357

It is a pleasure to

Watch you speak in all your,

John Berryman, broken

Finery. Your greybeard,

Apronlike, hangs before :

Dispeptic mouth, sodden

Eyes. Drone of loveliness!

Flowering! Inchoate!

All your words abandon,

And then you read a verse.

Now—great, unbowed, raging,

Bloodlit, masterful—bring

You the music forth in

That toneless voice. In words

Their struggle be the beauty

Born. Woodsmoke curls itself

Slowly out of you. We

Are left, illogical,

At the border of our

Dull sense, feeling for your

Gloomy, substantial hand.

Still, in whatever dark

Comes, there is a notion

Of your tigerlike voice.

356

Oh god and if they cut

Him down it will not be

A dignified approach

To earth, and for the fall

He will only be held

In their arms and come to

The soil dressed in his rags

Of flesh and flogged once more,

And if they think of him

As anything it will

Be as an animal

Had happened to be born,

And, known as nothingness,

Could go back in that void

Content, and without pain.

In any case he will

Not be cut down again.

He will there longer stay

Than life endure, and his

Verve still in him slowly,

And quiet breath run out

As one more slow desire

Lost on the chosen air,

Free now of its master.

355

Yes, as it will support

This strange device, let life

Be said good. Our music

Goes before the barricade :

Lustrous instruments, we!

No lesser god will end

Our lineage, without

That his novitiate

Promote him out of every law.

No more. Of powers he

Has only those adjunct

To his station. Sound now

The horn, we near! Border

All the flowers, for we

Are unbounded, fellows

In this thousanded course.

More force to you, comrade!

Be not as dull as that!

Go out of your birth human,

And follow in the fire

And make good food of it.

This all will not be long,

Rather passing brief, out

Before the air folds in,

Its heaven but an empty shrine.

354

And of those seldom dreams

We spoke, he and I, how

They worked themselves away

Into lonely, darker

Territoires d'outre-mer

Where they not founder, but,

Livid in their corsage,

Press in meaning yet more

Strange, and we founder there.

They are so unlike us :

To our visitation

Improper, dispiriting.

We wake, empty of love,

To roll our bodies on

Into that further sea

Breeding high at the rim

Before the shallow curtain

And the falls. Humble life!

It will not let us know

Ourselves, and keeps our names

From us, and makes us child-

Like, without attention,

While our being complicates.

No words for the Gespenst.

He took his drink again,

And something of it went

From him, burning him off.

353

How low and in the waves

Our outcry sank, I give

To you to reckon, my

Cold brother. What means we

To a protest is blunt

And cannot but injure.

For all surveillance

Dances at our call, now,

Here, in the heart of things.

The high lords of the day

Sound out their reasons and

Make benifice of fraudery.

Stop up us our ears then,

The tune is wearisome.

No drearier shout than

The groan of the allpower

As it sloughs its skin. Hark!

Bring us our darkness in.

352

I had spoken to you

Before the trees came down

And took you into them :

In that fragile bearing

Out a sound remained, that

Came not from our voices.

We had known of bolder

Concepts in ourselves and

Passed between us what else

Might bind them there in place,

And yet, when morning came

You were no longer there

And the withering grass

Spoke only now what it

Could not articulate.

Dogstar, you are the part

Of me suits best. Come back

Inside the circus, let

Not the day chide you with

Its murmurs! I have of

My sleep grown into you.

351

Grackles step through the clover
At the curb, their bodies swaying

In the measure of a small pendulum,
The white cloverflowers brushing

Their dusky sides, wading through
It as workers at the harvest push

Through reams of standing corn,
Labouring at their passage, blank

Eyes trained secretarially on the
Earth before them : sequins of bone.

Their alien colours turn in the light,
Barely visible, a penumbra of blue

And violet and gold, uniform, dull,
Drawing heat from the staid air.

They wear cowls of faint brown.
As at some signal, one breaks from

Its pose and clatters into flight,
Towing its diamondshaped éventail.