 | The burning of the leaves |  |
1
The Burning of the Leaves
Five Poems
I
[Now is the time for the burning of the leaves.]
Now is the time for the burning of the leaves.
They go to the fire; the nostril pricks with smoke
Wandering slowly into a weeping mist.
Brittle and blotched, ragged and rotten sheaves!
A flame seizes the smouldering ruin and bites
On stubborn stalks that crackle as they resist.
They go to the fire; the nostril pricks with smoke
Wandering slowly into a weeping mist.
Brittle and blotched, ragged and rotten sheaves!
A flame seizes the smouldering ruin and bites
On stubborn stalks that crackle as they resist.
The last hollyhock's fallen tower is dust;
All the spices of June are a bitter reek,
All the extravagant riches spent and mean.
All burns! The reddest rose is a ghost;
Sparks whirl up, to expire in the mist: the wild
Fingers of fire are making corruption clean.
All the spices of June are a bitter reek,
All the extravagant riches spent and mean.
All burns! The reddest rose is a ghost;
Sparks whirl up, to expire in the mist: the wild
Fingers of fire are making corruption clean.
Now is the time for stripping the spirit bare,
Time for the burning of days ended and done,
Idle solace of things that have gone before:
Rootless hope and fruitless desire are there;
Let them go to the fire, with never a look behind.
The world that was ours is a world that is ours no more.
Time for the burning of days ended and done,
Idle solace of things that have gone before:
Rootless hope and fruitless desire are there;
Let them go to the fire, with never a look behind.
The world that was ours is a world that is ours no more.
They will come again, the leaf and the flower, to arise
From squalor of rottenness into the old splendour,
And magical scents to a wondering memory bring;
The same glory, to shine upon different eyes.
Earth cares for her own ruins, naught for ours.
Nothing is certain, only the certain spring.
From squalor of rottenness into the old splendour,
And magical scents to a wondering memory bring;
The same glory, to shine upon different eyes.
Earth cares for her own ruins, naught for ours.
Nothing is certain, only the certain spring.
2
II
[Never was anything so deserted]
Never was anything so deserted
As this dim theatre
Now, when in passive grayness the remote
Morning is here,
Daunting the wintry glitter of the pale,
Half-lit chandelier.
As this dim theatre
Now, when in passive grayness the remote
Morning is here,
Daunting the wintry glitter of the pale,
Half-lit chandelier.
Never was anything disenchanted
As this silence!
Gleams of soiled gilding on curved balconies
Empty; immense
Dead crimson curtain, tasselled with its old
And staled pretence.
As this silence!
Gleams of soiled gilding on curved balconies
Empty; immense
Dead crimson curtain, tasselled with its old
And staled pretence.
Nothing is heard but a shuffling and knocking
Of mop and mat,
Where dustily two charwomen exchange
Leisurely chat.
Stretching and settling to voluptuous sleep
Curls a cat.
Of mop and mat,
Where dustily two charwomen exchange
Leisurely chat.
Stretching and settling to voluptuous sleep
Curls a cat.
The voices are gone, the voices
That laughed and cried.
It is as if the whole marvel of the world
Had blankly died,
Exposed, inert as a drowned body left
By the ebb of the tide.
That laughed and cried.
It is as if the whole marvel of the world
Had blankly died,
Exposed, inert as a drowned body left
By the ebb of the tide.
Beautiful as water, beautiful as fire,
The voices came,
Made the eyes to open and the ears to hear,
The hand to lie intent and motionless,
The heart to flame,
The radiance of reality was there,
Splendour and shame.
The voices came,
Made the eyes to open and the ears to hear,
The hand to lie intent and motionless,
3
The radiance of reality was there,
Splendour and shame.
Slowly an arm dropped, and an empire fell.
We saw, we knew.
A head was lifted, and a soul was freed.
Abysses opened into heaven and hell.
We heard, we drew
Into our thrilled veins courage of the truth
That searched us through.
We saw, we knew.
A head was lifted, and a soul was freed.
Abysses opened into heaven and hell.
We heard, we drew
Into our thrilled veins courage of the truth
That searched us through.
But the voices are all departed,
The vision dull.
Daylight disconsolately enters
Only to annul.
The vast space is hollow and empty
As a skull.
The vision dull.
Daylight disconsolately enters
Only to annul.
The vast space is hollow and empty
As a skull.
III
[Cold springs among black ruins? Who shall say]
Cold springs among black ruins? Who shall say
Whither or whence they stream?
If it could be that such translated light
As comes about a dreamer when he dreams—
And he believes with a belief intense
What morning will deride—if such a light
Of neither night nor day
Nor moon nor sun
Shone here, it would accord with what it broods upon,—
Disjected fragments of magnificence!
A loneliness of light, without a sound,
Is shattered on wrecked tower and purpled wall
(Fire has been here!)
On arch and pillar and entablature,
As if arrested in the act to fall.
Where a home was, is a misshapen mound
Beneath nude rafters. Still,
Fluent and fresh and pure,
At their own will
Amid this lunar desolation glide
Those living springs, with interrupted gleam,
As if nothing had died:
But who will drink of them?
Whither or whence they stream?
If it could be that such translated light
As comes about a dreamer when he dreams—
And he believes with a belief intense
What morning will deride—if such a light
Of neither night nor day
Nor moon nor sun
Shone here, it would accord with what it broods upon,—
Disjected fragments of magnificence!
A loneliness of light, without a sound,
Is shattered on wrecked tower and purpled wall
(Fire has been here!)
4
As if arrested in the act to fall.
Where a home was, is a misshapen mound
Beneath nude rafters. Still,
Fluent and fresh and pure,
At their own will
Amid this lunar desolation glide
Those living springs, with interrupted gleam,
As if nothing had died:
But who will drink of them?
Stooping and feeble, leaning on a stick,
An old man with his vague feet stirs the dust,
Searching a strange world for he knows not what
Among haphazard stone and crumbled brick.
He cannot adjust
What his eyes see to memory's golden land,
Shut off by the iron curtain of to-day:
The past is all the present he has got.
Now, as he bends to peer
Into the rubble, he picks up in his hand
(Death has been here!)
Something defaced, naked and bruised: a doll,
A child's doll, blankly smiling with wide eyes
And oh, how human in its helplessness!
Pondered in weak fingers
He holds it puzzled: wondering, where is she
The small mother
Whose pleasure was to clothe it and caress,
Who hugged it with a motherhood foreknown,
Who ran to comfort its imagined cries
And gave it pretty sorrows for its own?
No one replies.
An old man with his vague feet stirs the dust,
Searching a strange world for he knows not what
Among haphazard stone and crumbled brick.
He cannot adjust
What his eyes see to memory's golden land,
Shut off by the iron curtain of to-day:
The past is all the present he has got.
Now, as he bends to peer
Into the rubble, he picks up in his hand
(Death has been here!)
Something defaced, naked and bruised: a doll,
A child's doll, blankly smiling with wide eyes
And oh, how human in its helplessness!
Pondered in weak fingers
He holds it puzzled: wondering, where is she
The small mother
Whose pleasure was to clothe it and caress,
Who hugged it with a motherhood foreknown,
Who ran to comfort its imagined cries
And gave it pretty sorrows for its own?
No one replies.
5
IV
[Beautiful, wearied head]
Beautiful, wearied head
Leant back against the arm upthrown behind,
Why are your eyes closed? Is it that they fear
Sight of these vast horizons shuddering red
And drawing near and near?
God-like shape, would you be blind
Rather than see the young leaves dropping dead
All round you in foul blasts of scorching wind,
As if the world, O disinherited,
That your own spirit willed
Since upon earth laughter and grief began
Should only in final mockery rebuild
A palace for the proudest ruin, Man?
Leant back against the arm upthrown behind,
Why are your eyes closed? Is it that they fear
Sight of these vast horizons shuddering red
And drawing near and near?
God-like shape, would you be blind
Rather than see the young leaves dropping dead
All round you in foul blasts of scorching wind,
As if the world, O disinherited,
That your own spirit willed
Since upon earth laughter and grief began
Should only in final mockery rebuild
A palace for the proudest ruin, Man?
Or are those eyes closed for the inward eye
To see, beyond the tortures of to-day,
The hills of hope, serene in liquid light
Of reappearing sky—
This black fume and miasma rolled away?
Yet oh how far thought speeds the onward sight!
The unforeshortened vision opens vast.
Hill beyond hill, year upon year amassed,
Age beyond age and still the hills ascend,
Height superseding height,
Though each had seemed (but only seemed) the last,
And still appears no end,
No end, but all an upward path to climb,
To conquer—at what cost!
Labouring on, to be lost
On the mountains of Time.
To see, beyond the tortures of to-day,
The hills of hope, serene in liquid light
Of reappearing sky—
This black fume and miasma rolled away?
Yet oh how far thought speeds the onward sight!
The unforeshortened vision opens vast.
Hill beyond hill, year upon year amassed,
Age beyond age and still the hills ascend,
Height superseding height,
Though each had seemed (but only seemed) the last,
And still appears no end,
No end, but all an upward path to climb,
To conquer—at what cost!
Labouring on, to be lost
On the mountains of Time.
What are they burning, what are they burning,
Heaping and burning in a thunder-gloom?
Rubbish of the old world, dead things, merely names,
Truth, justice, love, beauty, the human smile,
All flung to the flames!
They are raging to destroy, but first defile;
Maddened, because no furnace will consume
What lives, still lives, impassioned to create.
Ah, your eyes open: open, and dilate.
Transfigured, you behold
The python that was coiled about your feet,
Muscle on muscle, in slow malignant fold,
Tauten and tower, impending opposite,—
A fury of greed, an ecstasy of hate,
Concentred in the small and angry eye.
Your hand leaps out in the action to defy,
And grips the unclean throat, to strangle it.
Heaping and burning in a thunder-gloom?
6
Truth, justice, love, beauty, the human smile,
All flung to the flames!
They are raging to destroy, but first defile;
Maddened, because no furnace will consume
What lives, still lives, impassioned to create.
Ah, your eyes open: open, and dilate.
Transfigured, you behold
The python that was coiled about your feet,
Muscle on muscle, in slow malignant fold,
Tauten and tower, impending opposite,—
A fury of greed, an ecstasy of hate,
Concentred in the small and angry eye.
Your hand leaps out in the action to defy,
And grips the unclean throat, to strangle it.
V
[From shadow to shadow the waters are gliding, are gone]
From shadow to shadow the waters are gliding, are gone,
They mirror the ruins a moment, the wounds and the void;
But theirs is the sweetness of silence in places apart:
They retain not a stain, in a moment they shine as they shone,
They stay not for bound or for bar, they have found out a way
Far from the gnawing of greed and the envious heart.
They mirror the ruins a moment, the wounds and the void;
But theirs is the sweetness of silence in places apart:
They retain not a stain, in a moment they shine as they shone,
They stay not for bound or for bar, they have found out a way
Far from the gnawing of greed and the envious heart.
The freshness of leaves is from them, and the springing of grass,
The juice of the apple, the rustle of ripening corn;
They know not the lust of destruction, the frenzy of spite;
They give and pervade, and possess not, but silently pass;
They perish not, though they be broken; continuing streams,
The same in the cloud and the glory, the night and the light.
The juice of the apple, the rustle of ripening corn;
They know not the lust of destruction, the frenzy of spite;
They give and pervade, and possess not, but silently pass;
They perish not, though they be broken; continuing streams,
The same in the cloud and the glory, the night and the light.
8
Ezekiel
Ezekiel in the Valley of Dry Bones
Heard the word of the Lord commanding him:
‘Prophesy to these bones, that they may live.’
There was a noise and a shaking; and bone to bone
Clove together, and sinew and flesh came on them.
Heard the word of the Lord commanding him:
‘Prophesy to these bones, that they may live.’
There was a noise and a shaking; and bone to bone
Clove together, and sinew and flesh came on them.
Yet there was no breath in them. The Lord commanded:
‘Prophesy, Son of Man, to the four winds.’
And the winds came from the corners of the earth,
Breathing upon those dead, and clothed in flesh
Was a great army standing upon their feet.
‘Prophesy, Son of Man, to the four winds.’
And the winds came from the corners of the earth,
Breathing upon those dead, and clothed in flesh
Was a great army standing upon their feet.
I dreamed I stood in a valley of dry bones.
But what were these? derelict, rusty, mounded
Clutter and offal of man's invention, dry bones
Cast aside by hurrying civilization,
Yesterday's triumph, that To-day despises.
But what were these? derelict, rusty, mounded
Clutter and offal of man's invention, dry bones
Cast aside by hurrying civilization,
Yesterday's triumph, that To-day despises.
With a noise of hissing they were coming together.
Fire breathed on them, and metal clove to metal,
Timed and measured, each to its intricate function,
Minute or monstrous, all in the brain engendered,
Convolutions, multiplied over and over.
Fire breathed on them, and metal clove to metal,
Timed and measured, each to its intricate function,
Minute or monstrous, all in the brain engendered,
Convolutions, multiplied over and over.
Panting and humming, forms combined to a meaning,
Usurping the sky, supplanting the sweet verdure,
Forms from the blinding furnace issuing, huge
Giantry of metal, dwarfing man to a pigmy,
Sounding, clamouring, throbbing in speed and power.
Usurping the sky, supplanting the sweet verdure,
Forms from the blinding furnace issuing, huge
Giantry of metal, dwarfing man to a pigmy,
Sounding, clamouring, throbbing in speed and power.
9
Proud we gaze on all we have mastered,—captive
Force, and willed conformity, stamped exactness.
But O divine diversity of creatures,
Where are you? Not here amid man's contrivings;
None can repeat you, none complete, nor annul you.
Force, and willed conformity, stamped exactness.
But O divine diversity of creatures,
Where are you? Not here amid man's contrivings;
None can repeat you, none complete, nor annul you.
10
High over the battling Street
High over the battling street
I watch the wind blow
In frenzy tearing the plane trees
That are tossing below.
I watch the wind blow
In frenzy tearing the plane trees
That are tossing below.
The high balcony's railing
Casts a shadow unstirred:
Of this mad torment of air
The sun has not heard.
Casts a shadow unstirred:
Of this mad torment of air
The sun has not heard.
Marseilles, 17 May 1940
11
The Lamp of Greece
Truth incorruptible lives on, though sight
Cloud, and the heart flinch, and the mind askance
Reject. Because she sought that radiance,
Unweariable lover of the light!
History's marvel, Hellas in despite
Of time and interposing circumstance
Still stands above the siege of ignorance,
Serene before the armies of the night.
Cloud, and the heart flinch, and the mind askance
Reject. Because she sought that radiance,
Unweariable lover of the light!
History's marvel, Hellas in despite
Of time and interposing circumstance
Still stands above the siege of ignorance,
Serene before the armies of the night.
The mind has flowered where she wooed the seed
Up from the darkness into beauty: there
Love listens, divine music fills the air,
Though we by glimpses only understand
Who in the present anguish of our need
Long for the light as for our native land.
Up from the darkness into beauty: there
Love listens, divine music fills the air,
Though we by glimpses only understand
Who in the present anguish of our need
Long for the light as for our native land.
12
The Winds of all the World
The winds of all the world bring agonies,
Day by day, hour by hour, into our ears;
Not only desolation, blood, and tears,
But cloud on cloud of suffocating lies.
Day by day, hour by hour, into our ears;
Not only desolation, blood, and tears,
But cloud on cloud of suffocating lies.
The human strives with the inhuman there,
Enduring things beyond belief, and still
Because of one unconquerable will
Confronts, clear-eyed, what it has yet to bear.
Enduring things beyond belief, and still
Because of one unconquerable will
Confronts, clear-eyed, what it has yet to bear.
Before the sunrise, under naked trees
On grass that sparkled in the dew, I paced.
I thought of all the torment, all the waste;
I thought of beauty, justice, mercy, peace.
On grass that sparkled in the dew, I paced.
I thought of all the torment, all the waste;
I thought of beauty, justice, mercy, peace.
Beyond the raging of the powers of night
What from of old stood, still was dear, was true.
Far in the East the sky to glory grew,
And slowly earth rolled onward into light.
What from of old stood, still was dear, was true.
Far in the East the sky to glory grew,
And slowly earth rolled onward into light.
13
The Cherry Trees
Out of the dusk of distant woods
All round beneath the April skies
Blossom-white, the cherry trees
Like lovely apparitions rise,
All round beneath the April skies
Blossom-white, the cherry trees
Like lovely apparitions rise,
Like spirits strange to this ill world,
White strangers from a world apart,
Like silent promises of peace,
Like hope that blossoms in the heart.
White strangers from a world apart,
Like silent promises of peace,
Like hope that blossoms in the heart.
14
The Orchard
Almond, apple, and peach,
Walnut, cherry, plum,
Ash, chestnut, and beech,
And lime and sycamore
We have planted for days to come;
Walnut, cherry, plum,
Ash, chestnut, and beech,
And lime and sycamore
We have planted for days to come;
No stony monument
But growing, changing things,
Leaf, fruit, and honied scent,
Bloom that the bees explore,
Sprays where the bird sings.
But growing, changing things,
Leaf, fruit, and honied scent,
Bloom that the bees explore,
Sprays where the bird sings.
In other Junes than ours
When the boughs spread and rise
Tall into leafy towers
To grace and guard this small
Corner of paradise;
When the boughs spread and rise
Tall into leafy towers
To grace and guard this small
Corner of paradise;
When petals red and white
Resign to warming air,
Without speech or sight
From our hands they will fall
On happy voices there.
Resign to warming air,
Without speech or sight
From our hands they will fall
On happy voices there.
15
To Elsie Fogerty
(Nov. 30, 1942)
On living lips to mould and modulate
The shapes of sound, that each may mirror true
The mystery of the word and breathe it new
Into the entranced ear, warm and intimate;
For heart and mind such beauty to create
As on our English stage may fitly nurse
Its heritage, the glory of voice and verse:
To this you chose your days to dedicate.
You serve that art, you teach its subtle rule
Of rhythmic life. Accept for this to-day
Our homage; and, it may be, turn like one
Who from the hill turns on his homeward way
To look back on the vale, and bountiful
Ripe harvest that his happy toil has sown.
16
Winter Sunrise
It is early morning within this room; without,
Dark and damp; without and within, stillness
Waiting for day: not a sound but a listening air.
Dark and damp; without and within, stillness
Waiting for day: not a sound but a listening air.
Yellow jasmine, delicate on stiff branches
Stands in a Tuscan pot to delight the eye
In spare December's patient nakedness.
Stands in a Tuscan pot to delight the eye
In spare December's patient nakedness.
Suddenly, softly, as if at a breath breathed
On the pale wall, a magical apparition,
The shadow of the jasmine, branch and blossom!
On the pale wall, a magical apparition,
The shadow of the jasmine, branch and blossom!
It was not there, it is there, in a perfect image;
And all is changed. It is like a memory lost
Returning without a reason into the mind;
And all is changed. It is like a memory lost
Returning without a reason into the mind;
And it seems to me that the beauty of the shadow
Is more beautiful than the flower; a strange beauty,
Pencilled and silently deepening to distinctness.
Is more beautiful than the flower; a strange beauty,
Pencilled and silently deepening to distinctness.
As a memory stealing out of the mind's slumber,
A memory floating up from a dark water,
Can be more beautiful than the thing remembered.
A memory floating up from a dark water,
Can be more beautiful than the thing remembered.
17
I turn to the window, and out of a low cloud
Is a brimming-over of brightness; dazzling the eye
With levelled brilliance, fiery-fresh, the Sun.
Is a brimming-over of brightness; dazzling the eye
With levelled brilliance, fiery-fresh, the Sun.
As in absent thought with dreaming eyes I gaze
On sudden shadows gliding across the rime
A vision comes before me in utter silence
On sudden shadows gliding across the rime
A vision comes before me in utter silence
The earth is moving, the earth is rolling over
All that is usual all that goes unquestioned
is taken from me
wider, wider the doors of vision are opening
All that is usual all that goes unquestioned
is taken from me
wider, wider the doors of vision are opening
Horizon opening into unguessed horizons
And I with the earth am moving into the light
The earth is moving, the earth is rolling over
into the light long, long
shadows of trees run out
are running across the grass.
And I with the earth am moving into the light
The earth is moving, the earth is rolling over
into the light long, long
shadows of trees run out
are running across the grass.
With frosty plains, mountains and curving coasts
Cities and rivers, forests, burning deserts,
Seas and the sprinkled islands, passing, passing,
But all transparent! Under the generous earth
The careless waters, I see the original fires
Leaping in spasms, seeking to burst their prison
And I remember that human eyes have seen
Solid earth yawn and cities shaken to fragments
Ocean torn to the bottom and great ships swallowed,
Cities and rivers, forests, burning deserts,
Seas and the sprinkled islands, passing, passing,
But all transparent! Under the generous earth
The careless waters, I see the original fires
Leaping in spasms, seeking to burst their prison
And I remember that human eyes have seen
Solid earth yawn and cities shaken to fragments
Ocean torn to the bottom and great ships swallowed,
Now more terrible than those blind convulsions
Are men at war; on land, on the seas, in the air,
War, war in the brain, in the obstinate will
war in the brain, war in the will, war
No refuge or hiding place anywhere for the mind
And now I hear everywhere sound of battle
The seekers after destruction, there is no refuge
Death, death, death on the earth, in the sea, in the air
Yet oh, it is a single soul always in the midst
Each is a single soul.
O it cannot be, yet it is
Are men at war; on land, on the seas, in the air,
War, war in the brain, in the obstinate will
war in the brain, war in the will, war
No refuge or hiding place anywhere for the mind
18
The seekers after destruction, there is no refuge
Death, death, death on the earth, in the sea, in the air
Yet oh, it is a single soul always in the midst
Each is a single soul.
O it cannot be, yet it is
Let me not be so stunned that I cannot feel . . .
Imagination is but a little cup
It can hold but a minim part
Can a little cup contain an ocean?
Imagination is but a little cup
It can hold but a minim part
Can a little cup contain an ocean?
My dreaming eyes return
The flower of winter remembers its own season
And the beautiful shadow upon the pale wall
Is imperceptibly moving with ancient earth
Around the sun that timeless measures sure and silent.
The flower of winter remembers its own season
And the beautiful shadow upon the pale wall
Is imperceptibly moving with ancient earth
Around the sun that timeless measures sure and silent.
THE END
| The burning of the leaves | |