Collected Poems 1931-74 (4 page)

Lost, you may not smile upon me now:

You, nor that grey-eyed counterpart of you

Inhabiting the sunlight in still places:

Substant always in the netted moonshine.

‘Remember' is a lost cry on a wind:

A hollow nothing-heard,

Most memorable, in a deaf night

That does not heed.

I have forgot even, dear pagan,

The holding of hands, the beseeching,

Intolerable darling!

No more do the loose hands of devilry

Tangle your fingers like nets in my soul.

You … I …

They are such very little faces—

Flowers in a stippled moonshine

Only recalled when the moon's a mad farthing,

The sky a december of steel.

I cannot fix the very moment or the hour,

But an inevitable sometime I shall meet

One face, your face among the faces,

Notice one step

Among the winding footfalls of a hollow street.

Perhaps at evening in smooth rain

That runs all silver-shod among the houses,

In a void gathering of men and women

Who tread their lives out on the jointed stones,

I shall be challenged by your smile again:

Your voice above the loaded gutter's monotones.

Voice among voices …

Face among faces….

I cannot fix the moment, and my present clock,

The dandelion-puff, lies cruelly;

Yet, in the action of that hour's surprise

What will you do, or I?

Catch hands and laugh upon each other's eyes?

Or will some imp of the spontaneous moment

Devise some other signal than this?

Shall I, perhaps, put hands upon your elbows,

Outface your consternation with a kiss?

What would you have me write?

Scraps, an attentive phrase or two

To soothe your vanity's delight?

Pay down a fee of words to you,

That lesser you, who dwindle, shrink

When formal sentences of fine desire

Fix your minute reflection in a shining ink?

Would you have all of this:

A macaroni payment for a wink?

A pastiche for a kiss?

No. I'll not devise such nothings:

Not countenance dissection with my pen:

Make an essay on torment when

Ink is for fixing fables.

   O! can anything

Engendered of the mind be more than this:

A hazard flight on an imperfect wing?

The motion of the muscle in a kiss;

Features aligned for laughter; can the mind

Transliterate such metamorphosis

Evoking thence

More than a leaning pothook for a sense?

Words? They are not large enough.

The sense is never minion to the word.

Absent from you, I say:

‘Let there be no more songs,

Those faulty units of the heart.'

Let them defer to senses they can know,

Be pander to air's comprehended graces—

Daffodil smells and the turned earth and snow.

Let them disseminate and prove

The mere music's overture to love

Whose dear vicissitudes may never show

Upon the surface of thought's countenance.

Sure that I've tried and tried,

Leading my ink across this acreage

Of vacant pages.

I can glean nothing from the scars of heart.

Always the finer fabric of the sense protests:

‘Let there be no more songs

Lest an obscuring music's overtone

Disperse the purer meaning of the words.'

You too will pass as other lovers pass.

   There will no more be hands to hold you by.

Love, like wet fingers dabbled on a glass,

   Traces a soon disfigured charactery.

As there is end to every narrative,

   So must the string fall silent on the air.

Dear, these poor suppliant hands may only give

   Scant loveliness to cast before despair.

To hold you will not make creation young,

   Nor all the pattern of the planets new.

Time may not grant what beauty I have sung

   More lease than sunlight to a last night's dew.

Unbearable enchantment! All and all of this

Will slip to nothingness beneath a kiss.

There is no strict being in this hour,

No scent nor dust that moves:

Only this dawdling clock

Clapping a tireless knuckle at the doors

Of cogent thought:

Reviving echoes in the wasted mind.

The night-time swings resentment like a hammer—

Murderous long minutes, pendulous over me,

And all the dark divorces of the mind and body

Are cancelled quite, devoured by this hot nothing,

Night.

I am become my thought's compositor

And the laborious darkness here my devil.

I, lapt in the vacuum of this hot white bed,

What can I see beyond the triple wall?

What sense beyond soul's damage—

Your absence, white Compassionate?

The mind is windle-straws

Herded in regiments by the poignant wind:

A thimble-full of restless lava contemplating

Only the motionless elbows of these trees

Swagged hard with fruit,

Nudging the neighbour wall like a boor at table.

Marble realities!

These, only these.

Yet somewhere thoughts conspire to show you standing,

The obedient evening at your elbow,

Upon a terrace in that southern land,

Free of these dread devices of discomfort—

Silence—this hot blank silence and this bed—

My youth's warm winding-sheet—

Free of them all!

O! dear my saint, sometime I vision you,

As summer lightning winking in my brain—

All your youth's shapely arrogance!

You, limb-lusting, Pan-fleet!

Leaning upon a terrace in the south,

Forgetting and forgetting.

The wind's your only Romeo.

1980/
1934

Since you must pass to-night

Old year, since you must vanish and fall,

What shall we do or devise for you

To celebrate temporal death?

Will you need cakes and poor potsherds

Huddled and stale beside you—

Shall we portion you food and a leather of wine?

Since you must go and we must follow you—

Lamenting and spectral companions,

My lover's dead self and my own—

What shall we make for the three of us,

Tombstones and talismans?

Toys for our comfort in darkness,

Toys for our pillows, we three sleeping children

Now fallen and cold?

Old year, sweet year, I have laid her beside you—

Simple magnificent marble,

Parcelled in cere-cloth, oils and warm ointments:

Pure and delightful our ghostly companion,

Clenched in clean winding-cloth

Close from the mould.

Since we must go together, hand in hand,

Lead our frail steps in the darkness:

Guide our drugged limbs in the shades and the silences,

Tenebrous places—O! cherish our youth.

Old year, kind year,

Image of sunshine and nightingale-passion

Urge us so gently and smoothly away,

My lovely accomplice and I,

To the dead selves of lovers,

The voiceless, forgotten, the faded companions:

Old year, lost year, lead us away.

1980/
New
Year,
1935

My uncle sleeps in the image of death.

In the greenhouse and in the potting-shed

The wrens junket: the old girl with the trowel

Is a pillar of salt, insufferably brittle.

His not to reason why, though a thinking man.

Beside his mesmeric incomprehension

The little mouse mopping and mowing,

The giraffe and the spin-turtle, these can

On my picture-book look insufferably little

But knowing, incredibly Knowing.

My uncle has gone beyond astronomy.

He sleeps in the music-room of the Host.

Voyage was always his entertainment

Who followed a crooked needle under Orion,

Saw the griffin, left notes on the baobab,

Charted the Yellow Coast.

He like a faultless liner, finer never took air,

But snow on the wings altered the altitude,

She paused in a hollow pocket, faltered:

The enormous lighted bird is dashed in snow.

Now in the labyrinth God will put him wise,

Correct the instruments, will alter even

The impetuous stance, the focus of the eyes.

Aunt Prudence, she was the eye of the needle.

Sleeping, a shepherdess of ghostly sheep.

‘Thy will be done in Baden Baden.

In Ouchy, Lord, and in Vichy.'

In the garden of the vicarage sorting stamps

Was given merit of the poor in spirit

For dusting a cinquefoil, tuning the little lamps.

Well, God sends weather, the English apple,

The weeping willow.

Grum lies the consort of Prudence quite:

Mum as a long fiddle in regimentals:

This sudden IT between two tropical thumbs.

Unwrinkle him, Lord, unriddle this strange gorgon,

For tall Prudence who softens the small lamps,

Gives humble air to the organ that it hums.

My uncle sleeps in the image of death.

Not a bad sport the boys will tell you,

More than a spartan in tartan.

Yet he, fearing neither God nor man,

Feared suffocation by marble,

Wrote a will in hexameters, burnt the cakes,

Came through with the cavalry, ladies from hell,

Feared neither God nor man,

Devoted to the polo-pony, mesmerized by stamps.

Now in the stable the hypnotic horse-flesh

Champ, stamp, yawn, paw in the straw,

And in the bedroom the blind warhorse

Gallops all night the dark fields of Dis.

My uncle has gone beyond astronomy.

His sleep is of the Babylonian deep-sea

Darker than bitumen, defter than devil's alliances.

He has seen Golgotha in carnival:

Now in the shin-bone the smart worm

Presides at the death of the sciences,

The Trinity sleeps in his knee.

Curse Orion who pins my man like moth,

Who sleeps in the monotony of his zone,

Who is a daft ankle-bone among stars,

O shame on the beggar by silent lands

Who has nothing but carbon for his own.

Uncouple the flutes! Strike with the black rod!

Our song is no more plural, the bones

Are hollow without your air, Lord God.

Give us the language of diamonds or

The speech of the little stones.

Prudence shall cross also the great white barrier.

God shall fold finally up the great fan—

Benevolent wings wheeling over the rectory,

The vicar, the thatcher, the rat-catcher,

Sure in this medicine help her all they can.

O she is sure in step with the step of the Master.

Winter loosens the apple, fastens the Eskimo.

Wearing his pug-marks for slippers shall follow,

Holding to common prayer, the Great Bear;

Over the Poles, wherever his voyages go.

Shall navigate also the great circle,

Confer with the serious mammoth, the sabre-tooth,

Come to the sole goal, palace of higher things,

Where God's good silverware spills on all faces,

And hazardously the good wizard, gives wings.

My uncle sleeps in the image of death.

He sleeps the steep sleep of his zone,

His downward tilting sleep beyond alarm.

Heu! he will come to harm so alone.

Who says for him the things he dare not say?

He cannot speak to angels from his rock.

This pediment of sleep is his impediment.

Grant him the speech of sleep,

Not this dank slag, the deathward sediment.

Strike with the rod, Lord God.

Here was a ruddy bareback man,

Emptied his blood upon the frozen lake,

Wheeled back the screaming mares,

Crossing the Jordan.

Excuse me, Lord God, numberer of hairs,

Sender of telegrams, the poisoned arrow,

Suffer your faithful hound, give him

At least the portion of the common sparrow.

My uncle has gone beyond astronomy.

Three, six, nine of the dead languages

Are folded under his lip.

He has crossed over into Tartary,

Burnt his boats, dragged the black ice for bodies,

Seen trees in the water, skippered God's little ship.

He is now luggage, excess baggage,

Not wanted on voyage, scaling a pass,

Or swinging a cutlass in the Caribbean,

Under Barbados chewing the frantic marsh-rice,

Seven dead men, a crooked foot, a cracked jaw,

Ten teeth like hollow dice.

My uncle is sleeping in economy.

No word is wasted for the common ghost

Speaks inwards: he lies in the status

Of death's dumb music, the dumb dead king

On an ivory coast.

Prudence had no dog and but one cat,

Black of bonnet the Lord's plain precept saw

At the at-home, on Calvary, in the darkest nook

He was there; He leaned on a window smiling,

The God Shepherd crooking his ghostly crook.

Prudence did dip and delve in the Holy Book,

Alpha to omega angels told her the tale,

Feeding the parrot, pensive over a croquet-hoop:

‘Once upon a time was boy and girl,

Living on cherry, berry, fisherman's silver catch.

Now the crass cock crows in the coop,

Prudence, the door dangles, lacking a latch.'

My uncle has gone beyond astronomy.

He sleeps the sharp sleep of the unstrung harp.

Crossed into Tartary, he lies deep

In the flora and fauna of death,

Under a black snowline sleeps the steep,

Botanical, plant-pure sleep.

The soul is folded like a little mouse.

Body is mortuary here, the clock

Foiled in its own wheels—but he may be sleeping,

Even if no toe moves no where, the sock

Be empty of all but vessels—where is he creeping?

Where is my man's address? How does he perish

Who was my relish, who was without fault?

Strike with the black rod, Lord God.

This is the marmoreal person, the rocky one.

This is the pillar of savourless salt.

My uncle has gone beyond astronomy.

He sleeps in the pocket of Lapland,

Hears thunder on a Monday, has known

Bone burn to ash for the urn's hold.

He has fine nails of his finger and of his toe.

Now colder than spittle is his mettle. The hand

Is cold bone touching cold stone. So

In the sad womb he plays the trump of doom.

Lord, here is music. This fine white 'cello

Hums no more to the gust of your air.

This supercilious fellow, think what was given

To nourish his engine, salt barley and beer.

All wasted, gone over, destroyed by death's leaven,

Scent of the apple and stain of the berry.

Now only the ignorant hedgehog dare,

Smelling the fruit in him, dance and be merry.

Prudence was told the tale of the chimney-corner

In the ingle beetled over the red troll's book

Ate the white lie: ‘Happily ever after,

A hunchback, a thimble, a smart swan,

Ride time's tall wave, musically on and on …'

Was it of God to bait and wait with the hook?

Was it of him black laughter at ‘happily ever after',

A grass widow, a shadow embalmed in a story-book?

Memory is morsels offered of sparrows.

First prize a jug and bowl for correcting the clock,

Sending a telegram, gathering holy campion.

Lowly Prue is glum of finger and thumb,

Toe in the ember, dismembering spools of knitting.

Patience on a monument, passion on a cushion.

God's champion darning a sock, sitting.

My uncle sleeps in the image of death.

The shadow of other worlds, deep-water penumbra

Covers his marble: he is past sighing,

Body a great slug there, a fine white

Pike in a green pond lying.

My uncle was a red man. The dead man

Knew to shoe horses: the habits of the owl,

Time of tillage, foison, cutting of lumber,

Like Saint Columba,

Could coax the squirrels into his cowl.

Heu! for the tombeau, the sombre flambeau,

Immanent with God he lies in Limbo.

Break punic rock. Weather-man of the tomb,

We are left among little mice and insects,

Time's clock-work womb.

Prudence sweetly sang both crotchet and quaver,

Death riped an eyeball, the dog-days

Proffered salt without savour, the cards were cut.

She heard a primordial music, the Host's tune

For the guest's swoon—God going the gamut.

Honour a toast for the regimental mascot,

The thin girl, the boys of the blue fourteenth,

Driving to Ascot: a wedding under the sabres,

Tinker and tailorman, soldier or sailor,

Lads of the village entering harbour,

O respect also those windowless features,

The stainless face of the provincial barber.

Prudence plays monumental patience by candles:

The puffins sit in a book: the muffins are molten:

The crass clock chimes,

Timely the hour and deserved.

Presently will come the two welcome angels

Noise in the hall, the last supper be served.

1943/
1938

My uncle has entered his soliloquy.

He keeps vigil under the black sigil.

To be or not to be at God's suggestion.

That is the question, to know or not to know.

Smoke powder-blue and soft brass handles,

The puma swoons among the silken candles,

O Elsinore, my son, my son,

Tiger of the zenith, heifer of the red herd,

His fugue of flesh and ours in counterpoint,

Which moves, or seems to move.

It is only God's breath in the nave,

Moving the cinquefoils, only the footwork

Of mongols, cretins, and mutes smelling of beer.

(The candles breathe in their pollen)

He that hath ears to hear, let him hear,

Let him bear false witness,

Cough out the candles, covet his neighbour.

Let him crack the ten tablets, burn the puma,

Set up as father, son and ghost,

This, my black humour.

World
without
end
means
voyage
beyond
feeling.

Trek
without
turning
spells
voyage
without
meaning.

Being,
seeing,
is
voyage
at
morning.

Dying
and
praying
are
travel
by
kneeling.

Friends, Romans, countrymen,

Conduct his entry to soliloquy

With this marginal ritual.

We come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

God will raise up his bachelor, this widow's mite

A foothold for the scientific worm.

(
Deliver
us
from
evil.

Deliver
us
from
the
trauma
of
death
'
s
pupil,

From
the
forked
tongue
of
devil,

Deliver
us
from
the
vicar's
bubonic
purple,

From
the
canine
hysteria,
the
lethal
smile,

O
deliver
us
from
botanical
sleep,

The
canonical
sugar,
the
rabbinical
pose,

Deliver
us
from
death's
terrific
pinnacle,

Biological
silence,
a
clinical
sleep.
)

This man, my friends,

The lion and the lizard keep,

Mourned by the cottagers on windy porches,

By the cracked hearth-stone, the calendar,

Mourned at the vicarage among the larches:

The shoe full of nails, the ploughboy

Whetting his axe on a bush remembers,

Recalls and regrets: Whom the Gods love

Is death's superlative decoy.