That harvest of Faith, not without blood ripened,
They have ploughed in; their dynamos chant
Canticles of a new power: my holy land is blasted,
The crust crumbles, the veins run vinegar.
12
Oh subterranean fires, break out!
Tornadoes, pity not
The petty bourgeois of the soul,
The middleman of God!
Who ruins farm and factory
To keep a private mansion
Is a bad landlord, he shall get
No honourable mention.
Who mobbed the kestrel out of the air,
Who made the tiger tame,
Who lost the blood’s inheritance
And found the body’s shame;
Who raised his hands to brand a Cain
And bless a submarine –
Time is up: the medicine-man
Must take his medicine.
The winter evening holds her peace
And makes a crystal pause;
Frozen are all the streams of light,
Silent about their source.
Comrade, let us look to earth,
Be stubborn, act and sleep:
Here at our feet the lasting skull
Keeps a stiff upper lip:
Feeling the weight of a long winter,
Grimaces underground;
But never again will need to ask
Why spirit was flesh-bound.
And we whom winter days oppress
May find some work to hand,
Perfect our plans, renew parts,
Break hedges down, plough land.
So when primroses pave the way
And the sun warms the stone,
We may receive the exile spirit
Coming into its own.
13
Fourth Defendant speaks
To sit at head of one’s own table,
To overlook a warm familiar landscape,
Have large cupboards for small responsibilities –
Surely that does outweigh
The rent veil and the agonies to follow?
Me the Almighty fixed, from Eve fallen,
Heart-deep in earth, a pointer to star fields,
Suffering sapflow, fruitage, early barrenness;
Changeable reputed, but to change constant,
Fickle of fashion no more than the months are;
Daily depend on surroundings for sustenance,
On what my roots reach, what my leaves inhale here.
Grant me a rich ground, wrapped in airs temperate,
Not where nor’-easters threaten the flint scarps;
Consequence then shall I have, men’s admiration
Now, and my bones shall be fuel for the future.
Yet have I always failed.
For he, who should have been my prime possession,
Was not to be possessed.
I leant o’er him, a firmament of shadow,
But he looked up through me and saw the stars.
I would have bound him in the earth-ways,
Fluid, immediate, the child of nature.
But he made bricks of earth, iron from fire,
Turned waves to power, winds to communication;
Setting up Art against Chaos, subjecting
My flux to the synthetic frost of reason.
I am left with a prone man,
Virtue gone out of him; who in the morning
Will rise to join Crusades or assist the Harlequins.
Though I persuade him that his stars are mine eyes’
Refraction, that wisdom’s best expressed in
The passive mood, – here’s no change for the better:
I was the body’s slave, am now the spirit’s.
Come, let me contemplate my own
Mysteries, a dark glass may save my face.
14
Live you by love confined,
There is no nearer nearness;
Break not his light bounds,
The stars’ and seas’ harness:
There is nothing beyond,
We have found the land’s end.
We’ll take no mortal wound
Who felt him in the furnace,
Drowned in his fierceness,
By his midsummer browned:
Nor ever lose awareness
Of nearness and farness
Who’ve stood at earth’s heart careless
Of suns and storms around,
Who have leant on the hedge of the wind,
On the last ledge of darkness.
We are where love has come
To live: he is that river
Which flows and is the same;
He is not the famous deceiver
Nor early-flowering dream.
Content you. Be at home
In me. There’s but one room
Of all the house you may never
Share, deny or enter.
There, as a candle’s beam
Stands firm and will not waver
Spire-straight in a close chamber,
As though in shadowy cave a
Stalagmite of flame,
The integral spirit climbs
The dark in light for ever.
15
Consider. These are they
Who have a stake in earth
But risk no wing on air,
Walk not a planet path.
Theirs the reward of all
That live by sap alone,
Flourishing but to show
Which way the wind has gone.
While oaks of pedigree
Stand over a rich seam,
Another sinks the shaft,
Fills furnace, gets up steam.
These never would break through
The orbit of their year,
Admit no altered stress,
Decline a change of gear.
The tree grips soil, the bird
Knows how to use the wind;
But the full man must live
Rooted yet unconfined.
PART THREE
Never yield before the barren.
D. H. LAWRENCE
16
Look west, Wystan, lone flyer, birdman, my bully boy!
Plague of locusts, creeping barrage, has left earth bare:
Suckling and centenarian are up in air,
No wing-room for Wystan, no joke for kestrel joy.
Sky-scrapers put high questions that quench the wind’s breath,
Whose shadow still comes short of truth, but kills the grass:
Power-house chimneys choke sun, ascetic pylons pass
Bringing light to the dark-livers, charged to deal death.
Firework fêtes, love displays, levitation of dead,
Salvation writ in smoke will reassure the town,
While comfy in captive balloons easily brought down
Sit frail philosophers, gravity gone to the head.
Gain altitude, Auden, then let the base beware!
Migrate, chaste my kestrel, you need a change of air!
17
First Enemy speaks
Begin perhaps with jokes across the table,
Bathing before breakfast, undressing frankly,
Trials of strength, innocent invasions;
Concealing velvet hand in iron grip
Play the man, let woman wait indoors.
I do like doing things with you.
Shoot home the bolt, draw close the silken cordon:
Regrets for youth, malice at mutual friends,
Excluding company with a private smile,
Longer looks noting, change of tune. Ah, now
To find one’s touch, anticipate the last movement!
You are so different from the others.
This is my act, who can play Cleopatra,
Can hear state secrets, see the guarded plans:
A man my empire, darling I proclaim
Through sultry eyes dominion appetite
s –
To be called a queen, be a subject for sonnets.
You can’t really think me beautiful?
Then set the stage, lights for a final tableau –
I never shall love the dark since Maurice died –
Buzzards are wheeling above, horns blowing around;
We come to a point, circle the trembling prey
In sunny fern or many-mirrored bedroom.
I love to watch your face.
Now am I in the very lists of love,
Clutching the terminals may surely hope
To make a contact. Feel, body, Oh fail not!
Shall the harsh friction the gritted teeth of lust
Not generate a spark, bring me to life?
I’ve never felt like this before.
So, so again. And he that was alive
Is dead. Or sleeps. A stranger to these parts.
Nerve insulated, flesh unfused, this is
No consummation; yet a dear achievement:
Reach for the powder-puff, I have sinned greatly.
I suppose you hate me, now.
18
Not hate nor love, but say
Refreshment after rain,
A lucid hour; though this
Need not occur again.
You shall no further feast
Your pride upon my flesh.
Cry for the moon: here’s but
An instantaneous flash.
My wells, my rooted good
Go deeper than you dare:
Seek not my sun and moon,
They are centred elsewhere.
I know a fairer land,
Whose furrows are of fire,
Whose hills are a pure metal
Shining for all to share.
And there all rivers run
To magnify the sea,
Whose waves recur for ever
In calm equality.
Hands off! The dykes are down.
This is no time for play.
Hammer is poised and sickle
Sharpened. I cannot stay.
19
Second Enemy speaks
Now sir, now madam, we’re all plain people here,
Used to plain speaking: we know what is what,
How to stretch a point and where to draw the line.
You want to buy. I have the goods.
Read about rector’s girls
Duke’s disease synthetic pearls
Latest sinners tasty dinners
Plucky dogs shot Sinn Feiners
Flood in China rape in Wales
Murderer’s tears scenes at sales
That’s the stuff aren’t you thrilled
Sit back and see the world.
Yet, though abiding by the law and the profits,
I have a solemn duty and shall not shirk it
Who stand in loco parentis to the British Public,
We must educate our bastards.
Professor Jeans spills the beans
Dean Inge tells you a thing
A man in a gown gives you the low-down
A man with a beard says something weird
Famous whore anticipates war
Woman mayor advises prayer
A grey-haired gaga says leave it to mother
Run off and play no more lessons today.
And third, brethren, you must be saved from yourselves,
From that secret voice, that positive contagion.
I’ll have no long faces on this ship while I’m captain.
And you know what happens to mutineers.
Is the boss unkind? Have you dropped a stitch?
Smile! All together! You’ll soon be better.
Have you got a grouch? Do you feel an itch?
There, there! Sit down and write uncle a letter.
Lock the front door, here are your slippers,
Get out your toys and don’t make a noise;
Don’t tease the keepers, eat up your kippers,
And you’ll have a treat one day if you’re good boys.
20
Fireman and farmer, father and flapper,
I’m speaking to you, sir, please drop that paper;
Don’t you know it’s poison? Have you lost all hope?
Aren’t you ashamed, ma’am, to be taking dope?
There’s a nasty habit that starts in the head
And creeps through the veins till you go all dead:
Insured against accident? But that won’t prove
Much use when one morning you find you can’t move.
They tell you all’s well with our lovely England
And God’s in our capital. Isn’t it grand
Where the offal of action, the rinsings of thought
From a stunted peer for a penny can be bought?
It seems a bargain, but in the long run
Will cost you your honour, your crops and your son.
They’re selling you the dummy, for God’s sake don’t buy it!
Baby, that bottle’s not clean, don’t try it!
You remember that girl who turned the gas on –
They drove her to it, they couldn’t let her alone.
That young inventor – you all know his name –
They used the plans and he died of their fame.
Careful, climber, they’re getting at your nerve!
Leader, that’s a bribe, they’d like you to serve!
Bull, I don’t want to give you a nightmare,
But, keep still a moment, are you quite sure you’re there?
As for you, Bimbo, take off that false face!
You’ve ceased to be funny, you’re in disgrace.
We can see the spy through that painted grin;
You may talk patriotic but you can’t take us in.
You’ve poisoned the reservoirs, released your germs
On firesides, on foundries, on tubes and on farms.
You’ve made yourself cheap with your itch for power
Infecting all comers, a hopeless whore.
Scavenger barons and your jackal vassals,
Your pimping press-gang, your unclean vessels,
We’ll make you swallow your words at a gulp
And turn you back to your element, pulp.
Don’t bluster, Bimbo, it won’t do you any good;
We can be much ruder and we’re learning to shoot.
Closet Napoleon, you’d better abdicate,
You’d better quit the country before it’s too late.
21
Third Enemy speaks
God is a proposition,
And we that prove him are his priests, his chosen.
From bare hypothesis
Of strata and wind, of stars and tides, watch me
Construct his universe,
A working model of my majestic notions,
A sum done in the head.
Last week I measured the light, his little finger;
The rest is a matter of time.
God is an electrician,
And they that worship him must worship him
In ampere and in volt.
Scrap sun and moon, your twilight of false gods:
X. is not here or there;
Whose lightning scrawls brief cryptograms on sky,
Easy for us to solve;
Whose motions fit our formulae, whose temple
Is a pure apparatus.
God is a statistician:
Offer him all the data; tell him your dreams.
What is your lucky number?
How do you react to bombs? Have you a rival?
Do you really love your wife?
Get yourself taped. Put soul upon the table:
Switch on the arc-lights; watch
Heart’s beat, the secret agents of the blood.
Let every cell be observed.
God is a Good Physician,
Gives fruit for hygiene, crops for calories.
Don’t touch that dirty man,
Don’t dri
nk from the same cup, sleep in one bed:
You know He would not like it.
Young men, cut out those visions, they’re bad for the eyes:
I’ll show you face to face
Eugenics, Eupeptics and Euthanasia,
The clinic Trinity.
22
Where is he, where? How the man stares!
Do you think he is there, buttoned up in your stars?
Put by that telescope;
You can’t bring him nearer, you can’t, sir, you haven’t a hope.
Is he the answer to your glib equations,
The lord of light, the destroyer of nations?
To be seen on a slide, to be caught on a filter? The Cause
Limed in his own laws?
Analyst, you’ve missed him. Or worse and worst
You’ve got him inside? You must feel fit to burst.
Here, there, everywhere
Or nowhere. At least you know where. And how much do you care?
Where then, Oh where? In earth or in air?
The master of mirth, the corrector of care?
Nightingale knows, if any,
And poplar flowing with wind; and high on the sunny
Hill you may find him, and low on the lawn
When every dew-drop is a separate dawn.
In the moment before the bombardment, poised at peace
He hides. And whoever sees
The cloud on the sky-line, the end of grief,
Dust in the distance that spells a relief,
Has found. Shall have his share
Who naked emerges on the far side of despair.
This one shall hear, though from afar,
The clear first call of new life, through fear
Piercing and padded walls:
Shall arise, shall scatter his heirlooms, shall run till he falls.
That one is slower, shall know by growing,
Not aware of his hour, but suddenly blowing
With leaves and roses, living from springs of the blood.
These ones have found their good:
Facing the rifles in a blind alley
Or stepping through ruins to sound reveille
They feel the father here,
They have him at heart, they shake hands, they know he is near.
23
Fourth Enemy speaks
I’m a dreamer, so are you.
See the pink sierras call,
The ever-ever land of dew,
Magic basements, fairy coal.
There the youngest son wins through,
Wee Willie can thrash the bully,
Complete Poems Page 12
