George Eadon Deakin - Monuments For Hollow Souls

So there is much rejoicing in the Northern Oak camp as our new album, Monuments has been released and is available to buy from music.northernoak.co.uk

One of the influences for the album has been the Victorian scholar, George Eadon Deakin and a brief biography can be found on the inside of the CD case should you chose to buy a physical copy of the album. In his honour there is a secret twelfth track, a recording of one of Deakin's most famous works; 'Monuments for Hollow Souls'.

The poem is dedicated to his wife Arabelle who died of Scarlet Fever at a relatively young age and captures just how dramatically the event changed his character. The misery of her loss rotting his soul completely and giving birth to a pure loathing of humanity.

His choice of literature to reference, Milton's Paradise Lost and Darwin's Origin of the Species, would have been popular at the time but I wonder if the fact both question the nature of God (whether intentionally or not) were intentional. Mirroring his own questions about his faith in the power or indeed the existence of a deity. It is rumoured, based on those final lines, that Deakin committed suicide after completing this but we have no way of knowing whether he took his own life.

Its a stark, misanthropic piece. Right up my street really...

Monuments For Hollow Souls - George Eadon Deakin

As Eve sustained on rib of man,
So shall my wife subsist on blood.
My fingers writing endless praise
To that angelic countenance
Of high virtue and scarlet heart.
When fever took you from my side
My Heaven split asunder. A
Foul caesura of my will,
Allowing rot to set within.
Diseasing my vision so I
See Pandamonium’s vile truth.
The loathsome nature of mankind
Before your purity of voice.
How dare they keep on breeding twist-
-ed progeny for work houses
And other faecal pits of flesh?
For those that understand as I
These works will serve as stern allies
My monuments for hollow souls.
My gift to a world putrid without
Her light. I am prepared now, bear-
-ing poisoned words with which to greet
My maker such a scene that I
Wonder if Darwin would permit