and the bird, Deep in the greens and moistures of summer, Sings towards their work.
But here no nymph comes naked to the youngest shepherd, The fountain is deserted, the laurel will not grow; The labyrinth is safe but endless, and broken Is Ariadne's thread.
As deeper in these hands is grooved their fortune: "Lucky Were few, and it is possible that none were loved; And what was godlike in this generation Was never to be born."
April 1936
31
Journey to Iceland
And the traveller hopes: "Let me be far from any Physician"; and the ports have names for the sea; The citiless, the corroding, the sorrow; And North means to alclass="underline" "Reject!"
And the great plains are for ever where the cold fish is hunted, And everywhere; the light birds flicker and flaunt; Under the scolding flag the lover Of islands may see at last,
7
Faintly, his limited hope; and he nears the glitter Of glaciers, the sterile immature mountains intense In the abnormal day of this world, and a river's Fan-like polyp of sand.
Then let the good citizen here find natural marvels: The horse-shoe ravine, the issue of steam from a cleft In the rock, and rocks, and waterfalls brushing the Rocks, and among the rocks birds.
And the student of prose and conduct, places to visit; The site of a church where a bishop was put in a bag, The bath of a great historian, the rock where An outlaw dreaded the dark.
Remember the doomed man thrown by his horse and crying: "Beautiful is the hillside. I will not go";
The old woman confessing: "He that I loved the Best,, to him I was worst,"
For Europe is absent. This is an island and therefore Unreal. And the steadfast affections of its dead may be bought By those whose dreams accuse them of being Spitefully alive, and the pale
From too much passion of kissing feel pure in its deserts. Can they? For the world is, and the present, and the lie. And the narrow bridge over the torrent, And the small farm under the crag
Are the natural setting for the jealousies of a province; And the weak vow of fidelity is formed bythe cairn; And within the indigenous figure on horseback On the bridle path down by the lake
The blood moves also by crooked and furtive inches, Asks all your questions: "Where is the homage? When Shall justice be done? O who is against me? Why am I always alone?"
Present then the world to the world with its mendicant shadow; Let the suits be flash, the Minister of Commerce insane; Let jazz be bestowed on the huts, and the beauty's Set cosmopolitan smile.
For our time has no favourite suburb; no local features Are those of the young for whom all wish to care; The promise is only a promise, the fabulous Country impartially far.
Tears fall in all the rivers. Again the driver Pulls on his gloves and in a blinding snowstorm starts Upon his deadly journey; and again the writer Runs howling to his art.
July 1936
32
"0 who can ever gaze his fill,"
Farmer and fisherman say, "On native shore and local hill, Grudge aching limb or callus on the hand? Fathers, grandfathers stood upon this land, And here the-pilgrims from our loins shall stand." So farmer and fisherman say In their fortunate heyday: But Death's soft answer drifts across Empty catch or harvest loss Or an unlucky May: The earth is an oyster with nothing inside it
Not to be born is the best for man The end of toil is a bailiff's order
Throw down the mattock and dance while you can.
"0 life's too short for friends who share,"
Travellers think in their hearts, "The city's common bed, the air, The mountain bivouac and the bathing beach, Where incidents draw every day from each Memorable gesture and witty speech."
So travellers think in their hearts, Till malice or circumstance parts Them from their constant humour: And slyly Death's coercive rumour In the silence starts: A friend is the old tale of Narcissus
Not to be born is the best for man An active partner in something disgraceful
Change your partner, dance while you can.
"0 stretch your hands across the sea,"
The impassioned lover cries, "Stretch them towards your harm and me. Our grass is green, and sensual our brief bed, The stream sings at its foot, and at its head The mild and vegetarian beasts are fed." So the impassioned lover cries Till his storm of pleasure dies: From the bedpost and the rocks Death's enticing echo mocks, And his voice replies: The greater the love, the more false to its object
Not to be born is the best for man After the kiss comes the impulse to throttle Break the embraces, dance while you can.
"I see the guilty world forgiven," Dreamer and drunkard sing, "The ladders let down out of heaven; The laurel springing from the martyr's blood; The children skipping where the weepers stood; The lovers natural, and the beasts all good." So dreamer and drunkard sing Till day their sobriety bring: Parrotwise with death's reply From whelping fear and nesting lie, Woods and their echoes ring:
The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews
Not to be born is the best for man The second best is a formal order
The dance's pattern, dance while you can. Dance, dance, for the figure is easy
The tune is catching and wilI not stop Dance till the stars come down with the rafters Dance, dance, dance till you drop.
September 1936
33
Lay your sleeping head, my love, Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away !
Individual beauty from \
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeraclass="underline" [
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me I
The entirely beautiful. |
»•
Soul and body have no bounds: f
To lovers as they lie upon 'i
Her tolerant enchanted slope '
In their ordinary swoon, |
Grave the vision Venus sends (
Of supernatural sympathy, -»
Universal love and hope; j While an abstract insight wakes Among the glaciers and the rocks The hermit's sensual ecstasy.
Certainty, fidelity On the stroke of midnight pass Like vibrations of a bell, And fashionable madmen raise Their pedantic boring cry: Every farthing of the cost, All the dreaded cards foretell, Shall be paid, but from this night Not a whisper, not a thought, Not a kiss nor look be lost.
Beauty, midnight, vision dies: Let the winds of dawn that blow Softly round your dreaming head Such a day of sweetness show Eye and knocking heart may bless, Find the mortal world enough; Noons of dryness see you fed By the involuntary powers, Nights of insult let you pass Watched by every human love.
January 1937
34
Spain
Yesterday all the past. The language of size Spreading to China along the trade-routes; the diffusion
Of the counting-frame and the cromlech; Yesterday the shadow-reckoning in the sunny climates.
Yesterday the assessment of insurance by cards, The divination of water; yesterday the invention
Of cartwheels and clocks, the taming of Horses. Yesterday the bustling world of the navigators.
Yesterday the abolition of fairies and giants,
The fortress like a motionless eagle eyeing the valley,
The chapel built in the forest; Yesterday the carving of angels and alarming gargoyles;