William Blake, plate 100 of Jerusalem, the Emanation of the Giant Albion.
Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten,
Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold,
Let it be forgotten for ever and ever,
Time is a kind friend, he will make us old.
If anyone asks, say it was forgotten
Long and long ago,
As a flower, as a fire, as a hushed footfall
In a long forgotten snow.
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools, singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,
Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
Rises by open means; and there will stand
On honourable terms, or else retire,
And in himself possess his own desire;
Who comprehends his trust, and to the same
Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim;
And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait
For wealth, or honours, or for worldly state…”
Green wind. Green branches.
The ship out on the sea
and the horse on the mountain.”
Flesh had one pleasure only in the act,
Flesh set one purpose only in the mind—
Triumph of flesh and afterwards to find
Still those same terrors wherewith flesh was racked.”
Or of invisible gold are dispersed
In a miserly way from a water clock,
And repeat in time a weaving that is
Eternal, fragile, mysterious, and clear.
I fear that each one may be the last.
It’s a past coming back. From what temple,
From what fresh garden in the mountain,
From what vigil before an unknown sea,
From what shyness of melancholy,
From what lost and ransomed afternoon
Does its remote future come to me?
I cannot know. No matter. I am
In that music. I want to be. I bleed.”
Last Thoughts Before the Revolution
Kendon Barretta — Barretta
Oh look, somebody decided to read his poem aloud for the Internet, because God knows they’re clamoring for that. What follows is “Last thoughts before the revolution,” one of the very few poems I’ve written as an adult. Here is the text.
My father the king was god, my father
the king is dead; he and his chariot
lost on twilit shores of unhappy isles.
When I was young, I walked the wind-graven
standing stones that point out the swordbelt of
Orion, the dusky unwinking eye
of Mars; into the lith, a dagger carved,
the sign of dead druids, long laid in the
barrow. What shall mark my grave? Not a word.
They will pry the garnets from my dagger,
they will melt the silver from my cloak-clasp,
they will make mock of my body. Even
the bull—I remember his hot blood in
the red dust of the sacrificial pit!—
his bones and fat were burnt on the temple
pyre, with proper rites, among mourning girls.
They may make a goblet of my skull. They
may make a flute of my thigh’s bone. How can
they? I ran on these legs with the children
of thanes, with these fingers I cracked the white
pulp of pomegranates, painted, poured wine.
My eye, the astrologers said, full of
the blue wisdom of the sea. No statue
for this face, but an axe. No red-gold torc
for this neck, but a gibbet. Where is it
written, that fifteen springs can be enough?
In my sixth I climbed the garden cedar
fetching a clutch of speckled songbirds’ eggs;
I stumbled, I cried out, I fell headlong:
the undreaming stuff of them spilled on the
flagstones. I am that wan yolk now—this arm
could have raised a scepter, while that arm spread
its feathers, and I’d become that new thing
that lays a shadow across the sunrise.
My eye shall be full of the red wisdom
of ruin. But no one has seen a bird
that never flew or will; my god is dead.
I think if I recorded this again I’d try to slip more into my natural vocal pattern, which is a little lower and quicker, but being a novice and using the shoddy equipment I can afford, I don’t think it’s half bad. Comments, criticism?
I sometimes hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.
But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
A use in measured language lies;
The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.
In words, like weeds, I’ll wrap me o’er,
Like coarsest clothes against the cold:
But that large grief which these enfold
Is given in outline and no more.
It occurs to me that the reason today’s poetry is almost entirely free verse (free verse, that verse which requires the meanest skill) is that all the best writers of metered verse are now musicians. From skald to star, as it were.
Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a spring was breaking
out in my heart.
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
oh water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?
Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.
Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a fiery sun was giving
light inside my heart.
It was fiery because I felt
warmth as from a hearth,
and sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.
Last night, as I slept,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that it was God I had
here inside my heart.
And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less—
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.
They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars—on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.
Slow flow heat is silence
No will is still as a river
Still. Will heat move
Only through the mocking-bird
Heard once? Still hills
Wait. Gates wait. Purple trees,
White trees, wait, wait,
Delay, decay. Living, living,
Never moving. Ever moving
Iron thoughts came with me
And go with me:
Red river, river, river.”
Last Thoughts Before the Revolution
My father the king was god, my father
the king is dead; he and his chariot
lost on twilit shores of unhappy isles.
When I was young, I walked the wind-graven
standing stones that point out the swordbelt of
Orion, the dusky unwinking eye
of Mars; into the lith, a dagger carved,
the sign of dead druids, long laid in the
barrow. What shall mark my grave? Not a word.
They will pry the garnets from my dagger,
they will melt the silver from my cloak-clasp,
they will make mock of my body. Even
the bull—I remember his hot blood in
the red dust of the sacrificial pit!—
his bones and fat were burnt on the temple
pyre, with proper rites, among mourning girls.
They may make a goblet of my skull. They
may make a flute of my thigh’s bone. How can
they? I ran on these legs with the children
of thanes, with these fingers I cracked the white
pulp of pomegranates, painted, poured wine.
My eye, the astrologers said, full of
the blue wisdom of the sea. No statue
for this face, but an axe. No red-gold torc
for this neck, but a gibbet. Where is it
written, that fifteen springs can be enough?
In my sixth I climbed the garden cedar
fetching a clutch of speckled songbirds’ eggs;
I stumbled, I cried out, I fell headlong:
the undreaming stuff of them spilled on the
flagstones. I am that wan yolk now—this arm
could have raised a scepter, while that arm spread
its feathers, and I’d become that new thing
that lays a shadow across the sunrise.
My eye shall be full of the red wisdom
of ruin. But no one has seen a bird
that never flew or will; my god is dead.
The moon stands blank above;
White in the moon the long road lies
That leads me from my love.
Still hangs the hedge without a gust,
Still, still, the shadows stay:
My feet upon the moonlit dust
Pursue the ceaseless way.
The world is round, so travellers tell,
And straight though reach the track,
Trudge on, trudge on, ‘twill all be well,
The way will guide one back.
But ere the circle homeward hies
Far, far must it remove:
White in the moon the long road lies
That leads me from my love.”
