LXI
IN PROCESSION
THIS piece was written a few weeks after the remainder of the book: I had no cold-blooded intention of summarizing the paradox of poetic arrogance contained in the last section, but so it happened, and I print it here.
Donne (for example’s sake)
Keats, Marlowe, Spenser, Blake,
Shelley and Milton,
Shakespeare and Chaucer, Skelton—
I love them as I know them,
But who could dare outgo them
At their several arts
At their particular parts
Of wisdom, power and knowledge?
In the Poet’s College
Are no degrees nor stations,
Comparisons, rivals,
Stern examinations,
Class declarations,
Senior survivals;
No creeds, religions, nations
Combatant together
With mutual damnations.
Or tell me whether
Shelley’s hand could take
The laurel wreath from Blake?
Could Shakespeare make the less
Chaucer’s goodliness?
The poets of old
Each with his pen of gold
Gloriously writing
Found no need for fighting,
In common being so rich;
None need take the ditch,
Unless this Chaucer beats
That Chaucer, or this Keats
With other Keats is flyting:
See Donne deny Donne’s feats,
Shelley take Shelley down,
Blake snatch at his own crown.
Without comparison aiming high,
Watching with no jealous eye,
A neighbour’s renown,
Each in his time contended
But with a mood late ended,
Some manner now put by,
Or force expended,
Sinking a new well when the old ran dry.
So, like my masters, I
Voice my ambition loud,
In prospect proud,
Treading the poet’s road,
In retrospect most humble
For I stumble and tumble,
I spill my load.
But often half-way to sleep,
On a mountain shagged and steep,
The sudden moment on me comes
With terrible roll of dream drums,
Reverberations, cymbals, horns replying,
When with standards flying,
A cloud of horsemen behind,
The coloured pomps unwind
The Carnival wagons
With their saints and their dragons
On the screen of my teeming mind,
The Creation and Flood
With our Saviour’s Blood
And fat Silenus’ flagons,
With every rare beast
From the South and East,
Both greatest and least,
On and on,
In endless variable procession.
I stand on the top rungs
Of a ladder reared in the air
And I speak with strange tongues
So the crowds murmur and stare,
Then volleys again the blare
Of horns, and Summer flowers
Fly scattering in showers,
And the Sun rolls in the sky,
While the drums thumping by
Proclaim me....
Oh then, when I wake
Could I recovering take
And propose on this page
The words of my rage
And my blandishing speech
Steadfast and sage,
Could I stretch and reach
The flowers and the ripe fruit
Laid out at the ladder’s foot,
Could I rip a silken shred
From the banner tossed ahead,
Could I call a double flam
From the drums, could the Goat
Horned with gold, could the Ram
With a flank like a barn-door
The dwarf and blackamoor,
Could Jonah and the Whale
And the Holy Grail
With the “Sacking of Rome”
And “Lot at his home”
The Ape with his platter,
Going clitter-clatter,
The Nymphs and the Satyr,
And every other such matter
Come before me here
Standing and speaking clear
With a “how do ye do?”
And “who are ye, who?”
Could I show them to you
That you saw them with me,
Oh then, then I could be
The Prince of all Poetry
With never a peer,
Seeing my way so clear
To unveil mystery.
Telling you of land and sea
Of Heaven blithe and free,
How I know there to be
Such and such Castles built in Spain,
Telling also of Cockaigne
Of that glorious kingdom, Cand
Of the Delectable Land,
The Land of Crooked Stiles,
The Fortunate Isles,
Of the more than three score miles
That to Babylon lead,
A pretty city indeed
Built on a foursquare plan,
Of the land of the Gold Man
Whose eager horses whinney
In their cribs of gold,
Of the lands of Whipperginny
Of the land where none grow old.
Especially I could tell
Of the Town of Hell,
A huddle of dirty woes
And houses in endless rows
Straggling across all space;
Hell has no market place,
Nor point where four ways meet,
Nor principal street,
Nor barracks, nor Town Hall,
Nor shops at all,
Nor rest for weary feet,
Nor theatre, square or park,
Nor lights after dark,
Nor churches nor inns,
Nor convenience for sins,
Hell nowhere begins,
Hell nowhere ends,
But over the world extends
Rambling, dreamy, limitless, hated well:
The suburbs of itself, I say, is Hell.
But back to the sweets
Of Spenser and Keats
And the calm joy that greets
The chosen of Apollo!
Here let me mope, quirk, holloa
With a gesture that meets
The needs that I follow
In my own fierce way,
Let me be grave-gay
Or merry-sad,
Who rhyming here have had
Marvellous hope of achievement
And deeds of ample scope,
Then deceiving and bereavement
Of this same hope.