[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.IIIThe poisoned rat in the wallCuts through the wall like a knife,Then blind, drying, and smallAnd driven to cold water,Dies of the water of life:Both damned in eternal ice,The traitor become the boorWho had led his friend to slaughter,Now bites his head—not nice,The food that he lives for.IVI supposed two scenes of hell,Two human bestiaries,Might uncommonly wellConvey the doom I thought;But lest the horror freezeThe gentler estimationI go to the sylvan doorWhere nature has been boughtIn rational prorationAs a thing worth living for.VShould the buyer have been beware?It is an uneven tradeFor man has wet his hairUnder the winter weatherWith only fog for shade:His mouth a bracketed holePicked by the crows that boreNature to their hanged brother,Who rattles against the boleThe thing that he lived for.VII asked the master YeatsWhose great style could not tellWhy it is man hatesHis own salvation,Prefers the way to hell,And finds his last safetyIn the self-made curse that boreHim towards damnation:The drowned undrowned by the sea,The sea worth living for.1942Seasons of the SoulTo the memory of John Peale Bishop, 1892–1944Allor porsi la mano un poco avante,e colsi un ramicel da un gran pruno;e il tronco suo gridó: Perchè mi schiante?I.SUMMERSummer, this is our flesh,The body you let mature;If now while the body is freshYou take it, shall we giveThe heart, lest heart endureThe mind’s tatteringBlow of greedy claws?Shall mind itself still liveIf like a hunting kingIt falls to the lion’s jaws?Under the summer’s blastThe soul cannot endureUnless by sleight or fastIt seize or deny its dayTo make the eye secure.Brothers-in-arms, rememberThe hot wind dries and drawsWith circular delayThe flesh, ash from the ember,Into the summer’s jaws.It was a gentle sunWhen, at the June solsticeGreen France was overrunWith caterpillar feet.No head knows where its rest isOr may lie down with reasonWhen war’s usurping clawsShall take the heart escheat—Green field in burning seasonTo stain the weevil’s jaws.The southern summer diesEvenly in the fall:We raise our tired eyesInto a sky of glass,Blue, empty, and tallWithout tail or headWhere burn the equal lawsFor Balaam and his assAbove the invalid dead,Who cannot lift their jaws.When was it that the summer(Daylong a liquid light)And a child, the new-comer,Bathed in the same green spray,Could neither guess the night?The summer had no reason;Then, like a primal causeIt had its timeless dayBefore it kept the seasonOf time’s engaging jaws.Two men of our summer worldDescended winding hellAnd when their shadows curledThey fearfully confoundedThe vast concluding shell:Stopping, they saw in the narrowLight a centaur pauseAnd gaze, then his astoundedBeard, with a notched arrow,Part back upon his jaws.II.AUTUMNIt had an autumn smellAnd that was how I knewThat I was down a well:I was no longer young;My lips were numb and blue,The air was like fine sandIn a butcher’s stallOr pumice to the tongue:And when I raised my handI stood in the empty hall.The round ceiling was highAnd the gray light like shaleThin, crumbling, and dry:No rug on the bare floorNor any carved detailTo which the eye could glide;I counted along the wallDoor after closed doorThrough which a shade might slideTo the cold and empty hall.I will leave this house, I said,There is the autumn weather—Here, nor living nor dead;The lights burn in the townWhere men fear together.Then on the bare floor,But tiptoe lest I fall,I walked years downTowards the front doorAt the end of the empty hall.The door was false—no keyOr lock, and I was caughtIn the house; yet I could seeI had been born to itFor miles of running broughtMe back where I began.I saw now in the wallA door open a slitAnd a fat grizzled manCome out into the hall:As in a moonlit streetMen meeting are too shyTo check their hurried feetBut raise their eyes and squintAs through a needle’s eyeInto the faceless gloom,—My father in a gray shawlGave me an unseeing glintAnd entered another room!I stood in the empty hallAnd watched them come and goFrom one room to another,Old men, old women—slow,Familiar; girls, boys;I saw my downcast motherClad in her street-clothes,Her blue eyes long and small,Who had no look or voiceFor him whose vision frozeHim in the empty hall.III.WINTERGoddess sea-born and bright,Return into the seaWhere eddying twilightGathers upon your people—Cold goddess, hear our plea!Leave the burnt earth, Venus,For the drying God above,Hanged in his windy steeple,No longer bears for usThe living wound of love.All the sea-gods are dead.You, Venus, come homeTo your salt maidenhead,The tossed anonymous seaUnder shuddering foam—Shade for lovers, whereA shark swift as your doveShall pace our companyAll night to nudge and tearThe livid wound of love [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]