Before we set against her side
The planks to disembark.’
Obedient sons, a virtuous wife,
Flocks, cattle, jars of seeds,
Crook, coulter, halter, pruning-knife –
Noah forecasts a brave new life
Agreeable to his needs.
Exult with him at the clear sky,
Proud Noahs of today,
For though we here and there descry
Morasses that no sun can dry
(Regret them how we may),
God’s rainbow is a glorious toy,
His wine a cheerful drink,
And since He chooses to destroy
Folk better dead, we wish Him joy,
While choking at the stink.
A LATE ARRIVAL
A Libyan pilgrim-ship tied up at Joppa
Twenty-four hours late, on a Wednesday morning.
The poor Jew from Cyrene hired no ass
But trudged, by way of Gimzo and Beth Horon,
Three hundred stadia to Jerusalem.
That Friday morning, close to the Western Gate
Where his son Alexander welcomed him,
He was tapped on the wrist by a Roman sergeant
And, though with little on his conscience, jumped
In excusable fright. The grinning sergeant said:
‘A work of charity awaits you, sir!’
Foot-sore Simon, thus impressed to shoulder
The eight-foot oaken cross-piece of a cross
Towards Jeremiah’s grotto – now already
Late for a family gathering and, far worse,
Contaminated by this unclean baulk –
Vented his rage on the condemned bandit:
‘Poor fool! Betrayed to those Boethan traitors
By one of your own men, my son reports!
How long had you known Judah of Cherioth?
Seven years, or more? Alas, what innocence!
So long, and never peered into his heart?
I heard him once, far too loud in your praise
(Three Passovers ago, it must have been),
And all but naming you the Appointed King…
I am told that Judah, jealous for your honour
Yet jealous of you, boasting he knew best,
Pleaded for your protective custody;
Loved you, he said, but loved our nation more.’
Since the poor stumbling felon made no answer,
Though his lips moved, as it might be in prayer,
Simon thought pityingly of Alexander:
What a disgrace for his own son to see him
Hauled off to attend a Roman crucifixion!
Why had God’s hand delayed that Lybian ship?
Later the man spoke in a small, dry voice:
‘May God forgive me and my servant too –
We both thought we knew better than our lord.’
SONG: WITH NO RETURN
If you keep your heart so true
That her oaks take fire and burn,
And her foxes dance for you
All together in full view,
Paradise is here to earn,
Peace to learn:
She will pledge you, as she must,
To a trust beyond all trust
With no manner of return.
ALL I TELL YOU FROM MY HEART
I begged my love to wait a bit
Although the sky was clear:
‘I smell a shower of rain,’ said I,
‘And you’ll be caught, I fear.’
‘You want to keep me trapped,’ she said,
‘And hold my hand again….’
But not ten minutes had she gone
When how the rain did rain!
‘Alas, dear love, so wet you are –
You should have trusted me!
For all I tell you from my heart
Is sure as prophecy.’
I begged my love to wait a bit
And watch the faggots blaze.
‘There’s music on the march,’ said I,
‘To cheer whoever stays.’
‘You want to keep me trapped,’ she said,
‘O, every night’s the same….’
But not ten minutes had she gone
When in the fiddlers came!
‘Alas, dear love, what tunes they played –
You should have trusted me!
For all I tell you from my heart
Is sure as prophecy.’
I begged my love to take good heed
When walking through the wood,
And warned her of a random rogue
Who brought the world no good.
‘You want to keep me trapped,’ she said,
‘And roll me in your bed….’
But scarce a hundred yards from home
She lost her maidenhead.
‘Alas, dear love, it is too late –
You should have trusted me.’
For all I told you from my heart
Was sure as prophecy.’
THE UNDEAD
To be the only woman alive in a vast hive of death
Is a strange predicament, granted! Innumerable zombies
With glazed eyes shuffle around at their diurnal tasks,
Keep the machines whirring, drudge idly in stores and bars,
Bear still-born zombie children, pack them off to school
For education in science and the dead languages,
Divert themselves with moribund travesties of living,
Lay mountainous bets on horses never seen to run,
Speed along highways in conveyor-belt automobiles
But, significantly enough, often dare overshoot
The traffic signals and boing! destroy themselves again,
Earning expensive funerals. (These, if at last they emerge
From the select green cemetery plots awarded them
On their twenty-first death-days by sombre uncles and aunts,
Will become zombies of the second degree, reverenced
Nationwide in church or synagogue.)
Nevertheless,
Let none of this daunt you, child! Accept it as your fate
To live, to love, knowingly to cause true miracles,
Nor ever to find your body possessed by a cold corpse.
For one day, as you choose an unfamiliar side-street
Keeping both eyes open, alert, not apprehensive,
You shall suddenly (this is a promise) come to a brief halt:
For striding towards you on the same sidewalk will appear
A young man with the halo of life around his head,
Will catch you reassuringly by both hands, asseverating
In phrases utterly unintelligible to a zombie
That all is well: you are neither diseased, deranged, nor mistaken,
But merely undead. He will name others like you, no less alive:
Two girls and a man, all moneyless immigrants arrived
Lately at a new necropolitan conurbation.
‘Come with me, girl, and join them! The dead, you will observe,
Can exercise no direct sanctions against the living
And therefore doggedly try to omit them from all the records.
Still, they cannot avoid a certain morbid fascination
With what they call our genius. They will venture questions
But never wait for an answer – being doubtless afraid
That it will make their ears burn, or their eyes prick with tears –
Nor can they countermand what orders we may issue.’
Nod your assent, go with him, do not even return to pack!
When five live people room together, each rates as a million –
But encourage the zombies to serve you, the honest creatures,
For though one cannot ameliorate their way of death
By telling them true stories or singing them real songs,
They will feel obscurely honoured by your warm presenc
e.
From Ann at Highwood Hall
(1964)
ANN AT HIGHWOOD HALL
Ann ran away from home, where she had been
The third-but-youngest child of seventeen;
Since her poor mother’s death that drunken man,
Ann’s father, had thrown cups and plates at Ann
And once – he saw her polishing the stairs –
Asked, who was she to give herself such airs?
Ann, dressed in rags and an old tattered shawl,
Marched resolutely off to Highwood Hall,
Making herself invisible (for she
Had learned this trick from harsh necessity),
Then stole past valets, footmen, pages, grooms,
White marble statues, chambermaids with brooms,
And up the curving staircase carpeted
In green, down corridors all hung in red,
To the Duke’s private room where twin fire-dogs
Crouched under a huge pile of crackling logs.
Ann entered calmly, chose a book, sat down
And began reading with a thoughtful frown.
In flounced the Duchess. Ann gave her a smile
But still continued reading a long while
Until the Duchess, watched by the Duke’s cat,
Rang for the butler: ‘Browne, remove this brat,
His Grace the Duke’s latest discovery,
And bring her back attired more decently.’
The butler, Browne, led Ann to a large tub
Full of hot water. She enjoyed her scrub
And having her fair tresses tied in braids
Most elegantly by two lady’s maids,
And being dressed in muslin. Thereupon
She sauntered back, but found the Duchess gone.
Now, Ann had learned at home: SILENCE IS BEST,
And since the Duke was seldom told what guest
His Duchess had invited – this gay pair
Let half the English peerage picnic there –
Ann took for granted she was welcome too,
And later felt it neither strange nor new
That now she dined in state at the Duke’s board
As though the heiress of some powerful lord.
She sang to her own lute, lay long a-bed,
Swooned fashionably, embroidered with gold thread,
Danced, rode to hounds, was held in high regard,
Refused two Earls …
But here her story (starred
With royal visits, royal compliments,
Odes to her beauty, duels, tournaments,
Portraits by rival painters) dims at last
With the Duke’s execution and a vast
Ruin engulfing all his relatives …
Thieves plundered Highwood Hall. Yet Ann still lives:
A lovely lady in her attic room
Working, folk say, by starlight at a loom,
Invisible to most eyes, but not all,
And well content with rags and tattered shawl.
ST VALENTINE’S DAY
Tell me truly, Valentine,
What you most require.
Off I’ll hurry, back I’ll fetch
All your heart’s desire:
Stockings for your jaunty legs,
Staddles for your ricks,
String to tie the pickle-jar,
Straw to make bricks,
Silver salvers for your board,
Satin for your bed,
And scented suds to blow you bubbles,
Green, blue, yellow and red.
I HAVE A LITTLE COUGH, SIR
‘I have a little cough, sir,
In my little chest, sir,
All night long I cough, sir,
I can never rest, sir,
And every time I cough, sir,
It leaves a little pain, sir –
Cough, cough, cough, sir:
There it is again, sir!’
‘O Doctor Millikan,
I shall surely die!’
‘Yes, pretty Susan –
So one day shall I.’
JOSEPH AND JESUS
(from the Spanish)
Said Joseph unto Mary,
‘Be counselled by me:
Fetch your love child from the manger,
For to Egypt we must flee.’
As Mary went a-riding
Up the hill out of view,
The ass was much astonishèd
How like a dove he flew.
Said Jesus unto Joseph,
Who his soft cheek did kiss:
‘There are thorns in your beard, good sir.
I askèd not for this.’
Then Joseph brought to Jesus
Hot paps of white bread
Which, when it burned that pretty mouth,
Joseph swallowed in his stead.
Love Respelt
(1965)
THE RED SHOWER
Live sparks rain from the central anvil
In a red shower. Let all beware
Who read the event as history, frowning at
What they may find of madness there:
Felicity endangering despair.
ABOVE THE EDGE OF DOOM
Bats at play taunt us with ‘guess how many’,
And music sounds far off, tempered by sea.
Above the edge of doom sits woman
Communing with herself. ‘Dear love,’ says she,
As it were apostrophizing cat or dog,
‘Sometimes by a delicate glance and gesture
You almost seem to understand me,
Poor honest creature of the blue eyes,
Having crept closer to my sealed bosom
With your more desperate faith in womankind
Than any other since I first flowered.
It may be best you cannot read my mind.’
WILD CYCLAMEN
‘What can I do for you?’ she asked gently.
I reached for pen and paper: ‘Draw me flowers!’
She pursed her lips – O the smooth brown forehead,
The smooth lids drooped, intent on their task –
And drew me wild Majorcan cyclamen
(Not yet in season) extravagantly petalled,
Then laughed and tossed me back the picture.
‘It is nothing,’ she said; yet that cyclamen odour
Hung heavy in the room for a long while;
And when she was gone, I caught myself smiling
In her own crooked way, trying to make my eyes
Sparkle like hers, though ineffectually,
Till I fell asleep; for this was my sick-bed
And her visits brief, by order.
GIFT OF SIGHT
I had long known the diverse tastes of the wood,
Each leaf, each bark, rank earth from every hollow;
Knew the smells of bird’s breath and of bat’s wing;
Yet sight I lacked: until you stole upon me,
Touching my eyelids with light finger-tips.
The trees blazed out, their colours whirled together,
Nor ever before had I been aware of sky.
BATXÓCA
Firm-lipped, high-bosomed, slender Queen of Beanstalk Land,
Who are more to me than any woman upon this earth
Though you live from hand to mouth, keeping no certain hours,
Disguising your wisdom with unpracticality
And your elusiveness with hugs for all and sundry,
Flaunting green, yellow and scarlet, suddenly disappearing
In a whirlwind rage and flurry of skirts, always alone
Until found, days later, asleep on a couch of broom
And incommunicable until you have breakfasted –
By what outrageous freak of dissimilarity
Were you forced, noble Batxóca, to fall so deep in love
With me as to demand marriage, despite your warning
That you and I must on no account be seen together –
A Beanstalk Queen, no less, paired with a regular man!
Did you wistfully, perhaps, expect me to say ‘no’?
THE SNAP-COMB WILDERNESS
Magic is tangled in a woman’s hair
For the enlightenment of male pride.
To slide a comb uxoriously
Through an even swell of tresses undisturbed
By their cascade from an exact parting
Could never hearten or enlighten me –
Not though her eyes were bluer than blue sea.
Magic rules an irreducible jungle
Dark as eclipse and scented with despair,
A stubborn snap-comb wilderness of hair,
Each strand a singular, wild, curling tree.
CHANGE
‘This year she has changed greatly’ – meaning you –
My sanguine friends agree,
And hope thereby to reassure me.
No, child, you never change; neither do I.
Indeed all our lives long
We are still fated to do wrong,
Too fast caught by care of humankind,
Easily vexed and grieved,
Foolishly flattered and deceived;
And yet each knows that the changeless other
Must love and pardon still,
Be the new error what it will:
Assured by that same glint of deathlessness
Which neither can surprise
In any other pair of eyes.
A COURT OF LOVE
Were you to break the vow we swore together,
The vow, I said, would break you utterly:
Despite your pleas of duty elsewhere owed,
You could no longer laugh, work, heal, do magic,
Nor in the mirror face your own eyes.
They have summoned me before their Court of Love
And warned me I must sign for your release
Pledging my word never again to draft
A similar pact, as one who has presumed
Lasting felicity still unknown in time.
What should I do? Forswear myself for you?
No man in love, plagued by his own scruples
Will ever, voluntarily, concede
That women have a spirit above vows.
BLACK
Black drinks the sun and draws all colours to it.
I am bleached white, my truant love. Come back,
And stain me with intensity of black.
BETWEEN HYSSOP AND AXE