New Collected Poems

by David Gascoyne

  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