John Berryman Read online

  Screaming or calm, wet cold, sick or oblivious.

  III

  Who now cares how? here they are in their prime,—

  Paradigm, pitching imagination where

  The crucible night all singularity,

  Idiosyncrasy and creed, burnt out

  And brought them, here, a common character.

  Imperishable march below

  The mounted man below the Angel, and

  Under, the casual man, the possible hero.

  IV

  Hero for whom under a sky of bronze,

  Saint-Gaudens’ sky? Passive he seems to lie,

  The last straw of contemporary thought,

  In shapeless failure; but may be this man

  Before he came here, or he comes to die,

  Blazing with force or fortitude

  Superb of civil soul may stand or may

  After young Shaw within that crucible have stood.

  V

  For past her assignation when night fell

  And the men forward,—poise and shock of dusk

  As daylight rocking passes the horizon,—

  The Angel spread her wings still. War is the

  Congress of adolescents, love in a mask,

  Bestial and easy, issueless,

  Or gets a man of bronze. No beating heart

  Until the casual man can see the Angel’s face.

  VI

  Where shall they meet? what ceremony find,

  Loose in the brothel of another war

  This winter night? Can citizen enact

  His timid will and expectation where,

  Exact a wedding or her face O where

  Tanks and guns, tanks and guns,

  Move and must move to their conclusions, where

  The will is mounted and gregarious and bronze?

  VII

  For ceremony, in the West, in the East,

  The pierced sky, iced air, and the rent of cloud

  As, moving to his task at dawn, who’d been

  Hobbledehoy of the cafeteria life

  Swung like a hobby in the blue and rode

  The shining body of his choice

  To the eye and time of his bombardier;—

  Stiffened in the racket, and relaxed beyond noise.

  VIII

  ‘Who now cares how?’—the quick, the index! Question

  Your official heroes in a magazine,

  Wry voices past the river. Dereliction,

  Lust and bloodlust, error and goodwill, this one

  Died howling, craven, this one was a swine

  From childhood. Man and animal

  Sit for their photographs to Fame, and dream

  Barbershop hours . . vain, compassionate parable.

  IX

  ‘Accidents of history, memorials’—

  A considering and quiet voice. ‘I see

  Photograph and bronze upon another shore

  Do not arrive; the light is where it is,

  Indifferent to honour. Let honour be

  Consolation to those who give,

  None to the Hero, and no sign of him:

  All unrecorded, flame-like, perish and live.’

  X

  Diminishing beyond the elms. Rise now

  The chivalry and defenders of our time,

  From Spain and China, the tortured continents,

  Leningrad, Syria, Corregidor,—

  Upon a primitive theme high variations

  Like soaring Beethoven’s.—Lost, lost

  Whose eyes flung faultless to one horizon

  Their fan look. Fiery night consumes a summoned ghost.

  XI

  Images of the Possible, the top,

  Their time they taxed,—after the tanks came through,

  When orderless and by their burning homes’

  Indelible light, with knee and nail they struck

  (The improvised the real) man’s common foe,

  Misled blood-red statistical men.

  Images of conduct in a crucible,

  Their eyes, and nameless eyes, which will not come again.

  XII

  We hope will not again. Therefore those eyes

  Fix me again upon the terrible shape,

  Defeated and marvellous, of the man I know,

  Jack under the stallion. We have passed him by,

  Wandering, prone, and he is our whole hope,

  Our fork’s one tine and our despair,

  The heart of the Future beating. How far far

  We sent our subtle messengers! when he is here.

  XIII

  Who chides our clamour and who would forget

  The death of heroes: never know the shore

  Where, hair to the West, Starkatterus was burnt;

  And undergo no more that spectacle—

  Perpetually verdant the last pyre,

  Fir, cypress, yew, the phoenix bay

  And voluntary music—which to him

  Threw never meat or truth. He looks another way,

  XIV

  Watching who labour O that all may see

  And savour the blooming world, flower and sound,

  Tending and tending to peace,—be what their blood,

  Prayer, occupation may,—so tend for all:

  A common garden in a private ground.

  Who labour in the private dark

  And silent dark for birthday music and light,

  Fishermen, gardeners, about their violent work.

  XV

  Lincoln, the lanky lonely and sad man

  Who suffered in Washington his own, his soul;

  Mao Tse-tung, Teng Fa, fabulous men,

  Laughing and serious men; or Tracy Doll

  Tracing the future on the wall of a cell—

  There, there, on the wall of a cell

  The face towards which we hope all history,

  Institutions, tears move, there the Individual.

  XVI

  Ah, it may not be so. Still the crucial night

  Fastens you all upon this frame of hope:

  Each in his limited sick world with them,

  The figures of his reverence, his awe,

  His shivering devotion,—that they shape

  Shelter, action, salvation.

  . . Legends and lies. Kneel if you will, but rise

  Homeless, alone, and be the kicking working one.

  XVII

  None anywhere alone! The turning world

  Brings unaware us to our enemies,

  Artist to assassin, Saint-Gaudens’ bronze

  To a free shelter, images to end.

  The cold and hard wind has tears in my eyes,

  Long since, long since, I heard the last

  Traffic unmeshing upon Boylston Street,

  I halted here in the orange light of the Past,

  XVIII

  Helpless under the great crotch lay this man

  Huddled against woe, I had heard defeat

  All day, I saw upon the sands assault,

  I heard the voice of William James, the wind,

  And poured in darkness or in my heartbeat

  Across my hearing and my sight

  Worship and love irreconcilable

  Here to be reconciled. On a February night.

  1942

  IV

  Canto Amor

  Dream in a dream the heavy soul somewhere

  struck suddenly & dark down to its knees.

  A griffin sighs off in the orphic air.

  If (Unknown Majesty) I not confess

  praise for the wrack the rock the live sailor

  under the blue sea,—yet I may You bless

  always for hér, in fear & joy for hér

  whose gesture summons ever when I grieve

  me back and is my mage and minister.

  —Muses: whose worship I may never leave

  but for this pensive woman, now I dare,

  teach me her praise! with her my praise receive.—

  Thr
ee years already of the round world’s war

  had rolled by stoned & disappointed eyes

  when she and I came where we were made for.

  Pale as a star lost in returning skies,

  more beautiful than midnight stars more frail

  she moved towards me like chords, a sacrifice;

  entombed in body trembling through the veil

  arm upon arm, learning our ancient wound,

  we see our one soul heal, recovering pale.

  Then priestly sanction, then the drop of sound.

  Quickly part to the cavern ever warm

  deep from the march, body to body bound,

  descend (my soul) out of dismantling storm

  into the darkness where the world is made.

  . . Come back to the bright air. Love is multiform.

  Heartmating hesitating unafraid

  although incredulous, she seemed to fill

  the lilac shadow with light wherein she played,

  whom sorry childhood had made sit quite still,

  an orphan silence, unregarded sheen,

  listening for any small soft note, not hopeful:

  caricature: as once a maiden Queen,

  flowering power comeliness kindness grace,

  shattered her mirror, wept, would not be seen.

  These pities moved. Also above her face

  serious or flushed, swayed her fire-gold

  not earthly hair, now moonless to unlace,

  resistless flame, now in a sun more cold

  great shells to whorl about each secret ear,

  mysterious histories, white shores, unfold.

  New musics! One the music that we hear,

  this is the music which the masters make

  out of their minds, profound solemn & clear.

  And then the other music, in whose sake

  all men perceive a gladness but we are drawn

  less for that joy than utterly to take

  our trial, naked in the music’s vision,

  the flowing ceremony of trouble and light,

  all Loves becoming, none to flag upon.

  Such Mozart made,—an ear so delicate

  he fainted at a trumpet-call, a child

  so delicate. So merciful that sight,

  so stern, we follow rapt who ran a-wild.

  Marriage is the second music, and thereof

  we hear what we can bear, faithful & mild.

  Therefore the streaming torches in the grove

  through dark or bright, swiftly & now more near

  cherish a festival of anxious love.

  Dance for this music, Mistress to music dear,

  more, that storm worries the disordered wood

  grieving the midnight of my thirtieth year

  and only the trial of our music should

  still this irresolute air, only your voice

  spelling the tempest may compel our good:

  Sigh then beyond my song: whirl & rejoice!

  THE NERVOUS SONGS

  Young Woman’s Song

  The round and smooth, my body in my bath,

  If someone else would like it too.—I did,

  I wanted T. to think ‘How interesting’

  Although I hate his voice and face, hate both.

  I hate this something like a bobbing cork

  Not going. I want something to hang to.—

  A fierce wind roaring high up in the bare

  Branches of trees,—I suppose it was lust

  But it was holy and awful. All day I thought

  I am a bobbing cork, irresponsible child

  Loose on the waters.—What have you done at last?

  A little work, a little vague chat.

  I want that £3.10 hat terribly.—

  What I am looking for (I am) may be

  Happening in the gaps of what I know.

  The full moon does go with you as yóu go.

  Where am I going? I am not afraid . .

  Only I would be lifted lost in the flood.

  The Song of the Demented Priest

  I put those things there.—See them burn.

  The emerald the azure and the gold

  Hiss and crack, the blues & greens of the world

  As if I were tired. Someone interferes

  Everywhere with me. The clouds, the clouds are torn

  In ways I do not understand or love.

  Licking my long lips, I looked upon God

  And he flamed and he was friendlier

  Than you were, and he was small. Showing me

  Serpents and thin flowers; these were cold.

  Dominion waved & glittered like the flare

  From ice under a small sun. I wonder.

  Afterward the violent and formal dancers

  Came out, shaking their pithless heads.

  I would instruct them but I cannot now,—

  Because of the elements. They rise and move,

  I nod a dance and they dance in the rain

  In my red coat. I am the king of the dead.

  The Song of the Young Hawaiian

  Ai, they all pass in front of me those girls!

  Blazing and lazy colours. The swaying sun

  Brushes the brown tips of them stiffly softly

  And whispers me: Never take only one

  As the yellow men the white the foreigners do.—

  No no, I dance them all.

  The old men come to me at dusk and say

  ‘Hang from their perches now the ruined birds;

  They will fall. We hear strange languages.

  Rarely a child sings now.’ They cough and say

  ‘We are a dying race.’ Ai! if we are!

  You will not marry me.

  Strengthless the tame will of the elders’ eyes.—

  The green palms, the midnight sand, the creaming surf!

  The sand at streaming noon is black. I swim

  Farther than others, for I swim alone.

  . . (Whom Nangganangga smashed to pieces on

  The road to Paradise.)

  A Professor’s Song

  (. . rabid or dog-dull.) Let me tell you how

  The Eighteenth Century couplet ended. Now

  Tell me. Troll me the sources of that Song—

  Assigned last week—by Blake. Come, come along,

  Gentlemen. (Fidget and huddle, do. Squint soon.)

  I want to end these fellows all by noon.

  ‘That deep romantic chasm’—an early use;

  The word is from the French, by our abuse

  Fished out a bit. (Red all your eyes. O when?)

  ‘A poet is a man speaking to men’:

  But I am then a poet, am I not?—

  Ha ha. The radiator, please. Well, what?

  Alive now—no—Blake would have written prose,

  But movement following movement crisply flows,

  So much the better, better the much so,

  As burbleth Mozart. Twelve. The class can go.

  Until I meet you, then, in Upper Hell

  Convulsed, foaming immortal blood: farewell.

  The Captain’s Song

  The tree before my eyes bloomed into flame,

  I rode the flame. This was the element,

  Forsaking wife and child, I came to find,—

  The flight through arrowy air dark as a dream

  Brightening and falling, the loose tongues blue

  Like blood above me, until I forgot.

  . . Later, forgetting, I became a child

  And fell down without reason and played games

  Running, being the fastest, before dark

  And often cried. Certain things I hid

  That I had never liked, I leapt the stream

  No one else could and darted off alone . .

  You crippled Powers, cluster to me now:

  Baffle this memory from my return,

  That in the coldest nights, murmuring her name

  I sought her two feet with my feet, my fee
t

  Were warm and hers were ice and I warmed her

  With both of mine. Will I warm her with one?

  The Song of the Tortured Girl

  After a little I could not have told—

  But no one asked me this—why I was there.

  I asked. The ceiling of that place was high

  And there were sudden noises, which I made.

  I must have stayed there a long time today:

  My cup of soup was gone when they brought me back.

  Often ‘Nothing worse now can come to us’

  I thought, the winter the young men stayed away,

  My uncle died, and mother broke her crutch.

  And then the strange room where the brightest light

  Does not shine on the strange men: shines on me.

  I feel them stretch my youth and throw a switch.

  Through leafless branches the sweet wind blows

  Making a mild sound, softer than a moan;

  High in a pass once where we put our tent,

  Minutes I lay awake to hear my joy.

  —I no longer remember what they want.—

  Minutes I lay awake to hear my joy.

  The Song of the Bridegroom

  A sort of anxiousness crystal in crystal has . .

  Fragile and open like these pairs of eyes.

  All over all things move to stare at it.

  One’s single wish now: to be laid away

  Felted in depths of caves, dark cupboards that

  No one would open for a long time.—

  Do not approach me! If I am on show

  Compassion waves you past, you hoverers,

  Forms brutal, beating eyes upon my window.

  Because if I am desolate I have—

  Have emanations, and it is not safe.

  Rising and falling fire, ceremonial fire.

  Not long . . not long but like a journey home

  Frightening after so distant years

  And such despairs . . And then fatigue sets in.

  Lead me up blindly now where I began,

  I will not wince away into my one.

  I extend my hand and place it in the womb.

  Song of the Man Forsaken and Obsessed

  Viridian and gamboge and vermilion

  Are and are not.—The hut is quiet,

  Indistinct as letters. When I wake I wait.

  Nothing comes.—The brown girl brings me rice

  And one day months ago I might have stood—

  So far were firm my feet—had that ship come—

  And painted, softening my brush with blood.

  Hardly, whatever happens from today.

  —Certainly the little old woman