(1) Speech Before the
-------Ungathered Assembly
-----------(continued to end)
There is a world of the beginning, the modern
Epoch is in the present; there is a style of
Reminiscing . . . with a sweep of the hand
The nether regions are littered with
----------------lights and noise and crowds,
And in chains of moral thought we keep
The woe of generations affixed like a subset
To the passing day, the carnival night.
-------------------------------------------- Now
If a man were to walk alone, like a passerby,
He must be afraid of all those people
-----------------inside the glowing rooms.
Then in the rainy twilight, in the dark
Luxuriant neighborhood, the houses seem
All abandoned, waiting for the return of some
Former age, for the man who dozes high above
On an airplane, with his suitcase at his feet,
His hat brim turned down. We are asleep on
The chronology--whose first question always is
How are we going to get out of here?
------------------------------------------But the
Present is at the beginning of everything--
A baritone voice fills the background like
A roar, fainter and fainter like you were
Reading the progress of a distant war, as if
The heavens were on alert. Now the game in
The great stadium begins, without an anthem,
And the world--it seems so frightening, it
Could choke a child away from natural sleep,
Like a telephone that goes ringing endlessly
In an empty room, until a ghost picks it up.
No doubt, we are ghosts, each from another
Universe, where people are racing up and down
The stairs, mumbling and screaming. There is
An incoherent rumbling holding down the scene--
It’s dull winds in the ears. There is a world
Of the present that is nightmare unbound
When people start speaking out of the
Enclosure of earth and soul, as if the news
Of today were sufficient to the end,
And all the devils one could dream of
Are loosed as all you different kinds of friends,
A pair of animal eyes stealing out beyond the
Yard, that are carlights, coming closer,
Carlights that roam all night in the empty
Fields, carlights and the eyes within that
Browse the cemeteries sandwiched between
This highway to the black sky and that path
Down to the power-plant by the river.
-------------------------------------------Now
The driver in the car forgets the weather outside.
In bad talk no one has traceable lives.
Child of the hour, there is nothing here
To amuse a gentleman stroller . . .
The high arches of the house prove falsely
Strung, not keeping out the night coming fast
Like a rain of ever driving darkness. I was
Out by the campfire, with my coat and wristwatch
Hung on a nail; I was part of a wild party
Of men in the bombed-out church, speaking in
Another tongue; I was standing on the green
Lawn motioning to the gables, then climbing
In to a tiny car; I was in the movie theater,
Flopped down on the sofa, writing in a tiny
Cramped hand, ecstatic in all misery.
--------------------------------------------You
Gain your freedom at the end of the excessive
Struggle. Then duty begins. We were back
In the lonely cottage, after breakfast at ten,
She kissed me good-bye, and I climbed onto
The bus, said a quiet benediction, each to
Each, passing down the aisle, to the doomed and
Voiceless people; and I sank into the seat
With great relief--for here i underwent
The miracle of a transition.
---------------------------------Outside, it was
The past, a panorama taking me back.
The landscapes were forlorn in the
------------------------early morning light,
Travelling out from the decaying cities
To the heart of the world, laying scattered
On the map of catastrophic youthful journies.
It was spring, way too early in the year,
When this freedom led me forward. In youth
One sees the future unbearably close . . .
But I think I explained with the air of real
------------------------prophecy
To the girl sitting on the wooden pier,
By the beach in the moonlight, with the sound
Of people talking across the purple asphalt
In the restaurant behind her shoulder,
All about the morning that never happens,
Where we are helpless, just dark eyes beseeching,
Rich and extraordinary narration of life,
Already past belief.
-----------------------I was swept into the
Song of praise, summoned by the art of later
Dictation. In passion we are addressing
The state of truth which has already been--
Here in the evening that verges upon the exact
----------------------similitude of emotion.
Standing on the cliffs, I saw the tiny black
Ship, struggling against the waves, out
On the sunlit waters, far away and exhausted
At the sight of the horizon, succumbing
To the drag of the waters that long since
Have devoured every effort, every effort of will
Of the men who are on the deck with long poles,
The grey old men bobbing up in a nightmare,
Gliding insensible, sinking lower in the
---------shadows that move the bright water.
People talk of belief, but there is nothing
To believe. There is only what has happened,
And there is the widening circle that grows
In the radius of the dusk expanding, around
The old man in his garden.
--------------------------Time is a description,
The moral of which is that everything happens
For a second time, the second time received.
Time is the return of the truth to the mind.
In a quiet hour, thought will supply the end.
Maybe for someone else, I say all this. The
Little woman when knew this much walks quietly
On through the rooms, into a half-dark chamber,
And pulls the brass chain on the lamp.
---------------------------------------------Thrown
Back into view is the history of the soul’s
mortification, or glory. For when it is
Given, life is shown to have existed before
In some plan of the God of magnificent
Assurance. More stealthy than a total stranger
Is the Lord, when her avowal
Takes the world. Gentle world . . .
When the lamplight spreads to the curved feet
Of the mahogany stand, now as she pulls with
Fingers made of porcelain the blue shawl
Around her shoulders to keep at bay the cold
Like an uncertain death around her--
Without anyone watching her, she needn’t
even be; so slight, like an extra presence--
And so her care provides rude justice
To the deaf and blind angels, to the
------------------------scaffolds of the earth
That couldn’t move a century, but for truth
And for her pity.
---------------------This is what you inherit,
Hands imbued with silence, hands that held a
Child, tears that stain the woollen sleeve,
Eyes worn out by fires, reflections of lamps,
A house of many generations, grey church spires
In the air of the heavy sabbath morning.
Every day upon the earth there is the
Orange dusk falling, the broken footfall in
The street. Every day upon the earth
The evening narrows to a triangle of light
That is the chapel window, or the space before
The walking feet, of the man become a monk,
Regarding his own speech
--------------before the ungathered assembly.
Time is a way of describing, time is the gospel
Muttered by the old lady with the crucifix.
You will not worship this.
------------------------------This is the modern
Epoch, this is the original and still present
Scene.
---------No longer will the appointed churchmen
Call; we’ll only smile at the man of learning,
For what has he, but the shamefaced past?
Before the day of the parade we’ve already seen
The clowns and the white horses; I was there
When the politicians let up the balloons, to
The top of the coliseum, and I was back on
The highway before dawn. The infinite depth
Of suffering is blocked, by straight avenues
Of knowledge; and purity of heart is
----------------------revealed along the way
In acts of equivalent kindness. There is
Nothing to be added to the accomplishments
Of the human race.
----------------------------I intend to switch to
The style of pure eloquence, when the satire begins
To weep in earnest . . .
----------------------------Even prayer is too
Artful for the man alive to the little acre
Of green outside the diamond window. Oh,
There’s a difference with this mystery that’s
On the surface; it’s like the night is calling.
Facile man . . . someday, you will remember
Everything--for life is everpresent, life goes
On forever, when you keep fainting at
----------------------------the point of pain.
I am apprised of all ambitions; and the
Recanting note of the philosopher roaming about,
That’s worth considering. He was jovial in
The presence of any upstart theories, and
Spoke of himself in a dreaming drawl, just
Audible enough to drown the interferences;
There was a guttural in the breath, as if he
Were beginning to moan or sing somewhere in
The back of his mind. And merely to see myself
Demolished by the application of rude laughter
Plucking up in the general air of the restaurant,
I kept hammering at him at lunch, until
Nothing made any sense, in the world so wholly
Pleasant--because as the weight of personality
Says, much evidence is lacking to pitch this
Theme . . . into reality.
---------------------------As if evidence there
Ever was for anything called true by name.
I had settled down to a real regular lectureship
At the corner coffee stand, where several of
Us used to gather; you could revel for hours
In the sight of the anonymous bunch, we
Were so old, grey, and drab--indistinguishable
------------------------in our jabbering.
There was a sense of privilege in talking
-------------------------------about life. Then
it would happen to one us, just like that,
The afternoon, that thundering air of certainty!
I knew we were all like peaked hats at the
Top of obscurity, right through the mirror like
Jesters, with our wise and futile sayings,
But exposed, at the bottom of our talk--
---------------------------jumping at the truth.
You get a sense, and you start staring at
Your neighbor, that you can recombine the data
Of memory, knowledge, and thought, and really
Make the story.
-------------------No longer do we imitate
The kings, with formal meditations. Merciful
Heavens! here comes the weather, like some
Old feeling; the wet air, the switch of focus
To the snow-bound fields beyond the road.
The scene of the little tale, slow in the telling.
As long as we can keep alive the running
Account, it almost seems circumstantial that
This man is hobbling over to a dark corner,
Or that one skipping right through the light.
-----------------------------------Another day,
Created out of the normalised sun and rain,
And I might walk in there and find them
Disbanded, the businessmen sitting in shafts
Of warm light, sleeping in their clothes;
And the old sinners who prophesied that
--------------------------nothing could change,
Except the windows get grimier, except the
Traffic get thicker at the money exchange,
Except the dance get slower and more ribald
On the television screen, except progress and
Decay, all that and more, feeding the dogs
--------------------------dogs on the floor.
Slow changes are not anywise less dramatic--
Nobody sees but a small minority suffer the
General woe; so when I saw their faces begin
To crumble inward, and their eyes begin to
Float, I said to my sad companion I’m sorry
Growing old is like a condition meant for you.
It was the native suspicion
That is darkness in the bone,
Long hours intermingled as in one long
Entrenched frame of mind; and the sternest
Face in the mirror stared back at you from
The water, the sky and water of clearest blue;
Until no longer was anyone tugging you by
The sleeve, and you were free, you were old,
You were ready to learn--
-------------------You had weathered that,
In keen responsiveness to the climate.
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