Стихи и эссе

Оден Уистан Хью

March 1939

VOLTAIRE AT FERNEY

Perfectly happy now, he looked at his estate. An exile making watches glanced up as he passed And went on working; where a hospital was rising fast, A joiner touched his cap; an agent came to tell Some of the trees he'd planted were progressing well. The white alps glittered. It was summer. He was very great. Far off in Paris where his enemies Whispered that he was wicked, in an upright chair A blind old woman longed for death and letters. He would write, "Nothing is better than life". But was it? Yes, the fight Against the false and the unfair Was always worth it. So was gardening. Civilize. Cajoling, scolding, scheming, cleverest of them all, He'd had the other children in a holy war Against the unfamous grown-ups; and like a child, been sly And humble, when there was occasion for The two-faced answer or the plain protective lie, But, patient like a peasant, waited for their fall. And never doubted, like D'Alembert, he would win: Only Pascal was a great enemy, the rest Were rats already poisoned; there was much, though, to be done, And only himself to count upon. Dear Diderot was dull but did his best; Rousseau, he'd always known, would blubber and give in. Night fell and made him think of women: Lust Was one of the great teachers; Pascal was a fool, How Emilie had loved astronomy and bed; Pimpette had loved him too, like scandal; he was glad. He'd done his share of weeping for Jerusalem: As a rule, It was the pleasure-haters who became unjust. Yet, like a sentinel, he could not sleep. The night was full of wrong, Earthquakes and executions: Soon he would be dead, And still all over Europe stood the horrible nurses Itching to boil their children. Only his verses Perhaps could stop them: He must go on working: Overhead, The uncomplaining stars composed their lucid song.

February 1939

IF I COULD TELL YOU

Time will say nothing but I told you so, Time only knows the price we have to pay If I could tell you I would let you know. If we should weep when clowns put their show, If we should stumble when musicians play? Time will say nothing but I told you so. There are no fortunes to be told, although, Because I love you more then I can say, If I could tell you I would let you know. The winds must come from somewhere when they blow, There must be reason why the leaves decay; Time will say nothing but I told you so. Perhaps the roses really want to grow, The vision seriously intends to stay; If I could tell you I would let you know. Suppose the lions all get up and go, And all the brooks and soldiers run away; Will time say nothing but I told you so? If I could tell you I would let you know.

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone

(Funeral Blues)

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead, Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood. For nothing now can ever come to any good.

1938

TRINCULO'S SONG

Mechanic, merchant, king, Are warmed by the cold clown Whose head is in the clouds And never can get down. Into a solitude Undreamed of by their fat Quick dreams have lifted me; The north wind steals my hat. On clear days I can see Green acres far below, And the red roof where I Was Little Trinculo. There lies that solid world These hands can never reach; My history, my love, Is but a choice of speech. A terror shakes my tree, A flock of words fly out, Whereat a laughter shakes The busy and devout. Wild images, come down Out of your freezing sky, That I, like shorter men, May get my joke and die.

From "Under Which Lyre"

In our morale must lie our strength: So, that we may behold at length Routed Apollo's Battalions melt away like fog, Keep well the Hermetic Decalogue, Which runs as follows: — Thou shalt not do as the dean pleases, Thou shalt not write thy doctor' thesis On education, Thou shalt not worship projects nor Shalt thou or thine bow down before Administration. Thou shalt not answer questionnaires Or quizzes upon World-Affairs, Nor with compliance Take any test. Thou shalt not sit With statisticians nor commit A social science. Thou shalt not be on friendly terms With guys in advertising firms, Nor speak with such As read the Bible for its prose, Nor, above all, make love to those Who wash too much. Thou shalt not live within thy means Nor on plain water and raw greens. If thou must choose Between the chances, choose the odd; Read The New Yorker, trust in God;

1946

THE QUEST

1. The Door

Out of it steps the future of the poor, Enigmas, executioners 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 panels when we die: By happening to be open once, it made Enormous Alice see a wonderland That waited for her in sunshine, and, Simply by being tiny, made her cry.

2. The Preparations

All had been ordered weeks before the start From the best firms at such work; instruments To take the measure of all queer events, And drugs to move the bowels or the heart. A watch, of course, to watch impatience fly Lamps for the dark and shades against the sun; Foreboding, too, insisted on a gun And colored beads to soothe a savage eye. In the theory they were sound on Expectation Had there been situations to be in; Unluckily they were their situation: One should not give a poisoner medicine, A conjurer fine apparatus, nor A rifle to a melancholic bore.

3. The Crossroads

The friends who met here and embraced are gone, Each to his own mistake; one flashes on To fame and ruin in a rowdy lie, A village torpor holds the other one, Some local wrong where it takes time to die: The empty junction glitters in the sun. So at all quays and crossroads: who can tell, O places of decision and farewell, To what dishonor all adventure leads, What parting gift could give that friend protection, So orientated, his salvation needs The Bad Lands and the sinister direction? All landscapes and all weathers freeze with fear, But none have ever thought, the legends say, The time allowed made it impossible; For even the most pessimistic set The limit of their errors at a year. What friends could there be left then to betray, What joy take longer to atone for. Yet Who would complete without extra day The journey that should take no time at all?

4. The Pilgrim

No windows in his suburb lights that bedroom where A little fever heard large afternoons at play: His meadows multiply; that mill, though, is not there Which went on grinding at the back of love all day. Nor all his weeping ways through weary wastes have found The castle where his Greater Hallows are interned; For broken bridges halt him, and dark thickets round Some ruin where an evil heritage was burned. Could he forget a child's ambition to be old All institutions where it learned to wash and lie, He'd tell the truth, for which he thinks himself too young, That everywhere on the horizon of his sigh Is now, as always, only waiting to be told To be his father's house and speak his mother tongue.

5. The City

In villages from which their childhood's came Seeking Necessity, they had been taught Necessity by nature is the same, No matter how or by whom it be sought. The city, though, assumed no such belief, But welcomed each as if he came alone, The nature of Necessity like grief Exactly corresponding to his own. And offered them so many, every one Found some temptation fit to govern him; And settled down to master the whole craft Of being nobody; sat in the sun During the lunch-hour round the fountain rim; And watched the country kids arrive, and laughed.