The Book of Common Prayer in the Midst of Ransom’s “Bells for John Whiteside’s Daughter”

NOTES AND DOCUMENTS ASHBY BLAND CROWDER Hendrix College, Emeritus The Book of Common Prayer in the Midst of Ransom’s “Bells for John Whiteside’s Daughter” IT IS A TRIBUTE TO JOHN CROWE RANSOM’S “BELLS FOR JOHN WHITESIDE’S Daughter” (1924)1 that it has elicited commentary for almost nine decades, each critical approach revealing a different aspect of the artistry of the poem: the effectiveness of its meter, the role of comedy, the role of ironic understatement, the precisely chosen language that controls tone, the traditional elegiac structure, and so on.2 In 1943, Robert Penn Warren suggested that the poem springs from the unhappy intersection of two clichés: “Heavens, won’t that child ever be still, she is driving me distracted” and “She was such an active, healthy-looking child, who would’ve ever thought she would just up and die?” He pointed out that the second cliché turns out to be a “savagely ironical” answer to the first (13). I wish to point out that this irony is heightened by one of the famous lines from the burial service in The Book of Common Prayer : “In the midst of life we are in death.” The neighbor who speaks the poem anticipates hearing these customary words at the funeral that will presently take place. We can be fairly sure that the service is imminent because the final stanza begins with a reference to the church bells summoning the parish: “now go the bells, and we are ready” (17). The prayer book statement means either that we meet death in the midst of life or that we carry in life the inevitability of our death. However the speaker might understand the statement, his words describing John Whiteside’s daughter reflect the intimate connection between life and 1 Although I cite Chills and Fever (1924), I have given the poem’s title in the form that has become customary since the publication of Selected Poems (1945). Chills and Fever gives the titles as “Bells for John Whitesides’ Daughter.” 2 See Parsons, Schwartz, Montgomery, Bradford, Vesterman, Fowler, and Coulthard. 340 Ashby Bland Crowder death and produce a poignant irony which is sustained throughout his commentary on the girl. The speaker’s present perception andmemoryofthe girl are informed by the prayer book’s “In the midst of life we are in death.” The word “speed” in the poem’s first line, “There was such speed in her little body,” refers to the girl’s life as well as her death: initially the term characterizes her rapid and lively movements as she engaged in play, but the word “speed” also brings to mind the ironic fact that her life passed at great speed. In the second line, the “lightness in her footfall” operates similarly: the word “lightness” suggests the nimbleness of her easy movements—she was light on her feet—but the term also points to the insubstantiality of her tread because the child had hardly touched the world when she left it. The speaker is first astonished and later, in the last stanza, vexed over the girl’s “brown study” (19), which captures her lively inner life, since the expression refers to a serious reverie, thoughtful absent-mindedness, or a state of mental abstraction or musing. The term, says Warren, “reminds one of those moments of childish pensiveness into which the grownup cannot penetrate” (13). The “brown study” is also, of course, a picture of the girl’s stillness in death. All of these terms convey the notion of death in the midst of life. The three middle stanzas, which cram all of the little tomboy’s naughty activities into one sentence, is replete with terms pointing to both life and death. The term “wars,” the sounds of which had reached the speaker’s “high window” (5) to disturb his peace and from which he had looked down upon her irritating behavior, refers initially to her lively play yet immediately reminds him—and us—of the girl’s fight to the death. The next line looks towards the “orchard trees and beyond” (6) (the site of her “wars”), faintly alluding to Stonewall Jackson’s famous statement just before he died...