There shone the waterlilies, yellow and white.
Deep water and a shelving bank.
Off went our clothes and in we went, all five,
Diving like trout between the lily groves.
The basket had been nobly filled:
Wine and fresh rolls, chicken and pineapple –
Our braggadocio under threat of war.
The fire on which we boiled our kettle
We fed with ling and rotten blackthorn root;
And the coffee tasted memorably of peat.
Two of us might stray off together
But never less than three kept by the fire,
Focus of our uncertain destinies.
We spoke little, our minds in tune –
A sigh or laugh would settle any theme;
The sun so hot it made the rocks quiver.
But when it rolled down level with us,
Four pairs of eyes sought mine as if appealing
For a blind-fate-aversive afterword: –
‘Do you remember the lily lake?
We were all there, all five of us in love,
Not one yet killed, widowed or broken-hearted.’
TO BE CALLED A BEAR
Bears gash the forest trees
To mark the bounds
Of their own hunting grounds;
They follow the wild bees
Point by point home
For love of honeycomb;
They browse on blueberries.
Then should I stare
If I am called a bear,
And it is not the truth?
Unkempt and surly with a sweet tooth
I tilt my muzzle toward the starry hub
Where Queen Callisto guards her cub;
But envy those that here
All winter breathing slow
Sleep warm under the snow,
That yawn awake when the skies clear,
And lank with longing grow
No more than one brief month a year.
A CIVIL SERVANT
While in this cavernous place employed
Not once was I aware
Of my officious other-self
Poised high above me there,
My self reversed, my rage-less part,
A slimy yellowish cone –
Drip, drip; drip, drip – so down the years
I stalagmized in stone.
Now pilgrims to the cave, who come
To chip off what they can,
Prod me with child-like merriment:
‘Look, look! It’s like a man!’
GULLS AND MEN
The naturalists of the Bass Rock
On this vexatious point agree:
That sea-birds of all sorts that flock
About the Bass, repeatedly
Collide in mid-flight,
And neither by design, in play,
Nor by design, in shrewd assault,
But (as these patient watchers say,
Eyes that are seldom proved at fault)
By lack of foresight.
Stupidity, which poor and rich
Hold the recognizance of man,
Precious stupidity, of which
Let him denude himself who can
And stand at God’s height –
Stupidity that brings to birth
More, always more, than to the grave,
The burden of all songs on earth,
And by which men are brave
And women contrite –
This jewel bandied from a cliff
By gulls and razor-bills and such!
Where is man’s vindication if
Perfectibility’s as much
Bird-right as man-right?
MAGICAL POEMS
THE ALLANSFORD PURSUIT
[As danced by North-country witches at their Sabbaths. A restoration of the fragmentary seventeenth-century text.]
Cunning and art he did not lack
But aye her whistle would fetch him back.
O, I shall go into a hare
With sorrow and sighing and mickle care,
And I shall go in the Devil’s name
Aye, till I be fetchèd hame.
– Hare, take heed of a bitch greyhound
Will harry thee all these fells around,
For here come I in Our Lady’s name
All but for to fetch thee hame.
Cunning and art, etc.
Yet I shall go into a trout
With sorrow and sighing and mickle doubt,
And show thee many a crooked game
Ere that I be fetchèd hame.
– Trout, take heed of an otter lank
Will harry thee close from bank to bank,
For here come I in Our Lady’s name
All but for to fetch thee hame.
Cunning and art, etc.
Yet I shall go into a bee
With mickle horror and dread of thee,
Ere that I be fetchèd hame.
– Bee, take heed of a swallow hen
Will harry thee close, both butt and ben,
For here come I in Our Lady’s name
All but for to fetch thee hame.
Cunning and art, etc.
Yet I shall go into a mouse
And haste me unto the miller’s house,
There in his corn to have good game
Ere that I be fetchèd hame.
– Mouse, take heed of a white tib-cat
That never was baulked of mouse or rat,
For I’ll crack thy bones in Our Lady’s name:
Thus shall thou be fetchèd hame.
Cunning and art, etc.
AMERGIN’S CHARM
[The text restored from mediaeval Irish and Welsh variants.]
I am a stag: of seven tines,
I am a flood: across a plain,
I am a wind: on a deep lake,
I am a tear: the Sun lets fall,
I am a hawk: above the cliff,
I am a thorn: beneath the nail,
I am a wonder: among flowers,
I am a wizard: who but I
Sets the cool head aflame with smoke?
I am a spear: that roars for blood,
I am a salmon: in a pool,
I am a lure: from paradise,
I am a hill: where poets walk,
I am a boar: renowned and red,
I am a breaker: threatening doom,
I am a tide: that drags to death,
I am an infant: who but I
Peeps from the unhewn dolmen arch?
I am the womb: of every holt,
I am the blaze: on every hill,
I am the queen: of every hive,
I am the shield: for every head,
I am the grave: of every hope.
THE SIRENS’ WELCOME TO CRONOS
Cronos the Ruddy, steer your boat
Toward Silver Island whence we sing;
Here you shall pass your days.
Through a thick-growing alder-wood
We clearly see, but are not seen,
Hid in a golden haze.
Our hair the hue of barley sheaf,
Our eyes the hue of blackbird’s egg,
Our cheeks like asphodel.
Here the wild apple blossoms yet;
Wrens in the silver branches play
And prophesy you well.
Here nothing ill or harsh is found.
Cronos the Ruddy, steer your boat
Across these placid straits,
With each of us in turn to lie
Taking your pleasure on young grass
That for your coming waits.
No grief nor gloom, sickness nor death,
Disturbs our long tranquillity;
No treachery, no greed.
Compared with this, what are the plains
Of Elis, where you ruled as king?
A wilderness indeed.
A starry crown awaits your h
ead,
A hero feast is spread for you:
Swineflesh, milk and mead.
DICHETAL DO CHENNAIB
‘Today it is by the finger ends that the poet effects the Dichetal do chennaib, and this is the way he does it. When he sees the required person or object before him he at once makes a poem with his finger tips, or in his mind without reflexion, composing and repeating simultaneously.’
(Mediaeval Irish scholiast on the Senchus Mor.)
Tree powers, finger tips,
First pentad of the four,
Discover all your poet asks
Drumming on his brow.
Birch-peg, throbbing thumb,
By power of divination,
Birch, bring him news of love;
Loud knocks the heart.
Rowan-rod, forefinger,
By power of divination,
Unriddle him a riddle;
The key’s cast away.
Ash, middle finger,
By power of divination
Weather-wise, fool otherwise,
Mete him out the winds.
Alder, physic finger,
By power of divination
Diagnose all maladies
Of a doubtful mind.
Willow-wand, earfinger,
By power of divination
Force confessions from the mouth
Of a mouldering corpse.
Finger-ends, five twigs,
Trees, true-divining trees,
Discover all your poet asks
Drumming on his brow.
THE BATTLE OF THE TREES
[Text reassembled and restored from the deliberately confused mediaeval Welsh poem-medley, Câd Goddeu, in the Red Book of Hergest, hitherto regarded as nonsensical.]
The tops of the beech tree
Have sprouted of late,
Are changed and renewed
From their withered state.
When the beech prospers,
Though spells and litanies
The oak tops entangle,
There is hope for trees.
I have plundered the fern,
Through all secrets I spy,
Old Math ap Mathonwy
Knew no more than I.
With nine sorts of faculty
God has gifted me:
I am fruit of fruits gathered
From nine sorts of tree –
Plum, quince, whortle, mulberry,
Raspberry, pear,
Black cherry and white
With the sorb in me share.
From my seat at Fefynedd,
A city that is strong,
I watched the trees and green things
Hastening along.
Retreating from happiness
They would fain be set
In forms of the chief letters
Of the alphabet.
Wayfarers wondered,
Warriors were dismayed
At renewal of conflicts
Such as Gwydion made,
Under the tongue root
A fight most dread,
And another raging
Behind, in the head.
The alders in the front line
Began the affray.
Willow and rowan-tree
Were tardy in array.
The holly, dark green,
Made a resolute stand;
He is armed with many spear points
Wounding the hand.
With foot-beat of the swift oak
Heaven and earth rung;
‘Stout Guardian of the Door’,
His name in every tongue.
Great was the gorse in battle,
And the ivy at his prime;
The hazel was arbiter
At this charmed time.
Uncouth and savage was the fir,
Cruel the ash-tree –
Turns not aside a foot-breadth,
Straight at the heart runs he.
The birch, though very noble,
Armed himself but late:
A sign not of cowardice
But of high estate.
The heath gave consolation
To the toil-spent folk,
The long-enduring poplars
In battle much broke.
Some of them were cast away
On the field of fight
Because of holes torn in them
By the enemy’s might.
Very wrathful was the vine
Whose henchmen are the elms;
I exalt him mightily
To rulers of realms.
Strong chieftains were the blackthorn
With his ill fruit,
The unbeloved whitethorn
Who wears the same suit,
The swift-pursuing reed,
The broom with his brood,
And the furze but ill-behaved
Until he is subdued.
The dower-scattering yew
Stood glum at the fight’s fringe,
With the elder slow to burn
Amid fires that singe,
And the blessed wild apple
Laughing in pride
From the Gorchan of Maelderw
By the rock side.
In shelter linger
Privet and woodbine,
Inexperienced in warfare,
And the courtly pine.
But I, although slighted
Because I was not big,
Fought, trees, in your array
On the field of Goddeu Brig.
THE SONG OF BLODEUWEDD
[Text reassembled and restored from the same poem-medley as the foregoing.]
Not of father nor of mother
Was my blood, was my body.
I was spellbound by Gwydion,
Prime enchanter of the Britons,
When he formed me from nine blossoms,
Nine buds of various kind:
From primrose of the mountain,
Broom, meadow-sweet and cockle,
Together intertwined,
From the bean in its shade bearing
A white spectral army
Of earth, of earthy kind,
From blossoms of the nettle,
Oak, thorn and bashful chestnut –
Nine powers of nine flowers,
Nine powers in me combined,
Nine buds of plant and tree.
Long and white are my fingers
As the ninth wave of the sea.
INTERCESSION IN LATE OCTOBER
How hard the year dies: no frost yet.
On drifts of yellow sand Midas reclines,
Fearless of moaning reed or sullen wave.
Firm and fragrant still the brambleberries.
On ivy-bloom butterflies wag.
Spare him a little longer, Crone,
For his clean hands and love-submissive heart.
THE TETRAGRAMMATON
[A magical gloss on Numbers vi, 23-27.]
Light was his first day of Creation,
Peace after labour was his seventh day,
Life and the Glory are his day of days.
He carved his law on tables of sapphirus,
Jerusalem shines with his pyrope gates,
Four cherubs fetch him amber from the north.
Acacia yields her timber for his ark,
Pomegranate sanctifies his priestly hem,
His hyssop sprinkles blood at every door.
Holy, Holy, Holy, is his name.
NUNS AND FISH
Circling the circlings of their fish
Nuns walk in white and pray;
For he is chaste as they,
Who was dark-faced and hot in Silvia’s day,
And in his pool drowns each unspoken wish.
THE DESTROYER
Swordsman of the narrow lips,
Narrow hips and murderous mind
Fenced with chariots and ships,
By your joculators hailed
The mailed wonder of mankind,
F
ar to westward you have sailed.
You it was dared seize the throne
Of a blown and amorous prince
Destined to the Moon alone,
A lame, golden-heeled decoy,
Joy of hens that gape and wince
Inarticulately coy.
You who, capped with lunar gold
Like an old and savage dunce,
Let the central hearth go cold,
Grinned, and left us here your sword
Warden of sick fields that once
Sprouted of their own accord.
Gusts of laughter the Moon stir
That her Bassarids now bed
With the ignoble usurer
While an ignorant pale priest
Rides the beast with a man’s head
To her long-omitted feast.
RETURN OF THE GODDESS
Under your Milky Way
And slow-revolving Bear
Frogs from the alder thicket pray
In terror of your judgement day,
Loud with repentance there.
The log they crowned as king
Grew sodden, lurched and sank;
An owl floats by on silent wing,
Dark water bubbles from the spring;
They invoke you from each bank.
At dawn you shall appear,
A gaunt red-leggèd crane,
You whom they know too well for fear,
Lunging your beak down like a spear
To fetch them home again.
Sufficiunt
Tecum,
Caryatis,
Domnia
Quina.
From Poems and Satires 1951
(1951)
THE WHITE GODDESS
All saints revile her, and all sober men
Ruled by the God Apollo’s golden mean –
In scorn of which we sailed to find her
In distant regions likeliest to hold her
Whom we desired above all things to know,
Sister of the mirage and echo.
It was a virtue not to stay,
To go our headstrong and heroic way
Seeking her out at the volcano’s head,
Among pack ice, or where the track had faded
Beyond the cavern of the seven sleepers:
Whose broad high brow was white as any leper’s,
Whose eyes were blue, with rowan-berry lips,
With hair curled honey-coloured to white hips.
Green sap of Spring in the young wood a-stir
Will celebrate the Mountain Mother,
And every song-bird shout awhile for her;
But we are gifted, even in November
Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense
Of her nakedly worn magnificence
We forget cruelty and past betrayal,