Whether the final sleep, fingers curled about
The hollow comfort of a day worn smooth as holy relics;
Or trusting to walk the waters, to see when they abate
A future solid for sons and for him the annealing rainbow.
It is your fate
Also to choose. On the one hand all that habit endears:
The lawn is where bishops have walked; the walled garden is private
Though your bindweed lust overruns it; the roses are sweet dying;
Soil so familiar to your roots you cannot feel it effete.
On the other hand what dearth engenders and what death
Makes flourish: the need and dignity of bearing fruit, the fight
For resurrection, the exquisite grafting on stranger stock.
Stand with us here and now
Consider the force of these waters, the mobile face of the flood
Trusting and terrible as a giant who turns from sleep. Think how
You called them symbols of purity and yet you daily defiled them:
They failed you never; for that they were always the disregarded.
Ubiquitous to your need they made the barley grow
Or bore you to new homes; they kept you hale and handsome.
Of all flesh they were the sign and substance. All things flow.
Stand with us now
Looking back on a time you have spent, a land that you know.
Ask what formed the dew and dressed the evening in awe;
What hands made buoyant your ships, what shaped the impatient prow,
Turned sea-shells and dynamos and wheels on river and railroad:
Truth’s bed and earth’s refreshment – one everywhere element
In the tissue of man, the tears of his anger, the sweat of his brow.
Then look with Noah’s eyes
On the waters that wait his choice. Not only are they insurgent
Over the banks and shallows of their birthplace, but they rise
Also in Noah’s heart: their rippling fingers erase
The ill-favoured façade of his present, the weird ancestral folly,
The maze of mirrors, the corrupting admirers, the silted lies.
Now must he lay his naked virtue upon their knees.
Then turn your eyes
Upon that unbounded prospect and your dwindling island of ease,
Measuring your virtue against its challenger, measuring well
Your leap across the gulf, as the swallow-flock that flies
In autumn gathers its strength on some far-sighted headland.
Learn the migrant’s trust, the intuition of longer
Sunlight: be certain as they you have only winter to lose,
And believe that beyond this flood a kinder country lies.
(Enter BURGESSES. FIRST BURGESS carries a poison-gas apparatus, SECOND BURGESS a shotgun, THIRD BURGESS a mop and bucket.)
FIRST BURGESS.
Since they have hardened their hearts against kindness
SECOND BURGESS.
We will bandy words no more with these waters
THIRD BURGESS.
Our ultimatum expires at midday
FIRST BURGESS.
We do not minimize the gravity of the issue
SECOND BURGESS.
Our eyes are open now to our jeopardy
THIRD BURGESS.
All we hold dear is at stake this day
FIRST BURGESS.
We make this last appeal to you, Noah
SECOND BURGESS.
Remembering our close and profitable association
THIRD BURGESS.
And for the sake of auld lang syne
FIRST BURGESS.
Do not desert us – you and we are bound
SECOND BURGESS.
By ties both of interest and consanguinity
THIRD BURGESS.
Blood you know is thicker than water
FIRST BURGESS.
Think of the times we have stood together
SECOND BURGESS.
The private view, the public reception
THIRD BURGESS.
The little brown jug and the thin red line
FIRST BURGESS.
Remember prayers at our mother’s knee
SECOND BURGESS.
Promises made at father’s death-bed
THIRD BURGESS.
Fireworks at the mortgaged family seat
(NOAH makes no sign)
FIRST BURGESS.
Sympathy with this flood is plainly misplaced
SECOND BURGESS.
An error to credit it with pure motives
THIRD BURGESS.
Laughable to call it an Act of God
FIRST BURGESS.
On the contrary, its aim is sacrilegious
SECOND BURGESS.
It has undermined the fabric of church and chapel
THIRD BURGESS.
And marooned the priest on a desert sanctuary
FIRST BURGESS.
Roughly it handles the bones of our fathers
SECOND BURGESS.
Its influence on the home flouts all the tenets of
THIRD BURGESS.
Mosaic Law and the Mothers’ Union
FIRST BURGESS.
Pale with envy it pours over
SECOND BURGESS.
Your landmarks, your colour-schemes, the contours you love
THIRD BURGESS.
Levelling all to plumb monotony
FIRST BURGESS.
It shows no respect for the transcendental
SECOND BURGESS.
For the subtle whorls of the solitary conscience
THIRD BURGESS.
For country-house cricket or the classic style
(NOAH makes no sign)
FIRST BURGESS.
Since you seem dead to common decency
SECOND BURGESS.
Wilful to walk outright into chaos
THIRD BURGESS.
We must warn you more crudely against these waters
FIRST BURGESS.
Don’t imagine yourself indispensable to them
SECOND BURGESS.
I fear you are in for a cold reception
THIRD BURGESS.
Will damp your ardour or I’m much mistaken
FIRST BURGESS.
They are bound by their nature to let you down
SECOND BURGESS.
They will pour contempt on your delicate appetites
THIRD BURGESS.
The higher education is wasted upon them
FIRST BURGESS.
They will fling you overboard in mid-ocean
SECOND BURGESS.
They will leave you high and dry as driftwood
THIRD BURGESS.
They will turn you into a limpet or a sponge
FIRST BURGESS.
Their beginning is wrath, their end anarchy
SECOND BURGESS.
They distort the vision – through them you shall see
THIRD BURGESS.
Your death or survival a matter of indifference
FIRST BURGESS.
For the last time therefore
SECOND BURGESS.
We say
THIRD BURGESS.
Distrust them!
THE TWO VOICES.
Trust them!
BURGESSES.
Reject! Reject! Reject!
VOICES.
Accept!
(NOAH comes forward and addresses the BURGESSES)
NOAH.
Gentlemen, I have heard out your full contentions,
Paid heed with interest and my debts with silence.
Standing on this narrow island between
Yesterday and to-morrow, the traffic defiling
Deathward and its counter-stream, I have been bewildered
Doubtful which way my next appointment lies.
I made this refuge out of my indecision,
My fear of the all-involving
wheels, my need
For breathing-space: also, to be the exempt
Spectator of combatant tides is flattery.
There was rest here and some illumination –
A lighthouse for the migrant, not his home.
I had felt my days fall gradually, one by one,
Like anæsthetic drops upon the mask,
Putting to sleep with their routine behaviour
The saturated will and the conscious protest,
Unfocusing the vision, till nothing remained
But the exorbitant beating of my heart,
The horror of drowning, the wish for annihilation.
Was roaring in my ears; but as through storm
One hears the unison-chorus of the surf,
I heard this Flood.
This it was that aroused me, and I saw
The clever hands all gloved to sterilize
And the slick knife that leered above my manhood.
But see me also as Noah, a man of substance,
Father of his family, contented simply
By the intimate circle of the leisured seasons:
A man of peace, one who responded always
To the time-honoured charities of hearth and home,
Preferring death to change, whose flightiest cronies
Were the grave earth and the dependable stars.
So it is you see me – one of yourselves.
Well may you look askance when such an one,
Leaving the lode and gear of his proved fortune,
Should ask concessions from a savage flood
And upon rack and ruin build his hopes.
Gentlemen, you have brought many charges against
This flood – of rapine, of sacrilege, of falsehood.
I say your follies were the source and gauge of
Its rising: falsely now you deny its roused
Desire to possess to fertilize the earth
Whose harsh and impotent husbands you were.
You looked upon these waters as an element
Necessary, subordinate, unfeatured,
God-given to be your scavengers, to ripen
Your crops and carry you to outlandish pleasures:
Their lives the head of steam that kept you running.
To me they look like men – more men than you.
Understand, these waters are here to rescue
Not to ravish the earth you so mishandled.
Their pressure is against your brittle pride,
Much greed and little competence. Already
Muscular eddies close around your nostrils
And fluent fingers are working for the death-grip.
Soon shall your bonds and pledges all be seen
A pocketful of pulp; the iridescent
Scum that you took for pure greatness, the toady
Tawdry Circumstance of your era shall
Be swept like litter out of sight and mind …
I was always the man who saw both sides,
The cork dancing where wave and backwash meet,
From the inveterate clash of contraries gaining
A spurious animation. Say, if you like,
A top whom its self-passions lashed to sleep
Pirouetting upon central indifference,
The bored and perfect ballet-dancer engrossed
By mere reiteration; but lately
The one that cuts a figure on thin ice.
– Who saw both sides and therefore could take neither:
A needle midway between two fields of force,
Swinging at last I point and prove the stronger
Attraction. Gentlemen, you have lost.
(NOAH turns from BURGESSES to FLOOD)
CHORUS.
Now he has made his choice,
Sounding aright the profound heart of this flood at last,
Willing to meet its myriad and breath-taking embrace
Under the wind-wild sky, let him hear his two voices
That from the spirit’s echoing cavern speak advice:
They tell what virtues most he needs upon this voyage,
What earth has lent and he must restore when home he hies.
(As the two voices speak, the VIRTUES – in the guise of animals – pass before NOAH and go to stand behind him.)
FIRST VOICE.
Take first the mole, the anonymous miner,
Earth’s intimate friend, lowly of demeanour:
The little genius so good at spadework,
One that was never afraid of the dark.
SECOND VOICE.
He is patience. Read him aright,
Of all virtues the soil and the root:
Remember him in the hour of disaster,
In the hour of triumph may he still be master.
FIRST VOICE.
The migrant salmon, his life fulfils
Outswimming the current, outleaping the falls:
Flashing and obstinate, he will not feed
Till the far headwaters give place to breed.
SECOND VOICE.
So be your courage, and count it rarest
To spring the highest where odds fall sheerest:
A far-traveller, a bow trained
Tense and unerring on the fruitful end.
FIRST VOICE.
Now the bull-finch, his glass-glossy breast
Draws the sunset out of the west:
Most handsome of all that lord it on leaf,
He shuns admirers and mates for life.
SECOND VOICE.
Conspicuous by your faith, but shy
To preen it in the public eye:
Ardent and answered may you discover
Your natural constancy to friend and lover.
FIRST VOICE.
The monkey next, the infant explorer
Never tired of trial and error:
Quicksilver wit and adaptable hand,
As fire infectious, agile as wind.
SECOND VOICE.
Let curiosity be such –
Your unappeased and sovereign itch:
A born rover that never stops
Till he has the whole world at his fingertips.
FIRST VOICE.
See the gannet, champion of flyers,
Ride unruffled the quarrelsome airs:
Then plunge out of heaven upon his prey,
Slanting and swiftsure as a sun-shot ray.
SECOND VOICE.
Wide-winged and consummate no less
Be your singlemindedness:
Beating strongly in the heart of the quarrel,
Diving deep to take the moral.
FIRST VOICE.
Last the sheepdog, the right-hand man
Of weatherwise shepherds, resourceful of mien:
He hears the whistle and manœuvres tireless
As a night-flying pilot warned by wireless.
SECOND VOICE.
Learn from him the directed wisdom,
The controlled initiative, the heart-felt system:
So shall you fold your fears and be
The alert equal of necessity.
FIRST BURGESS.
Traitor!
SECOND BURGESS.
Quitter!
THIRD BURGESS.
Cheat and parricide!
FIRST BURGESS.
Ungrateful, so pleased to prophesy our ruin
SECOND BURGESS.
He must take the consequences, the crazy Cassandra
THIRD BURGESS.
He loves this flood, let him go swallow it
FIRST BURGESS.
The look of the waters is growing uglier
SECOND BURGESS.
Don’t let us stand doing nothing
THIRD BURGESS.
Remember St. George and the Lusitania
FIRST BURGESS.
My poison-gas outfit will make them froth
SECOND BURGESS.
I’ll pepper the upstarts soundly with my shotgun
THIRD BURGESS.
With my mop and bucket I’ll sweep them away
FIRST BURGESS.
This way!
SECOND BURGESS.
That way!
THIRD BURGESS.
Turn the lights on! No, turn them off!
FIRST BURGESS.
Don’t contradict! There can only be one captain
SECOND BURGESS.
Upon a ship, and that’s me
THIRD BURGESS.
No, me
(The FLOOD attacks the BURGESSES)
FIRST BURGESS.
Something’s gone wrong, this tide is not retreating
SECOND BURGESS.
Why can’t they fight fair, it’s fifty to one
THIRD BURGESS.
Save me, mother, they mean mischief
FIRST BURGESS.
Fight harder!
SECOND BURGESS.
Run faster!
THIRD BURGESS.
Pray louder and louder!
FIRST BURGESS.
They beat down our weapons, we had best retire
SECOND BURGESS.
I shall take a ticket to Southampton or Tilbury
THIRD BURGESS.
I’ll climb to the top of the highest steeple
FIRST BURGESS.
Let me call at the bank first for my bearer bonds
SECOND BURGESS.
I must rescue my horoscope and my iron ration
THIRD BURGESS.
My malacca cane and fitted dressing-case
FIRST BURGESS.
We’ll meet again
SECOND BURGESS.
In Madeira
THIRD BURGESS.
Or mid-ocean
(BURGESSES, FLOOD and NOAH go out in a running fight)
CHORUS.
Now Noah says good-bye,
Moorings slipped and the tide floating him clear of mud-flat:
No mourning bands, no hands or streamers stretched from the quay
Make parting difficult; but at night and silently
He sheers away. Only, high in the sinking town,
One lighted window watches him into the dark, a cry
From the heart of a mistress with whom he never could share his secrets.
He says good-bye
To much, but not to love. For loving now shall be
The close handclasp of the waters about his trusting keel,
Buoyant they make his home and lift his heart high;
Among their marching multitude he never shall feel lonely.
Love is for him no longer that soft and garden sigh
Ruffles at evening the petalled composure of the senses,
But a wind all hours and everywhere he no wise can deny.
Sorrow there is in store
For all who held up to love the suave distorting mirror,
Complete Poems Page 19
