The Three Hills, and Other Poems Part 6

In its clean groves and s.p.a.cious halls The quiet-eyed inhabitants Hold innocent sunny festivals And mingle in decorous dance; Things that destroy, distort, deface, Come never to that lovely place.

Never could evil enter thither, It could not live in that sweet air, The shadow of an ill deed must wither And fall away to nothing there.

You would say as there you stand That all was beauty in the land.

But go you out beyond the gateway, Cleave you the woods and pa.s.s the plain, Cross you the frontier down, and straightway The trees will end, the gra.s.s will wane, And you will come to a wilderness Of sticks and parched barrenness.

The middle of the land is this, A tawny desert midmost set, Barren of living things it is, Saving at night some vampires flit That nest them in the farther marish Where all save vilest things must perish.

Here in this reedy marsh of green And oily pools, swarm insects fat And birds of prey and beasts obscene, Things that the traveller shudders at, All cunning things that creep and fly To suck men's blood until they die.

Rarely from hence does aught escape Into the world of outer light, But now and then some sable shape Outward will dash in sudden flight; And men stand stonied or distraught To know the loathly deed or thought.

But, ah! beyond the marsh you reach A purulent place more vile than all, A festering lake too foul for speech, Rotten and black, with coils acrawl, Where writhe with lecherous squeakings shrill Horrors that make the heart stand still.

There, 'neath a heaven diseased, it lies, The mere alive with slimy worms, With perverse terrible infamies, And murders and repulsive forms That have no name, but slide here deep Whilst I, their holder, silence keep.

A REASONABLE PROTESTATION

[To F., who complained of his vagueness and lack of dogmatic statement]

Not, I suppose, since I deny Appearance is reality, And doubt the substance of the earth Does your remonstrance come to birth; Not that at once I both affirm 'Tis not the skin that makes the worm And every tactile thing with ma.s.s Must find its symbol in the gra.s.s And with a cool conviction say Even a critic's more than clay And every dog outlives his day.

This kind of vagueness suits your view, You would not carp at it; for you Did never stand with those who take Their pleasures in a world opaque.

For you a tree would never be Lovely were it but a tree, And earthly splendours never splendid If by transience unattended.

Your eyes are on a farther sh.o.r.e Than any of earth; you not adore As G.o.dhead G.o.d's dead hieroglyph, Nor would you be perturbed if Some prophet with a voice of thunder And avalanche arm should blast and founder The logical pillars that maintain This visible world which loads the brain, Loads the brain and withers the heart And holds man from his G.o.d apart.

But still with you remains the craving For some more solid substance, having Surface to touch, colour to see, And form compact in symmetry.

You are not satisfied with these Vague throbbings, utterless ecstasies, Void finds your spirit of delight This great indefinite white light, Not with such sickles can you reap; If a dense earth you cannot keep You want a dense heaven as subst.i.tute With trees of plump celestial fruit, Red apples, golden pomegranates, And a river flowing by tall gates Of topaz and of chrysolite And walls of twenty cubits height.

Frank, you cry out against the age!

Nor you nor I can disengage Ourselves from that in which we live Nor seize on things G.o.d does not give.

Thirsty as you, perhaps, I long For courtyards of eternal song, Even as yours my feet would stray In a city where 'tis always day And a green spontaneous leafy garden With G.o.d in the middle for a warden; But though I trust with strengthening faith I'll taste when I have traversed death The unimaginable sweetness Of cert.i.tude of such concreteness, How should I draw the hue and scope Of substances I only hope Or blaze upon a mortal screen The evidence of things not seen?

This art of ours but grows and stirs Experience when it registers, And you know well as I know well This autumn of time in which we dwell Is not an age of revelations Solid as once, but intimations That touch us with warm misty fingers Leaving a nameless sense that lingers That sight is blind and Time's a snare And earth less solid than the air And deep below all seeming things There sits a steady king of kings A radiant ageless permanence, A quenchless fount of virtue whence We draw our life; a sense that makes A staunch conviction nothing shakes Of our own immortality.

And though, being man, with certain glee I eat and drink, though I suffer pain, And love and hate and love again Well or in mode contemptible, Thus shackled by the body's spell I see through pupils of the beast Though it be faint and blurred with mist A Star that travels in the East.

I see what I can, not what I will In things that move, things that are still, Thin motion, even cloudier rest, I see the symbols G.o.d hath drest The moveless trees, the trees that wave The clouds that heavenly highways have, Horses that run, rocks that are fixt, Streams that have rest and motion mixt, The main with its abiding flux, The wind that up my chimney sucks A mounting waterfall of flame, Sticks, straws, dust, beetles and that same Old blazing sun the Psalmist saw A testifier to the law.

Divinely to the heart they speak Saying how they are but weak Wan will o' the wisps o'er the crystal sea; But stays that sea still dark to me.

Did I now glibly insolent Chart the ulterior firmament, Would you not know my words were lies, Where not my testimonial eyes Mortal or spiritual lodge, Mere uncorroborated fudge?

Praise me, though praise I do not want, Rather, that I have cast much cant, That what I see and feel I write Read what I can in this dim light Granted to me in nether night.

And though I am vague and shrink to guess G.o.d's everlasting purposes, And never save in perplext dream Have caught the least authentic gleam Of the great kingdom and the throne In the world that lies behind our own, I have not lacked my certainties, I have not haggard moaned the skies, Now waged unnecessary strife Nor scorned nor overvalued life.

And though you say my att.i.tude Is questioning, concede my mood Does never bring to tongue or pen Accents of gloomy modern men Who wail or hail the death of G.o.d And weigh and measure man the clod, Or say they draw reluctant breath And musically mourn that Death Is a queen omnipotent of woe And Life her lean cicisbeo, Abject and pale, whom vampire-like She playeth with ere she shall strike, And pose sad riddles to the Sphinx With raven quills in purple inks,...

Then send the boy to fetch more drinks.

EPILOGUE

Than farthest stars more distant, A mile more, A mile more, A voice cries on insistent: "You may smile more if you will;

"You may sing too and spring too; But numb at last And dumb at last, Whatever port you cling to, You must come at last to a hill.

"And never a man you'll find there To take your hand And shake your hand; But when you go behind there You must make your hand a sword

"To fence with a foeman swarthy, And swink there Nor shrink there, Though cowardly and worthy Must drink there one reward."

TWELVE

TRANSLATIONS

FROM

CHARLES BAUDELAIRE

TOUT ENTIeRE

This morning in my attic high The Demon came to visit me, And seeking faults in my reply, He said: "I would inquire of thee,

"Of all the beauties which compose Her charming body's potent spell, Of all the objects black and rose Which make the thing you love so well,

"Which is the sweetest?" O my soul!

Thou didst rejoin: "How tell of parts, When all I know is that the whole Works magic in my heart of hearts?

"Where all is fair, how should I say What single grace is my delight?

She s.h.i.+nes on me like break of day And she consoles me as the night.

"There flows through all her perfect frame A harmony too exquisite That weak a.n.a.lysis should name The numberless accords of it.

"O mystic metamorphosis!

My separate senses all are blent; Within her breath soft music is, And in her voice a subtle scent!"