The Changing Light at Sandover

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The Changing Light at Sandover Page 49

by James Merrill

WE’LL SEE MME MARIA EVER DROLL

  CREATE FOR US HER LATEST TROUSER ROLE.

  Nat.

  POET, MY BLAKE WOULD NEVER STOOP SO LOW

  AS TO MAKE SPORT OF HEAVEN, PO PO PO!

  WHA.

  DRAT. BUT ENOUGH. GODS’ & POETS’ DEMANDS

  ARE MET. NOW WHO COMMANDS

  BUT WISE IF WEARY GABRIEL

  RISING UP TO STRIKE THE BELL

  WHICH TELLS US WE HAVE DONE

  OUR SCHOOLWORK. A last bell rings. NOW FOR FUN!

  Exeunt God, Nature, and the Brothers.

  Wystan goes on. TOMORROW’S INVITATIONS

  ADDRESSED I FANCY TO OCCUPANT G HAS WHEEDLED

  QM TO LET THE OLD RETAINERS IN:

  EPHRAIM, MIRABELL, & POOR FRANTIC UNICE

  (QM: HE BOTTOM? ME TITANIA?)

  And Yeats—will he emerge at last? WB?

  The cup reluctantly shuffles forward. WELL

  IF THERE’S TIME I MIGHT COME OUT WITH A STANZA

  Ah, we’d be thrilled. YOU WOULD? I OFTEN FEAR

  I LEFT IT ALL BACK IN BYZANTIUM.

  From your present viewpoint, Mr Yeats,

  Was our instruction of a piece with yours?

  DO ME A FAVOR? DJ, LET ME SHAKE

  THE OTHER HAND. YOU WERE NEARLY AS GOOD AS A WIFE

  DJ puts both hands on the cup; it “shakes”.

  NOW CHAPS Maman? I LOVE U ONE & ALL

  & MEAN TO EXERCISE MY ELDER RIGHT:

  CLIMB DOWN THE LADDER & ELOPE TO VENICE

  With us at month’s end? DO U MIND? Mind? We?

  KNOWING U BOYS (AS ONE OF THEM, EH?) I’LL

  TAKE CARE THE OTHERS DON’T CRAMP YR (M) STYLE

  The others? A TOUR GROUP SIGNED UP U’LL SEE

  A FINAL CHANCE MY DEARS TO FEAST OUR SENSES

  ON WHAT IF ANYTHING MAY YET REMAIN

  OF AN EARTHLY PARADISE QUITE LOST TO GAIN,

  B4 I SINK IT! GOD, WHAT AUDIENCES!

  At La Fenice? But its gilt and green

  Amid which the Rake sparkled, that first night!

  (The phrase Maman just used, “my elder right”,

  Was Mother Goose, no? in the brothel scene.)

  All of us present cheering long and loud

  While you and Chester and Stravinsky bowed!

  THAT MY BOY WAS A FETE! A PEAK AGLISTER

  IN THOSE GIDDY ALPS OF LIFE IN LOVE WITH CHESTER

  VENEZIAAA A A!

  ME WOBERT’LL STRUM GUITAR

  & MUSCLE BOY WILL ROW

  AS OFF WE GO

  DOWN THE DREARY GREEN CANALS IN A CITY WHERE THE GLOW

  HAS MUCH TO DO (GEORGIE, TOGETHER HERE)

  WITH H 2 O!

  Robert, a gondola serenade? INDEEDY

  GIVES NEW MEANING TO ‘AU RESERVOIR’?

  MUCH SYNCOPATION IN TOMORROW’S SCORE

  CAN’T LOITER BYE

  O SIRS! Hello there, Uni.

  You’ll join the celebration? YES! Excited?

  MR ROBERT’S MAKING ME A BOW!!!

  The cup cavorts a bit, then wistfully:

  WE TOO HAD FETES O SO LONG AGO

  —Leaving the schoolroom empty. Never to be

  Realized again with such fidelity?

  The big old globe, each mooned-over pastel

  Nation in place and river legible;

  Grain of each desk-top; the minute sky-grid

  Sliding across an inkwell’s cut-glass lid;

  Chintz roses bleached and split; chalk mote arrested

  In mid-descent by sun; the horseshoe rusted

  To scabby lace, nailed between sepia ‘School

  Of Athens’ and Ignoto’s ‘The Pure Fool’;

  Moot intercourse of light and shade above

  Our heads, familiar shapes we’ve learned to love

  Emerging this last time from the cracked ceiling

  As if they too shared the unspoken feeling

  That, once we’ve gone, nobody else will thumb

  The pages of our old Curriculum.

  The manor is condemned. One doesn’t dare

  Say so flatly, but it’s in the air.

  The fine italic hands that have to date

  Etched the unseen we blankly contemplate

  Must now withdraw, and stoic Roman steel

  Rim spectacles put on for the ordeal.

  They work, though, like a charm. Look there! Beyond

  The herringbone brick walks, the paddock pond,

  Vistas are running wild already—who’s

  About to guess at their eventual use?

  Where will these fat volumes stamped with gilt

  Be stored? What can the carpet, that outspelt

  Wonders in its time, mean to those straight A

  Students—anachronism or child’s play?—

  Who will have paced the premises and thought:

  “Imagine ever needing to be taught!”

  (Which again leads me to that question I’m

  Uncertain how to…Well. Another time.)

  *

  The big day. Nothing asked of us, a hasty

  Bouquet set on the table just in case,

  We sit down. SIRS! All dressed up, Uni? YES!

  I AM TO LEAVE MY POST & LEAD

  IN A TREMENDOUS TROOP OF MY OWN!

  O ME, UNICE! & SUCH AN ASSEMBLY

  ALL THE 00’S & THE GREAT ONES SIRS

  OUR FIELD! YOUR WALLS OUTFLATTEN TO CLAY

  & NOW THEY ARRIVE ALL ON A RAINBOW

  OUR FRIENDS OUR LORDS! AND I UNICE

  WILL BEAR MADAME IN ON MY OWN BACK!

  The Last Lessons: 9

  Atlantan troop and the Lab’s fluttering trillions,

  Innumerable presences have filled

  And beveled to extreme quicksilver brilliance

  The four horizons of our earthly field.

  The setting nothing, but the scope revealed

  As infinite, for Light is everywhere,

  Awaits the words that clothe it—which we wield.

  Here are the Brothers. Nature rises, fair

  In dewdrop crown and robe of living gossamer.

  Nat.

  I AS BEFITS ASSUME A REGAL POSE

  AND THUS ALL OF YOU DISPOSE:

  MICHAEL, FROM YOUR BOREALIS

  MAKE FOR US A SHINING PALACE!

  ON THIS CLAY GROUND, EMMANUEL,

  A SHIMMERING LAKE, A WISHING WELL!

  NOW GREEN TREES HUNG WITH UNCUT GEM,

  YOU RAPHAEL, SEE TO THEM!

  AND FOR FANCY’S SAKE A CHANDELIER,

  GABRIEL, HANG UP HERE & HERE!

  No sooner said than done. Some guests recall

  How She first decorated the bare, spinning ball.

  THANKS, YOUNG MORTALS, FOR THESE FLOWERS

  FRESH AS YOURSELVES. NOW DOCTOR, PRAY, A SCENT!

  AND YOU, SIR POET, REINVENT

  YOUR LYRIC TO THE TUNE OF ONE OF OURS!

  George and Wystan diligently comply

  —To no avail. They look up. There’s a glow

  Of vexed endeavor, too, in Robert’s eye:

  His script’s been altered. Why does Nature so

  Frustrate us? Is Her mood both Yes and No?

  Or are there words of ours She will not say?

  Or is it that Experience must show

  Up Innocence? that Michael’s airy way

  With things will not quite wash on Gabriel’s holiday?

  MUSICIAN, INTO THE PIT. MAKE FOR OUR IDYLL

  USE OF
THE WIT THERE IS IN YOUR FIDDLE,

  AND LISTEN YOU FIVE WELL

  TO WHAT YOUR FOREBEARS TELL

  OF BEAUTY. NOW DEAR STRAVINSKY, SIDE TWO, BAND ONE,

  AND MY COURT HAS BEGUN!

  The Rake? The brothel scene? How come?

  Followed by Act I, Scene iii—

  Anne Truelove leaving home for Tom

  And town beneath a full moon. She

  Was sung by Schwarzkopf—heavenly!—

  In Venice. Through the needle grating

  Bright chords burst; (Ah, wait for me—

  JM slips back don’t start dictating!)

  Downstairs—but one small point needs explicating:

  JM.

  Stravinsky’s the conductor?

  WHA.

  U’VE NO EARS?

  QUITE UNMISTAKAB BUT? IGOR? HE

  Look! At the sunken desk Robert appears,

  Beating time with new authority.

  Nat.

  NOW WHY DID I CHOOSE

  TO PLAY MOTHER GOOSE?

  FOR MAN MY HERO IS A RAKE!

  YES SENIOR POET, YOU SAW THAT & MORE:

  SAW NATURE AS HIS PASSION AND TOO OFT HIS WHORE.

  JM.

  Listen! That’s where Shadow turns the clock

  Back for Tom—

  WHA.

  SO APT MY BOY THE BLACK

  OF TIME REVERSED & TOM OUR THREATENED ATOM

  JM.

  Don’t tell me that’s what you and Chester meant?

  WHA.

  WHY NOT! (Shushing all round) NO ACCIDENT

  Nat.

  NOW, CHASTER THOUGHT.

  FOR I HAVE BROUGHT

  THIS COMPANY TOGETHER HERE

  TO PRAISE MY DEAREST DEAR, MY CHILD.

  COME, COME ON THE MILD NOTE OF LOVE

  AMID THE REVELRY, —Tom’s aria,

  Forbidden its librettist to revise,

  Starting exactly here, the first word Love—

  COME UNICORN, COME PALFREY CHASTE AS SHE,

  BRING US OUR OWN, OUR LOVE, OUR CLEAR-EYED CONSTANCY!

  MM.

  (Offstage) MOTHER, I COME!

  Unice, forelock braided to a horn

  Of green and white, clops forth in ecstasies.

  Maria sidesaddle, her mantle borne

  About her like a tissue of spring trees,

  MM.

  DEARS, MY FAMILY & FRIENDS, I NOW STEP OFF OUR SECOND AND INNOCENT IDEA

  AND ONTO THE SOLID GROUND OF THOUGHT

  Dismounts. I PUT MY FEMALE SELF ASIDE

  TO STAND BEFORE YOU, PLATO UNIFIED.

  The mantle falls, and in a twinkling she’s

  This chubby brown young man we’ve never known,

  Dressed in white Nehru jacket and puttees

  For India! He kneels before the throne.

  Nat.

  Whose light kiss lifts him to Her side: MY CHILD, MY OWN.

  Pla.

  MOTHER, WHAT USE FOR THAT ONE OF OUR BAND

  MOST PUT UPON, OUR HAND?

  DJ.

  (Hand poised but trembling from the strain) Who? Me?

  Nat.

  HA, FROM WITHIN IT DO NOT I

  A CROUCHING ELDER SCRIBE ESPY?

  As in Capriccio when poor Monsieur Taupe

  Emerges from the prompter’s box (of course

  In this case DJ’s hand) there scrambles up

  Stiffly at first a figure on all fours.

  He straightens as one wild cadenza pours

  Through the rapt house; whips out pince-nez and page.

  A deep, sure lilt so scores and underscores

  The words he proffers, you would think a sage

  Stood among golden tongues, unharmed, at center stage.

  WBY.

  O SHINING AUDIENCE, IF AN OLD MAN’S SPEECH

  STIFF FROM LONG SILENCE CAN NO LONGER STRETCH

  TO THAT TOP SHELF OF RIGHTFUL BARD’S APPAREL

  FOR WYSTAN AUDEN & JAMES MEREL

  WHO HAVE REFASHIONED US BY FASHIONING THIS,

  MAY THE YOUNG SINGER HEARD ABOVE

  THE SPINNING GYRES OF HER TRUE LOVE

  CLOAK THEM IN HEAVEN’S AIRLOOM HARMONIES.

  Nat.

  NOT RUSTY AFTER ALL, GOOD YEATS.

  (The record ends.) NOW BACK INSIDE THE GATES

  OF HAND. BUT FIRST MARK WHAT I SAY:

  YOU ARE TO TAKE THAT HAND ON ‘JUDGMENT DAY’

  AND PLEAD ITS CASE

  WITH YOUR OWN ELOQUENCE IN A HIGH PLACE,

  THAT IT NOT BE DIVIDED FROM

  OUR SCRIBE IN ANY FUTURE SECULUM.

  Bowing, Yeats crawls back under DJ’s palm.

  NEXT OLD RETAINER, SPEAK:

  WHAT SAY, LICENTIOUS GREEK?

  Ephraim is kneeling. A soupçon of garment

  Shows off the body of a lover’s dream.

  He’s waited two millennia for this moment.

  Oiled from the long bath, lids and lips agleam—

  Ephr.

  MAJESTY, O DEAR…

  MY COUPLET’S HERE:

  He slyly points out DJ and JM.

  Nat.

  GREEK, YOU DID WELL.

  NOW GO ABOUT, BE MERRY, FLIRT TOUCH SMELL!

  The gold eyes widen. It’s his dream come true—

  Senses at Nine! Doubtful, he savors them,

  Then gasping sets about (ONE HARDLY KNEW

  WHERE TO LOOK NEXT MY DEARS) to do, do, do, do, do!

  (Tomorrow finds him senseless once again

  Sleeping off the orgy, like as not?

  No. From this moment Ephraim will retain

  The bauble he pretended to have got

  On waking from Tiberius’ garotte:

  Vision. Plus, in the odd hour, the right

  To use it where he pleases. There’s a spot

  On Capri, walled by wind, paved by sealight—

  Extreme views he will come to share: MY 2ND SIGHT)

  Nat.

  SWOOP, GORGEOUS BIRD!

  WHAT SAY THAT WE’VE NOT HEARD?

  Our Peacock—blue, green, gold, a comet-streak—

  Settling, drops the laurel from his beak.

  Mir.

  MAJESTY, I COME FROM SUCH BLACK,

  WOULD I NEED NOT GO BACK.

  YET I WHOM YOU APPEAR BEFORE

  CAN NEVER WISH FOR MORE.

  THESE 2 TRAIND ME IN LOVE,

  ELSE I SHOULD NOT BE HERE ABOVE

  THE DENSE, HUMMING LEVELS WHERE

  NONE CAN BREATHE YOUR GODLY AIR.

  Nat.

  BIRD, NOW YOU DO,

  & YOU ARE MINE: HENCEFORTH STRUT THROUGH

  MY GARDENS, MAKE ME GLAD TO LOOK AT YOU!

  Mirabell shivers once at Nature’s word,

  Then in his eyes the nuclear fire-ache

  Is quenched. At last his own—or Her own—bird,

  He flies to prove it by the mirror lake,

  Heart beating.

  Next (invited by mistake?)

  Flap-flap unrolls from nowhere, like a blind

  Daubed in poison-sugar tints by Blake,

  A poster figure, not of humankind:

  Deceitful Witch of the Black Forest in the mind.

  Nat.

  FEELING, GUEST, YOU TOO COME IN.

  I HAVE MADE OF YOU A SEVENFOLD SIN

  WITH REASON, THIS YOU KNOW.

  WHEN YOU GREW BOLD,

  ALLCONSUMING, CHAOS OF OLD,r />
  I BANISHED YOU. YET TODAY TWO MORTALS HERE

  STILL SEEM TO HOLD YOU DEAR.

  LISTEN NOW, JEZEBEL!

  & WHEN WITH CRIPPLING TIME THEY ARE BROUGHT LOW,

  WISH THEM WELL, WISH THEM WELL

  FOR TOO LONG HAVE YOU SPENT ON AGE

  YOUR PENT-UP RAGE.

  Snap! As the blind rolls shut two mortals melt.

  ENOUGH! YOU SEE,

  ALREADY TEARS AFFRONTING ME?

  CHEER, SONG, MUSICIAN OUT WITH HARP AND FLUTES!

  TUNE UP THE SKY MY BOY, TUNE UP THE SKY

  FOR SEE, MY DARLING’S PASSING BY.

  Music. Or else, the mere unspoken pang

  Of grief and gratitude as our eyes meet

  Grown ravishingly vocal. Pluck and twang,

  Gnat musette and ocarina tweet;

  The koto’s quartertone; the distant heat

  Wave of an underwater gamelan;

  Minute glissandi such that ear of wheat

  Must bend to listen—in one shimmer span

  Modes of bliss never yet unthinkable to man.

  Nat.

  NOW DIM THE LIGHTS, THE FESTIVAL

  IS DRAWING DOWN, THE GOLDEN DISC WITHAL.

  TONIGHT WHEN I ARISE MUCH ON THE WANE,

  LOVES DONE, O THINK OF ME AND MINE AGAIN

  AND IN THE DARKEST BARKING HOUR

  YOU WILL SPRING UP FRESH IN FLOWER,

  FOR SUCH IS NATURE, SUCH THE PSYCHE IN MAN’S MIND:

  THE BALM THE SWEET THE KIND.

  NOW MARCHING TUNES!

  MICHAEL YOUR RAINBOW LINE, IT IS OUR WISH

  YOU REEL US IN LIKE FLOPPING FISH,

  BUT LET ME CRY A LAST RESOUNDING YES

  TO MAN, MAN IN HIS BLESSEDNESS!

  Gala procession. Robert, by now astride

  Our Unicorn, leading the white troop round,

  Plays piccolo— THREE GUESSES WHO’S THE PIED

  PIPER! BRASSES, BLARE! YOU DRUMS, RESOUND!

  A moving stair for the Valhalla-bound

  (As Michael draws his seven-colored bow)

  Leaps from the pot of gold on our bare ground.

  Nature’s robes modulate to indigo,

  Her last, starlike Pronouncement audible below:

  Nat.

  GABRIEL WE ARE PLEASED. COME, DEAR DAUGHTER-SON,

  OFF WE GO. THE FETE IS DONE.

  Dazed, reluctant to dismount, our fingers

  Teeter bareback on the cup’s white rump

  Which prances here, there, like a child kept up

  Long past bedtime— SIRS! O WE’RE PARADING

  STILL MR ROBERT LEADS US ROUND

 

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