ALAN PORTERINTRODUCTION TO A NARRATIVE POEMThe vapour, twining and twitching, seems to throwBlack, precipitous boulders to and froLight as a bandied scoff; and, look, the cliff—Whose root claws at the midworld fire with stiffUnmolten, adamantine fingers—fails,Lurches. Above, cold and eternal galesRun worrying, shredding, eternal sunlight; snatchAt the heather; puff at the flocks of cotton; scratchWhite scars along the bents. If strangers climbTo this plateau that buffets back slow time,They stand awhile impotent, grey with fear,And feel solidity’s foundation stir.But even here a cottage free from harmsLies havened, hugged and sheltered by the armsOf a narrow, green recess. A few stunt oaks,Elders, and barren apples beard the rocks;But, sleeker than a pool, the lawn beneathBurns white and blue, bewildering the heath.On a low wood-bench, rifted by years of rain,Warped at one end, split far along the grain,A meagre man with a waste, weary smileReads to a boy and girl, or plays awhileSome quiet, grown-up game. He suddenly bowsHead between hands: no more his children rouseFlicker or flame, by question or caress,To break the dead, monotonous, featurelessWinter of grief. At last he rises, and,With empty scrutiny, feet that understandNo path but falter at random, stumbles outWhere tigrish winds whirry and havoc and shout.His back-blown hair, wet, smarting eyes, recallThe conscious pang of life; and he must fallFaint on the ground, or whet his courage keen,Clench all his being, prise a path betweenThe loud, inimical flaws. With even mightHe batters on, to earth’s and air’s despite,In storm and tumult winning peace and light.Yet, in these roads of quiet, munimentFrom fury of nature, home from discontentSurely of earth’s mean, trafficking miseries,In this domain of flower and fragrance, thisGreen plat of smooth, immotionable ground,Why does the panther sorrow skulk aroundAnd leap like fear from unsuspected fourm?Weigh this doubt rather—if the embittered swarmOf multitudinous grief thins ever or staysFrom most unmerited sally; for in what waysA man may tread, and fate how seeming fair,His intimate heart is troubled, and despairLays present ambush. Many feel the stingOf casual time like bramble-thorns, that bringA not-enduring spasm: in other blood,More sensitive, urging a froward, perilous flood,It racks like tropic ivy, whose embraceTurns travellers maniac; nor shall lapse of days,Nor drug, nor simple, medicine back the mind;They go forgetting all their manhood, findNo recollection save the venom of deathThat whistles about their brain and sears their breath.Thus almost had it been with him, thus griefCame turbulent, and left him no relief.SUMMER BATHINGThe rucklingpool, torn grey by Pendry Weir,Became Cocytus to my boy time fear.Two haw-trees, pulping fat their close, green fruitsTurned cuttlefish below, wagging no rootsBut narrow tentacles. Old Jacob FryTells how he drained this pool one hot JulyWhen drought had sucked the white stream thick and slow:Fish, four-foot deep, shone thirty feet below.Leaning to drop a stone, the farmboy whewsBewildered that his confident ear should loseAll thud for grounding. Now he fears to stay,And walks by whistling on another day.Here, when the black bees blundered in the heatHalf-drunk, rifling the fine-flurred meadowsweet,I stripped and bathed. At first, numb for delight,I lost all thought but this—Come, you must fightFree from the swirl. But when blank eyes grew clearLike a pit-pattering mouse came fluttered fear.Now here and there slide snakish eels, now volesBolt hizzing over the brook to round, black holes.These groping roots perhaps will grip my fleshTill I grow tired of screaming: so the meshWill move, my bones will crackle, I sink down;So to an end.Or in some cave of brownSluttering scum and broad, plump bladder-weedsOld fiends may sprawling meditate false deeds;One, ware of prey, slip out lean fingers, pluckUnusual meat through water’s rush and ruck.Yet, braving all, to prove wild fancy vain,I held my breath and sank. The brook, astrainAnd fierce to be free, spun snarling overhead;Dull roars droned round, cold currents buffeted.Proud of this daring shewn—but doubtful, too,Of tempting fortune far—I battled throughTo the root-held scroll of turf on the sagging bank,And carefully muscled up. The sheep-field drankThe wide-spent, white-spilt sun, the wrapping airSwung flame-like past, and, while I ran, the bareClose-nibbled grass pushed hot against my feet.The yeanlings rose and rushed with timid bleatFull-tilt at the mothering ewe; fed sleek with clover,Three cows, in mild amazement bending overThe gap-set palings, rubbed their necks or chewed.But in mid-course I staggered, having trodFirm on a flat and spiny thistle; stayedNursing my foot, half grinning, half dismayed:Then lay full length, as light-heel time were not;Pale fears, fantastic perils, all forgot.COUNTRY CHURCHYARDThisgrave, moss-grown, marks him who once went free;Now pent—no, portionless; from sharp life lost;Mere mouldered bone-work. His unheeded nameWho, curious, pausing, may decipher? See;Thin gulled by running rain, by chipping frostFrustrated, muffled under a yellow, same,Fat scurf of lichen, the dim charactersWithstand conjecture, aimless and awry.Yet here lies one who, living, peopled earthWith indestructible fancy. Now he hearsNo nature’s music, who for hours would lieTo hear the blue-caps click their quick, small mirth.MUSEUMTheday was death. A chalk road, pale in dust,Accused with leprous finger the long moors.The drab, damp air so blanketed the townNo doddered oak swung leathern leaf. The chimneysPushed oddling pillars at the loose-hung sky.May, pansy, lilac, dense as the night steamOf lowland swamps, fettered the sodden air,And, through the haze, along the ragstone houses,Blood-lichens dulled to a rotten-apple brown.Behind close doors pale women drooped and draggedIn customary toils. They dusted shelvesOr changed from chair to chair dull, cotton cushions:Soon, vacantly, they bore them back and wipedWith languid arms the black, unspotted shelves.Such mind’s own symbols of despair they wentThat never movement shook a face to grief—At first they looked no more than cheerless women,But dug deep in the plaster of their fleshThose eyes were year-dead, underpouched with blue.A word would sear the silence of a week.Of a sudden, turning a byeway corner, a cripple,Bloodless with age, lumbered along the road.The motes of dust whirled at his iron-shod crutchesAnd quickly settled. A dog whined. The oldCripple looked round and saw no man, but gaveA cruel, crackling chuckle, swung a yard,And stopped to look about and laugh again.‘That,’ said a girl in a flat voice, ‘is God.’She turned and slid the table-cover straight.Her mother could not answer, but she thought‘It must be Beggar Joe, gone lately mad.’He lumbered along the road and turned a corner.His tapping faded and the day was death.LOST LANDSWhenfrom this alien multitude of manThese, kind or kindred, speak in approbationOf what I strove to write, for all my pleasureI feel my gross dismerit and fall shamed.Set no regard on me: not I can pierceClogged air and homely falsehood in propheticDream or sudden awakening. Sinewed phrases,There are my petty troublings of weak sight.Shame took me once, and shame has tracked me since:My friend spoke of a man who lives bewildered,Even in London striding over mountains,Through populous roads companioning the dead.Stars move around him and the dew falls grey;Thin firs pry through the mist. Old fables quicken—Undine laughs by the waters, vague, uneasy:Maiden Mary sings to the sleepy Child.Then I remembered boyhood, in whose hoursThistles were knights, old men were murderous, daytimeIntractable as dream. I knew that eitherHid with coarse walls imaginable worlds.Now I am dulled, habitual now with knownEarth. Never shall other-country pathwaysBring me, familiar, through amazing valleysFire-white with blossom, dark with ancient boughs.
ALAN PORTER
The vapour, twining and twitching, seems to throwBlack, precipitous boulders to and froLight as a bandied scoff; and, look, the cliff—Whose root claws at the midworld fire with stiffUnmolten, adamantine fingers—fails,Lurches. Above, cold and eternal galesRun worrying, shredding, eternal sunlight; snatchAt the heather; puff at the flocks of cotton; scratchWhite scars along the bents. If strangers climbTo this plateau that buffets back slow time,They stand awhile impotent, grey with fear,And feel solidity’s foundation stir.But even here a cottage free from harmsLies havened, hugged and sheltered by the armsOf a narrow, green recess. A few stunt oaks,Elders, and barren apples beard the rocks;But, sleeker than a pool, the lawn beneathBurns white and blue, bewildering the heath.On a low wood-bench, rifted by years of rain,Warped at one end, split far along the grain,A meagre man with a waste, weary smileReads to a boy and girl, or plays awhileSome quiet, grown-up game. He suddenly bowsHead between hands: no more his children rouseFlicker or flame, by question or caress,To break the dead, monotonous, featurelessWinter of grief. At last he rises, and,With empty scrutiny, feet that understandNo path but falter at random, stumbles outWhere tigrish winds whirry and havoc and shout.His back-blown hair, wet, smarting eyes, recallThe conscious pang of life; and he must fallFaint on the ground, or whet his courage keen,Clench all his being, prise a path betweenThe loud, inimical flaws. With even mightHe batters on, to earth’s and air’s despite,In storm and tumult winning peace and light.Yet, in these roads of quiet, munimentFrom fury of nature, home from discontentSurely of earth’s mean, trafficking miseries,In this domain of flower and fragrance, thisGreen plat of smooth, immotionable ground,Why does the panther sorrow skulk aroundAnd leap like fear from unsuspected fourm?Weigh this doubt rather—if the embittered swarmOf multitudinous grief thins ever or staysFrom most unmerited sally; for in what waysA man may tread, and fate how seeming fair,His intimate heart is troubled, and despairLays present ambush. Many feel the stingOf casual time like bramble-thorns, that bringA not-enduring spasm: in other blood,More sensitive, urging a froward, perilous flood,It racks like tropic ivy, whose embraceTurns travellers maniac; nor shall lapse of days,Nor drug, nor simple, medicine back the mind;They go forgetting all their manhood, findNo recollection save the venom of deathThat whistles about their brain and sears their breath.Thus almost had it been with him, thus griefCame turbulent, and left him no relief.
The vapour, twining and twitching, seems to throwBlack, precipitous boulders to and froLight as a bandied scoff; and, look, the cliff—Whose root claws at the midworld fire with stiffUnmolten, adamantine fingers—fails,Lurches. Above, cold and eternal galesRun worrying, shredding, eternal sunlight; snatchAt the heather; puff at the flocks of cotton; scratchWhite scars along the bents. If strangers climbTo this plateau that buffets back slow time,They stand awhile impotent, grey with fear,And feel solidity’s foundation stir.But even here a cottage free from harmsLies havened, hugged and sheltered by the armsOf a narrow, green recess. A few stunt oaks,Elders, and barren apples beard the rocks;But, sleeker than a pool, the lawn beneathBurns white and blue, bewildering the heath.On a low wood-bench, rifted by years of rain,Warped at one end, split far along the grain,A meagre man with a waste, weary smileReads to a boy and girl, or plays awhileSome quiet, grown-up game. He suddenly bowsHead between hands: no more his children rouseFlicker or flame, by question or caress,To break the dead, monotonous, featurelessWinter of grief. At last he rises, and,With empty scrutiny, feet that understandNo path but falter at random, stumbles outWhere tigrish winds whirry and havoc and shout.His back-blown hair, wet, smarting eyes, recallThe conscious pang of life; and he must fallFaint on the ground, or whet his courage keen,Clench all his being, prise a path betweenThe loud, inimical flaws. With even mightHe batters on, to earth’s and air’s despite,In storm and tumult winning peace and light.Yet, in these roads of quiet, munimentFrom fury of nature, home from discontentSurely of earth’s mean, trafficking miseries,In this domain of flower and fragrance, thisGreen plat of smooth, immotionable ground,Why does the panther sorrow skulk aroundAnd leap like fear from unsuspected fourm?Weigh this doubt rather—if the embittered swarmOf multitudinous grief thins ever or staysFrom most unmerited sally; for in what waysA man may tread, and fate how seeming fair,His intimate heart is troubled, and despairLays present ambush. Many feel the stingOf casual time like bramble-thorns, that bringA not-enduring spasm: in other blood,More sensitive, urging a froward, perilous flood,It racks like tropic ivy, whose embraceTurns travellers maniac; nor shall lapse of days,Nor drug, nor simple, medicine back the mind;They go forgetting all their manhood, findNo recollection save the venom of deathThat whistles about their brain and sears their breath.Thus almost had it been with him, thus griefCame turbulent, and left him no relief.
The vapour, twining and twitching, seems to throwBlack, precipitous boulders to and froLight as a bandied scoff; and, look, the cliff—Whose root claws at the midworld fire with stiffUnmolten, adamantine fingers—fails,Lurches. Above, cold and eternal galesRun worrying, shredding, eternal sunlight; snatchAt the heather; puff at the flocks of cotton; scratchWhite scars along the bents. If strangers climbTo this plateau that buffets back slow time,They stand awhile impotent, grey with fear,And feel solidity’s foundation stir.
But even here a cottage free from harmsLies havened, hugged and sheltered by the armsOf a narrow, green recess. A few stunt oaks,Elders, and barren apples beard the rocks;But, sleeker than a pool, the lawn beneathBurns white and blue, bewildering the heath.On a low wood-bench, rifted by years of rain,Warped at one end, split far along the grain,A meagre man with a waste, weary smileReads to a boy and girl, or plays awhileSome quiet, grown-up game. He suddenly bowsHead between hands: no more his children rouseFlicker or flame, by question or caress,To break the dead, monotonous, featurelessWinter of grief. At last he rises, and,With empty scrutiny, feet that understandNo path but falter at random, stumbles outWhere tigrish winds whirry and havoc and shout.His back-blown hair, wet, smarting eyes, recallThe conscious pang of life; and he must fallFaint on the ground, or whet his courage keen,Clench all his being, prise a path betweenThe loud, inimical flaws. With even mightHe batters on, to earth’s and air’s despite,In storm and tumult winning peace and light.
Yet, in these roads of quiet, munimentFrom fury of nature, home from discontentSurely of earth’s mean, trafficking miseries,In this domain of flower and fragrance, thisGreen plat of smooth, immotionable ground,Why does the panther sorrow skulk aroundAnd leap like fear from unsuspected fourm?Weigh this doubt rather—if the embittered swarmOf multitudinous grief thins ever or staysFrom most unmerited sally; for in what waysA man may tread, and fate how seeming fair,His intimate heart is troubled, and despairLays present ambush. Many feel the stingOf casual time like bramble-thorns, that bringA not-enduring spasm: in other blood,More sensitive, urging a froward, perilous flood,It racks like tropic ivy, whose embraceTurns travellers maniac; nor shall lapse of days,Nor drug, nor simple, medicine back the mind;They go forgetting all their manhood, findNo recollection save the venom of deathThat whistles about their brain and sears their breath.
Thus almost had it been with him, thus griefCame turbulent, and left him no relief.
The rucklingpool, torn grey by Pendry Weir,Became Cocytus to my boy time fear.Two haw-trees, pulping fat their close, green fruitsTurned cuttlefish below, wagging no rootsBut narrow tentacles. Old Jacob FryTells how he drained this pool one hot JulyWhen drought had sucked the white stream thick and slow:Fish, four-foot deep, shone thirty feet below.Leaning to drop a stone, the farmboy whewsBewildered that his confident ear should loseAll thud for grounding. Now he fears to stay,And walks by whistling on another day.Here, when the black bees blundered in the heatHalf-drunk, rifling the fine-flurred meadowsweet,I stripped and bathed. At first, numb for delight,I lost all thought but this—Come, you must fightFree from the swirl. But when blank eyes grew clearLike a pit-pattering mouse came fluttered fear.Now here and there slide snakish eels, now volesBolt hizzing over the brook to round, black holes.These groping roots perhaps will grip my fleshTill I grow tired of screaming: so the meshWill move, my bones will crackle, I sink down;So to an end.Or in some cave of brownSluttering scum and broad, plump bladder-weedsOld fiends may sprawling meditate false deeds;One, ware of prey, slip out lean fingers, pluckUnusual meat through water’s rush and ruck.Yet, braving all, to prove wild fancy vain,I held my breath and sank. The brook, astrainAnd fierce to be free, spun snarling overhead;Dull roars droned round, cold currents buffeted.Proud of this daring shewn—but doubtful, too,Of tempting fortune far—I battled throughTo the root-held scroll of turf on the sagging bank,And carefully muscled up. The sheep-field drankThe wide-spent, white-spilt sun, the wrapping airSwung flame-like past, and, while I ran, the bareClose-nibbled grass pushed hot against my feet.The yeanlings rose and rushed with timid bleatFull-tilt at the mothering ewe; fed sleek with clover,Three cows, in mild amazement bending overThe gap-set palings, rubbed their necks or chewed.But in mid-course I staggered, having trodFirm on a flat and spiny thistle; stayedNursing my foot, half grinning, half dismayed:Then lay full length, as light-heel time were not;Pale fears, fantastic perils, all forgot.
The rucklingpool, torn grey by Pendry Weir,Became Cocytus to my boy time fear.Two haw-trees, pulping fat their close, green fruitsTurned cuttlefish below, wagging no rootsBut narrow tentacles. Old Jacob FryTells how he drained this pool one hot JulyWhen drought had sucked the white stream thick and slow:Fish, four-foot deep, shone thirty feet below.Leaning to drop a stone, the farmboy whewsBewildered that his confident ear should loseAll thud for grounding. Now he fears to stay,And walks by whistling on another day.Here, when the black bees blundered in the heatHalf-drunk, rifling the fine-flurred meadowsweet,I stripped and bathed. At first, numb for delight,I lost all thought but this—Come, you must fightFree from the swirl. But when blank eyes grew clearLike a pit-pattering mouse came fluttered fear.Now here and there slide snakish eels, now volesBolt hizzing over the brook to round, black holes.These groping roots perhaps will grip my fleshTill I grow tired of screaming: so the meshWill move, my bones will crackle, I sink down;So to an end.Or in some cave of brownSluttering scum and broad, plump bladder-weedsOld fiends may sprawling meditate false deeds;One, ware of prey, slip out lean fingers, pluckUnusual meat through water’s rush and ruck.Yet, braving all, to prove wild fancy vain,I held my breath and sank. The brook, astrainAnd fierce to be free, spun snarling overhead;Dull roars droned round, cold currents buffeted.Proud of this daring shewn—but doubtful, too,Of tempting fortune far—I battled throughTo the root-held scroll of turf on the sagging bank,And carefully muscled up. The sheep-field drankThe wide-spent, white-spilt sun, the wrapping airSwung flame-like past, and, while I ran, the bareClose-nibbled grass pushed hot against my feet.The yeanlings rose and rushed with timid bleatFull-tilt at the mothering ewe; fed sleek with clover,Three cows, in mild amazement bending overThe gap-set palings, rubbed their necks or chewed.But in mid-course I staggered, having trodFirm on a flat and spiny thistle; stayedNursing my foot, half grinning, half dismayed:Then lay full length, as light-heel time were not;Pale fears, fantastic perils, all forgot.
The rucklingpool, torn grey by Pendry Weir,Became Cocytus to my boy time fear.Two haw-trees, pulping fat their close, green fruitsTurned cuttlefish below, wagging no rootsBut narrow tentacles. Old Jacob FryTells how he drained this pool one hot JulyWhen drought had sucked the white stream thick and slow:Fish, four-foot deep, shone thirty feet below.Leaning to drop a stone, the farmboy whewsBewildered that his confident ear should loseAll thud for grounding. Now he fears to stay,And walks by whistling on another day.
Here, when the black bees blundered in the heatHalf-drunk, rifling the fine-flurred meadowsweet,I stripped and bathed. At first, numb for delight,I lost all thought but this—Come, you must fightFree from the swirl. But when blank eyes grew clearLike a pit-pattering mouse came fluttered fear.Now here and there slide snakish eels, now volesBolt hizzing over the brook to round, black holes.These groping roots perhaps will grip my fleshTill I grow tired of screaming: so the meshWill move, my bones will crackle, I sink down;So to an end.Or in some cave of brownSluttering scum and broad, plump bladder-weedsOld fiends may sprawling meditate false deeds;One, ware of prey, slip out lean fingers, pluckUnusual meat through water’s rush and ruck.
Yet, braving all, to prove wild fancy vain,I held my breath and sank. The brook, astrainAnd fierce to be free, spun snarling overhead;Dull roars droned round, cold currents buffeted.Proud of this daring shewn—but doubtful, too,Of tempting fortune far—I battled throughTo the root-held scroll of turf on the sagging bank,And carefully muscled up. The sheep-field drankThe wide-spent, white-spilt sun, the wrapping airSwung flame-like past, and, while I ran, the bareClose-nibbled grass pushed hot against my feet.The yeanlings rose and rushed with timid bleatFull-tilt at the mothering ewe; fed sleek with clover,Three cows, in mild amazement bending overThe gap-set palings, rubbed their necks or chewed.But in mid-course I staggered, having trodFirm on a flat and spiny thistle; stayedNursing my foot, half grinning, half dismayed:Then lay full length, as light-heel time were not;Pale fears, fantastic perils, all forgot.
Thisgrave, moss-grown, marks him who once went free;Now pent—no, portionless; from sharp life lost;Mere mouldered bone-work. His unheeded nameWho, curious, pausing, may decipher? See;Thin gulled by running rain, by chipping frostFrustrated, muffled under a yellow, same,Fat scurf of lichen, the dim charactersWithstand conjecture, aimless and awry.Yet here lies one who, living, peopled earthWith indestructible fancy. Now he hearsNo nature’s music, who for hours would lieTo hear the blue-caps click their quick, small mirth.
Thisgrave, moss-grown, marks him who once went free;Now pent—no, portionless; from sharp life lost;Mere mouldered bone-work. His unheeded nameWho, curious, pausing, may decipher? See;Thin gulled by running rain, by chipping frostFrustrated, muffled under a yellow, same,Fat scurf of lichen, the dim charactersWithstand conjecture, aimless and awry.Yet here lies one who, living, peopled earthWith indestructible fancy. Now he hearsNo nature’s music, who for hours would lieTo hear the blue-caps click their quick, small mirth.
Thisgrave, moss-grown, marks him who once went free;Now pent—no, portionless; from sharp life lost;Mere mouldered bone-work. His unheeded name
Who, curious, pausing, may decipher? See;Thin gulled by running rain, by chipping frostFrustrated, muffled under a yellow, same,
Fat scurf of lichen, the dim charactersWithstand conjecture, aimless and awry.Yet here lies one who, living, peopled earth
With indestructible fancy. Now he hearsNo nature’s music, who for hours would lieTo hear the blue-caps click their quick, small mirth.
Theday was death. A chalk road, pale in dust,Accused with leprous finger the long moors.The drab, damp air so blanketed the townNo doddered oak swung leathern leaf. The chimneysPushed oddling pillars at the loose-hung sky.May, pansy, lilac, dense as the night steamOf lowland swamps, fettered the sodden air,And, through the haze, along the ragstone houses,Blood-lichens dulled to a rotten-apple brown.Behind close doors pale women drooped and draggedIn customary toils. They dusted shelvesOr changed from chair to chair dull, cotton cushions:Soon, vacantly, they bore them back and wipedWith languid arms the black, unspotted shelves.Such mind’s own symbols of despair they wentThat never movement shook a face to grief—At first they looked no more than cheerless women,But dug deep in the plaster of their fleshThose eyes were year-dead, underpouched with blue.A word would sear the silence of a week.Of a sudden, turning a byeway corner, a cripple,Bloodless with age, lumbered along the road.The motes of dust whirled at his iron-shod crutchesAnd quickly settled. A dog whined. The oldCripple looked round and saw no man, but gaveA cruel, crackling chuckle, swung a yard,And stopped to look about and laugh again.‘That,’ said a girl in a flat voice, ‘is God.’She turned and slid the table-cover straight.Her mother could not answer, but she thought‘It must be Beggar Joe, gone lately mad.’He lumbered along the road and turned a corner.His tapping faded and the day was death.
Theday was death. A chalk road, pale in dust,Accused with leprous finger the long moors.The drab, damp air so blanketed the townNo doddered oak swung leathern leaf. The chimneysPushed oddling pillars at the loose-hung sky.May, pansy, lilac, dense as the night steamOf lowland swamps, fettered the sodden air,And, through the haze, along the ragstone houses,Blood-lichens dulled to a rotten-apple brown.Behind close doors pale women drooped and draggedIn customary toils. They dusted shelvesOr changed from chair to chair dull, cotton cushions:Soon, vacantly, they bore them back and wipedWith languid arms the black, unspotted shelves.Such mind’s own symbols of despair they wentThat never movement shook a face to grief—At first they looked no more than cheerless women,But dug deep in the plaster of their fleshThose eyes were year-dead, underpouched with blue.A word would sear the silence of a week.Of a sudden, turning a byeway corner, a cripple,Bloodless with age, lumbered along the road.The motes of dust whirled at his iron-shod crutchesAnd quickly settled. A dog whined. The oldCripple looked round and saw no man, but gaveA cruel, crackling chuckle, swung a yard,And stopped to look about and laugh again.‘That,’ said a girl in a flat voice, ‘is God.’She turned and slid the table-cover straight.Her mother could not answer, but she thought‘It must be Beggar Joe, gone lately mad.’He lumbered along the road and turned a corner.His tapping faded and the day was death.
Theday was death. A chalk road, pale in dust,Accused with leprous finger the long moors.The drab, damp air so blanketed the townNo doddered oak swung leathern leaf. The chimneysPushed oddling pillars at the loose-hung sky.May, pansy, lilac, dense as the night steamOf lowland swamps, fettered the sodden air,And, through the haze, along the ragstone houses,Blood-lichens dulled to a rotten-apple brown.Behind close doors pale women drooped and draggedIn customary toils. They dusted shelvesOr changed from chair to chair dull, cotton cushions:Soon, vacantly, they bore them back and wipedWith languid arms the black, unspotted shelves.Such mind’s own symbols of despair they wentThat never movement shook a face to grief—At first they looked no more than cheerless women,But dug deep in the plaster of their fleshThose eyes were year-dead, underpouched with blue.A word would sear the silence of a week.Of a sudden, turning a byeway corner, a cripple,Bloodless with age, lumbered along the road.The motes of dust whirled at his iron-shod crutchesAnd quickly settled. A dog whined. The oldCripple looked round and saw no man, but gaveA cruel, crackling chuckle, swung a yard,And stopped to look about and laugh again.‘That,’ said a girl in a flat voice, ‘is God.’She turned and slid the table-cover straight.Her mother could not answer, but she thought‘It must be Beggar Joe, gone lately mad.’He lumbered along the road and turned a corner.His tapping faded and the day was death.
Whenfrom this alien multitude of manThese, kind or kindred, speak in approbationOf what I strove to write, for all my pleasureI feel my gross dismerit and fall shamed.Set no regard on me: not I can pierceClogged air and homely falsehood in propheticDream or sudden awakening. Sinewed phrases,There are my petty troublings of weak sight.Shame took me once, and shame has tracked me since:My friend spoke of a man who lives bewildered,Even in London striding over mountains,Through populous roads companioning the dead.Stars move around him and the dew falls grey;Thin firs pry through the mist. Old fables quicken—Undine laughs by the waters, vague, uneasy:Maiden Mary sings to the sleepy Child.Then I remembered boyhood, in whose hoursThistles were knights, old men were murderous, daytimeIntractable as dream. I knew that eitherHid with coarse walls imaginable worlds.Now I am dulled, habitual now with knownEarth. Never shall other-country pathwaysBring me, familiar, through amazing valleysFire-white with blossom, dark with ancient boughs.
Whenfrom this alien multitude of manThese, kind or kindred, speak in approbationOf what I strove to write, for all my pleasureI feel my gross dismerit and fall shamed.Set no regard on me: not I can pierceClogged air and homely falsehood in propheticDream or sudden awakening. Sinewed phrases,There are my petty troublings of weak sight.Shame took me once, and shame has tracked me since:My friend spoke of a man who lives bewildered,Even in London striding over mountains,Through populous roads companioning the dead.Stars move around him and the dew falls grey;Thin firs pry through the mist. Old fables quicken—Undine laughs by the waters, vague, uneasy:Maiden Mary sings to the sleepy Child.Then I remembered boyhood, in whose hoursThistles were knights, old men were murderous, daytimeIntractable as dream. I knew that eitherHid with coarse walls imaginable worlds.Now I am dulled, habitual now with knownEarth. Never shall other-country pathwaysBring me, familiar, through amazing valleysFire-white with blossom, dark with ancient boughs.
Whenfrom this alien multitude of manThese, kind or kindred, speak in approbationOf what I strove to write, for all my pleasureI feel my gross dismerit and fall shamed.
Set no regard on me: not I can pierceClogged air and homely falsehood in propheticDream or sudden awakening. Sinewed phrases,There are my petty troublings of weak sight.
Shame took me once, and shame has tracked me since:My friend spoke of a man who lives bewildered,Even in London striding over mountains,Through populous roads companioning the dead.
Stars move around him and the dew falls grey;Thin firs pry through the mist. Old fables quicken—Undine laughs by the waters, vague, uneasy:Maiden Mary sings to the sleepy Child.
Then I remembered boyhood, in whose hoursThistles were knights, old men were murderous, daytimeIntractable as dream. I knew that eitherHid with coarse walls imaginable worlds.
Now I am dulled, habitual now with knownEarth. Never shall other-country pathwaysBring me, familiar, through amazing valleysFire-white with blossom, dark with ancient boughs.