For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?

Every now and then I think I have to remind myself that I know nothing.

For instance, there's a spoken (sampled?) line repeated in the Bowie song, Ricochet, that runs, "And who can bear to be forgotten?"

I attributed the line to Bowie in a blog post I wrote some time ago, I seem to recall. Now I realise that this must be a quote slightly adapted from Auden's 'Night Mail' (incidentally, a poem which, for many years, unaccountably, I believed to be by John Betjeman).

The actual line, from the poem, is:

For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?

It's a fascinatingly ominous line with which to end what otherwise seems an advert for the Royal Mail.

(Note that the line in the Bowie song is not gender-specific, and is therefore more PC.)

Anyway, I'll go and flog myself now for such an egregious misconception (or, anyway, such ignorance in my attribution), though I suppose I must have known it was a quote from elsewhere, if only because of the 'sampled' quality of the words. Also… maybe I'm wrong about some of the above, too. For instance, maybe the poem was intended unambiguously as an advert, and there's no 'seems' about it (we did actually have to read this poem at school, and my recollection is that we were taught it was a kind of advert). And maybe Auden is quoting someone else.

Memory and knowledge are slippery things.

Before I go and flog myself to sleep, I'll tell you a very little about my day.

I went into Swansea and visited the Dylan Thomas Centre (incidentally, I failed to spot the Dylan Thomas reference in the title of Momus's album Ocky Milk when it came out). There I had an egg mayonnaise sandwich, a pot of tea, a chocolate brownie thing, and some salt and vinegar flavoured crisps. I noticed, on the bookshelves, a number of books about which I have recently been reading, including Piers Plowman, and, intrigued, I began to search through the shelves for any interesting finds. There were, in fact, a great many interesting books. I ended up, rather extravagantly, I'm afraid to say, buying four whole books. They were as follows:

The Mabinogion (Penguin paperback, new)
Greek Pastoral Poetry (Penguin paperback, second-hand)
The Turn of the Screw and other short novels, by Henry James (Signet Classic paperback, second-hand)
Far-Off Things, by Arthur Machen (The New Adelphi Library, second-hand)

One or two people reading this may know that I wrote a story called 'Far-Off Things'. At the time I wrote it, I was actually ignorant of the fact that Machen had written anything under the same title (I have this problem with titles). I wanted to call my story 'Unhappy Far-Off Things', but Lord Dunsany had already used that title. As far as I was concerned, the title was a quote from Wordsworth's poem 'The Solitary Reaper'. I suppose Dunsany was quoting Wordsworth, too. I'm guessing that Machen was also quoting Wordsworth for his title, but 'Far-Off Things' is a brief enough phrase that it might not necessarily be an allusion to the poem. Still, I suppose it is. And maybe Machen had the same problem as me, and had meant to use 'Unhappy Far-Off Things', but was thwarted by Lord Dunsany getting there first.

Please excuse my excessive concern with things that don't matter. I want you to know that I know they don't matter. It concerns me.

I've said this before, but sometimes it's actually a relief to think that I'll be forgotten.