-Replies" to the fundamental questions the swimmer’s body frames. This suggests that nature holds profound answers, but they are delivered in a code that is fragmented and ambiguous, requiring the body’s strenuous, primal effort ("Frogwise") to approach.

Conclusion: Constant Flow

The poem concludes by reinforcing the perpetual state of flux inherent in the natural world. Although the sun briefly grants the human body respite by drying the skin, the water itself is characterized by constant, almost indifferent, change. The wind "unscaping all images" in the "flowing obsidian" suggests that any momentary clarity or geometry is subject to immediate erasure and reshaping by the incessantly moving element.

Text, Summary and Analysis of the story "The Face of Judas Iscariot" by Bonnie Chamberlain

Text of the story

    An old priest told me this story when I was very young. I have since wondered many times where it came from. No one has been able to tell me. Centuries ago a great artist was engaged to paint a mural for the cathedral in a Sicilian town. The subject was the life of Christ. For many years the artist laboured diligently, and finally the painting was finished except for the two most important figures : the Christ Child and Judas Iscariot.

    He searched far and wide for models for those two figures. One day while walking in an old part of the city he came upon some children playing in the street. Among them was a 12-year-old boy whose face stirred the painter’s heart. It was the face of an angel—a dirty one, perhaps, but the face he needed. The artist took the child home with him, and day after day the boy sat patiently until the face of the Christ Child was finished. But the painter still found no one to serve as model for the portrait of Judas.

    For years, haunted by the fear that his masterpiece would remain unfinished, he continued his search. The story of the unfinished masterpiece spread afar, and many men, fancying themselves of wicked countenance, offered to act as models for the face of Judas. But in vain the old painter looked for a face that would serve to show Judas as he had envisioned him—a person botched by life, enfeebled by surrender to greed and lust.

    Then one afternoon as he sat in the tavern over his daily glass of wine, a gaunt and tattered figure staggered across the threshold and fell upon the floor. “Wine, wine,” he begged. The painter lifted him up, and looked into a face that startled him. It seemed to bear the marks of every sin of mankind. Greatly excited, the old painter helped the profligate to his feet. “Come with me,” he said, “and I will give you wine, and food, and clothing.” Here at last was the model for Judas.

    For many days and parts of many nights the painter worked feverishly to complete his masterpiece. As the work went on a change came over the model. A strange tension replaced the stuporous languor, and his bloodshot eyes were fixed with horror on the painted likeness of himself. One day, perceiving his subject’s agitation, the painter paused in his work. “My son, I’d like to help you,” he said. “What troubles you so?” The model sobbed and buried his face in his hands. After a long moment he lifted pleading eyes to the old painter’s face.

“Do you not remember me? Years ago I was your model for the Christ Child.”

Summary

An old priest once shared a story with me. It was about a painter who was commissioned to create a mural for a cathedral in Sicily and the mural depicts the life of Christ. The artist struggled to find suitable models for the Christ Child and Judas Iscariot. Eventually, he found a 12-year-old boy with an angelic face to pose as the Christ Child, but he had difficulty finding a model for Judas. Many men offered themselves, but none fit the vision of Judas as a person corrupted by life.

    One day, a dull and dishevelled man stumbled into the painter's tavern begging for wine. The painter saw in his face the embodiment of every sin, and knew he had found his model for Judas. As the painting progressed, the model became increasingly disturbed by his own likeness in the portrait. Eventually, he revealed to the painter that he had once been the model for the Christ Child years ago.

Analysis

The story explores the themes of redemption and the human capacity for both good and evil. The painter's realisation that the same person had posed as both the Christ Child and Judas highlights the complexity of human nature and the potential for transformation. Despite the man's past sins, there is a sense of compassion and understanding in the painter's response to his distress.

    The narrative underscores the idea that individuals are not defined solely by their actions or appearances, but rather by the capacity for change and growth. It serves as a powerful reminder of the interconnectedness of good and evil within each person, and the possibility for redemption and forgiveness.

Text of "ON RUNNING AFTER ONE’S HAT" by G K Chesterton

 GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON 

(1874 — 1936) 

Essayist, novelist, humorist, poet and artist, Chesterton had a keen sense of humour and the ridiculous and a great love of paradox ; the latter appears particularly in his detective stories. Like his friend Hilaire Belloc, he wrote on almost every possible subject, always with striking originality. 

ON RUNNING AFTER ONE’S HAT 

I feel an almost savage envy on hearing that London has been flooded in my absence, while I am in the mere country. My own Battersea has been, I understand, particularly favoured as a meeting of the waters. Battersea was already, as I need hardly say, the most beautiful of human localities. Now that it has the additional splendour of great sheets of water, there must be something quite incomparable in the landscape (or waterscape) of my own romantic town. Battersea must be a vision of Venice. The boat that brought the meat from the butcher’s must have shot along those lanes of rippling silver with the strange smoothness of the gondola. The greengrocer who brought cabbages to the corner of the Latchmere Road must have leant upon the oar with the unearthly grace of the gondolier. There is nothing so perfectly poetical as an island; and when a district is flooded it becomes an archipelago. 

Some consider such romantic views of flood or fire slightly lacking in reality. But really this romantic view of such inconveniences is quite as practical as the other. The true optimist who sees in such things an opportunity for enjoyment is quite as logical and much more sensible than the ordinary ‘indignant Ratepayer’ who sees in them an opportunity for grumbling. Real pain, as in the case of being burnt at Smithfield or having a toothache, is a positive thing; it can be supported, but scarcely enjoyed. But, after all, our toothaches are the exception, and as for being burnt at Smithfield, it only happens to us at the very longest intervals. And most of the inconveniences that make men swear or women cry are really sentimental or imaginative inconveniences — things altogether of the mind. For instance, we often hear grown-up people complaining of having to hang about a railway station and wait for a train. Did you ever hear a small boy complain of having to hang about a railway station and wait for a train? No;  for him to be inside a railway station is to be inside a cavern of wonder and a palace of poetical pleasures. Because to him the red light and the green light on the signal are like a new sun and a new moon. Because to him when the wooden arm of the signal falls down suddenly, it is as if a great king had thrown down his staff as a signal and started a shrieking tournament of trains. I myself am of little boys’ habit in this matter. They also serve who only stand and wait for the two fifteen. Their meditations may be full of rich and fruitful things. Many of the most purple hours of my life have been passed at Clapham Junction, which is now, I suppose, under water. I have been there in many moods so fixed and mystical that the water might well have come up to my waist before I noticed it particularly. But in the case of all such annoyances, as I have said, everything depends upon the emotional point of view.

You can safely apply the test to almost every one of the things that are currently talked of as the typical nuisance of daily life. For instance, there is a current impression that it is unpleasant to have to run after one’s hat. Why should it be unpleasant to the well-ordered and pious mind? Not merely because it is running, and running exhausts one. The same people run much more eagerly after an uninteresting little leather ball than they will after a nice silk hat. There is an idea that it is humiliating to run after one’s hat; and when people say it is humiliating they mean that it is comic. It certainly is comic ; but man is a very comic creature and most of the things he does are comic — eating, for instance. And the most comic things of all are exactly the thing that are most worth doing — such as making love. A man running after a hat is not half so ridiculous as a man running after a wife. 

Now a man could, if he felt rightly in the matter, run after his hat with the manliest ardour and the most sacred joy. He might regard himself as a jolly huntsman pursuing a wild animal, for certainly no animal could be wilder. In fact, I am inclined to believe that hat-hunting on windy days will be the sport of the upper classes in the future. There will be a meet of ladies and gentlemen on some high ground on a gusty morning. They will be told that the professional attendants have started a hat in such-and-such a thicket, or whatever be the technical term. Notice that this employment will in the fullest degree combine sport with humanitarianism. The hunters would feel that they were not inflicting pain. Nay, they would feel that they were inflicting pleasure, rich, almost riotous pleasure, upon the people who were looking on. When last I saw an old gentleman running after his hat in Hyde Park, I told him that a heart so benevolent as his ought to be filled with peace and thanks at the thought of how much unaffected pleasure his every gesture and bodily attitude were at that moment giving to the crowd.

The same principle can be applied to every other typical domestic worry. A gentleman trying to get a fly out of the milk or a piece-of cork out of his glass of wine often imagines himself to be irritated. Let him think for a moment of the patience of anglers sitting by dark pools, and let his soul be immediately irradiated with gratification and repose. Again, I have known some people of very modern views driven by their distress to the use of theological terms to which they attached no doctrinal significance, merely because a drawer was jammed tight and they could not pull it out. A friend of mine was particularly afflicted in this way. Everyday his drawer was jammed, and every day in consequence it was something else that rhymes to it. But I pointed out to him that this sense of wrong was really subjective and relative, it rested entirely upon the assumption that the drawer could, should, and would come out easily. ‘But if,’ I said, ‘you picture to yourself that you are pulling against some powerful and oppressive enemy, the struggle will become merely exciting and not exasperating. Imagine that you are tugging up a lifeboat out of the sea. Imagine that you are roping up a fellow-creature out of an Alpine crevasse. Imagine even that you are a boy again and engaged in a tug-of-war between French and English. Shortly after saying this I left him ; but I have no doubt at all that my words bore the best possible fruit. I have no doubt that every day of his life he hangs on to the handle of that drawer with flushed face and eyes bright with battle, uttering encouraging shouts to himself, and seeming to hear all round him the roar of an applauding ring.

So I do not think that it is altogether fanciful or incredible to suppose that even the floods in London may be accepted and enjoyed poetically. Nothing beyond inconvenience, really to have been caused by them; and inconvenience, as I have said, is only one aspect, and that the most unimaginative and accidental aspect of a really romantic situation. An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered. The water that girdled the houses and shops of London must if anything, have only increased their previous witchery and wonder. For as the Roman Catholic priest in the story said : "Wine is good with everything except water,” and on a similar principle water is good with everything except wine.