w. 1940–41, p. 1998
TIME AND PLACE
SNOW IN EUROPE
‘Au temps où la douceur
Est cruelle et le désespoir est brilliant.’
PIERRE JEAN JOUVE
Out of their slumber Europeans spun
Dense dreams: appeasement, miracle, glimpsed flash
Of a new golden era; but could not restrain
The vertical white weight that fell last night
And made their continent a blank.
Hush, says the sameness of the snow,
The Ural and the Jura now rejoin
The furthest Arctic’s desolation. All is one;
Sheer monotone: plain, mountain; country, town:
Contours and boundaries no longer show.
The warring flags hang colourless a while;
Now midnight’s icy zero feigns a truce
Between the signs and seasons, and fades out
All shots and cries. But when the great thaw comes,
How red shall be the melting snow, how loud the drums!
w. Christmas 1938
ZERO
September, 1939
Who can by now not hear
The hollow and annihilating roar
Of final disillusion; or not know
How our condition is uncertain and obscure
And difficult to bear? Yet through
The blackness of his dungeon there still peer
Man’s eyes, unmoving, lit by their desire
To see the worst, and yet not die
Of their lucid despair
But in such vision persevere
Through time into Eternity.
For this is Zero-hour
When the most penetrating gaze can see
Only the Void, the emptier than air,
The incoherent Nada of the seer:
Who blind is yet not blind, being aware
Of the Negation’s double mystery!
Tomb of what was, womb of what is to be.
w. 1939
AN AUTUMN PARK
Dark suffocates the world; but such
Ubiquity of shadow is unequal. Here
At the spiked gates which crown the hill begins
A reign as of suspense within suspense:
Outside our area of sand-bagged mansions and of tense
But inarticulate expectancy of roars,
The unhistoric park
Extends indifference through all its air.
During these present days
None but the lonely and reflective care to walk
Through the unworldly and concealed preserves
Of vegetable integrity (where trees
Though murmurous at least are without words …)
For such unsocial ones the park negates
With its consistently non-human peace
All the loud mind-polluted world outside its gates.
When sudden sunrays break the brooding haze
Which makes monotonous these grounds,
Livid the little wind-flaked lakes appear,
Vivid the fever-mottled leaves still bound
By mouldering stalks to idly shaken boughs;
Brief light and breath intensify the scene
With glitter drifting across wet grass wastes
And odour of crushed bracken and raw sand …
These acres bordering on plains of brick
And brain and coin and newspaper and noise,
Still store for townsmen such as seek
Remembrance of the simpler earth that was
Our dwelling and contentment once, a chance
Of re-beholding that lost innocence; may show
To those that walk today there to forget, the true
And imminent glory breaking through Man’s circumstance.
w. October 1939
THE CONSPIRATORS
PRELUDE TO AN UNFINISHED NARRATIVE
Here is the Capital.
‘Observe
How like a microscopic slide whose glass arena holds
Spectacular combat of schizomycetes, these grappling streets
Elucidate with their contrasting quarters the disease
Disintegrating all these fated lives. Lives of the refuse-heap, the
Slum, the rusty dump, packed in a fouled dilapidated bed,
Running with sores for years like washerless taps. The lives
Of eremites, black-coated, in their desert no-man’s-land
Of tidy, sterile, separate brick cells, pitched just half-way
Between the catacombs of want and the gilt mansions of big pots.
Lives of the latter, lush as scum on standing water, limply led
Through periods of alternating boredom, frantic spending and
Bewilderment, by an unhappy little race of monsters
Caricatured by Grosz, staring with fascinated eyes
At their own image on the cruel plate-glass their diamonds
Cannot break.’
Thus speaks the voice of the didactic guide
In the intelligentsia-tourist charabanc. But let’s remove
Clinical spectacles, look round with naïve gaze: Here slide
The undramatic trams crammed with normality, shop-windows greet
The morning housewife with their pyramid displays, and children
Chase callous hoops among thin legs along the curb. But O
The glamour of the metropolitan sunlight, coffee smells,
Striped awnings, the bright water-dust of fountains! O the
Pigeons, scattering foam of wings! ‘Call me a taxi!’ ‘Midday news!
New Cabinet Formed. All Racing Form.’ ‘… We’ll meet you in
The Park.’ ‘The Ritz for cocktails …’
Surface appeal conceals
With fragrant clouds the city’s noisesome heart, as the façades
Of these white buildings flecked with flags and
Flowering window-boxes can divert a strolling eye
With the irrelevance of statues’ nudity, so hide
The dramas in their bowels: the Senate House and the
State Hospital. The Institute of Science, where the famous
Flambow lectures.
This same afternoon
The National Socialist minority in the Senate rose
Up in a body, shouting: ‘Treacherous reds! If we
Resign we shall return in triumph, set this
House in order in the people’s name!’ Their barking
Met with smiles from liberal benches. When a telephone
Called for a left-wing member, he returned with a white
Face: ‘Max Kleinborg, Jewish leader, died in hospital
An hour ago. Mysterious injuries. Unknown
Assailant.’ No one smiled again. At the same hour
In a packed lecture-theatre at the Institute
Flambow declared: ‘Our highest of ideals
Is to maintain and serve the freedom of research that we
Have won. I do appeal to every student here
Never to sacrifice the human interest to any such demands
As may be made on us by an exterior cause. When I was asked
To aid the government by giving up my time
To the discovery of new poison-gas, explosives and death-rays,
I categorically refused.’ Bursting applause
Completed his last words; but from the shadows at the back of
The long hall, an angry cry: ‘The Fatherland
Comes before all! Flambow, beware!’
Clapping of hands,
Raised voices. Heard down the corridor. Third floor,
First on the right, door 17: the Faculty of
Sociological Studies, where reports from the anonymous
Observer are received and filed (under the supervision of
Jules Hartmann, son of Flambow’s greatest friend). Today
A busy afternoon. Piles of thick sheaves whose contents
�
�Plot on a graph that tortuous nervy line, the mass’s
Changing life.’
Chosen at random:
‘Rose
At half-past five. Argued at breakfast with the wife over the
Pending strike. Quit house at six. Rode through the rain
To work. Outside the gates a Grey-shirt stood distributing
His party’s pamphlets (paid for by funds subscribed to by
Our boss). One of my mates went up to him and wrenched
The bundle from his hands. Bit of a scuffle. Later saw,
Lounging at lunch-hour, leaflets in the mud.’
‘… to tea
With a professor and his wife in Tower Street. A Madame D.,
A well-dressed, cultured-looking woman, said she thought
That life was meaningless. Professor shrugged. The conversation
turned
To table-turning and astrology.’
‘One of the girls
In our department came to work today with a framed
Photo of “the Leader”, as she calls him, which she stuck
Over her desk.’
‘After the children had gone back
To school, I went up to lie down, as every day, but could
Not rest because of worry over what last night my
Husband said about his job, how he might lose it soon.’
‘First came the standard-bearers clothed in tiger-skins, and then
A squad of troopers at salute. The band struck up a fanfare, and
Through curtains stepped the hero of the evening. The crowd’s cheers
Were deafening. One woman fainted and was carried out. At last
He raised his hand. “My people!” he began, and then I heard
A man behind me say “Not yet, thank God!” At once
He disappeared beneath a dozen blows.’
‘As I
Was leaving the Exchange, a fellow said to me that if
The NS party were in power there’d be no unemployment
Benefit. He’d rather die, he said. He used to be
On the same shift with me. We strolled to the disused pithead,
A car was standing there, drove off as we came by.’
‘The street was full of people and I saw a van
Loaded with special police arrive, but they were not
Able to make the rioters disperse. Then someone shouted:
“Let them have it, they’re his bloody guards!” That started
It. I noticed that a clock said half-past ten. Then I was knocked
Down by the baton charge.’
So would a seismograph describe
Its dire parabolas. The scattered records utter all the same
Act, act, to Hartmann’s ear. How can one hear them, impotently tied
By scientific objectivity, he urgently inquires. The will of one
To climb upon the roof-top of the Institute, launch a premonitory cry
Like meteoric words of sky-sign smoke across the town
To hang there hugely inescapable, for all to see, subsides
A disillusioned wave in him. ‘What can I do
But urge my Father to persuade the leading men of the
Executive to issue an immediate appeal
For unity, to act, to act, throughout
The workers’ movement. Soon will be too late.’
But evening takes its coat down from the peg,
Portals are closing, private lives resume
Their homechat-crossword puzzles and the knitting of
Protective woollies: armies evacuate
The daily battlefield, and clad in mufti roam
Through park, arcade and alley whistling gay
Or wistful tunes, not marching-songs. And though
The hour’s as heavy as a pear tense on its bough
Awaiting a mere puff to make it drop, a ripened fruit
Swollen with change and danger like a bomb, only a few –
The soothsayer, the seer, the rebel poet – see it there
Suspended in the sunset, ominous.
O evening flares
Placard this town and country with perfervid colours! O
Remember, when the coming night is thick and weak the pulse
Of hope and under cover of the dark your freedom’s last
Defenders have deserted or been shot, remember this
Dazzling finale! Music in the parks and lights beneath
The trees, where the loudspeakers not yet blare
With only race-hysteria; crimson lakes
Poured out across the heavens that do not as yet
Reflect a nation’s blood; on outward roads
Car-fleets that are not freighted yet with loads
Of refugees. In floodlit sapphire pools
Still swim the golden poignant limbs of youths
Unregimented, girls for whom kisses do not seal
A cannon-fodder contract. On the greens
Children play games untouched by creed or badge,
Not yet corrupted by the partisan’s
Crude flag.
Flambow, returning late across
The City Gardens from laboratory, heard
Their mothers call them home, and sighed, and sought
Not to imagine how those voices might ascend
One day in agonized crescendo, how the blooms
In the neat beds might be replaced by red
Flowers of carnage, and that placid lawn
Be suddenly transformed into a desert waste
Littered with bones and stony fragments. ‘Peace
Is our most precious ally to defend: my work
Is unrelenting undestructive war against war’s works
And evil allies.’ Overhead the air
Condensed the overtones of dusk, and at his door
He turned awhile to gaze up at a star.
The clock says Night. Now the conspirators
Assemble: now in the centre of the town within
The wooden horse of the Grey House the shirted band
Prepare their fatal coup round shaded lamps
Which drop white circles on their charts and black-
Marked lists. Passwords, salutes and codes observe
Their midnight ritual. Assassinations brew
In shady cafés: while in the frank glare
Of chandeliers the Leader drinks champagne,
The guest tonight of patriotic heads
Of certain industries, not slow to recognize
Their Saviour. Trusting to dreams less well-insured
The people plunge into the fogs of sleep
Through which they drift towards tomorrow’s rocks.
p. 1939
FAREWELL CHORUS
I
And so! the long black pullman is at last departing, now,
After those undermining years of angry waiting and cold tea;
And all your small grey faces and wet hankies slide away
Backwards into the station’s cave of cloud. And so Goodbye
To our home-town, so foreign now its lights no longer show;
And to old lives already indistinct as a dull play
We saw while staying somewhere in the Midlands long ago.
Farewell to the few and to the many; for tonight
Our souls may be required of us; and so we say Adieu
To those who charmed us with their ever ready wit
But could not see the point; to those whose polished hands
And voices could allay a little while our private pain
But could not stay to soothe us when worse bouts began;
To those whose beauties were too brief: Farewell, dear friends.
To you as well whom we could never love, hard though
We tried, because our pity told us you were weak,
And because of pity we abhorred; to you
Whose gauche distress and badly-written postcards made us ache
With angrily imp
atient self-reproach; you who were too
Indelicately tender, whose too soft eyes made us look
(Against our uncourageous wish) swiftly away …
To those, too, whom we hardly knew, or could not know;
To the indifferent and the admired; to the once-met
And long-remembered faces: Yes, Goodbye to you
Who made us turn our heads to look again, and wait
For hours in vain at the same place next day;
Who for a moment might have been the lost selves sought
Without avail, and whom we know we never shall find now.
Away, away! Yet now it is no longer in retreat
That we are leaving. All our will is drowned
As by an inner tidal-wave that has washed our regret
And small fears and exhausted implications out of mind.
You can’t accompany our journey. Nor may we return
Except in unimpassioned recollections from beyond
That ever-nearer frontier that our fate has drawn.
II
And so let’s take a last look round, and say Farewell to all
Events that gave the last decade, which this New Year
Brings to its close, a special pathos. Let us fill
One final fiery glass and quickly drink to ‘the Pre-War’
Before we greet ‘the Forties’, whose unseen sphinx-face
Is staring fixedly upon us from behind its veil;
Drink farewell quickly, ere the Future smash the glass.
Even while underneath the floor are whirling on
The wheels which carry us towards some Time-to-Come,
Let us perform this hasty mental rite (as one
Might cast a few imagined bays into the tomb
Of an unloved but memorable great man);
Soon the still-near will seem remotely far; there’s hardly time
For much oration more than mere Goodbye, again:
To the delusive peace of those disintegrating years
Through which burst uncontrollably into our view
Successive and increasingly premonitory flares,
Explosions of the dangerous truth beneath, which no
Steel-plated self-deception could for long withstand …
Years through the rising storm of which somehow we grew,
Struggling to keep an anchored heart and open mind,
Too often failing. Years through which none the less
The coaxing of complacency and sleep could still persuade
Kind-hearted Christians of the permanence of Peace,
Increase of common-sense and civic virtue. Years which bade
Less placid conscientious souls indignantly arise
New Collected Poems Page 18