Love in the Past : 2 single work   poetry   "Many and many a day has flown"
Alternative title: Under the Wild Fig Tree
Is part of Love in the Past Charles Harpur , 1984 sequence poetry
  • Author:agent Charles Harpur http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/harpur-charles
First known date: 1849 Issue Details: First known date: 1849... 1849 Love in the Past : 2
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Notes

  • This poem appears in a number of published versions from 1851 onwards. For further details, see The Poems of Charles Harpur in Manuscript in the Mitchell Library and in Publication in the Nineteenth Century: An Analytical Finding List by Elizabeth Holt and Elizabeth Perkins (Canberra: Australian Scholarly Editions Centre, 2002).
  • An author's note in the Empire includes the following phrase: 'I feel now (in 1849)...'. The first date for this poem is, therefore, tentatively given as 1849.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Alternative title: Love in the Past
First line of verse: "Ah, many and many a day is gone," First known date: 1849
Notes:
  • Comprises three, eight-line stanzas from 'Love in the Past' : 2.
  • Accompanied by an author's note. Note indexed separately.
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Empire no. 130 14 June 1851 Z1868534 1851 newspaper issue 1851 pg. 3
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Sydney Morning Herald vol. 47 no. 7776 8 May 1863 11990934 1863 newspaper issue 1863 pg. 8
    Note:

    Under the title: "Under the Wild Fig Tree"

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Poetical Works of Charles Harpur Charles Harpur , Elizabeth Perkins (editor), Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1984 Z459555 1984 selected work poetry satire 'This collection represents one version of almost every poem written by Charles Harpur, with the omission of some translations and paraphrases. The verse drama, "Stalwart the Bushranger", and the fragments of the dramatic poem "King Saul" are not included. ... The collection is edited from Harpur's manuscript poems held in the Mitchell Library, Sydney, and from printed copies in colonial newspapers when no manuscript version existed.' (Preface) Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1984 pg. 731-733

Works about this Work

Untitled Charles Harpur , 1851 single work column
— Appears in: The Empire , 14 June no. 130 1851; (p. 3)
Harpur writes, in part: 'When conceiving ['Love in the Past'], I distinctly remember to have wished myself for once a musician instead of a poet... So many thoughts have we, and particularly so many sensations, which the accents of music can alone express in passing, or reproductively symbolize when past. Yet I once thought music wholly subordinate to, and dependent upon, poetry in the expression of absolute purpose. But my feeling of the nature and scope of the former art has altered, or rather developed considerably since then... I feel now (in 1849) that language could no more arrest and embody such conceptions of the beautiful in its eternity, as are lapped for ever in some of the bursts of Mozart, for instance... They are instinct with revelations of the soul's immortality; and all who have heard them have "drunk of the milk of Paradise".'
Untitled Charles Harpur , 1851 single work column
— Appears in: The Empire , 14 June no. 130 1851; (p. 3)
Harpur writes, in part: 'When conceiving ['Love in the Past'], I distinctly remember to have wished myself for once a musician instead of a poet... So many thoughts have we, and particularly so many sensations, which the accents of music can alone express in passing, or reproductively symbolize when past. Yet I once thought music wholly subordinate to, and dependent upon, poetry in the expression of absolute purpose. But my feeling of the nature and scope of the former art has altered, or rather developed considerably since then... I feel now (in 1849) that language could no more arrest and embody such conceptions of the beautiful in its eternity, as are lapped for ever in some of the bursts of Mozart, for instance... They are instinct with revelations of the soul's immortality; and all who have heard them have "drunk of the milk of Paradise".'
Last amended 7 Oct 2017 08:27:28
Newspapers:
    Powered by Trove
    X