Cleaned out a damaged shaft by hand, clutching
The winch the gale would tear them from; one died
During a storm, the fells impassable,
Not athis village, but in wooden shape
Through long abandoned levels nosed his way
And in his final valley went to ground.
Go home, now, stranger, proud of your young stock, Stranger, turn back again, frustrate and vexed: This land, cut off, will not communicate, Be no accessory content to one Aimless for faces rather there than here. Beams from your car may cross a bedroom wall, They wake no sleeper; you may hear the wind Arriving driven from the ignorant sea To hurt itself on pane, on bark of elm Where sap unbaffled rises, being Spring; But seldom this. Near you, taller than grass, Ears poise before decision, scenting danger.
August 1927
From the very first coming down
Into a new valley with a frown
Because of the sun and a lost way,
You certainly remain: to-day
I, crouching behind a sheep-pen, heard
Travel across a sudden bird,
Cry out against the storm, and found
The year's arc a completed round
And love's worn circuit re-begun,
Endless with no dissenting turn.
Shall see, shall pass, as we have seen
The swallow on the tile, Spring's green
Preliminary shiver, passed
A solitary truck, the last
Of shunting in the Autumn. But now
To interrupt the homely brow,
Thought warmed to evening through and through
Your letter comes, speaking as you,
Speaking of much but not to come.
Nor speech is close nor fingers numb, If love not seldom has received An unjust answer, was deceived. I, decent with the seasons, move Different or with a different love, Nor question overmuch the nod, The stone smile of this country god That never was more reticent, Always afraid to say more than it meant.
December 1927
Control of the passes was, he saw, the key To this new district, but who would get it? He, the trained spy, had walked into the trap For a bogus guide, seduced with the old tricks.
At Greenhearth was a fine site for a dam And easy power, had they pushed the rail Some stations nearer. They ignored his wires. The bridges were unbuilt and trouble coming.
The street music seemed gracious now to one For weeks up in the desert. Woken by water Running away in the dark, he often had Reproached the night for a companion Dreamed of already. They would shoot, of course, Parting easily who were never joined.
January 1928
4
Taller to-day, we remember similar evenings,
Walking together in the windless orchard
Where the brook runs over the gravel, far from the glacier.
Again in the room with the sofa hiding the grate, Look down to the river when the rain is over, See him turn to the window, hearing our last Of Captain Ferguson.
It is seen how excellent hands have turned to commonness.
One staring too long, went blind in a tower,
One sold all his manors to fight, broke through, and faltered.
Nights come bringing the snow, and the dead howl Under the headlands in their windy dwelling Because the Adversary put too easy questions On lonely roads.
But happy now, though no nearer each other, We see the farms lighted all along the valley; Down at the mill-shed the hammering stops And men go home.
Noises at dawn will bring
Freedom for some, but not this peace
No bird can contradict: passing, but is sufficient now
For something fulfilled this hour, loved or endured.
March 1928
5
Watch any day his nonchalant pauses, see His dextrous handling of a wrap as he Steps after into cars, the beggar's envy.
!
"There is a free one," many say, but err. He is not that returning conqueror,
Nor ever the poles' circumnavigator. 1
But poised between shocking falls on razor-edge !
Has taught himself this balancing subterfuge Of the accosting profile, the erect carriage.
The song, the varied action of the blood Would drown the warning from the iron wood Would cancel the inertia of the buried:
Travelling by daylight on from house to house The longest way to the intrinsic peace, With love's fidelity and with love's weakness.
March 1929
Will you turn a deaf ear To what they said on the shore, Interrogate their poises In their rich houses;
Of stork-legged heaven-reachers Of the compulsory touchers The sensitive amusers And masked amazers?
Yet wear no ruffian badge Nor lie behind the hedge Waiting with bombs of conspiracy In arm-pit secrecy;
Carry no talisman For germ or the abrupt pain Needing no concrete shelter Nor porcelain filter.
Will you wheel death anywhere In his invalid chair, With no affectionate instant But his attendant?
For to be held for friend By an undeveloped mind To be joke for children is Death's happiness:
Whose anecdotes betray His favourite colour as blue Colour of distant bells And boys' overalls.
His tales of the bad lands Disturb the sewing hands; Hard to be superior On parting nausea;
To accept the cushions from Women against martyrdom, Yet applauding the circuits Of racing cyclists.
Never to make signs Fear neither maelstrom nor zones Salute with soldiers' wives When the flag waves;
Remembering there is . No recognised gift for this; No income, no bounty, No promised country.
But to see brave sent home Hermetically sealed with shame And cold's victorious wrestle With molten metal.
A neutralising peace i
And an average disgrace Are honour to discover For later other.
September 1929
Sir, no man's enemy, forgiving all
But will his negative inversion, be prodigaclass="underline"
Send to us power and light, a sovereign touch
Curing the intolerable neural itch,
The exhaustion of weaning, the liar's quinsy,
And the distortions of ingrown virginity.
Prohibit sharply the rehearsed response
And gradually correct the coward's stance;
Cover in time with beams those in retreat
That, spotted, they turn though the reverse were great;
Publish each healer that in city lives
Or country houses at the end of drives;
Harrow the house of the dead; look shining at
New styles of architecture, a change of heart.
October 1929
8
I
It was Easter as I walked in the public gardens Hearing the frogs exhaling from the pond, Watching traffic of magnificent cloud Moving without anxiety on open sky— Season when lovers and writers find An altering speech for altering things, An emphasis on new names, on the arm A fresh hand with fresh power. But thinking so I came at once Where solitary man sat weeping on a bench, Hanging his head down, with his mouth distorted Helpless and ugly as an embryo chicken.
So I remember all of those whose death
Is necessary condition of the season's setting forth,
Who sorry in this time look only back
To Christmas intimacy, a winter dialogue
Fading in silence, leaving them in tears.
And recent particulars come to mind:
The death by cancer of a once hated master,
A friend's analysis of his own failure,
Listened to at intervals throughout the winter
At different hours and in different rooms.
But always with success of others for comparison,
The happiness, for instance, of my friend Kurt Groote,
Absence of fear in Gerhart Meyer
From the sea, the truly strong man.
A 'bus ran home then, on the public ground Lay fallen bicycles like huddled corpses: No chattering valves of laughter emphasised Nor the swept gown ends of a gesture stirred The sessile hush; until a sudden shower Fell willing into grass and closed the day, Making choice seem a necessary error.