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Blues (For Hedli Anderson). Detective Story. A New Age. Epitaph for the Unknown Soldier. Base words are uttered. We're Late
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Blues (For Hedli Anderson)
Ladies and gentlemen, sitting here,
Eating and drinking and warming a chair,
Feeling and thinking and drawing your breath,
Who’s sitting next to you? It may be Death.
As a high-stepping blondie with eyes of blue
In the subway, on beaches, Death looks at you;
And married or single or young or old,
You’ll become a sugar daddy and do as you’re told.
Death is a G-man. You may think yourself smart,
But he’ll send you to the hot-seat or plug you through the heart;
He may be a slow worker, but in the end
He’ll get you for the crime of being born, my friend.
Death as a doctor has first-class degrees;
The world is on his panel; he charges no fees;
He listens to your chest, says — " You’re breathing. That’s bad.
But don’t worry; we’ll soon see to that, my lad. "
Death knocks at your door selling real estate,
The value of which will not depreciate;
It’s easy, it’s convenient, it’s old world. You’ll sign,
Whatever your income, on the dotted line.
Death as a teacher is simply grand;
The dumbest pupil can understand.
He has only one subject and that is the Tomb;
But no one ever yawns or asks to leave the room.
So whether you’re standing broke in the rain,
Or playing poker or drinking champagne,
Death’s looking for you, he’s already on the way,
So look out for him tomorrow or perhaps today.
Detective Story
For who is ever quite without his landscape,
The straggling village street, the house in trees,
All near the church, or else the gloomy town house,
The one with the Corinthian pillars, or
The tiny workmanlike flat: in any case
A home, the centre where the three or four things
That happen to a man do happen? Yes,
Who cannot draw the map of his life, shade in
The little station where he meets his loves
And says good-bye continually, and mark the spot
Where the body of his happiness was first discovered?
An unknown tramp? A rich man? An enigma always
And with a buried past but when the truth,
The truth about our happiness comes out
How much it owed to blackmail and philandering.
The rest's traditional. All goes to plan:
The feud between the local common sense
And that exasperating brilliant intuition
That's always on the spot by chance before us;
All goes to plan, both lying and confession,
Down to the thrilling final chase, the kill.
Yet on the last page just a lingering doubt:
That verdict, was it just? The judge's nerves,
That clue, that protestation from the gallows,
And our own smile… why yes…
But time is always killed. Someone must pay for
Our loss of happiness, our happiness itself.
(1936)
A New Age
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So an age ended, and its last deliverer died
In bed, grown idle and unhappy; they were safe:
The sudden shadow of a giant's enormous calf
Would fall no more at dusk across their lawns outside.
They slept in peace: in marshes here and there no doubt
A sterile dragon lingered to a natural death,
But in a year the slot had vanished from the heath;
A kobold's knocking in the mountain petered out.
Only the sculptors and the poets were half-sad,
And the pert retinue from the magician's house
Grumbled and went elsewhere. The vanquished powers were glad
To be invisible and free; without remorse
Struck down the silly sons who strayed into their course,
And ravished the daughters, and drove the fathers mad.
[262]
Epitaph for the Unknown Soldier
To save your world you asked this man to die:
Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?
Base words are uttered
Base words are uttered only by the base
And can for such at once be understood,
But noble platitudes: -ah, there's a case
Where the most careful scrutiny is needed
To tell a voice that's genuinely good
From one that's base but merely has succeeded.
We're Late
Clocks cannot tell our time of day
For what event to pray
Because we have no time, because
We have no time until
We know what time we fill,
Why time is other than time was.
Nor can our question satisfy
The answer in the statue's eye:
Only the living ask whose brow
May wear the Roman laurel now;
The dead say only how.
What happens to the living when we die?
Death is not understood by Death; nor You, nor I.
The door
Out of steps the future of the poor,
Enigmas, execuOut of steps tioners and rules,
Her Majesty in a bad temper or
The red-nosed Fool who makes a fool of fools.
Great person eye it in the twilight for
A past it might so carelessly let in,
A widow with a missionary grin,
The foaming inundation at a roar.
We pile our all against it when afraid,
And beat upon its panel when we die:
By happening to be open ones, it made
Enormous Alice see in wonderland
That waited for her in the sunshine, and,
Simply by being tiny, made her cry.
No time
Clocks cannot tell our time of day
For what event to pray,
Because we have no time, because
We have no time until
We know what time we fill,
Why time is other than time was.
Nor can our question satisfy
The answer in the statue’s eye.
Only the living ask whose brow
May wear the roman laurel now:
The dead say only how.
What happens to the living when they die?
Death is not understood by death: nor you, nor I.
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