Complete Poems 3 (Robert Graves Programme) by Robert Graves
Plumb o’er my gas-globe poised. I shudder
Reckoning out what thy fall would cost me.
I boast a three-legged dusty old desert-ship,
Red terra-cotta, native Egyptian;
Unlike the real true living camel,
Never he bites at the hand that bred him.
Next Summer Quarter sorrowing Charterhouse
Knows me no longer. Then sell I all my goods,
And Noah’s ark long years in Studies
Slowly will circulate till decay comes.
THE CYCLONE
On Friday night the wind came, fumbling at my window,
Like a baby tapping, shaking, rapping, drumming
With tiny white fingers, delicate and strengthless;
Striving to gain entrance at key-hole and chimney,
All intent to learn what was harboured within.
Little I expected, awaking on Saturday,
To find the babe already weaned, already
Grown to a boy-hood curious, sturdy-limbed.
Grown pagan-hearted, wild, unconscionable,
Tumbling down the poplar, huge limbs tearing
From age-honoured elm-tree, slates from every house-top
Boy-like, in wantonness and fury overthrowing
Now the rich-man’s villa, now the huts of the poor.
And ere he abated his frenzy equinoctial,
Thronged were the city-streets, thronged the country-lanes,
With maimed men, with women shrieking above the blast.
THE APE GOD
Her young one dead, some mother of the grey
Wise apes that haunt the jungle-swallowed fane,
Had stolen from his ayah’s arms away
A rescued man-child of the English slain.
Myself once spied the tiny midget-shape
’Mid glossy leaves of a scarlet-berried tree
Far out of man’s reach, clinging like an ape,
Grave-eyed, stark naked, dangling dizzily.
He has grown to youth and taught the ape-men fear;
Provoked, he stares their eyes to bestial fright:
Climbs to sick heights where never man clomb near
And leaps amazing leaps from height to height.
A vision strange! Amid his temple towers,
The wild free ape-god, crowned with crimson flowers!
LAMENT IN DECEMBER
December’s come and all is dead:
Weep, woods, for Summer far has sped,
And leaves rot in the valley-bed.
Grey-blue and gaunt the oak-boughs spread
Mourn through a mist their leafage shed.
December, season of the dead!
Brown-golden, scarlet, orange-red,
Autumn’s bright hues, are faded, fled.
December, season of the dead!
The goblins Fog and Dulness, wed
Breed ugly children in my head
And thought lags by with feet of lead.
December, season of the dead!
MERLIN AND THE CHILD
(Adapted from an early Cornish poem)
Merlin went up the mountain side.
A young boy stood above him and cried:
‘Merlin, Merlin, where are you bound
Early, so early, with your black hound?
Your rod of hazel, well shaped and thin,
Do magic powers lie closed within?’
Merlin put two hands to his head,
Hiding his eyes in a terror, said:
‘Lamb of thunder, avenging dove,
Dealer of wrath, High-king of love,
To search the way and the ways I am come
For a round red egg to carry home,
Blood-red egg of an ocean snake
From the hollowed stone where bright waves break,
To search if ever the valleys hold
Green watercress, or grass of gold,
By a woodland fountain-side to lop
The highest cluster from oak-tree top.
My hazel twig is a magic wand –
Magic of earth, and a power beyond.’
Close to Merlin the young boy stood,
Stretched his hand to the slender wood:
‘Merlin, Merlin, turn now again!
Unharmed let the cluster of oak remain,
The cress in the valley where fresh brooks run,
The gold grass dancing below the sun,
And the smooth egg of your ocean snake
In the hollow where dappled waters shake.
Turn again in the steps you have trod:
There is no diviner, but only God!’
A DAY IN FEBRUARY
This foul February day
Dims all colour with dead grey.
Save where stumps of the sawn willow
Mark with shields of orange-yellow
The brown windings of the Wey,
This foul February day
Like a painter lean and sallow,
Dims all colour with dead grey.
THE WASP
I arose at dawn with this end in mind
To display in the wide world everywhere
The sable and gold that alternate
My corselet of proof to beautify.
In a cluster of scented meadow-sweet,
Off right good nectar breakfasting
And too well drunk to be quarrelsome,
I heard the booming buzz of bees,
Big black boisterous bumble-bees,
‘Ziz iz zo zweet’ from the fuchsias.
Each filled to bursting his honey-bag,
An appendage I’ve never been troubled with,
Bore it away, up-ended it
And sailed again through the morning air
On a bee-line back to the fuchsias.
As I marvelled to view their industry,
One travelled past me, homeward bound,
Humming ‘Ziz iz ze zirty zird
Ztuffed zack of zweet ambrozia!’
Which seemed to me far from credible
And would have provoked my waspishness,
But I dared not give him the lie direct
And name him a nectar-bibbing drone,
For a bee has the pride of a gentleman,
The honour and pride of a gentleman,
And I never did hold with duelling,
And a bumble-bee stings outrageous.
FIVE RHYMES
MY HAZEL-TWIG
My hazel-twig is frail and thin
Yet mighty magic dwells therein,
Black magic, potent in the night,
The master-sorcerer’s delight;
Whenas my rival witch appears
This wand will grow him asses’ ears;
My hazel-twig is frail and thin
Yet mighty magic dwells therein.
AFTER THE RAIN
Now Earth has drunk her fill of rain
The thirsty common lives again,
And raindrops quivering argentine
’Mid new-born needles of the pine,
As through and through a fresh wind soughs,
Drop shining down to nether boughs.
Now Earth has drunk her fill of rain
The thirsty common lives again.
ENVY
‘Envy’ I’m loth to call the blight
That cankers all my day and night,
Yet when I see a villain shine
In glory that is rightly mine,
And when he says his taunting say
To me, his better, Envy – nay!
‘Envy’ I’m loth to call the blight
That cankers all my day and night.
THE KING’S HIGHWAY
The King’s Highway is all too wide:
For me, the narrow street and dark,
Where houses lean from either side,
Where robbers lurk at eventide;
There let me wander unespied,
To plot and counter-plotting hark –
The King’s Hig
For me, the narrow street and dark.
THE GLORIOUS HARSHNESS OF THE PARROT’S VOICE
Hateful are studied harmonies
Where shrills the parrot as he flies
And cranes his painted neck. ‘Oho!
Through towering Jungletown I go!
With green and gold my plumage gleams,
The World is nought to me,’ he screams –
Hateful are studied harmonies
Where shrills the parrot as he flies.
TWO MOODS
Of old this universe was born
From sorrow travailing forlorn.
Its highest joys serve but as foil
To toil and pain, to pain and toil;
The serpent chokes us, coil o’er coil;
Blind Cupid heaps our head with scorn.
Of old this universe was born
From sorrow travailing forlorn.
The peach-tree blossoms out
Confirming Winter’s rout
And everywhere
One song is heard from amorous bird
‘My love is fair!’
To me a wondrous thing,
The thrushes brown yet sing
The notes they sung
From laced treetops of a birchen copse
When I was young.
We had forgotten this
That Life may all be bliss
Devoid of pain.
Which lesson then, my fellow-men,
Come, learn again!
THE BRIAR BURNERS
The round breasted hill above
Glows like a lamp-lit dome,
As hither with the seeds of fire
The briar burners come.
Youths with torches flaring yellow
Kindle the thickets dry,
The flames waxing clearer, clearer,
Nearer, yet more nigh.
A pillar of illumined smoke
Wavering skyward, marks
The silvered purple of the night
With starbright fire-red sparks.
The oak leaves that but yesterday
Thrust from their pregnant spike
Quiver in the fire-flare cruel,
Transparent jewel-like.
Exultant silhouetted dark
Against the golden glow
From brake to brake with brands a-fire
The briar burners go.
THE TYRANNY OF BOOKS
Spring passes, summer’s young,
Yet mute has been my tongue.
This is the seventh week
I have not sung.
And now I hear the verdant hillside speak
Chiding me for this wrong
That I have celebrated not in song
The new-come colour on her faded cheek,
The sap that inly swells,
The rooks, the lush bluebells,
The meadow-grasses shooting strong.
Spring airs are pleasant and the day is long;
The year is young,
And yet have I not sung.
For by my elbow lies a pile
Of books, of stern insistent books,
Big, broad, stout books
Crammed full of knowledge. Though it looks
As if I’d finish in a little while,
Still grows the pile.
The more I read the more they breed:
Books wed to books
Bear bookish progeny that bids me heed,
Denies my pen over the page to speed.
Outside, the rooks
Circle in air and mate and feed,
But I must read and read.
Can I afford to find my books
Only in running brooks?
THE EXHAUST-PIPE
The selfish poet, falling sick
Heals his disorder double quick
By taking pen in hand and cursing
His birth, conception, breeding, nursing,
His education, the fell strife
Between his nature and his life,
His love affairs, religion, health,
His art, his friendship-commonwealth,
Till those who read the verses groan
To think his case most like their own,
To find their own life pain and sorrow,
To see no hopes for their to-morrow,
And weep – but he who caused their grief,
Has found expression and relief.
If I indulged my naughtiest mood
And fostered melancholy’s brood
Of wingèd spites, and sat me down
With clattered pen and furious frown
And forelock round my fingers curled,
Resolved to satirize the world,
Then after meditation long
My fevered brain would cram my wrong
Into a tiny verse so hot,
So full, so poison-tipped, ’twould rot
Man’s faith in living and provide
Excuse for general suicide.
But do I frame this pregnant plaint?
No, I do not, sir!
[‘What restraint!’]
THE ORGAN GRINDER
Come along, gents: I’ll play you a tune
That you won’t ’ear twice in a blamed blue moon.
An’ I bet that I’ll simply give you fits
With me um-tum-tiddely twiddly bits.
I played this ’ere tune to a welchin’ tout
An’ a Baptist minister solemn an’ swell:
One stood an’ ’e laughed till ’is teeth shook out
An’ ’tother one sang till ’e rang like a bell.
I played this ’ere tune to a jolly ole toff,
’Oo laughed an’ quivered, and tears ’e shed
An’ a smile went runnin’ all round ’is ’ead
An’ the upper ’alf of ’is face fell off….
’Ey diddle diddle, the cat an’ the fiddle!
I’ll make you all giggle an’ wriggle an’ squiggle
An’ stamp with your feet an’ collapse in the middle!
Jingle jangle, ’ey diddle diddle!
You’re ’oppin’ about like peas on the griddle!
Tow row, rackety jangle – whirr!
That’s the end of it.
Thank you, sir!
1918–1927
THE TWO BROTHERS
(An Allegory)
Once two brothers, Joe and Will,
Parted each to choose his home,
Joe on top of Windy Hill
Where the storm clouds go and come
All day long, but Will the other
In the plain would snugly rest
Low and safe yet near his brother:
Low and safe he made his nest
At the foot of Windy Hill,
Built a clattering Watermill.
In the winter Joe would freeze,
Will lay warm in his snug mill;
Through the summer Joe’s cool breeze
Filled with envy burning Will.
Yet to take all times together
Both were portioned their fair due,
Joe enjoyed the fine warm weather,
Will could smile in winter too;
Neither troubled nor complained,
Each in his own home remained.
These two brothers at first sight
Made a pair of Heavenly Twins,
Two green peas, two birds in flight,
Two fresh daisies, two new pins:
Yet the second time you’d seen ’em,
Seen ’em close and watched ’em well,
You would find there lay between ’em
All the span of Heaven and Hell,
Spring and Autumn, East and West,
And I know whom I liked best.
Listen: once when lofty Joe
Climbing down to view the mill,
Wept to find Will lived so low
Would not stop to dine with Will,
Will climbed back through the cloudy
Laughed to feel he stood so high,
Tossed his hat up, kissed his brother,
Drank old ale, ate crusty pie…
Will had no high soul, but oh
Give us Will, we all hate Joe!
PEACE
When that glad day shall break to match
‘Before-the-War’ with ‘Since-the-Peace’,
And up I climb to twist new thatch
Across my cottage roof, while geese
Stand stiffly there below and vex
The yard with hissing from long necks,
In that immense release,
That shining day, shall we hear said:
‘New wars to-morrow, more men dead’?
When peace time conies and horror’s over,
Despair and darkness like a dream,
When fields are ripe with corn and clover,
The cool white dairy full of cream,
Shall we work happily in the sun,
And think ‘It’s over now and done’,
Or suddenly shall we seem
To watch a second bristling shadow
Of armed men move across the meadow?
Will it be over once for all,
With no more killed and no more maimed;
Shall we be safe from terror’s thrall,
The eagle caged, the lion tamed;
Or will the young of that vile brood,
The young ones also, suck up blood
Unconquered, unashamed,
Rising again with lust and thirst?
Better we all had died at first,
Better that killed before our prime
We rotted deep in earthy slime.
BAZENTIN, 1916
(A Reminiscence – Robert and David)
R. That was a curious night, two years ago,
Relieving those tired Dockers at Bazentin.
Remember climbing up between the ruins?
The guide that lost his head when the gas-shells came,
Lurching about this way and that, half-witted,
Till we were forced to find the way ourselves?
D. Yes, twilight torn with flashes, faces muffled,
In stinking masks, and eyes all sore and crying
With lachrymatory stuff, and four men gassed.
R. Yet we got up there safely, found the trenches
Untraversed shallow ditches, along a road
With dead men sprawled about, some ours, some theirs –
D. Ours mostly, and those Dockers doing nothing,
Tired out, poor devils; much too tired to dig,