The Changing Light at Sandover
Page 49
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,
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