These myriad days

John Masefield wrote the most perfect sonnets… While I was reading through this one I began to wonder about the word ‘myriad’, wondering about its origin. It didn’t take long to discover that it was Greek in origin. It was first used as a number, the number ten thousand, but soon it became used as we use it today to mean countless, numberless, many things in other words! It has been in use in English since the mid sixteenth century, and in other languages too; what I found interesting though, was that ‘myria-‘ is used as a prefix in some languages. There is, apparently a Scandinavian mile, which is 10 kilometres or 6.21 miles, so a translation appeared, myriameter; in the first French republic in 1795, when a new system of just about everything was created, a new way of measuring was decreed, including the  myriagramme, which was about 25 pounds.

Enough of myriad… enjoy John Masefield

These myriad days, these many thousand hours,
A man’s long life, so choked with dusty things,
How little perfect poise with perfect powers,
Joy at the heart and Beauty at the springs.
One hour, or two, or three, in long years scattered,
Sparks from a smithy that have fired a thatch,
Are all that life has given and all that mattered,
The rest, all heaving at a moveless latch.
For these, so many years of useless toil,
Despair, endeavor, and again despair,
Sweat, that the base machine may have its oil,
Idle delight to tempt one everywhere.
A life upon the cross. To make amends
Three flaming memories that the deathbed ends.