Classic Poem

From Iffley, young and delicate mists
Lead the blind Thames to Abingdon,
Uncertain-footed through the meadows
Where the water-lily grows.

And there one glittering day in June
Drifted my slim and brown canoe:
Between cows munching, and the hum
Of driving midges, and the tune
Of larks and grass-hid linnets, you
Would scarce believe that to those fields
Could Silence ever come.

From Bagley Hills a little breeze
With no more motion than the scent
Of limes at evening, whispered in the trees,
That answering, never stirred
— Save to the dancing of some bird:
And never a hair-bell bent:
The tiny rumbling of the mole
Answered the treading of the lark,
And circling ripples showed the vole
On oarage of swift feet embark.

I saw a hare in idleness
Yawning and stretching in the sun:
I saw a beetle in the cress
Tangled, his voyage scarce begun:
And where — pink tongue, and tusks agleam —
In yellow meadows by the stream
The lovely elephants made play,
I saw the fire-winged king-fisher
Like light in light dispread, appear
And bear a bream away.

Hour of formless musing in the scents
Of sunny grasses! Hour of indolence!
— Far, where the Cotswolds wavered in the haze,
Far in the west, a slow, soundless thudding,
The minute-slow throbbing of a huge wing:
And then a murmurous stirring of the trees
As the spent puff passed, and left no breeze,
And passed again over, louder and nearer,
And the thunderous winging struck louder, clearer:

By field and narrowing lawn
Like chaff the silly herd scatter,
Dizzy chaff far blown
By sudden breath of terror:
Only with mystic eyes agleam —
Ears cocked — like aspen quivering
The high-flung trunk — beside the stream
Stands one doe, trumpeting.

Ah, the creak of heavy wing
On the hard air leaning!
Ah, the crash of shattered air!
Sky sags like trodden board,
Sky groans like started thunder;
The crumbled air upon the sward
Falls glittering, trampled under
By that massive heave of wing,
By that Speed's enormous cleaving!
No sight that for mortal eye,
That jagged sunlight, bow-bent sky,
That grey doe rapt in agony hence
Too swift to stir the sense.

E PILOGUE

So the elastic universe
Was readjusted, none the worse:
The Bird, the Bird was gone:
The warm sun shone,
The patient vole
Attained his hole,
The indolent hare
Sat up to stare,
The beetle struggling in the cress
— He struggled none the less.

A Voice:
Great Heaven I praise, that It hath made
This sunny day, these peaceful fields:
But deprecate the prank It played,
With lovely Nature not content,
On stupid, fool-fantastics bent:
Why thus abuse the power It wields?

Another Voice:
But I rejoice: for I detest
Mimetic Nature, at the best
Forever playing one dull trick
Of reproduction: now I see
The old Darwinian Family Tree
Has inspiration, shows some kick!

A Third Voice:
It's very clever, I admit,
But cannot see the use of it.
It's not Worth While. — What Cosmic Want
Makes Roc devour Elephant?
Heaven's too hasty. Let It wait
Till It has something to create.

A Fourth Voice:
You're wrong: things are not what they seem,
But all symbolic, as in dream.
Did you observe, my friends —

A Fifth Voice, interrupting:
Yes, and in huge Roc we find
Symbol of ... what's on Heaven's mind.
... What the beast means I cannot tell:
But do discern a Conflict well —

The Fourth Voice, continuing:
— Did you observe, my friends, how stale
That " sunny day " ? And all the tale —

Fifth Voice, interrupting again:
Yes, you can see that the Creator
Is mountain-bred, and a plain-hater —

Sixth Voice:
That He approves of Einstein —

Seventh Voice:
That
He likes a dog less than a cat,
Canaries less than both —

Eighth Voice:
I see
But Symbol of Man's Mortality.

Fourth Voice, paying no attention and continuing:
How stale
That " sunny day " : and all the tale
Of flower and beast and usual bird
Before the miracle occurred?
By this event would Heaven impart
Views on contemporary art,
That some new wonder — plainly doth it show it —
Shall disturb the indolent regurgitations of the nature-poet.

Ninth Voice:
True, it was commonplace: but have at you!
The miracle was imitative too!
So Nature on her lively page
Mocks at the decadence of the pseudo-revolutionary Georgian Age.

Fourth Voice, yet again:
Nay, we're both wrong: the symbols now are plain,
With bird , and elephant , and river too:
Ghost-eyes see not: but yet I do maintain
That he was not alone in that canoe!

Yet Another Voice, very sleepy and American:
But all Creation, elephant and pea,
Is still Creation, and the same to me:
Why talk of symbols, seek for meanings hid?
— Call it an Image, man, and let it be.

So the elastic universe
Was readjusted, none the worse.