• • Sestina – Algernon Charles Swinburne
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• • May 2007

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At one end of the peculiar table Jeremy
sat, and talked about poetry to Carl.
He was a bit of a nutter. Next to him, Sheila
was eating a farinaceous dish. Lewis
listened intently to the words of Ursula.
They were all drinking cider. And so was Jane.

There was something quiet and achieved about Jane—
of course she was a good deal older than Lewis—
and she hadn’t got the manic quality of Jeremy
nor did she understand engineering, like Carl,
or the details of catering, which obviously Ursula
had at her fingertips. They all liked Sheila.

They all agreed there was no one like Sheila
for lovability. Music to Jeremy
was the breath of life. Often, to Carl,
he would play his autoharp—this delighted Ursula
and certainly caused some pleasure to Jane—
sitting the meadow with the cows and Lewis.

‘Lewis?’ said Jane. ‘He’s a dark horse, Lewis!’
‘You never know what he’s thinking!’ cried Sheila.
‘He’s a very nice boy’ was the verdict of Ursula;
he seemed more ordinary to Carl and Jeremy.
He was fond of Milton (he once told Jane)—
but only modern poets appealed to Carl.

There was a hint of dark Satanic mills about Carl,
a contained intelligence; no fly-by-night Jeremy,
he hadn’t the open character of Ursula,
in this respect he was more like Jane
or the sheep and the cattle. And only Sheila
seemed to understand him—except for Ursula.

There was a bardic bravery about Ursula.
Not even Lewis, or Jane, or Sheila
had her bravura—in the words of Lewis
‘She is the mother of us all!’ For Jane
Ursula’s writing was the tops, and Carl
confessed he was staggered, and even Jeremy,

though he liked Carl and respected Jane
and admired Lewis (and the work of Sheila),
said how he, Jeremy, really worshipped Ursula.

Schooldays were centred round the tallest spire
In England, whose chime-pealing ruled our lives,
Spent in the confines of a leafy Close:
Chimes that controlled the hours we spent in singing,
Entered the classrooms to restrict our lessons
And punctuated the half-times of games.

The gravel courtyard where we played rough games
During the early break or after singing
In the Cathedral circled by the Close
And dominated by its soaring spire
Saw many minor dramas of our lives.
Such playgrounds predetermine later lessons.

Daily dividing services, meals, lessons,
Musical time resounded through the Close,
Metered existence like the rules of games.
What single cord connects most schoolboys’ lives?
Not many consist first of stints of singing.
Our choral rearing paralleled a spire.

Reaching fourteen within sight of that spire
Unconsciously defined our growing lives,
As music’s discipline informed our lessons.
We grew aware of how all round the Close
Households were run on lines that like our singing
Were regulated as communal games.

We sensed the serious need for fun and games,
What funny folk can populate a Close.
We relished festive meals as we did singing.
Beauty of buildings balanced boring lessons.
We looked relieved at times up at the spire
Balanced serene above parochial lives.

Grubby and trivial though our schoolboy lives
Were as all are, we found in singing
That liberation and delight result from lessons.

Under the ageless aegis of the spire
Seasonal feasts were ever-renewed games.
Box-hedges, limes and lawns line Sarum Close.

Choristers in that Close lead lucky lives.
They are taught by a spire and learn through singing
That hard lessons can be enjoyed like games.

Horse, our poor creature, we treat as if elemental,
Stupidly. This is unfeeling. True, he is fabulous;
Goes, though, not like the wind, whatever his mettle;
Nor, much as he ripples in motion, is he conditioned
By a sky-god’s whims, like a river. Not there did the Norman
Culture, that made him its talisman, ground its attachment.

Rather, he was their technology; unsentimental
Reasons made barons and bishops, bloodthirsty and emulous,
Curry, caparison into the finest fettle
Him their scout-car, halftrack, their efficient
Weapon-carrier. Dearer to them than Woman
The destrier trampling the Legate’s obstructive parchment.

Why then so often, seeking a type for the gentle
And powerful, such as we once were, needing a stimulus
Even to think of that humanness lost, do we settle
On him, on the horse? Why are our horses commissioned
To stand in for what we think best in ourselves, for a yeoman
Sturdiness, or knighthood blurred in a lozengy hatchment?

Is it their having, except for holiday rental
Like jeeps or a sand-yacht, vanished, that now they compel us
Only as fluid, their hoofbeats soft as a petal
Floating to earth on a moonlit hill? A deficient
Sense for the civic has exiled even the Roman
Charger, all laurel and bronze, to eerie detachment.

This has us craning, to trace on a pock-marked lintel
The arms of Sir Hugo, the psychopath. Miscreant, infamous
Cavalier, his horsemanship counts for little
To earn him remission; yet that, no more, was sufficient.
Time, the sad torrent, has washed off his vices, and no man
Builds jetty or pier in that current, or measures its catchment.

There has to be reason why beings not elemental,
Divine, nor supernatural, soothe us as fabulous
Creatures moving among us. A horse of mettle
Or merest Dobbin ought to find us conditioned
To a sorry awe. Call it the flower of Norman
Or Saracen chivalry, this was a noble attachment.

I want to go up the river road
Even by starlight or moonlight
Or no light at all, past the Parakino bridge,
Past Atene where the tarseal ends,
Past Koroniti where cattle run in a paddock,
Past Operiki, the pa that was never taken,

Past Matahiwi, Ranana, till the last step is taken
And I can lie down at the end of the road
Like an old horse in his own paddock
Among the tribe of Te Hau. Then my heart will be light
To be in the place where the hard road ends
And my soul can walk the rainbow bridge

That binds earth to sky. In his cave below the bridge,
Where big eels can be taken
With the hinaki, and the ends
Of willow branches trail from the edge of the road
Onto the water, the dark one rises to the light,
The taniwha who guards the tribal paddock

And saves men from drowning. Down to Poutini’s paddock
The goats come in winter, and trucks cross the bridge
In the glitter of evening light
Loaded with coils of wire, five dogs, and wood
they have taken
From a rotten fence. On the bank above the road
At the marae my journey ends

Among the Maori houses. Indeed when my life ends
I hope they find room in the paddock
Beside the meeting house, to put my bones on a road
That goes to the Maori dead. A gap I cannot bridge,
Here in the town, like a makutu has taken
Strength from my body and robbed my soul of light,

Because this blind porangi gets his light
From Hiruharama. The darkness never ends
In Pharaoh’s kingdom. God, since you have taken
Man’s flesh, grant me a hut in the Maori paddock
To end my life in, with their kindness as my bridge,
Those friends who took me in from the road

Long ago. Their tears are the road of light
I need to bridge your darkness when the world ends.
To the paddock of Te Whiti let this man be taken.

In the dream I am lost in a Maori graveyard
Among the dunes of sand,
And like a wave of black water
The makutu hits me. No terror like this,
Latrines, ovens, graves, a woman’s anger
Splitting my skull with a stone axe,

Yet it is Te Whiro who wields the axe
Or else te taipo, the masters of the boneyard
Where I have to walk. Why should the Maori anger
Rise from the roots of the grass and the sand
To choke the soul of this
Old pakeha? To drown in deep water

Is the fate of those who go into the water
Of the marae. I know why the axe
Is raised above my skull. I know why this
Dream comes out of Te Whiro’s yard
To flatten a house built on sand
With the storm of an old anger,

And I accept the anger
As drowning men open their lungs to the water
Because the battle among the dunes of sand
Is won by losing it. I know the axe
Of the makutu was made in a yard
Where warriors drank black water before this

For their mother the land. The towns built over this
Black bog of a people’s anger,
Sweet-shop, jail and railway yard,
Will fall like leaves into the water
When willows are chopped by the farmer’s axe.
Blood swallowed by the sand

Rises again out of the sand.
On an old pakeha’s head let this
Makutu break its axe,
Since anger breeds anger.
The one who walked the water
Has no voice in Te Whiro’s yard

Except that the yard’s dark sand
Should drink down like water this
Old man’s blood, and aroha, not anger, blunt the axe.

Swept clean of leaves, with stripped boughs, the garden
Lifts black arms to the wan sky of winter,
Mater Dolorosa: the orchid house
Shuttered, and no birds by the pond’s clear glass
Where the boy and dolphin stand, to summer constant
Rapt yet in the daze of an archaic dream.

Here was my hope planted, the virgin dream
Of evergreen amazement, a snakeless garden.
By my own fault, to true love unconstant
I chart now an iron graph of winter;
Or, Hans Andersen’s mermaid, walk on glass,
On thorns, hot ploughshares, through a charnel house.

But you, stranger, in my body’s house
Sheltered, dreaming your deepwater dream,
Who make my shape strange in a looking-glass:
You, curled in the dusk of the first garden,
Forgive me if I call your weight a winter,
Castaway, to an older sun constant.

The flesh may be infirm, the spirit constant,
Though none know this in parlour or priest’s house.
You, conceived in icy absence, winter
Of sight, sound, touch, are substance of that dream
I dreamt when first I walked an autumn garden
And foresaw lasting joy in a lying glass.

Were he love’s kind, to see without a glass,
He would be constant yet to me inconstant,
Forgive as one did in Gethsemane’s garden;
But here are shapes lewd in a haunted house
I am alone, locked in the glacial dream
Of those who wake and know the world’s winter.

Lie still, child of unfaith—soon comes Winter,
Though you fear nothing, in the womb’s dark glass
Withheld: storm, tremor, cannot shake your dream;
Nor shall drug shatter. To your own law constant,
Fly whorled in amber, sleep—to a warring house
You will wake soon, and an unfruitful garden.

—I had not thought, garden, that I would winter
In the ill planet’s house. Prediction’s glass
Is flawed by our inconstant waking dream.

LOQUITUR: En Bertrans de Born.
Dante Alighieri put this man in hell for that he was a stirrer up of strife.
Eccovi!
Judge ye!
Have I dug him up again?
The scene is at his castle, Altaforte. “Papiols” is his jongleur. “The Leopard,” the device of Richard Coeur de Lion.

I
Damn it all! all this our South stinks peace.
You whoreson dog, Papiols, come! Let’s to music!
I have no life save when the swords clash.
But ah! when I see the standards gold, vair, purple, opposing
And the broad fields beneath them turn crimson,
Then howls my heart nigh mad with rejoicing.

II
In hot summer have I great rejoicing
When the tempests kill the earth’s foul peace,
And the lightnings from black heav’n flash crimson,
And the fierce thunders roar me their music
And the winds shriek through the clouds mad, opposing,
And through all the riven skies God’s swords clash.

III
Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash!
And the shrill neighs of destriers in battle rejoicing,
Spiked breast to spiked breast opposing!
Better one hour’s stour than a year’s peace
With fat boards, bawds, wine and frail music!
Bah! there’s no wine like the blood’s crimson!

IV
And I love to see the sun rise blood-crimson.
And I watch his spears through the dark clash
And it fills all my heart with rejoicing
And pries wide my mouth with fast music
When I see him so scorn and defy peace,
His lone might ‘gainst all darkness opposing.

V
The man who fears war and squats opposing
My words for stour, hath no blood of crimson
But is fit only to rot in womanish peace
Far from where worth’s won and the swords clash
For the death of such sluts I go rejoicing;
Yea, I fill all the air with my music.

VI
Papiols, Papiols, to the music!
There’s no sound like to swords swords opposing,
No cry like the battle’s rejoicing
When our elbows and swords drip the crimson
And our charges ‘gainst “The Leopard’s” rush clash.
May God damn for ever all who cry “Peace!”

VII
And let the music of the swords make them crimson!
Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash!
Hell blot black for always the thought “Peace!”

Speakin’ in general, I’ave tried ‘em all
The ‘appy roads that take you o’er the world.
Speakin’ in general, I’ave found them good
For such as cannot use one bed too long,
But must get ‘ence, the same as I’ave done,
An’ go observin’ matters till they die.

What do it matter where or ‘ow we die,
So long as we’ve our ‘ealth to watch it all –
The different ways that different things are done,
An’ men an’ women lovin’ in this world;
Takin’ our chances as they come along,
An’ when they ain’t, pretendin’ they are good?

In cash or credit — no, it aren’t no good;
You’ve to ‘ave the ‘abit or you’d die,
Unless you lived your life but one day long,
Nor didn’t prophesy nor fret at all,
But drew your tucker some’ow from the world,
An’ never bothered what you might ha’ done.

But, Gawd, what things are they I’aven’t done?
I’ve turned my ‘and to most, an’ turned it good,
In various situations round the world
For ‘im that doth not work must surely die;
But that’s no reason man should labour all
‘Is life on one same shift — life’s none so long.

Therefore, from job to job I’ve moved along.
Pay couldn’t ‘old me when my time was done,
For something in my ‘ead upset it all,
Till I’ad dropped whatever ’twas for good,
An’, out at sea, be’eld the dock-lights die,
An’ met my mate — the wind that tramps the world!

It’s like a book, I think, this bloomin, world,
Which you can read and care for just so long,
But presently you feel that you will die
Unless you get the page you’re readi’n’ done,
An’ turn another — likely not so good;
But what you’re after is to turn’em all.

Gawd bless this world! Whatever she’oth done –
Excep’ When awful long — I’ve found it good.
So write, before I die, “‘E liked it all!”

September rain falls on the house.
In the failing light, the old grandmother
sits in the kitchen with the child
beside the Little Marvel Stove,
reading the jokes from the almanac,
laughing and talking to hide her tears.

She thinks that her equinoctial tears
and the rain that beats on the roof of the house
were both foretold by the almanac,
but only known to a grandmother.
The iron kettle sings on the stove.
She cuts some bread and says to the child,

It’s time for tea now; but the child
is watching the teakettle’s small hard tears
dance like mad on the hot black stove,
the way the rain must dance on the house.
Tidying up, the old grandmother
hangs up the clever almanac

on its string. Birdlike, the almanac
hovers half open above the child,
hovers above the old grandmother
and her teacup full of dark brown tears.
She shivers and says she thinks the house
feels chilly, and puts more wood in the stove.

It was to be, says the Marvel Stove.
I know what I know, says the almanac.
With crayons the child draws a rigid house
and a winding pathway. Then the child
puts in a man with buttons like tears
and shows it proudly to the grandmother.

But secretly, while the grandmother
busies herself about the stove,
the little moons fall down like tears
from between the pages of the almanac
into the flower bed the child
has carefully placed in the front of the house.

Time to plant tears, says the almanac.
The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove
and the child draws another inscrutable house.

Evenings, as the sun sank into darkness
and the unfurling Atlantic ocean
tossed foam carelessly upon the sand,
sadly depositing the detritus of life;
entangled seaweed and rotting wood;
I would think of my home in Indiana.

The Costa del Luz is unlike these fields in Indiana
where the corn rattles in the late summer darkness.
The maple and poplar leaves twist in the woods,
mediums for a ghostly wind that hisses across the ocean
taking small scuttling creatures, to which it gave life,
and leaving them, curtly, upon the sand.

Buried within the slowly shifting sand
piled in my parents’ back yard in Indiana,
a small plastic warrior waives his life
in the engulfing darkness.
“I’d like to see, just once, the ocean,”
he thinks, nestled there against rotting wood.

Meanwhile, another small warrior with a scarred red coat
showing a heart of wood
has at least seen the ocean,
has stared out, past the littered sand,
dreaming of a toy box in Indiana.
The gouges and dents of twenty years fade in the darkness
as he contemplates life.

Millions of years ago, these southern hills teemed with life.
Not the coyote or rabbit scouting the woods
for food or prey in the darkness,
but smaller, meaner creatures dreaming of sun and sand,
and of standing erect, and walking through the trees in Indiana,
long after it is to be unblanketed by the ocean.

So now, when I dream, at night, of the ocean,
I hear it telling stories of our life.
And it calls to me here, in Indiana
enticing me out of these woods,
trying to guide me to the deserted sand
where I can see the waves speaking in the darkness.

For now, I walk atop ocean crust, within these domesticated woods
where, eons ago, life beached itself upon the sand
to find its home in Indiana, and in darkness.

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