33.1
Cf., on Byzantine icons, Frederick Rolfe (‘Baron Corvo’): ‘Who ever dreams of praying (with expectation of response) for the prayer of a Tintoretto or a Titian, or a Bellini, or a Botticelli? But who can refrain from crying “O Mother!” to these unruffleable wan dolls in indigo on gold?’ (quoted from The Desire and Pursuit of the Whole by Graham Greene in The Lost Childhood).
33.5, 6
‘Délires des grandes profondeurs,’ described by Cousteau and others; a euphoria, sometimes fatal, in which the hallucinated diver offers passing fish his line, helmet, anything.
35.3, 4
As of cliffhangers, movie serials wherein each week’s episode ends with a train bearing down on the strapped heroine or with the hero dangling over an abyss into which Indians above him peer with satisfaction before they hatchet the rope. rescue: forcible recovery (by the owner) of goods distrained.
37.7, 8
After an engraving somewhere in Fuchs’s collections. Bray, above (36.4), puns.
39.5
The stanza is unsettled, like 24, by a middle line, signaling a broad transition.
42.8
brutish: her epithet for London in a kindly passage about the Great Fire.
46.1, 2
Arminians, rebels against the doctrine of unconditional election. Her husband alone opposed the law condemning Quakers to death.
46.3, 4
Matthew 3:12.
46.5, 6
Rheumatic fever, after a celebrated French description.
48.2ff.
Space … outside: delirium.
51.5 Cf.
Zech. 14:20.
51.6
Wandering pacemaker: a disease of the heart, here the heart itself.
52.4
Seaborn Cotton, John’s eldest son; Bradstreet being then magistrate.
52.5, 6
Dropsical, a complication of the last three years. Line 7 she actually said.
55.4
thrift: the plant, also called Our Lady’s cushion.
55.8
wet brain: edema.
56.5, 6
Cf. G. R. Levy, The Gate of Horn, p. 5.
HIS THOUGHT MADE POCKETS & THE PLANE BUCKT
[1958]
Henry sats in de plane & was gay.
Careful Henry nothing said aloud
but where a virgin out of cloud
to her Mountain dropt in light
his thought made pockets & the plane buckt.
‘Parm me, Lady.’ ‘Orright.’
Venice, 182-
White & blue my breathing lady leans
across me in the first light, so we kiss.
The corners of her eyes are white. I miss,
renew. She means
to smother me thro’ years of this.
Hell chill young widows in the heel of night—
perduring loves, melody’s thrusting, press
flush with the soft skin, whence they sprung! back. Less
ecstasy might
save us for speech & politeness.
I hear her howl now, and I slam my eyes
against the glowing face. Foul morning-cheese
stands fair compared to love. On waspish knees
our pasts surprise
and plead us livid. Now she frees
a heavy lock was pulling . . I kiss it,
lifting my hopeless lids—and all trace
of passion’s vanisht from her eyes & face,
the lip I bit
is bluer, a blackhead at the base
of her smooth nose looks sullenly at me,
we look at each other in entire despair,
her eyes are swimming by mine, and I swear
sobbing quickly
we áre in love. The light hurts. ‘There…’
Scots Poem
Loversgrove lay
off to the lighthearted south,
chat-south, miles & more miles. Weel,
mot-tive flunks a man’s mouth seems full of teeth.
Peered at her long
sidewise and would not or could
not say Love will be leaping
hopeless forever, hard on one who stood
near to her long
till she lookt poorly and died.
Braird in the breast evergreen,
grey the fieldgrass though, man’s friend. I’m inside.—
—Trumpet shall sound,
angel & archangel cry
‘Come forth, Isobel Mitchel,
and meet William Matheson in the sky.’
The Mysteries
(a crazed man calls)
And now you be my guest.
Thinking like wings, solemn with moons & truth,
I accost you on a summit of your honour
Erich Kahler for you shoot like a tooth
Where you grill, if others glare in wonder,
You too have to come out
And now you be my guest.
At the trice of harvest to a middle ground
I ascend and seek the hollow of my tree
Central in a grove and call: cherry sound
Swelling through swart night, near the sea, near sea,
Men aye did charm abroad
And now you be my guest
For peace to peace will not assuage or answer
My goddess at the Cross-ways. Crown the gong!
Rears the first fox, and ducks, and is a dancer!
The stonechat clatters in the bracken! Song
Through flutes shrugs up from bronze
And now you be my guest.
In the sea-green blindness I found Thetis kind
And you will find me with you. I must sing
Passions unended while you are turning, blind,
Great blows thukk in darkness, thickening
Cymbals, a small hand waves,
And so you be my guest
Uncircling, you who were a dancing man
Dance in darkness! Drips off our grapes blood,
They scream, the child is swinging on the fan,
A purpose tightens in the thigh of god
Like your heart in the drums’ thunder
And now you be my guest
While leaping mouths rage forward and white eyes,
Coarse night between smooth laurel boles, crowns shove
And crack to be timely at the sacrifice
Where I go to pieces. I am lived by love,
And I am partly dying
And now you be my guest
So we go, one, for wineless ecstasy
And whether will ever either back O turn
Is known, and the snow is hovering over the sea
And the child cries, and worshippers will burn
The sweet lost leaves of my trees.
They Have
A thing O say a sixteenth of an inch
long, with whiskers
& wings it doesn’t use, & many legs,
has all this while been wandering in a tiny space
on the black wood table by my burning chair.
I see it has a feeler of some length
it puts out before it.
That must be how it was following the circuit
of the bottom of my wine-glass, vertical: Mâcon: I thought
it smelt & wanted some but couldn’t get hold.
Now here’s another thing, on my paper, a fluff
of legs, and I blow: my brothers & sisters go away.
But here he’s back, & got between the pad
& padback, where I save him and
shift him to my blue shirt, where he is.
The other little one’s gone somewhere else.
They have things easy.
The Poet’s Final Instructions
Dog-tired, suisired, will now my body down
near Cedar Avenue in Minneap,
when my crime comes. I am blazing with hope.
Do me glory, come the whole way across town.
I couldn�
��t rest from hell just anywhere,
in commonplaces. Choiring & strange my pall!
I might not lie still in the waste of St Paul
or buy DAD’S root beer; good signs I forgive.
Drop here, with honour due, my trunk & brain
among the passioning of my countrymen
unable to read, rich, proud of their tags
and proud of me. Assemble all my bags!
Bury me in a hole, and give a cheer,
near Cedar on Lake Street, where the used cars live.
from The Black Book (i)
Grandfather, sleepless in a room upstairs,
Seldom came down; so when they tript him down
We wept. The blind light sang about his ears,
Later we heard. Brother had pull. In pairs
He, some, slept upon stone.
Later they stamped him down in mud.
The windlass drew him silly & odd-eyed, blood
Broke from his ears before they quit.
Before they trucked him home they cleaned him up somewhat.
Only the loose eyes’ glaze they could not clean
And soon he died. He howled a night and shook
Our teeth before the end; we breathed again
When he stopt. Abraham, what we have seen
Write, I beg, in your Book.
No more the solemn and high bells
Call to our pall; we call or gibber; Hell’s
Irritable & treacherous
Despairs here here (not him) reach now to shatter us.
from The Black Book (ii)
Luftmenschen dream, the men who live on air,
Of other values, in the blackness watching
Peaceful for gangs or a quick raid,
The ghetto nods a mortal head
Soundless but for a scurry, a sigh, retching,—
No moan of generation fear.
Hands hold each other limper
While the moon lengthens on the sliding river.
Prolong the woolen night—Solomon sang—
And never the soul with its own revenge encumber
But like a cry of cranes dies out,
Ecstatic, faint, a moment float-
ing, flying soul, or flares like August timber
In wild woe vanishing.
Blue grows from grey, towards slaughter.
(An Ashkenazi genius stoned Ivan; a sculptor.)
‘Boleslaus brought us here, surnamed the Good,
Whose dust rolls nearly seven hundred years
Towards Sirius: we thank that King
As for the ledge whereto we cling,
Night in the caves under the ruins; stars,
Armbands come off, for which we could
Be glad but the black troops gather.’
So those who kneel in the paling sky & shiver.
* * *
Dawn like a rose unfolds—flower of parks—
Alleys of limetrees, villas, ponds, a palace
Down a deserted riverbed,
The Lazienki Gardens’ pride,
Monument to a king able and callous
Who far Vienna from the Turks
Bloodily did deliver.
For foreigners, now, a sort of theatre.
One officer in black demarches here
Cupshot, torn collar by a girl unwilling
Native & blond through the debauch
That kept him all night from his couch,
Hurts his head and from the others’ howling
Drove him out for morning air.
Brooding over the water
He reddens suddenly. He went back & shot her.
from The Black Book (iii)
Lover & child, a little sing.
From long-lockt cattle-cars who grope
Who near a place of showers come
Foul no more, whose murmuring
Grows in a hiss of gas will clear them home:
Away from & toward me: a little soap,
Disrobing, Achtung! in a dirty hope,
They shuffle with their haircuts in to die.
Lift them an elegy, poor you and I,
Fair & strengthless as seafoam
Under a deserted sky.
A Sympathy, A Welcome
Feel for your bad fall how could I fail,
poor Paul, who had it so good.
I can offer you only: this world like a knife.
Yet you’ll get to know your mother
and humourless as you do look you will laugh
and all the others
will NOT be fierce to you, and loverhood
will swing your soul like a broken bell
deep in a forsaken wood, poor Paul,
whose wild bad father loves you well.
Not to Live
(Jamestown 1957)
It kissed us, soft, to cut our throats, this coast,
like a malice of the lazy King. I hunt,
& hunt! but find here what to kill?—nothing is blunt,
but phantoming uneases I find. Ghost
on ghost precedes of all most scared us, most
we fled. Howls fail upon this secret, far air: grunt,
shaming for food; you must. I love the King
& it was not I who strangled at the toast
but a flux of a free & dying adjutant:
God be with him. He & God be with us all,
for we are not to live. I cannot wring,
like laundry, blue my soul—indecisive thing . .
From undergrowth & over odd birds call
and who would starv’d so survive? God save the King.
American Lights, Seen From Off Abroad
Blue go up & blue go down
to light the lights of Dollartown
Nebuchadnezzar had it so good?
wink the lights of Hollywood
I never think, I have so many things,
flash the lights of Palm Springs
I worry like a madwoman over all the world,
affirm the lights, all night, at State
swear the lights of Georgetown
I have the blind staggers
call the lights of Niagara
We shall die in a palace
shout the black lights of Dallas
I couldn’t dare less, my favorite son,
fritter the lights of Washington
(I have a brave old So-and-so,
chuckle the lights of Independence, Mo.)
I cast a shadow, what I mean,
blurt the lights of Abilene
Both his sides are all the same
glows his grin with all but shame
‘He can do nothing night & day,’
wonder his lovers. So they say.
‘Basketball in outer space’
sneers the White New Hampshire House
I’ll have a smaller one, later, Mac,
hope the strange lights of Cal Tech
I love you one & all, hate shock,
bleat the lights of Little Rock
I cannot quite focus
cry the lights of Las Vegas
I am a maid of shots & pills,
swivel the lights of Beverly Hills
Proud & odd, you give me vertigo,
fly the lights of San Francisco
I am all satisfied love & chalk,
mutter the great lights of New York
I have lost your way
say the white lights of Boston
Here comes a scandal to blight you to bed.
‘Here comes a cropper.’ That’s what I said.
Lévanto
7 October 1957
Note to Wang Wei
How could you be so happy, now some thousand years
disheveled, puffs of dust?
It leaves me uneasy at last,
your poems teaze me to the verge of tears
and your fate. It makes me think.
It makes me long for mountains & blue waters.
Makes me wonder how much to allow.
(I’m reconfirming, God of bolts & bangs,
of fugues & bucks, whose rocket burns & sings.)
I wish we could meet for a drink
in a ‘freedom from ten thousand matters.’
Be dust myself pretty soon; not now.
Formal Elegy
[1964]
I
A hurdle of water, and O these waters are cold
(warm at outset) in the dirty end.
Murder on murder on murder, where I stagger,
whiten the good land where we have held out.
These kills were not for loot,
however Byzantium hovers in the mind:
were matters of principle—that’s worst of all—
& fear & crazed mercy.
Ruby, with his mad claim
he shot to spare the Lady’s testifying,
probably is sincere.
No doubt, in his still cell, his mind sits pure.
II
Yes, it looks like a wilderness—pacem appellant.
Honour to Patrolman Tippit. Peace to the rifler’s widow.
Seven, I believe, play fatherless.
III
Scuppered the yachts, the choppers, big cars, jets.
Nobody goes anywhere,
lengthened (days) into TV.
I am four feet long, invisibly.
What in the end will be left of us is a stare,
underwater.
If you want me to join you in confident prayer, let’s
not.
I sidled in & past, gazing upon it,
the bier.
IV
Too Andean hopes, now angry shade.—
I am an automobile. Into me climb
many, and go their ways. Onto him climbed
a-many and went his way.
For a while we seemed to be having a holiday
off from ourselves—ah, but the world is wigs,
as sudden we came to feel
and even hís splendid hair kept not wholly real