Old Truths

It is not growing like a tree

In bulk, doth make man better be;

Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,

To fall a log at last, dry, bald and sere;

A lily of a day

Is fairer far in May,

Although it fall and die that night;

It was the plant and flower of Light.

In small proportions we just beauties see;

And in short measures life may perfect be.

I was listening to the radio today, to an item about the proliferation in the use of steroids by young men and the harmful side-effects they cause. The issue of people’s dissatisfaction with what is normal and natural again; how long has the discussion on the links between the role-models in fashion and eating disorders in young women been going on? Surely it is time to demand greater responsibility from the image-makers.

The poem prompts a second thought. A time of wall to wall, ‘crash bang wallop’ entertainments is unlikely to be the time of greatest happiness: every aspect of normal life diminished in scale by digital/celluloid constructs. I wonder to what extent we have lost the ability to recognize the quieter, more subtle beauties nature puts in our way.

 It may be couched in old-fashioned terms, but Ben Jonson’s poem seems as relevant as ever.