Complete Poems 3 (Robert Graves Programme) by Robert Graves
Always to annul the curse of that grim triad
Which holds it death to mock and leave a poet
In mockery, death likewise to love a poet,
But death above all deaths to live a poet.
I will not see myself the desolate bard,
His natural friendships cast and his loves buried,
Auguring doom like some black carrion bird.
I seek no strength in the well-formed cabbala,
In runic practice or loud alleluiah,
In conference with spirits high or low.
But mocked, I see my weakness in that mocking,
And loved, I charge myself with that love-making,
Nor am I marked with beast’s or angel’s marking.
VANITY
Be assured, the Dragon is not dead
But once more from the pools of peace
Shall rear his fabulous green head.
The flowers of innocence shall cease
And like a harp the wind shall roar
And the clouds shake an angry fleece.
‘Here, here is certitude,’ you swore,
‘Below this lightning-blasted tree.
Where once it struck, it strikes no more.
‘Two lovers in one house agree.
The roof is tight, the walls unshaken.
As now, so must it always be.’
Such prophecies of joy awaken
The toad who dreams away the past
Under your hearth-stone, light forsaken,
Who knows that certitude at last
Must melt away in vanity –
No gate is fast, no door is fast –
That thunder bursts from the blue sky,
That gardens of the mind fall waste,
That fountains of the heart run dry.
AT THE GAMES*
Two quiet sportsmen, this an Englishman,
That French, seated one crowded afternoon
In the Paris amphitheatre at the Games,
And curiously eyeing each the other,
Found voice together, ‘We have met before,’
Then clasped hands on the memory.
Fr. Still alive,
Old friend? How did you manage to endure
Those three worst years of War after we met?
Where, tell me! show me that you too remember.
Eng. In a field near Albert.
Fr. The occasion?
Eng. Sport.
Fr. Bravo! the occasion then as now, le sport!
A football match between allied battalions
1915, mid-August. You remember?
Eng. Yes, I recall it well, the famous match –
One goal apiece at half-time, still a draw
When the whistle blew to end it, two goals all.
Fr. ‘Shall we play overtime to find the victors?
No, no, leave it a draw for friendship’s sake.
We’ll play it out,’ we cried, ‘après la guerre.’
Eng. That second goal you Frenchmen got was fine.
Your left-outside, the big man, swerved across,
Beat both the backs and scored with a stinging volley.
He left our young goalkeeper standing dazed.
Fr. Maurice, his name was.
Eng. Norris was our boy.
Fr. Maurice was killed before Verdun.
Eng. Young Norris
At Passchendaele; I wouldn’t dare to reckon
How many of that team still boot the ball.
Fr. Brave fellows, no embusqués in that class.
Eng. You played right-back that day.
Fr. You, left-inside.
Your company took over billets from us,
I have kept the slip you gave me for receipt.
Eng. But come, how are you now? Blessé?
Fr. Bien blessé.
Both lungs, also this leg at La Fille Morte.
Eng. I at Cambrai, the lungs, this shoulder too.
My friend, there was a time in hospital
I used to calculate what chance remained
Of playing any game when I came out.
At first, my best hopes were for bowls and croquet.
Curling, perhaps, and billiards. I despaired
At first, even of playing village cricket
With a boy to run for me when I went in,
And as for Rugby football or rock climbing,
Those were my sports by preference…what? yours too?…
But health flowed back far stronger than I dreamed.
How much can you do now?
Fr. More than I hoped.
Tennis, indeed, but three sets are too much.
Eng. Ah, three sets are beyond my limit too.
What brings you here to-day?
Fr. A younger brother.
Eng. La boxe? My younger brother’s boxing too
In the middle weights.
Fr. Then they should meet!
Eng. & Fr. The rascals!
Eng. He boxes well?
Fr. I’ve staked big money on him.
Laughter from both, but then a doubtful silence.
Fr. You are thinking, my old comrade?
Eng. Many thoughts:
The personal, the philosophical,
But banded in a close fantastic medley.
We English and you French have different modes
Of thought; you think in logical progression,
We in a coloured flurry of images,
Neither more perfect than the other mode,
For Action springs from both alike.
Fr. Well said!
Voltaire and Shakespeare! yes, it staggers me
That nations bred on genius so diverse
Can ever meet and parley at one board,
Can ever league against a common foe,
Play the same sports, use the same sporting code,
Agree on the same virtue, sportsmanship!
Eng. Agree, you say? do we, can we afford it?
But à nos moutons! Logic has demanded
Account of my fantastics.
Yes! these brothers,
What could they think of our new meeting here
After three years of war and six of peace?
How could they understand, though we explained?
They were too young to serve in France like us,
They still have their knight-bachelor blood to cool,
The same young heat of blood we cooled in War.
Victory would be sweet for them; yet note!
Whichever wins, we stand to lose.
Fr. Vous dites?
Eng. I mean, here we two sit linked once again
By common pleasures, common sufferings,
The same despairs and reassurances,
Blood-bonded also by the name of Sport.
Fr. Then?
Eng. All at once to end this harmony
A cross wind rises from two younger brothers,
Each braced by hopes of the same famous prize,
Each backed to win by an elder brother’s purse.
One must be beaten, what of his elder brother?
Fr. He twists a wry smile in the name of Sport,
And shakes a fist with his old comrade here,
Consoled by boastings of good sportsmanship.
Eng. But friendship, is that quite the same again,
Especially if one disputes the verdict?
‘Après la guerre.’ Is this the sequel then,
Our football match decided by la boxe?
I never wanted that decision made.
Leave it a draw, because our friends are dead!
Fr. I hope these brothers never meet at all,
I hope both beaten in the earlier bouts,
So we can join in amicable wrath
Against the unknown who bears off the prize.
Silence again? You are thinking, my old comrade?
Eng. Yes, lost in thought as in a maze of trenches.
Once more to Logic, th
As many, I dare say, as we in England,
Enthusiasts who wish to end all War,
To wipe it from the world with ‘never again’?
Fr. I have wished the same myself, in hospital
While waiting for my thirteenth operation.
Eng. So too have I, and in the trenches even,
When the barrage rolled forward, wreathed in gas.
But now, I am doubting whether War, as such,
War, even modern War, is man’s worst fault.
Is conflict so much uglier seen in War
When patent, more dramatically staged,
Than seen in Commerce, Social life, the Arts,
Disguised in their official mask of Peace?
Listen to a story, and then answer!
When my grandfather, fighting in New Zealand,
Was captured with his company of foot,
Surprised at dawn by a bold Maori tribe,
Disarmed and ignominiously trussed up,
Those Maoris handed them their bayonets back
On this condition, they should fight it out,
Cold steel against cold steel, with equal sides,
In a pitched battle on the open plain.
Fr. Those were the sportsmen!
Eng. And a rare fight followed.
Yet my grandfather, wounded and sent home,
Was shamefully ill-used by his own country,
Discharged without a pension: he died cursing,
Not the brave sportsmen who had wounded him,
But General Ostrich Feathers of Whitehall,
And Bloggs, a bullying landlord of the worst,
And Noggs, the lawyer who supported Bloggs.
Fr. There are wars and wars: often a war’s a sport,
And stays a sport until one side plays foul,
Uses a new advantage, breaks conventions.
Eng. Exactly: and sometimes a sport’s a war,
In its worst sense of cruelty, lies and shame.
Fr. Even within the framed rules of the sport.
Eng. In Rugby football I have killed more men,
Playing full-back and tackling with ill will,
Killed them, I mean, in murderous intention,
Than ever I killed at Loos or Passchendaele.
At Loos I saw them running, shot them down
With a sportsman’s instinct as he marks down birds.
At Passchendaele I bayoneted a man
As one might pink a fencer with the foil.
Fr. No hate? We too had little hatred there,
Unless quite seldom we were losing heart.
But see, the middle weights are drawn for now –
Soon we shall know how long our friendship lasts.
You have boxed yourself, my friend?
Eng. Yes, I have boxed
And known the loving-kindness of the victor
For the man he’s knocked to pieces, afterwards
Shaking his hand and complimenting him.
Then narrowly each watched the other’s face.
Fr. Those ringside manners, I too know them well.
Agreeing always on the term ‘good sport’,
Did you ever fight a man you could not trust,
A man who had set upon you unawares
Once before, and smashed you? Then again,
Hearing him come behind you with a rush,
Have you floored him and been forced to hammer him,
Though he still kept one knee upon the ground,
Yes, knocked him down and had to punch him silly
Against all rules of boxing? Then, to make sure
That he was done, have you been forced to kick him?
Have you felt his ribs to make sure they were smashed,
Because that man had always played you foul?
Eng. Thank God, I have not: I can truly say
My sportsmanship was never tested so.
Fr. So may it never be, my English friend!
Eng. I understand, respecting you the more
That you can face facts and explain your mind.
But did you ever see two scowling neighbours
Threaten each other in a public place?
One, the bigger and stronger, waits his time
And when the smaller fellow turns his back,
Leaps on him, hooks him sideways on the jaw,
So that he staggers? Then in the name of sport,
But also anxious in mere self-defence,
To lay that bullying fellow on his back,
Have you too leaped in, striking at his face,
And kept on striking? When the smaller man
Rises again, returning blow for blow,
The man who struck him first cries out, alarmed,
‘Two against one! Is this good sportsmanship,
Is this la boxe? No, since you break the rules,
I’ll call for la savate; I’ll use my feet.’
A rough-house follows, all three men get hurt,
But the end is, the big lout groans ‘Enough.’
You, then, feeling your wrongs avenged, stand off
And taking stock of bruises, cuts and sprains,
Remind yourself ‘When he called la savate
I also used my feet, yes, to good purpose.
Granted he was a bully at the start,
He’s learned a lesson not forgotten soon
And he fought gamely. Come, I’ll be a sportsman,
I’ll go and shake hands, help him to his feet.’
By this time there’s a big ring gathered round,
And look, your ally, seated on the foe,
Batters him senseless. ‘My dear friend,’ cry you,
‘Are you a sportsman? then stop hurting him.’
He answers, ‘This great coward only shams.
If once I loose him, up he’ll jump again,
As twice he’s done before, and knock me spinning.
You talk of sport, but I with Aesop’s frogs
Reply, “What’s sport to you is death to me.”’
At this the crowd groans, hisses, cheers: disputes
Which is the better sportsman, you or he –
Then between loyalty to your brave ally
And pride in your much vaunted sportsmanship
Have you been torn in mind, left standing helpless,
Charged with hypocrisy, shame, perfidy?
Fr. Thank Heaven, I have not, I can say truly
My self-respect was never tested so.
Eng. So may it never be, my brave French friend!
Fr. And doctor’s fees; let us not speak of those…
Instead to joke about the long delay
Of our Academy in the compilation
Of their Grande Dictionnaire de la Langue Française,
The full, the final, never-to-be-gainsaid:
Always, perhaps, they shirk the letter ‘s’,
Since no one dares define le sportsmanship?
Yet there’s a word they cannot well omit
Now that the State so warmly fosters sport.
There is no final definition?
Eng. None.
To speak again of War, ‘The Sport of Kings’,
Telling a tale this time against ourselves:
The same grandfather, in the same campaign
Against the Maoris, lately Christianized,
Attacked one Sunday morning in full force;
He found the Maoris not expecting him,
Devoutly praying in their tribal church.
Captured and scandalized, the Maoris asked
For explanation of this gross abuse.
They quoted Rule 4 of the Christian code.
Grandfather stoutly pleaded precedent:
Cromwell, Napoleon, Gustaf-Adolf
All fought their bloodiest battles on a Sunday.
That noble savage would have pleased Rousseau:
Dismissing precedent as a lame excuse,
He as
Fr. Ah! the pure form! could we recover that!
But where in history lies that golden age?
Soon in the understanding pause that followed
They watched their younger brothers mount the ring,
Matched together by caprice of Fate,
Each proudly girded in his country’s colours.
With first a most perfunctory glove-clasp,
They dodged, sparred, side-stepped, fell into a clinch,
Breaking away with heavy body punches,
Battering each other till the bruises showed.
One scowled, the other’s lips moved in a threat;
Panting hard, they boxed more cunningly;
Each recognized that he had met his match.
‘Goodbye, friend, we are foes now,’ said their brothers.
But at that word a strange experience!
Whom should they see, walking between the tiers
Arm in arm and chattering volubly,
But Norris and Maurice! They grinned, passed, vanished,
A pair of daylight ghosts, plain as could be.
Then brotherhood and country were no more:
Up jumped those elder brothers from their seats,
‘Let the best boxer win,’ they cried as one,
‘We take no sides, we forfeit both our bets.
Maurice and Norris! That was strange, by Heaven!’
‘Here,’ cried the Frenchman, ‘here there’s closer bond
Than between any brothers. Here we meet,
Two honest soldiers, old philosophers,
Thinking in different modes, but thinking straight;
We speak the truth when we can speak the truth,
Hate when we must hate, find sport where we can,
And keep from sentimental juggleries,
Ready to face new conflicts as they rise,
Yet honouring our good comrades who are dead.’
Then, on my oath, they left those boxers boxing:
Arm in arm they wandered towards the gates,
Snug in a café absent-mindedly
Played dominoes, and kept no score who won;
Maurice and Norris chaffing from the shadows,
Feinting at each other with clenched fists.
The Marmosite’s Miscellany
(1925)
TO M. IN INDIA
In India you, cross-legged these long years waiting
Beneath your peepul tree, the spread of thought
That canopies your loneliness and mine,
You, watching the resistless moving water,
The wide warm holy flood of Mother Ganges
Nourish her young ones. And in England I,
Waiting, chin to knee, hands moodily clasped
At my accustomed seat, refuge for silence,
The old cleft pollard willow leaning
Where two streams flow together, tributary