Complete Poems

by Cecil Day-Lewis

  Whether the final sleep, fingers curled about

  The hollow comfort of a day worn smooth as holy relics;

  Or trusting to walk the waters, to see when they abate

  A future solid for sons and for him the annealing rainbow.

  It is your fate

  Also to choose. On the one hand all that habit endears:

  The lawn is where bishops have walked; the walled garden is private

  Though your bindweed lust overruns it; the roses are sweet dying;

  Soil so familiar to your roots you cannot feel it effete.

  On the other hand what dearth engenders and what death

  Makes flourish: the need and dignity of bearing fruit, the fight

  For resurrection, the exquisite grafting on stranger stock.

  Stand with us here and now

  Consider the force of these waters, the mobile face of the flood

  Trusting and terrible as a giant who turns from sleep. Think how

  You called them symbols of purity and yet you daily defiled them:

  They failed you never; for that they were always the disregarded.

  Ubiquitous to your need they made the barley grow

  Or bore you to new homes; they kept you hale and handsome.

  Of all flesh they were the sign and substance. All things flow.

  Stand with us now

  Looking back on a time you have spent, a land that you know.

  Ask what formed the dew and dressed the evening in awe;

  What hands made buoyant your ships, what shaped the impatient prow,

  Turned sea-shells and dynamos and wheels on river and railroad:

  Truth’s bed and earth’s refreshment – one everywhere element

  In the tissue of man, the tears of his anger, the sweat of his brow.

  Then look with Noah’s eyes

  On the waters that wait his choice. Not only are they insurgent

  Over the banks and shallows of their birthplace, but they rise

  Also in Noah’s heart: their rippling fingers erase

  The ill-favoured façade of his present, the weird ancestral folly,

  The maze of mirrors, the corrupting admirers, the silted lies.

  Now must he lay his naked virtue upon their knees.

  Then turn your eyes

  Upon that unbounded prospect and your dwindling island of ease,

  Measuring your virtue against its challenger, measuring well

  Your leap across the gulf, as the swallow-flock that flies

  In autumn gathers its strength on some far-sighted headland.

  Learn the migrant’s trust, the intuition of longer

  Sunlight: be certain as they you have only winter to lose,

  And believe that beyond this flood a kinder country lies.

  (Enter BURGESSES. FIRST BURGESS carries a poison-gas apparatus, SECOND BURGESS a shotgun, THIRD BURGESS a mop and bucket.)

  FIRST BURGESS.

  Since they have hardened their hearts against kindness

  SECOND BURGESS.

  We will bandy words no more with these waters

  THIRD BURGESS.

  Our ultimatum expires at midday

  FIRST BURGESS.

  We do not minimize the gravity of the issue

  SECOND BURGESS.

  Our eyes are open now to our jeopardy

  THIRD BURGESS.

  All we hold dear is at stake this day

  FIRST BURGESS.

  We make this last appeal to you, Noah

  SECOND BURGESS.

  Remembering our close and profitable association

  THIRD BURGESS.

  And for the sake of auld lang syne

  FIRST BURGESS.

  Do not desert us – you and we are bound

  SECOND BURGESS.

  By ties both of interest and consanguinity

  THIRD BURGESS.

  Blood you know is thicker than water

  FIRST BURGESS.

  Think of the times we have stood together

  SECOND BURGESS.

  The private view, the public reception

  THIRD BURGESS.

  The little brown jug and the thin red line

  FIRST BURGESS.

  Remember prayers at our mother’s knee

  SECOND BURGESS.

  Promises made at father’s death-bed

  THIRD BURGESS.

  Fireworks at the mortgaged family seat

  (NOAH makes no sign)

  FIRST BURGESS.

  Sympathy with this flood is plainly misplaced

  SECOND BURGESS.

  An error to credit it with pure motives

  THIRD BURGESS.

  Laughable to call it an Act of God

  FIRST BURGESS.

  On the contrary, its aim is sacrilegious

  SECOND BURGESS.

  It has undermined the fabric of church and chapel

  THIRD BURGESS.

  And marooned the priest on a desert sanctuary

  FIRST BURGESS.

  Roughly it handles the bones of our fathers

  SECOND BURGESS.

  Its influence on the home flouts all the tenets of

  THIRD BURGESS.

  Mosaic Law and the Mothers’ Union

  FIRST BURGESS.

  Pale with envy it pours over

  SECOND BURGESS.

  Your landmarks, your colour-schemes, the contours you love

  THIRD BURGESS.

  Levelling all to plumb monotony

  FIRST BURGESS.

  It shows no respect for the transcendental

  SECOND BURGESS.

  For the subtle whorls of the solitary conscience

  THIRD BURGESS.

  For country-house cricket or the classic style

  (NOAH makes no sign)

  FIRST BURGESS.

  Since you seem dead to common decency

  SECOND BURGESS.

  Wilful to walk outright into chaos

  THIRD BURGESS.

  We must warn you more crudely against these waters

  FIRST BURGESS.

  Don’t imagine yourself indispensable to them

  SECOND BURGESS.

  I fear you are in for a cold reception

  THIRD BURGESS.

  Will damp your ardour or I’m much mistaken

  FIRST BURGESS.

  They are bound by their nature to let you down

  SECOND BURGESS.

  They will pour contempt on your delicate appetites

  THIRD BURGESS.

  The higher education is wasted upon them

  FIRST BURGESS.

  They will fling you overboard in mid-ocean

  SECOND BURGESS.

  They will leave you high and dry as driftwood

  THIRD BURGESS.

  They will turn you into a limpet or a sponge

  FIRST BURGESS.

  Their beginning is wrath, their end anarchy

  SECOND BURGESS.

  They distort the vision – through them you shall see

  THIRD BURGESS.

  Your death or survival a matter of indifference

  FIRST BURGESS.

  For the last time therefore

  SECOND BURGESS.

  We say

  THIRD BURGESS.

  Distrust them!

  THE TWO VOICES.

  Trust them!

  BURGESSES.

  Reject! Reject! Reject!

  VOICES.

  Accept!

  (NOAH comes forward and addresses the BURGESSES)

  NOAH.

  Gentlemen, I have heard out your full contentions,

  Paid heed with interest and my debts with silence.

  Standing on this narrow island between

  Yesterday and to-morrow, the traffic defiling

  Deathward and its counter-stream, I have been bewildered

  Doubtful which way my next appointment lies.

  I made this refuge out of my indecision,

  My fear of the all-involving
wheels, my need

  For breathing-space: also, to be the exempt

  Spectator of combatant tides is flattery.

  There was rest here and some illumination –

  A lighthouse for the migrant, not his home.

  I had felt my days fall gradually, one by one,

  Like anæsthetic drops upon the mask,

  Putting to sleep with their routine behaviour

  The saturated will and the conscious protest,

  Unfocusing the vision, till nothing remained

  But the exorbitant beating of my heart,

  The horror of drowning, the wish for annihilation.

  Was roaring in my ears; but as through storm

  One hears the unison-chorus of the surf,

  I heard this Flood.

  This it was that aroused me, and I saw

  The clever hands all gloved to sterilize

  And the slick knife that leered above my manhood.

  But see me also as Noah, a man of substance,

  Father of his family, contented simply

  By the intimate circle of the leisured seasons:

  A man of peace, one who responded always

  To the time-honoured charities of hearth and home,

  Preferring death to change, whose flightiest cronies

  Were the grave earth and the dependable stars.

  So it is you see me – one of yourselves.

  Well may you look askance when such an one,

  Leaving the lode and gear of his proved fortune,

  Should ask concessions from a savage flood

  And upon rack and ruin build his hopes.

  Gentlemen, you have brought many charges against

  This flood – of rapine, of sacrilege, of falsehood.

  I say your follies were the source and gauge of

  Its rising: falsely now you deny its roused

  Desire to possess to fertilize the earth

  Whose harsh and impotent husbands you were.

  You looked upon these waters as an element

  Necessary, subordinate, unfeatured,

  God-given to be your scavengers, to ripen

  Your crops and carry you to outlandish pleasures:

  Their lives the head of steam that kept you running.

  To me they look like men – more men than you.

  Understand, these waters are here to rescue

  Not to ravish the earth you so mishandled.

  Their pressure is against your brittle pride,

  Much greed and little competence. Already

  Muscular eddies close around your nostrils

  And fluent fingers are working for the death-grip.

  Soon shall your bonds and pledges all be seen

  A pocketful of pulp; the iridescent

  Scum that you took for pure greatness, the toady

  Tawdry Circumstance of your era shall

  Be swept like litter out of sight and mind …

  I was always the man who saw both sides,

  The cork dancing where wave and backwash meet,

  From the inveterate clash of contraries gaining

  A spurious animation. Say, if you like,

  A top whom its self-passions lashed to sleep

  Pirouetting upon central indifference,

  The bored and perfect ballet-dancer engrossed

  By mere reiteration; but lately

  The one that cuts a figure on thin ice.

  – Who saw both sides and therefore could take neither:

  A needle midway between two fields of force,

  Swinging at last I point and prove the stronger

  Attraction. Gentlemen, you have lost.

  (NOAH turns from BURGESSES to FLOOD)

  CHORUS.

  Now he has made his choice,

  Sounding aright the profound heart of this flood at last,

  Willing to meet its myriad and breath-taking embrace

  Under the wind-wild sky, let him hear his two voices

  That from the spirit’s echoing cavern speak advice:

  They tell what virtues most he needs upon this voyage,

  What earth has lent and he must restore when home he hies.

  (As the two voices speak, the VIRTUES – in the guise of animals – pass before NOAH and go to stand behind him.)

  FIRST VOICE.

  Take first the mole, the anonymous miner,

  Earth’s intimate friend, lowly of demeanour:

  The little genius so good at spadework,

  One that was never afraid of the dark.

  SECOND VOICE.

  He is patience. Read him aright,

  Of all virtues the soil and the root:

  Remember him in the hour of disaster,

  In the hour of triumph may he still be master.

  FIRST VOICE.

  The migrant salmon, his life fulfils

  Outswimming the current, outleaping the falls:

  Flashing and obstinate, he will not feed

  Till the far headwaters give place to breed.

  SECOND VOICE.

  So be your courage, and count it rarest

  To spring the highest where odds fall sheerest:

  A far-traveller, a bow trained

  Tense and unerring on the fruitful end.

  FIRST VOICE.

  Now the bull-finch, his glass-glossy breast

  Draws the sunset out of the west:

  Most handsome of all that lord it on leaf,

  He shuns admirers and mates for life.

  SECOND VOICE.

  Conspicuous by your faith, but shy

  To preen it in the public eye:

  Ardent and answered may you discover

  Your natural constancy to friend and lover.

  FIRST VOICE.

  The monkey next, the infant explorer

  Never tired of trial and error:

  Quicksilver wit and adaptable hand,

  As fire infectious, agile as wind.

  SECOND VOICE.

  Let curiosity be such –

  Your unappeased and sovereign itch:

  A born rover that never stops

  Till he has the whole world at his fingertips.

  FIRST VOICE.

  See the gannet, champion of flyers,

  Ride unruffled the quarrelsome airs:

  Then plunge out of heaven upon his prey,

  Slanting and swiftsure as a sun-shot ray.

  SECOND VOICE.

  Wide-winged and consummate no less

  Be your singlemindedness:

  Beating strongly in the heart of the quarrel,

  Diving deep to take the moral.

  FIRST VOICE.

  Last the sheepdog, the right-hand man

  Of weatherwise shepherds, resourceful of mien:

  He hears the whistle and manœuvres tireless

  As a night-flying pilot warned by wireless.

  SECOND VOICE.

  Learn from him the directed wisdom,

  The controlled initiative, the heart-felt system:

  So shall you fold your fears and be

  The alert equal of necessity.

  FIRST BURGESS.

  Traitor!

  SECOND BURGESS.

  Quitter!

  THIRD BURGESS.

  Cheat and parricide!

  FIRST BURGESS.

  Ungrateful, so pleased to prophesy our ruin

  SECOND BURGESS.

  He must take the consequences, the crazy Cassandra

  THIRD BURGESS.

  He loves this flood, let him go swallow it

  FIRST BURGESS.

  The look of the waters is growing uglier

  SECOND BURGESS.

  Don’t let us stand doing nothing

  THIRD BURGESS.

  Remember St. George and the Lusitania

  FIRST BURGESS.

  My poison-gas outfit will make them froth

  SECOND BURGESS.

  I’ll pepper the upstarts soundly with my shotgun

  THIRD BURGESS. />
  With my mop and bucket I’ll sweep them away

  FIRST BURGESS.

  This way!

  SECOND BURGESS.

  That way!

  THIRD BURGESS.

  Turn the lights on! No, turn them off!

  FIRST BURGESS.

  Don’t contradict! There can only be one captain

  SECOND BURGESS.

  Upon a ship, and that’s me

  THIRD BURGESS.

  No, me

  (The FLOOD attacks the BURGESSES)

  FIRST BURGESS.

  Something’s gone wrong, this tide is not retreating

  SECOND BURGESS.

  Why can’t they fight fair, it’s fifty to one

  THIRD BURGESS.

  Save me, mother, they mean mischief

  FIRST BURGESS.

  Fight harder!

  SECOND BURGESS.

  Run faster!

  THIRD BURGESS.

  Pray louder and louder!

  FIRST BURGESS.

  They beat down our weapons, we had best retire

  SECOND BURGESS.

  I shall take a ticket to Southampton or Tilbury

  THIRD BURGESS.

  I’ll climb to the top of the highest steeple

  FIRST BURGESS.

  Let me call at the bank first for my bearer bonds

  SECOND BURGESS.

  I must rescue my horoscope and my iron ration

  THIRD BURGESS.

  My malacca cane and fitted dressing-case

  FIRST BURGESS.

  We’ll meet again

  SECOND BURGESS.

  In Madeira

  THIRD BURGESS.

  Or mid-ocean

  (BURGESSES, FLOOD and NOAH go out in a running fight)

  CHORUS.

  Now Noah says good-bye,

  Moorings slipped and the tide floating him clear of mud-flat:

  No mourning bands, no hands or streamers stretched from the quay

  Make parting difficult; but at night and silently

  He sheers away. Only, high in the sinking town,

  One lighted window watches him into the dark, a cry

  From the heart of a mistress with whom he never could share his secrets.

  He says good-bye

  To much, but not to love. For loving now shall be

  The close handclasp of the waters about his trusting keel,

  Buoyant they make his home and lift his heart high;

  Among their marching multitude he never shall feel lonely.

  Love is for him no longer that soft and garden sigh

  Ruffles at evening the petalled composure of the senses,

  But a wind all hours and everywhere he no wise can deny.

  Sorrow there is in store

  For all who held up to love the suave distorting mirror,