The trial of heretics among the columns of stone; Yesterday the theological feuds in the taverns And the miraculous cure at the fountain;
Yesterday the Sabbath of witches; but to-day the struggle. L
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Yesterday the installation of dynamos and turbines, The construction of railways in the colonial desert;
Yesterday the classic lecture On the origin of Mankind. But to-day the struggle. |
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Yesterday the belief in the absolute value of Greek, The fall of the curtain upon the death of a hero;
Yesterday the prayer to the sunset And the adoration of madmen. But to-day the struggle.
As the poet whispers, startled among the pines, Or where the loose waterfall sings compact, or upright
On the crag by the leaning tower: '(
"O my vision. O send me the luck of the sailor." \
And the investigator peers through his instruments i At the inhuman provinces, the virile bacillus
Or enormous Jupiter finished: i
"But the lives of my friends. I inquire. I inquire." j
And the poor in their fireless lodgings, dropping the sheets Of the evening paper: "Our day is our loss, O show us
History the operator, the Organiser. Time the refreshing river." {
And the nations combine each cry, invoking the life J
That shapes the individual belly and orders
The private nocturnal terror: f
"Did you not found the city state of the sponge,
"Raise the vast military empires of the shark And the tiger, establish the robin's plucky canton?
Intervene. 0 descend as a dove or A furious papa or a mild engineer, but descend."
And the life, if it answers at all, replies from the heart And the eyes and the lungs, from the
shops and squares of the city: "O no, I am not the mover; Not to-day; not to you. To you, I'm the
"Yes-man, the bar-companion, the easily-duped; I am whatever you do. I am your vow to be
Good, your humorous story. I am your business voice. I am your marriage.
"What's your proposal? To build the just city? I will. I agree. Or is it the suicide pact, the romantic
Death? Very well, I accept, for I am your choice, your decision. Yes, I am Spain."
Many have heard it on remote peninsulas, On sleepy plains, in the aberrant fishermen's islands
Or the corrupt heart of the city, Have heard and migrated like gulls or the seeds of a flower.
They clung like burrs to the long expresses that lurch Through the unjust lands, through the night,
through the alpine tunnel; They floated over the oceans; They walked the passes. All presented their lives.
On that arid square, that fragment nipped off from hot Africa, soldered so crudely to inventive Europe;
On that tableland scored by rivers, Our thoughts have bodies; the menacing shapes of our fever
Are precise and alive. For the fears which made us respond To the medicine ad. and the brochure of winter cruises
Have become invading battalions; And our faces, the institute-face, the chain-store, the ruin
Are projecting their greed as the firing squad and the bomb. Madrid is the heart. Our moments of tenderness blossom j
As the ambulance and the sandbag; !,
Our hours of friendship into a people's army.
To-morrow, perhaps the future. The research on fatigue And the movements of packers; the gradual exploring of all the
Octaves of radiation; To-morrow the enlarging of consciousness by diet and
breathing.
f
To-morrow the rediscovery of romantic love, The photographing of ravens; all the fun under
Liberty's masterful shadow; To-morrow the hour of the pageant-master and the musician,
The beautiful roar of the chorus under the dome; To-morrow the exchanging of tips on the breeding of terriers,
The eager election of chairmen By the sudden forest of hands. But to-day the struggle.
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To-morrow for the young the poets exploding like bombs, |
The walks by the lake, the weeks of perfect communion;
To-morrow the bicycle races Through the suburbs on summer evenings. But to-day the
struggle.
To-day the deliberate increase in the chances of death, ,.
The conscious acceptance of guilt in the necessary murder;
To-day the expending of powers On the flat ephemeral pamphlet and the boring meeting.
To-day the makeshift consolations: the shared cigarette, The cards in the candlelit barn, and the scraping concert,
The masculine jokes; to-day the Fumbled and unsatisfactory embrace before hurting.
The stars are dead. The animals will not look.
We are left alone with our day, and the time is short, and
History to the defeated May say Alas but cannot help nor pardon.
April 1937
35
Orphus
What does the song hope for? And the moved hands A little way from the birds, the shy, the delightful? To be bewildered and happy, Or most of alI the knowledge of life?
But the beautiful are content with the sharp notes of the air; The warmth is enough. O if winter really Oppose, if the weak snowflake, What will the wish, what will the dance do?
Apri11937
36
Miss Gee
Let me tell you a little story About Miss Edith Gee; She lived in Clevedon Terrace At Number 83.
She'd a slight squint in her left eye, Her lips they were thin and small,
She had narrow sloping shoulders And she had no bust at all.
She'd a velvet hat with trimmings, And a dark-grey serge costume;
She lived in Clevedon Terrace In a small bed-sitting room.
She'd a purple mac for wet days, A green umbrella too to take,
She'd a bicycle with shopping basket And a harsh back-pedal brake.
The Church of Saint Aloysius Was not so very far;
She did a lot of knitting,
Knitting for that Church Bazaar.
Miss Gee looked up at the starlight And said: "Does anyone care
That I live in Clevedon Terrace
On one hundred pounds a year?"
She dreamed a dream one evening That she was the Queen of France
And the Vicar of Saint Aloysius Asked Her Majesty to dance.
But a storm blew down the palace,
She was biking through a field of corn,
And a bull with the face of the Vicar Was charging with lowered horn.
She could feel his hot breath behind her, He was going to overtake;
!
And the bicycle went slower and slower Because of that back-pedal brake.
Summer made the trees a picture, Winter made them a wreck;
She bicycled to the evening service
With her clothes buttoned up to her neck.
She passed by the loving couples, She turned her head away;
She passed by the loving couples And they didn't ask her to stay.
Miss Gee sat down in the side-aisle, She heard the organ play;
And the choir it sang so sweetly At the ending of the day.
Miss Gee knelt down in the side-aisle, She knelt down on her knees;
"Lead me not into temptation
But make me a good girl, please."
The days and nights went by her
Like waves round a Cornish wreck;
She bicycled down to the doctor
With her clothes buttoned up to her neck.
She bicycled down to the doctor, And rang the surgery bell;
"O, doctor, I've a pain inside me, And I don't feel very well."
Doctor Thomas looked her over, And then he looked some more;
Walked over to his wash-basin,
Said: "Why didn't you come before?"
Doctor Thomas sat over his dinner,
Though his wife was waiting to ring;
Rolling his bread into pellets,
Said: "Cancer's a funny thing.
"Nobody knows what the cause is, Though some pretend they do;
It's like some hidden assassin Waiting to strike at you.