LXXXIII

water

WATER and Peace

                                    stemmed all from Neptune

                        hence the

                                                            bas reliefs

Sd Mr Yeats (W. B.) “Nothing affects these people

                                    Except our conversation”

for light

                        is an attribute of fire    and,

wrote the priest in his edition of Scotus:

Cheerfulness    the virtue cheerfulness

the queen stitched King Carolus’ shirts or whatever

                                                greek tags in his excellent verses

                        in fact an excellent poet, Paris

                                    always Pari’

                                                            (Charles the Bald)

                        and you might find a bit of enamel

                        a bit of true blue enamel

                                    on a metal pyx or whatever

            all, that is, light is, or whatever

so they dug up his bones

                        (Simon)

                                    Paradise is not artificial

and Uncle William dawdling around Notre Dame

in search of whatever

                                                paused to admire the symbol

with Notre Dame standing inside it

mermaids, that carving,

            in the drenched tent there is quiet

                                                sered eyes are at rest

            the rain beat as with colour of feldspar

            blue as the flying fish

peace, water                                                WATER

                        the sage

delighteth in water

            the humane man has amity with the hills

as the grass grows by the weirs

                                    thought Uncle William    grieving

as the grass on the roof of St What’s his name

            near “Dog and Cat”

                        is to be your love

it would be about a-level the windows

                        the grass would, or I dare say above that

                        when they bless the wax for the horserace

Formerly

                                    with Maria’s face there in the fresco

                        painted two centuries sooner,

                        at least that

before she wore it

in that family group of about 1820

            not wholly Hardy’s material

                                    or everything flows

as he was standing below the altars

                        of the spirits of rain

            “When every hollow is full

                        it moves forward”

            to the phantom mountain above the cloud

But in the caged panther’s eyes:

                                    “Nothing. Nothing that you can do . . .”

green pool, under green of the jungle,

caged: “Nothing, nothing that you can do.”

Tree nymph, your eyes are like clouds

Nor can who has passed a month in the death cells

            believe in capital punishment

No man who has passed a month in the death cells

            believes in cages for beasts

Tree nymph, your eyes are like the clouds

            When some of the rain has fallen

            and half remains yet to fall

The roots go down to the river’s edge

            and the hidden city moves upward

                        white ivory under the bark

With clouds

                        when the blackberry ripens

and now the new moon

one must count by the dawn star

            Tree Nymph, thy peace is like water

There is September sun on the pools

More things diaphanous

                        the Sun’s daughters lift the mist from the young willows

there is no base seen

                        but the brightness of water            water

the poplar tips float in brightness

only the stockade posts stand

And now the ants seem to stagger

                                    as the dawn sun has trapped their shadows,

this breath wholly covers the mountains

                        it shines and divides

it nourishes by its rectitude

does no injury

overstanding the earth it fills the nine fields

                                                to heaven

Boon companion to equity

            it joins with the process

                        lacking it, there is inanition

When the equities are gathered together

as birds alighting

it springeth up vital

If deeds be not ensheaved and garnered in the heart

there is inanition

            (have I perchance a debt to a man)

that he eat of the barley corn

and move with the seed’s breath

the sun as a golden eye

                        between dark cloud and the mountain

“Don’t fight” said Jane

                        meaning, as before stated, don’t work so hard

don’t

                        not

                        help

                        grow

Old John raced at seventy after his glories

                        and came in long last

and the family eyes stayed the same Adriatic

                        for three generations

and was, I suppose, last month

Will I ever see Venice again?

            or the lights

or the two towers where are the cypress no more

                        or the boats moored off

or the north quai

                                                                        OF TEARS            WEEPING

            and Brother Wasp is building a very neat house

            of four rooms, one shaped like a squat indian bottle

            The wasp, the wasp, mud, swallow system

so that dreaming

                                    cat that with a well timed leap

            could turn the level-shaped door handle

It comes over me that Mr. Walls must be a ten-strike

with the young women

and in the warmth after chill sunrise

an infant, green as new grass

has stuck its head or tip

out of Mrs. Wasp’s bottle

mint springs up again

                        in spite of Jones’ rodents

as had the clover by the gorilla cage

            with a four-leaf

When the mind swings by a grass-blade

            an ant’s forefoot shall save you

the clover leaf smells and tastes as its flower

            The infant has descended,

            from mud on the tent roof to Earth,

like to like colour he goes amid grass-blades

            greeting them that dwell under EARTH            EARTH

THOSE OF EARTH;            to carry our news

                        THOSE OF EARTH            to them that dwell under the earth,

begotten of air, that shall sing in the bower

            of Persephone,                                    Persephone

and have speech with Tiresias, of Thebes

                        Christ the King, God the Sun

in about 1/2 a day she has made her adobe

(the wasp) the tiny mud-flask

            and that day I wrote no further

There is fatigue deep as the grave.

                        grows in flat land out of mist

            sun rises lop-sided over the mountain

                        so that I recalled the noise in the chimney

as it were the wind in the chimney

                        but was in reality Uncle William

downstairs composing

that had made a great Peeeeacock

            in the proide ov his oiye

            had made a great peeeeeeecock in the . . .

made a great peacock

                        in the proide of his oyyee

proide ov his oy-ee

as indeed he had, and perdurable

a great peacock more enduring than bronze

            or as in the advice to the young man to

breed and get married (or not)

                                    as you choose to regard it

at Stone Cottage in Sussex by the waste moor

(or whatever) and the holly bush

            who would not eat ham for dinner

because peasants eat ham for dinner

            despite the excellent quality

and the pleasure of having it hot

well those days are gone forever

                        and the traveling rug with the coon-skin tabs

and his hearing nearly all Wordsworth

                        for the sake of his conscience but

preferring

                        Witches

did we ever get to the end of Doughty:

                        The Dawn in Britain?

                                                            perhaps not

            Summons withdrawn, sir.)

(bein’ aliens in prohibited area)

clouds lift their small mountains

                        before the elder hills

A fat moon rises lop-sided over the mountain

The eyes, this time my world,

            But pass and look from mine

                        between my lids

                                    sea, sky, and pool

                                    alternate

                                    pool, sky, sea,

morning moon against sunrise

like a bit of the best antient greek coinage

                        and

The women

say to me

you are old,

And that a twentieth-century Madonna

cd/ be as a fifteenth-century Madonna

This I learned in the Tyrol

                        and as perfect

where they paint the houses outside with figures

and the deep inner courts run back triple

            “That’s called Walter Square”

            heard in Bozen (Bolzano)

and in my mother’s time it was respectable,

it was social, apparently,

                                                to sit in the Senate gallery

or even in that of the House

            to hear the fire-works of the senators

(and possibly representatives)

as was still done in Westminster in my time

and a very poor show from the once I saw it)

but if Senator

                        cd/ speak

and have his tropes stay in the memory 40 years, 60 years?

in short / the descent

has not been of advantage either

            to the Senate or to “society”

                                                or to the people

            The States have passed thru a

                                    dam’d supercilious era

Down, Derry-down /

                        Oh let an old man rest.