For gotten coin, or love the able semen –
See! the red timepiece on a damsel’s cage
Ticks to the doomsday crack. Nor wheel nor rack
Can turn or break the brain – O island bitten
With bays that burn the brains of boys away
No laurels cast their shade across the brine
No waders dare the knee-deep estuary.
The biscuit-ship lies breathing in the bay
And every weevil cries ‘aloft! aloft!’
Dry as a dove-cot in the summer evil
Love-bound and helpless in a loft of homers
How was it when we were not – how indeed?
The seasons press the age of apples homeward
And every wrinkle whets the scythe of time
Ah! make me lucid lady! make me…
Do your own dirty work muttered the Countess of Groan.
(April–May 1949)
How White and Scarlet Is that Face
How white and scarlet is that face!
Who knows, in some unusual place
The coloured heroes are alight
With faces made of red and white.
(June 1949)
O Here It Is and There It Is…
O here it is! and there it is!
And no-one knows whose share it is!
Nor dares to stake a claim –
But we have seen it in the air,
A fairy, like a William pear –
With but itself to blame.
A thug it is! and smug it is;
And like a floating pug it is,
Above the orchard trees.
It has no right – no right at all
To soar above the orchard wall,
With chilblains on its knees.
(1949)
Little Spider
Little spider
Spide-ing sadly
In the webly
Light of leaves!
What’s inside a
Spide’s mentadly
Makes its hebly
Full of grieves?
Little spider
Legged and lonely
In the bonely
Way of thieves
Where’s the fly-da
On the phone-ly?
(1949)
‘It Worries Me to Know’
‘It worries me to know,’ she cried,
Her voice both sharp and high:
Her dress was yellow as the hide
Of lions in July –
‘It worries me to know…’ she cried,
And then she rolled her eyes aside.
Her friend (a cloudy-looking man)
Began to tap his shoe.
His collar was of astrakhan,
His hair and beard was too.
‘What is it worries you to know?’
He said in accents lush and low.
But she had rolled her eyes aside
As though she were not able
To quell an inward rise of tide
And feared to slip her cable –
He turned to where her eyes were bent
Upon a golden ornament.
‘Talk not of Fancy, friend, to me,
Though you are old and wise.
My trouble is with what I see,
That’s where the mischief lies.
It worries me to know…’ and then
‘It worries me…’ she said again.
‘Perhaps if you could amplify
Your statement, child, I could
Draw from my wealth of wisdom I
Have never understood,
And juggling to and fro with it
Could give some angle that would fit.’
‘O you are Old and full of years!
But haven’t got a clue.
What use is solace to the fears
My soul is stumbling through.
Even that ornament of gold
Is quite enough to turn me cold.’
‘Your thwarted and convulsive thought
Is mere child’s-play to me
These mental wanderings are nought
But biblic fantasy.
You are a whimsy thing and do
Not understand what’s good for you.’
‘It’s you who’ll never understand.
You’re ancient, cold and blind!’
He heard her turn, then felt a hand
Pluck at his socks behind.
Apparently she’s on the floor,
He thought – What next? I’ll speak to her.
From Figures of Speech. The Key to the drawing is on p. 234.
‘Child, child, child, child, child, child,’ he said,
‘You must not be so prone
To scoff at someone else’s head
Because it’s not your own.
Your wishful dreams are gaunt and blue –
Your hand has blood upon it too.’
‘My hand has blood upon it! O
What grizzly work is this!
What do you mean? It’s white as snow –
The kind a prince might kiss.’
‘A Figure, dear – of Speech,’ he said.
It doesn’t mean your hands are red.’
‘I’ve always hated them, and now
You’ve brought them up again!’
‘Brought what, my dear, I’ll take a vow
I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Those Figures, sir, of Speech,’ she cried,
Her eyes as wild as they were wide.
‘I’ve known them all, and exorcized
As many as I could.
I’ve had the priest and he advised
I chopped down half the wood –
A lovely wood of oak it was
Whose branches creaked against my house.
‘But it has gone and for a time
The Figures let me be.
Their Speech was all about a crime
I did when I was three.
And now you’ve let them loose once more.’
She rose and wandered to the door.
‘O I must leave you now, and leave
You now for all my days.
Adieu. Adieu. My heart shall grieve
In multitudinous ways.
Though you may have your theories, I
Shall nurse a child named poetry.
‘And those dynamic things that lie
Within a carrot’s brain –
The passion of the wormwood fly
That grows against the grain –
If you were such as I you’d sing
The praises of a buzzard’s wing.
‘I will away! You are not of
My calibre or clay.
You grope down the provincial groove
And theorize all day.
You’re old and clinical and can’t
Accept me as a Simple Plant.’
There was no answer, for alas
The wise and cloudy man
Had, like a story come to pass
Directly it began,
And faded gently through the door
And she was left to hold the floor.
She held it bravely, till the pain
Of blisters at her palm
Forced her to leave its oaken grain
And wander to the farm.
The cattle moo’d, the byres were clean
But O, what did their psyche mean?
All flowers that die: all hopes that fade:
All birds that cease to cry:
All beds that vanish once they’re made
To leave us high and dry –
All these and many more float past
Across the roofs of Gormenghast.
(c. 1949)
A-Lolling on the Shores of Old Hawaii
A-lolling on the shores of old Hawaii,
Never tryee
To understand.
The moon is up above us in the sky-ee –
As planned.
(1953)
O’er Seas that Have No Beaches
O’er seas that have no beaches
To end their waves upon,
I floated with twelve peaches,
A sofa, and a swan.
With flying-fish above me
And with cat-fish all around,
There was no one to love me
Nor hope of being found –
When, on the blurred horizon,
(So endlessly a-drip),
I saw – all of a sudden!
No sign… of any… ship.
(1953)
From Figures of Speech. The Key to the drawing is on p. 234.
The Bullfrog and the Flies
Once upon the Banks of a Green Stream
That was full of water… (wet water…)
There sat a Bullfrog;
And he was Vain as Vanity itself
And he had no rival.
And as for his eyes – they rolled;
And as for his ears – he hadn’t any;
And as for his Voice – it was ripe as thunder!
And he loved Flies.
But his love was not the right kind of love
For he loved them only to eat them up!
But there was one Fly –
One especial Fly –
Who was the King of all the Flies,
(That lived on the banks of the Green Stream
That was full of water… (wet water)).
O yes… he was King of them all,
Because of his brains;
And his speech
And his brains
And his beauty
And his brains
And he called for a Meeting.
‘Ladies and Gentlemen,’ he began
(And his voice was sharper than needles)
‘Stop buzzing and listen to me.’
And all the flies clapped their hands.
‘No! no! not yet!’ said the King Fly,
‘Stand still and be quiet and Listen!’
And they became quiet, and they listened,
And all that they could hear
Was the Bullfrog in the next field
Who was hungry for more Flies.
‘I have had an idea,’ said the King Fly at last.
‘Yes! yes!’ cried the Flies.
‘We shall whizz to the thornbush now!
Where the bright thorns grow.’
‘Yes… yes…’
‘Break off the thorns and stick them on our noses.’
‘What for?’ (said the Flies).
‘For to puncture him with,’ said the King Fly.
‘After all… he has eaten up nearly all our friends.’
‘Just Listen to him.’
‘We look like unicorns!’ said a Fly-Voice.
And they did: with thorns on their noses and their brows.
‘Are we all ready?’ said the King of the Flies.
‘Then charge!’
And all at once they whizzed through the air
And pierced the Bullfrog in a hundred places
So that he exploded!
And there was no more Bullfrog to be seen.
Only his favourite patch of wet grass
Where he used to sit
On the banks of the Green Stream
And eat flies.
(1955)
The Rhino and the Lark
Once upon a time there was a Rhino –
Which is short for Rhinoserous –
And he had a Voice –
And what a Voice!!
It seemed to be made out of Rust
And grit and black sand,
And he was un-loved. (No wonder.)
Except for one little creature who had faith in him
And this little creature was a Skylark
Who wanted to save him from himself.
‘Look here, my old wrinkled friend,’
Said the Skylark –
‘We must defeat your horrid temper, mustn’t we?’
‘I don’t know,’ said the Rhino.
From Figures of Speech. The Key to the drawing is on p. 234.
‘Come, come, we can talk more sweetly than that, can’t we?’
Said the Skylark.
‘I don’t feel sweet,’ said the Rhino.
‘You certainly don’t look sweet,’ said the Skylark.
‘But you must try.’
‘I have been trying. And it’s not fair,’ said the Rhino.
‘Why have you stuck that apple on the horn that’s on my nose,
Eh! Just to tease me? Eh?’
‘Because you love the taste of apples, don’t you?’
‘Supposing I do?’
‘And it’s made you very savage and horrid, hasn’t it?’
‘Supposing it has?’
‘Well you know the way you try to bite it
With your savage mouth? And how you can’t quite reach it?’
‘Well?’
‘Well I have a plan. A plan to make you patient.
Are you listening?’
‘Supposing I am?’
‘Then pay attention,’ said the Skylark,
‘Or you’ll never have the beautiful red apple.
This is my plan.’
‘Well it’s this.
Every morning when you wake up you will find a fresh green apple
Stuck on the horn of your nose.’
‘What for?’
‘To make you control yourself
And to make you have loving thoughts.’
‘Urgh,’ said the Rhino.
‘Then at luncheon time,’ continued the Skylark,
‘I will pluck the apple off your nose
(If you’ve been calm and quiet)
And you can eat it.’
‘Oh.’
‘But if you’ve been beastly and rude
I will leave the apple on your nose
Where you can’t reach it.
Do you understand?’
‘And how long will this go on for?’ said the Rhino.
‘It’ll make me look so beastly foolish.’
‘As soon as you’ve been gentle,’ said the Skylark.
‘After all I’m gentle, aren’t I?
And I’m not nearly as big as you.’
‘I don’t think your plan is very gentle,’ said the Rhino.
‘And what has my size got to do with it?
But – I like apples.’
And do you know that Rhino did his best!
And his temper got sweeter and sweeter
Until he no longer had to have an apple on his nose at all.
How nice if all the other Rhinos in the world got gentler and gentler
But I’m afraid they don’t.
In fact most of them get worse and worse.
(c. 1955)
Richly in the Unctuous Dell
Richly in the Unctuous Dell
Where the dryads wallow,
Not so dry as here-to-fore
Half inclined to go before
Half inclined to follow
There the Patagonian queen,
Glimmering like batter,
Twice as rank as yesterday
Half inclined to melt away
Says it doesn’t matter.
(early to mid 1950s)
Manifold Basket’s Song
Tiddle-ti-pompa,
Tiddle-ti-pompa,
Tiddle-ti-which-way,
Tiddle-ti-pom –
Dottle your eye-tles
Crossle your tee-tles
Bottle your beetles
Tiddle-ti-pom…
(early to mid 1950s)
With a One, Two, Up!
With a one, two, up!
And a three, four, up!
Happy in the hayloft!
Happy as a pup!
With a four, five, down!
And a six, seven, down!
Plaster’d in the country,
Bott
led in the town.
(c. 1953–7)
In Ancient Days
In ancient days, oh in ancient days,
In the land of Clink-a-doodle-ding,
I was warned by the Bishop for to mind my ways,
But I was a younker and the time was the spring,
So what could a younker-doodle do?
With his cod on fire and the sky so blue –
So what could a younker-doodle do?
(c. 1953–7)
O Keep Away
O keep away
However much
The crops may need
Your lachrymose
And gentle touch
O you sweet rain
You irritating, melancholy rain
O keep away
However grey
The forecast is
This golden day
O you sweet rain,
You irritating, melancholy rain
(c. 1953–7)
O Darling When a Story’s Done
Sally: O darling when a story’s done,
Can we return to Chapter One
And find it green as grass?
Undertakers: And find it green as grass