Selected Poems

Home > Other > Selected Poems > Page 5
Selected Poems Page 5

by Cunard, Nancy; Parmar, Sandeep;


  From out the elements, from sea and fire

  To lead them on; they conquered all desire

  With passion ever-new. Adventure’s flame

  Was sealed upon their souls that did aspire

  And reached up to the transient face of fame.

  IV

  Outlawed, aloof, like thunderclouds they sped

  Over the restless breathing of the sea;

  And those around shook at their liberty,

  And trembled at their power. Alone the dead

  Were free from these magicians’ modern charms

  That vaunted lawlessness and love and pleasure:

  Drawing the brave into a swifter measure,

  Leading the brave into the life that harms

  All but its strange initiate. Their crimes

  Sped down the course of nature unrestrained.

  While others fell they conquered, careful, trained,

  Well practised in their art; yet there were times

  Most near to death – then she, who loved so well,

  Saved him, and straightway gave her soul to hell.

  V

  Love was too little for him, fate too strong,

  And took in payment from him folly’s toll;

  And yet she loved him with a patience long,

  And eyes kept clear wherewith to view the soul,

  The shaking battlefield that nourished him

  And filled with tempests the proud tortured eyes

  That mirrored her reflected love, yet grim,

  Brooding remained; as by a fire that dies

  Sits an impenitent with ravenous crimes

  That will not cry aloud nor mercy seek,

  Through haunted midnights sped with cruel chimes,

  Locked in himself – till finally the sleek

  Pale face of morning puts to flight the dim,

  Mad, raving, windy ghosts that follow him.

  VI

  Flayed souls that flee before a shivering wind

  Out to the dark horizons of the sea;

  Eternal wanderers that may never be

  Stilled by the touch of death. A pirate’s mind

  Steers their black ships; his soul makes full their sails

  With the wild winds of courage, and the waves

  Daily grow great between them over graves

  Of others not so free. When daylight fails

  They may be seen alongside each to each,

  Two lovers passionate of life and stress,

  Stepped from the lands of hell to earth above:

  A man that failed with heaven in his reach,

  And she, that should have crowned a king, no less,

  Yet then as now held but her crown of love.

  VII

  One thinks to hear them crying in the wind:

  ‘Life was so bitter to us – but we chose

  The living, stressful moments from this close

  Denying, grey existence. If we sinned

  We bear our joys and crimes with equal heart,

  And punishment is nothing. We have known

  All sweet and sharp adventures, and are grown

  Heroic-hard with life. You cannot part

  Our twin minds from each other, and we sail

  Proud and forever on the clutching sea,

  Grown element again; the heaven’s breath

  Makes clear our souls with space; life does not fail

  As we have used it.’… They shall ever be;

  Summer has set upon them but not death.

  And if the End Be Now?…

  The rooms are empty and the streets are bare,

  No lovers meet at midnight under stars,

  And the past pleasures of congenial hours

  Forgotten lie; yet now these flowers that fade

  Once dressed the gardens with gay delight.

  Ah, patiently we must grow friends with grey,

  Put out of mind the colour of the flame

  And the triumphant songs of inspiration;

  Obliterate adventure, memory.

  The silence of desertion has begun

  And the slow madness of annihilation;

  Think you we can be friends with nothingness

  And make a song out of an empty hour?

  Somewhere the world has changed, the sun slipped round

  To lands antipodean, leaving us

  Like wandering dreamers in long corridors

  That may not be got through, a circular maze

  That guards the promised land of Never More;

  Alone, alone we wander with our dream –

  Ah, I have felt remote before tonight,

  As if some word had drifted down from God

  To warn my soul of the eventual end

  And the completed solitude to be.

  I have felt married to eternity,

  Already bade farewell to things and days,

  And seen their transmutation into ghosts

  That gravely intimate the parting sign –

  And if the end be now have I known all?

  Let us examine conscience’ hieroglyph…

  The adolescent love of mysticism,

  Followed by bitter sceptic pride and scorn

  Of what life seemed to give, gave into hands

  Too frail to hold, looked into eyes too veiled

  With youthful sorrows to let comfort in.

  And there was independence, solemnly

  Scheming to build the tower impregnable

  That should throw shadow over half the earth;

  And fortitude and courage, like wild steeds

  They raved and never could be brought to rein,

  And so made havoc, vainly wasting strength

  Till their nobility was lost indeed.

  Love came along and seemed the conqueror

  That should set right the world, proclaiming justice

  With many promises of inspiration

  And a high creed of generosity;

  (Of all religions Love the proudest is,

  And will not be gainsaid, but though eternal,

  By its own flame it fades, consuming us).

  There have been other martyrs on this wheel

  That turns today before me: introspection,

  And that fanatic, self-analysis,

  With soul archaic as the early saint

  That knelt with grace to clasp the cross and death;

  But oh, my saint dies not! and glories still

  Turning the knife each day in painful wounds

  With self-infliction growing ever deeper…

  Yet there are moods when I can plumb the world

  And seem to tell the purpose of the stars,

  Grasp at the palm of fate, transcending earth.

  This is the tranquil mood of certainty

  That lies above us as the distant sunset.

  * * * * * *

  After the beat of sorrow’s passionate hands

  Came melancholy with a gesture calm;

  And in her motion was the breath of sleep

  And musing poetry, to soothe despair;

  And here time seemed to turn a gentle hermit

  Putting aside the weary web of stress;

  Akin with nature, merging into autumn

  With a long pause as if eternal – Then

  The human world obtrudes, the daily tides

  Of feverish events surge up again

  And to a further controversy beckon.

  * * * * * *

  My hands are empty now, my heart as void

  Of all emotions as a timeless dawn

  When the last stars are lost, before some day

  Has made complete actuality of hours.

  Now close the doors and let the pulse of earth

  Slip unperceived to final quietude,

  For life has taken much in giving much –

  In that shall lie the balance of the end.

  Moon

  Slowly the moon grows larger, I can see

&n
bsp; The real solitude to be tonight,

  And the vain longing of a muted heart

  As when two lovers have been long asunder.

  She counts the minutes, pale and silently

  Draws nearer to the sea; the little waves

  Become all great with longing, wreath’d with foam;

  Already a long stairway from the sky

  Descending slowly rests upon the earth,

  And thoughts, like spirits, on it come and go.

  * * * * * *

  Oh puissant unattainable white moon,

  My soul has taken pause, saluting thee.

  The Sonnet of Happiness

  Over the City lie the gathered stars,

  The streets are holy in their emptiness

  As I go with you, great with happiness.

  We have inherited the strength of Mars

  And the proud love of Venus; we are free!

  Let us make good our freedom, for we are wise

  And bravely passionate; this enterprise

  Shall long endure like a fine ship at sea.

  Tonight we’ll have no melodrama, tears,

  Or sudden partings of dissatisfaction,

  No wavering purpose or unglorious action,

  No hesitation or uncertain fears;

  But in a solitude of silence Grecian

  Shall know the plenitude of life’s completion.

  I

  [What is this cry for toys? you’ve had them all]

  What is this cry for toys? you’ve had them all;

  This clamouring for lovers? take your choice:

  Outgrown and senseless dolls with timid voice,

  Like marionettes unstrung they can but fall

  Into your merciful hands, your tender grasp

  That pities them and tidies up their tears;

  The while you wince, yet put away their fears,

  Their sorrows soothe, their anguished hands un-clasp.

  For they have sunk all pride in commonness,

  Lost the contumely look, the daily speech;

  Lie at your feet – bend down, let fingers reach

  An ultimate kiss to them – forgetfulness…

  And then maybe your sorrows, each by each,

  Will pardon beg for you, end your distress.

  II

  [Yet when the night draws on, you long for arms]

  Yet when the night draws on, you long for arms,

  Arms to enfold, becalm your soul away,

  Gestures to quell, a voice that says: ‘Today

  Is a spent nightmare, rest you from alarms

  And be unharassed; you have done with fear

  For a short season and shall claim reward,

  That share of victory that has been stored

  For you in well-kept sequence, costing dear.’

  And in the sunset stillness of that hour

  Maybe you’ll dream of lying down with Death,

  Your ultimate lover; but your soul and breath

  Must first be parted by that unknown power

  Of time or fate, whatever name is given

  To that strange path that’s said to lead to heaven.

  Praise

  I love the gesture of your open hands

  Expounding things: the blinding streak of fire

  That lights the voice of your imagination.

  I love your laugh and all its cadences,

  The tempests of your speech, the flaming words

  Of wisdom, all the agile nimble thoughts

  That seethe and simmer in your smiling brain;

  The oratory of truths you have declaimed,

  The conquest of the difficult and dark

  Obstructions laid by life along your way.

  You have not fallen, failed nor faltered once,

  Nor looked behind in doubt, but undismayed

  Have faced the sun. In your dark eyes I see

  The promises of miracles, the lure

  Of brilliant new horizons, hopes found good,

  And dreams to make the gods rejoice and sing.

  You are an army flushed with conquered wines,

  Feasting on luxury and new delight –

  You are the king of joy, the world is tamed

  And spread before you in magnificence;

  The subtle and the sensuous are your slaves,

  And all the seven wonders now made clear

  Delivered you as prize. I will stand by

  And look into a corner of your heart

  To see if you are happy, if your crown

  Be not of gold too heavy, whether pain

  Shall be excluded from this great new rule,

  And all the sorrows and incertitudes

  Put to the torture they have merited.

  I think that you will now make free our days,

  And conquer time; you shall not know defeat.

  For you are priest of Possibility,

  Hero of new-discovered continents,

  Pure as the endless sea, spirit of love

  Created from the essences of stars

  And the pulsating powers of elements;

  There are no bounds nor limits to your speed,

  No mountain huge enough to crush your heart,

  Nothing to kill the genius of your soul.

  The Lovers

  Hundreds of lovers there have been,

  Princes and clowns and fools;

  Mighty, timid, low, obscene,

  And some whose hearts were never clean

  Who set aside all rules.

  Dark lovers from the burning lands,

  And giants from the plain,

  And some with wicked cruel hands,

  And some God made and understands,

  And more that Death has slain.

  Pale boys too beautiful to live,

  Too wild and proud and young,

  With eager eyes and hearts that give

  A love this life cannot forgive

  And sends its snakes among.

  And some that lied and stole and swore

  To fill the world with vice,

  Who fought each other and made war

  Till Fate came knocking at the door

  And made them pay the price.

  Strange subtlety, sweet happiness

  Some gave and others took!

  Yet lovers all, who once did bless

  The love that leads men to distress

  And marks with bitter look.

  Now Death has stolen all away,

  And bade them love and kiss

  Pale shadows of a yesterday,

  With empty hands and hearts that sway

  In darker worlds than this.

  Wheels

  I sometimes think that all our thoughts are wheels,

  Rolling forever through a painted world:

  Moved by the cunning of a thousand clowns

  Dressed paper-wise, with blatant rounded masks,

  That take their multi-coloured caravans

  From place to place, and act and leap and sing,

  Catching the spinning hoops when cymbals clash.

  And one is dressed as Fate, and one as Death;

  The rest that represent Love, Joy and Sin,

  Join hands in solemn stage-learnt ecstasy,

  While Folly beats a drum with golden pegs,

  And mocks that shrouded jester called Despair.

  The dwarfs and other curious satellites,

  Voluptuous-mouthed, with slyly pointed steps

  Strut in the circus while the people stare.

  And some have sober faces white with chalk

  And roll the heavy wheels all through the streets

  Of sleeping hearts, with ponderance and noise

  Like weary armies on a solemn march.

  Now in the scented gardens of the Night

  Where we are scattered like a pack of cards,

  Our words are turned to spokes that thoughts may roll,

  And form a ringing chain around the world,

&nb
sp; (Itself a fabulous wheel controlled by Time

  Over the slow incline of centuries).

  So dreams and prayers, and feelings born of sleep,

  As well as all the sun-gilt pageantry

  Made out of summer breezes and hot noons,

  Are in the great revolving of the spheres

  Under the trampling of their chariot wheels.

  Zeppelins

  I saw the people climbing up the street

  Maddened with war and strength and thought to kill;

  And after followed Death, who held with skill

  His torn rags royally, and stamped his feet.

  The fires flamed up and burnt the serried town,

  Most where the sadder, poorer houses were;

  Death followed with proud feet and smiling stare,

  And the mad crowds ran madly up and down.

  And many died and hid in unfound places

  In the black ruins of the frenzied night;

  And Death still followed in his surplice, white

  And streaked in imitation of their faces.

  * * * * * *

  But in the morning men began again

  To mock Death following in bitter pain.

  The Last of Pierrot

  Pierrot again on octaves strums around,

  (Octaves his only meaning, speech and measure),

  White, wasted, wanton fool that kisses pleasure

  Thinking with love’s glass knife to stab the ground

  And draw life-blood from out his painted heart;

  Forgetting that its texture is but paper,

  More fragile frills than gossamer or vapour,

  A ribbon, tied with eighteenth-century art.

  He sits and shivers on a tattered stool,

  Hearing the cold grind out the endless breath

  From saddened shadows: ‘Sober now,’ he saith,

  ‘The cards lie upwards on the useless pool,

  The drums are filled with blood and wine and lead,

 

‹ Prev