This is a poet who advises, for best results, follow the maker's instructions.
"The intonation, the ups and downs of the voice, involuntarily change as the rhythm (altered by the place where the tiny pause or musical "rest" takes place) changes…Read naturally but with respect for the linebreak's fractional pause, a pitch pattern change does occur with each variation of lineation." ('On the Function of the Line', in New and Selected Essays, 1992, p.82)
I have reproduced below, exactly Levertov's lineation for her poem 'To live in the Mercy of God.' It's worth taking time to read it aloud, keeping in mind her own understanding of what she was about in writing her poetry with a precise care in the structure of the lines and placement of words. And yes, the large full stop between the two parts of the poem has its own performative function of creating space, breath, to recall the title line, 'To Live in the Mercy of God. Part one is about human living in the mercy of God; part two is about the cost and consequence of the mercy of God, for God.
To Live in the Mercy of God
To lie back under the tallest
oldest trees. How far the stems
rise, rise
before ribs of shelter
open!
To live in the mercy of God. The complete
sentence too adequate, has no give.
Awe, not comfort. Stone, elbows of
stony wood beneath lenient
moss bed.
And awe suddenly
passing beyond itself. Becomes
a form of comfort.
Becomes the steady
air you glide on, arms
stretched like the wings of flying foxes.
To hear the multiple silence
of trees, the rainy
forest depths of their listening.
To float, upheld,
as salt water
would hold you,
once you dared.
.
To live in the mercy of God.
To feel vibrate the enraptured
waterfall flinging itself
unabating down and down
to clenched fists of rock.
Swiftness of plunge,
hour after year after century,
O or Ah
uninterrupted, voice
many-stranded.
To breathe
spray. The smoke of it.
Arcs
of steelwhite foam, glissades
of fugitive jade barely perceptible. Such passion—
rage or joy?
Thus, not mild, not temperate,
God’s love for the world. Vast
flood of mercy
flung on resistance.
The poem was written when Levertov was becoming aware of failing health, eventually diagnosed as lymphoma. In her final few years her experience of illness coalesced with her personal search for awareness and experience of living in the mercy of God.
To lie on the forest floor, gazing at the immensity and strength of centuries of growth, is to become part of something vaster, more primal, that invites the self out of its own sphere of control and comfort, and opens up transcendence. Lying on the forest floor the poet has a growing sense of contemplative awe, despite the discomfort of ancient roots digging into her back. But awe is not enough, despite its repeated use, because the word misses more than it says about living in the mercy of God. Beyond awe is wonder, rising, floating, flying then gliding on wings that soar on borrowed air.
The unexpected change of image at the end of part one, from lying on a forest floor to floating on salt water, is a quite disconcerting lurch sideways, but it introduces the idea of daring to risk. That existential urge to grow by self-donation had become increasingly important to Levertov in her late pilgrimage towards God. You are upheld and able to float, only once you dare to trust, to risk letting go in surrender – that is to live in the mercy of God. Then that large full stop, like an interval at the theatre, allows for a change of stage scenery.
To stand beside a waterfall, drenched, deafened and dazzled by the unabated plunge of water in sunlight, is to sense an immensity in mercy that remains beyond the adequacy of words. The mercy of God is a waterfall, unabated goodness, plunging towards the clenched fists of rock-hard rejection, "hour after year after century" that uninterrupted and many stranded voice of love wearing away the jagged edges of rock hard hearts.
"Such passion –" Rage or joy, judgement or mercy, woe or weal? No answer is given. Just the confession of faith, that risk of daring to be upheld, by a love that takes the infinite risk of self-outpouring that is total, unabating, passion:
Thus, not mild, not temperate,
God’s love for the world. Vast
flood of mercy
flung on resistance.
Back to lineation, and the placing of words for emphasis; "Such passion –" At a hinge point in the flow of thought, such Passion inevitably takes on a cruciform shape. To live in the mercy of God is to stand beneath Niagara, and find that however hard the heart, however resistant to love, God has an eternity of patience and an ocean of love.
Arcs
of steelwhite foam, glissades
of fugitive jade barely perceptible. Such passion—
rage or joy?
Thus, not mild, not temperate,
God’s love for the world. Vast
flood of mercy
flung on resistance.
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