All the Poems
Page 12
When most against a loving friend he pressed.
And now he walks with gun and roar –
He is a colonel in the Indian Army –
Sporting upon a tiger’s spoor
And with him goes his faithful escort, Harmi.
Oh Harmi dear I love the sun
And all the crooked jungle path
But most the water holes I love
With creatures peering from above.
Why do I pick the wilder animal?
It is because he is not fanciful.
I had a dog in England once,
I loved him well, his name was Bunce,
And now I think I see him here,
And as I think, the scene grows clear,
An English scene. The colonel sighed.
The misty fells lay open wide
Upon his loving thought,
And dog Bunce ran again to start
The timid hare, and play his part
As he was taught.
Wild creatures’ eyes, the colonel said,
Are innocent and fathomless,
And when I look at them I see
That they are not aware of me,
And oh I find and oh I bless
A comfort in this emptiness.
They only see me when they want
To pounce upon me in the hunt.
But in the tame variety
There couches an anxiety
As if they yearned, yet knew not what
They yearned for, nor they yearned for not.
And so my dog would look at me
And it was pitiful to see
Such love and such dependency.
The human heart is not at ease
With animals that look like these.
The colonel paused and wiped his brow,
He felt his words were too dramatic
But as he knew no English they
Were lost upon the Asiatic.
Ah me, the bitter bitter love,
Why must it be so bitter
Or animal, or man, or tree –
Would not no love be better?
And still in recollection bound
The Colonel gazed upon the ground
It seemed his senses in a swound
Had left him quite,
Then turning to his gun again
And stamping on his heavy pain,
He loaded up and in the sight
Beheld a tiger stepping bright.
He steps so brightly to his death,
The colonel shot him through the teeth.
I had a dream I beat dear Bunce,
He said, with many a weal
Until he lay down at my feet
All red from toe to heel
Then in my dream I rose and fled,
Crying, The dog, the dog is dead.
Now, Harmi, mark, when daylight came,
My night and dream to shatter through
My dog came and so looked at me
I said, Why, Bunce, what’s the matter with you?
Oh day and night, oh Holy Dove,
We slay the thing we most do love,
And it is pitiful to see
Our friends live but in memory.
But they are safe in memory
And are they not? the colonel said,
He turned and looked at Harmi so
That Harmi dropped his gun and fled.
When he came back again he found
The colonel dying of a wound,
And crying close upon the ground:
Oh bright bright blood that flows so bright
Within the wound myself did make
Oh jungle grass that drinks it up
And with my life thy thirst doth slake
Why has my hand this hour postponed
That sees me now with dust conjoined?
The Indian’s tears fell like a blot
Upon the colonel’s face
And carefully before he left
He put his hands in place.
Later upon the tomb, now grave now gay,
He daily danced to keep the fiends away.
‘Oh stubborn race of Cadmus’ seed …’
It is the bird of burial
I invoke for my brother’s funeral.
I throw the dust in Creon’s eyes
Not my father is blind but my uncle is.
And when they have killed me I shall stand in the Dark Hall
And cry: Orcus, see that my sister does not suffer at all.
The Ambassador
‘known also among the Phoenicians as Casmilus’
LEMPIRÈRE
Underneath the broad hat is the face of the Ambassador
He rides on a white horse through hell looking two ways.
Doors open before him and shut when he has passed.
He is master of the mysteries and in the market place
He is known. He stole the trident, the girdle,
The sword, the sceptre and many mechanical instruments.
Thieves honour him. In the underworld he rides carelessly.
Sometimes he rises into the air and flies silently.
Persephone
I am that Persephone
Who played with her darlings in Sicily
Against a background of social security.
Oh what a glorious time we had
Or had we not? They said it was sad
I was born good, grown bad.
Oh can you wonder can you wonder
I struck the doll-faced day asunder
Stretched out and plucked the flower of winter thunder?
Then crashed the sky and the earth smoked
Where are father and mother now? Ah, croaked
The door-set crone, Sun’s cloaked.
Up came the black horses and the dark King
And the harsh sunshine was as if it had never been
In the halls of Hades they said I was queen.
My mother, my darling mother,
I loved you more than any other,
Ah mother, mother, your tears smother.
No not for my father who rules
The fair fields of Italy and sunny fools
Do I mourn where the earth cools.
But my mother, I loved and left her
And of a fair daughter bereft her,
Grief cleft her.
Oh do not fret me
Mother, let me
Stay, forget me.
But still she seeks sorrowfully,
Calling me bitterly
By name, Persephone.
I in my new land learning
Snow-drifts on the fingers burning.
Ice, hurricane, cry: No returning.
Does my husband the King know, does he guess
In this wintriness
Is my happiness?
Do Take Muriel Out
Do take Muriel out
She is looking so wan
Do take Muriel out
All her friends have gone.
And after too much pressure
Looking for them in the Palace
She goes home to too much leisure
And this is what her life is.
All her friends are gone
And she is alone
And she looks for them where they have never been
And her peace is flown.
Her friends went into the forest
And across the river
And the desert took their footsteps
And they went with a believer.
Ah they are gone they were so beautiful
And she can not come to them
And she kneels in her room at night
Crying, Amen.
Do take Muriel out
Although your name is Death
She will not complain
When you dance her over the blasted heath.
The Weak Monk
The monk sat in his den
He took his mighty pen
And wrote: ‘
Of God and Men’.
One day the thought struck him
It was not according to Catholic doctrine;
His blood ran dim.
He wrote till he was ninety years old
Then he shut the book with a clasp of gold
And buried it under the sheepfold.
He’d enjoyed it so much, he loved to plod,
And he thought he’d a right to expect that God
Would rescue his book alive from the sod.
Of course it rotted in the snow and rain,
No one will ever know now what he wrote of God and Men.
For this the monk is to blame.
Le Singe Qui Swing
to the tune of ‘Green-sleeves’
Outside the house
The swinging ape
Swung to and fro,
Swung to and fro,
And when midnight shone so clear
He was still swinging there.
Oh ho the swinging ape,
The happy peaceful animal,
Oh ho the swinging ape,
I love to see him gambol.
Pad, pad
I always remember your beautiful flowers
And the beautiful kimono you wore
When you sat on the couch
With that tigerish crouch
And told me you loved me no more.
What I cannot remember is how I felt when you were unkind
All I know is, if you were unkind now I should not mind.
Ah me, the capacity to feel angry, exaggerated and sad
The years have taken from me. Softly I go now, pad pad.
The Broken Friendship
‘My heart is fallen in despair’
Said Easter Ross to Jolie Bear.
Jolie answered never a word
But passed her plate as if she had not heard.
Mrs Ross is took to her bed
And kept her eye fixed on the bed-rail peg
‘When I am dead roll me under the barrow,
And who but pretty Jolie shall carry the harrow.’
Jolie Bear is gone away
Easter Ross’s heart is broke,
Everything went out of her
When Jolie never spoke.
‘Duty was his Lodestar’
a song
Duty was my Lobster, my Lobster was she,
And when I walked out with my Lobster
I was happy.
But one day my Lobster and I fell out,
And we did nothing but
Rave and shout.
Rejoice, rejoice, Hallelujah, drink the flowing champagne,
For my darling Lobster and I
Are friends again.
Rejoice, rejoice, drink the flowing champagne-cup,
My Lobster and I have made it up.
The Afterthought
Rapunzel Rapunzel let down your hair
It is I your beautiful lover who am here
And when I come up this time I will bring a rope ladder with me
And then we can both escape to the dark wood immediately.
This must be one of those things, as Edgar Allan Poe says somewhere in a book,
Just because it is perfectly obvious one is certain to overlook.
I wonder sometimes by the way if Poe isn’t a bit introspective,
One can stand about getting rather reflective,
But thinking about the way the mind works, you know,
Makes one inactive, one simply doesn’t know which way to go;
Like the centipede in the poem who was corrupted by the toad
And ever after never did anything but lie in the middle of the road,
Or the old gurus of India I’ve seen, believe it or not,
Standing seventy five years on their toes until they dropped.
Or Titurel, for that matter, in his odd doom
Crying: I rejoice because by the mercy of the Saviour I continue to live in the tomb.
What’s that, darling? You can’t hear me?
That’s odd. I can hear you quite distinctly.
The Wanderer
Twas the voice of the Wanderer, I heard her exclaim,
You have weaned me too soon, you must nurse me again,
She taps as she passes at each window pane,
Pray does she not know that she taps in vain?
Her voice flies away on the midnight wind,
But would she be happier if she were within?
She is happier far where the night-winds fall
And there are no doors and no windows at all.
No man has seen her, this pitiful ghost,
And no woman either, but heard her at most,
Sighing and tapping and sighing again,
You have weaned me too soon, you must nurse me again.
No Categories!
I cry I cry
To God who created me
Not to you Angels who frustrated me
Let me fly, let me die,
Let me come to Him.
Not to you Angels on the wing,
With your severe faces,
And your scholarly grimaces,
And your do this and that,
And your exasperating pit-pat
Of appropriate admonishment.
This is not what the Creator meant,
In the day of his gusty creation
He made this and that
And laughed to see them grow fat.
Plod on, you Angels say, do better aspire higher
And one day you may be like us, or those next below us,
Or nearer the lowest,
Or lowest,
Doing their best.
Oh no no, you Angels, I say,
No hierarchies I pray.
Oh God, laugh not too much aside
Say not, it is a small matter.
See what your Angels do; scatter
Their pride; laugh them away.
Oh no categories I pray.
The Deserter
The world is come upon me, I used to keep it a long way off,
But now I have been run over and I am in the hands of the hospital staff.
They say I have not been run over as a matter of fact it’s imagination,
But they all agree I should be kept in bed under observation.
I must say it’s very comfortable here, nursie has such nice hands,
And every morning the doctor comes and lances my tuberculous glands.
He says he does nothing of the sort, but I have my own feelings about that,
And what they are if you don’t mind I shall continue to keep under my hat.
My friend, if you call it a friend, has left me; he says I am a deserter to ill health,
And that the things I should think about have made off for ever, and so has my wealth.
Portentous ass, what to do about him’s no strain
I shall quite simply never speak to the fellow again.
I rode with my darling…
I rode with my darling in the dark wood at night
And suddenly there was an angel burning bright
Come with me or go far away he said
But do not stay alone in the dark wood at night.
My darling grew pale he was responsible
He said we should go back it was reasonable
But I wished to stay with the angel in the dark wood at night.
My darling said goodbye and rode off thoughtfully
And suddenly I rode after him and came to a cornfield
Where had my darling gone and where was the angel now?
The wind bent the corn and drew it along the ground
And the corn said, Do not go alone in the dark wood.
Then the wind drew more strongly and the black clouds covered the moon
And I rode into the dark wood at night.
There was a light burning in the trees but it was not the angel
And in the pale light stood a tall tower without windows
And a mean rain fell and the voice of the tower spoke,
Do not stay alone in the dark wood at night.
The walls of the pale tower were heavy, in a heavy mood
The great stones stood as if resisting without belief.
Oh how sad sighed the wind, how disconsolately,
Do not ride alone in the dark wood at night.
Loved I once my darling? I love him not now.
Had I a mother beloved? She lies far away.
A sister, a loving heart? My aunt a noble lady?
All all is silent in the dark wood at night.
God and Man
Man is my darling, my love and my pain,
My pleasure, my excitement, and my love again,
My wisdom, my courage, my power, my all,
Oh Man, do not come to me until I call.
In man is my life, and in man is my death,
He is my hazard, my pride and my breath,
I sought him, I wrought him, I pant on his worth,
In him I experience indeterminate growth.
Oh Man, Man, of all my animals dearest,
Do not come till I call, though thou weariest first.
Mr Over
Mr Over is dead
He died fighting and true
And on his tombstone they wrote
Over to You.
And who pray is this You
To whom Mr Over is gone?
Oh if we only knew that
We should not do wrong.
But who is this beautiful You
We all of us long for so much
Is he not our friend and our brother
Our father and such?
Yes he is this and much more
This is but a portion
A sea-drop in a bucket
Taken from the ocean
So the voices spake
Softly above my head
And a voice in my heart cried: Follow
Where he has led
And a devil’s voice cried: Happy
Happy the dead.
My Cats
a Witch speaks
I like to toss him up and down
A heavy cat weighs half a Crown
With a hey do diddle my cat Brown.
I like to pinch him on the sly
When nobody is passing by
With a hey do diddle my cat Fry.
I like to ruffle up his pride
And watch him skip and turn aside
With a hey do diddle my cat Hyde.
Hey Brown and Fry and Hyde my cats
That sit on tombstone for your mats.
Drugs Made Pauline Vague
Drugs made Pauline vague,
She sat one day at the breakfast table
Fingering in a baffled way
The fronds of the maidenhair plant.
Was it the salt you were looking for dear?
Said Dulcie, exchanging a glance with the Brigadier.
Chuff chuff Pauline what’s the matter?
Said the Brigadier to his wife
Who did not even notice
What a handsome couple they made.