It is unlikely I shall ever keep a swan
Or build a tower on any small tombolo, But that's not going to stop me wondering what sort
Of lake I would decide on if I should. Moraine, pot, oxbow, glint, sink, crater, piedmont, dimple ... ? Just reeling off their names is ever so comfy.
? September 1952
V Islands
(FOR GIOCONDO SACCHETTI)
Old saints on millstones float with cats To islands out at sea,
Whereon no female pelvis can
Threaten their agape. j
Beyond the long arm of the Law, l
Close to a shipping road, |
Pirates in their island lairs Observe the pirate code.
Obsession with security In Sovereigns prevails;
His Highness and The People both Pick islands for their jails.
Once, where detected worldlings now i
Do penitential jobs,
Exterminated species played Who had not read their Hobbes.
His continental damage done, Laid on an island shelf,
Napoleon has five years more To talk about himself.
How fascinating is that class Whose only member is Me!
Sappho, Tiberius and I Hold forth beside the sea.
What is cosier than the shore Of a lake turned inside out?
How do all these other people Dare to be about?
In democratic nudity Their sexes lie; except
By age or weight you could not tell The keeping from the kept.
They go, she goes, thou goest, I go To a mainland livelihood:
Farmer and fisherman complain The other has it good.
? August 1953
VI Plains
(FOR WENDELL JOHNSON)
I can imagine quite easily ending up
In a decaying port on a desolate coast, Cadging drinks from the unwary, a quarrelsome,
Disreputable old man; I can picture A second childhood in a valley, scribbling
Reams of edifying and unreadable verse; But I cannot see a plain without a shudder:— "O God, please, please, don't ever make me live there!"
It's horrible to think what peaks come down to,
That pecking rain and squelching glacier defeat Tall pomps of stone where goddesses lay sleeping, Dreaming of being woken by some chisel's kiss, That what those blind brutes leave when they are
through is nothing But a mere substance, a clay that meekly takes The potter's cuff, a gravel that as concrete Will unsex any space which it encloses.
And think of growing where all elsewheres are equal!
So long as there's a hill-ridge somewhere the dreamer Can place his land of marvels; in poor valleys
Orphans can head downstream to seek a million: Here nothing points; to choose between Art and Science
An embryo genius would have to spin a stick. What could these farms do if set loose but drift like clouds? What goal of unrest is there but the Navy?
Romance? Not in this weather. Ovid's charmer Who leads the quadrilles in Arcady, boy-lord Of hearts who can call their Yes and No their own,
Would, madcap that he is, soon die of cold or sunstroke: These lives are in firmer hands; that old grim She
Who makes the blind dates for the hatless genera Creates their country matters. (Woe to the child-bed, Woe to the strawberries if She's in Her moods!)
And on these attend, greedy as fowl and harsher
Than any climate, Caesar with all his They. If a tax-collector disappear in the hills,
If, now and then, a keeper is shot in the forest, No thunder follows, but where roads run level,
How swift to the point of protest strides the Crown. It hangs, it flogs, it fines, it goes. There is drink.
There are wives to beat. But Zeus is with the strong,
Born as a rule in some small place (an island,
Quite often, where a smart lad can spot the bluff Whence cannon would put the harbor at his mercy),
Though it is here they chamber with Clio. At this brook The Christian cross-bow stopped the Heathen scimitar;
Here is a windmill whence an emperor saw His right wing crumple; across these cabbage fields A pretender's Light Horse made their final charge.
If I were a plainsman I should hate us all,
From the mechanic rioting for a cheap loaf To the fastidious palate, hate the painter
Who steals my wrinkles for his Twelve Apostles, Hate the priest who cannot even make it shower.
What could I smile at as I trudged behind my harrow But bloodshot images of rivers screaming,
Marbles in panic, and Don't-Care made to care?
As it is, though, I know them personally
Only as a landscape common to two nightmares: Across them, spotted by spiders from afar,
I have tried to run, knowing there was no hiding and no help; On them, in brilliant moonlight, I have lost my way .
And stood without a shadow at the dead centre Of an abominable desolation,
Like Tarquin ravished by his post-coital sadness.
Which goes to show I've reason to be frightened
Not of plains, of course, but of me. I should like —Who wouldn't?—to shoot beautifully and be obeyed
(I should also like to own a cave with two exits); I wish I weren't so silly. Though I can't pretend To think these flats poetic, it's as well at times To be reminded that nothing is lovely, Not even in poetry, which is not the case.
? July 19 53
VII Streams
[FOR ELIZABETH DREW)
Dear water, clear water, playful in all your streams,
As you dash or loiter through life who does not love To sit beside you, to hear you and see you, Pure being, perfect in music and movement?
Air is boastful at times, earth slovenly, fire rude,
But you in your bearing are always immaculate, The most well-spoken of all the older Servants in the household of Mrs. Nature.
Nobody suspects you of mocking him, for you still
Use the same vocables you were using the day Before that unexpected row which Downed every hod on half-finished Babel,
And still talk to yourself: nowhere are you disliked;
Arching your torso, you dive from a basalt sill, Canter across white chalk, slog forward Through red marls, the aboriginal pilgrim,
At home in all sections, but for whom we should be
Idolaters of a single rock, kept apart
By our landscapes, excluding as alien The tales and diets of all other strata.
How could we love the absent one if you did not keep
Coming from a distance, or quite directly assist, As when past Iseult's tower you floated The willow pash-notes of wanted Tristram?
And Homo Ludens, surely, is your child, who make
Fun of our feuds by opposing identical banks, Transferring the loam from Huppim To Muppim and back each time you crankle.
Growth cannot add to your song: as unchristened brooks Already you whisper to ants what, as Brahma's son, Descending his titanic staircase Into Assam, to Himalayan bears you thunder.
And not even man can spoil you: his company Coarsens roses and dogs but. should he herd
you through a sluice To toil at a turbine, or keep you Leaping in gardens for his amusement,
Innocent still is your outcry, water, and there Even, to his soiled heart raging at what it is, Tells of a sort of world, quite other, Altogether different from this one
With its envies and passports, a polis like that To which, in the name of scholars everywhere, Gaston Paris pledged his allegiance As Bismarck's siege-guns came within earshot.
Lately, in that dale of all Yorkshire's the loveliest, Where, off its fell-side helter-skelter, Kisdon Beck Jumps into Swale with a boyish shouting, Sprawled out on grass, I dozed for a second,.
And found myself following a croquet tournament In a calm enclosure with thrushes popular: Of all the players in that cool valley The best with the mallet was my darling.