| ANALYSAND
Hyde habitually addressed her psychiatrist Gilbert Tothill in
journal writings and in 1934 Auto, which was written at his suggestion. 1935
Jnl discloses her deep feelings for Tothill, and her interest in the dual role
of patient and writer extends also into poems written at The Lodge. A
fictionalised snapshot of Hyde’s early circumstances there occurs in the
draft fragment of a story called ‘My Countrymen’. It begins:
‘I wish I could see my countrymen just once
– mythical creatures that they are! To look into eyes like my own – to
feel the beating of a heart very much akin to mine – I think I have
deserved that, if only because I have survived.’
(Said the girl who
could not die, but who lay on a wave crest of six white pillows in a lamplit
room traversed by the trellised flowers on wallpaper.)
‘Well, why not?’
said the unicorn, suddenly appearing around the curved and carven darkness
of a high dressing-table executed in black oak. He was framed in the
gigantic niche of seven window-frames, which were deeply colour-washed by a
blue dusk. His expression was patient yet inquiring, and he seemed just one
shade whiter than anything else could be – than blossoms on the pear or
foam sprinkling on the hollow curve of a beach, than starlight like dawn on
the grey moth wings of a cloud –
‘I know’ said the
girl, when the unicorn became stationary at the end of her bed, ‘People
invented you because they needed you so badly. It can’t have been that
there were not sufficient animals, nor that they weren’t grotesque or
fierce or beautiful enough – look at hippos and tigers now.’
‘People could quite
see hippos and tigers, that’s the trouble,’ nodded the unicorn
‘You’ve only to think of a mud-crater with a pink smile on its face and
you’ve got the whole idea of the hippo. Tigers are worse. Imagine a blood
orange against the breast of an Ethiopian and you know all a tiger can tell
you, provided you can figure to yourself a thunderbolt in action. They’re
so describable.’
‘Yes, yes,’
whispered the girl. ‘That’s just it – describable, I get tired of
describable things – and people. Dear God, I am so tired of people.’
(Rough D, pages for 13, 16 Oct 1934)
Neon Lights
Sometimes, I’d like my name plastered in Neon lights
Crimson and blue, across the velvety nights.
So much for fame –
Low-priced electric flame –
Only that you, passing by in the well-groomed crowd,
Might say, ‘I know her well,’ might a little be proud.
Sometimes, I’d rather be the dream caress
Of the quietest petal blown into your loneliness.
[AU 106.1]
Five Minutes (i)
When at school
I never was any possible use at all
In questions mathematical.
Simply a fool,
So my masters remarked, on failing to convey
With their clearest words to me
The candid practical way
Of Euclid, trigonometry,
Algebra, arithmetic,
All the things that leave the ill-informed dreamer sick.
Though I think perhaps my brain
Might have fastened on the fact that snowy lightness of a ’plane,
Or a yellow great balloon
Rocketing off to find the moon,
Or the subtlest secrets, hid
Except from stealthy moonbeams, in a pyramid,
Distance-drifts between the stars,
The red signals, patiently waiting on Mars,
All hung together on figures
Delicately-poised, hair-triggers.
But this I learned, when
I was somewhere about the age of ten.
Twenty hours and four
Make a day. No more . . .
Never one more.
Sixty minutes to the hour,
Sixty seconds to the minute.
Fly or creep, gaillard, heart-sore;
Fit the prettiest jigsaw puzzle pieces in it,
Not one alchemist, one trickster, wins the power
To cut a day in half
On the sudden high golden wavecrest of a laugh,
To add one hour, just one,
To the burning of his most beloved sun.
‘All right,’ (I said) ‘Sic transit. That shall be that.
Time hangs up his hat
For twenty-four hours. And then a day is done.
There should be time
For making verses, finding the rainbow’s end
Which is mirth,
And the other end
Which not unnaturally has to be sorrow,
Sauntering in shy brown woodlanes with a friend,
Smelling the streaky different smells of earth,
Laying your heart bare, alone, to the cleaving of rain,
And somewhat recovering again,
Falling asleep, the world a-crackle with silver rime,
All before tomorrow.’
‘Five minutes,’ you said. Your voice had a bite of scorn.
You were thinking, I knew, how women, neither wedded nor on
hire,
Would catch their breath on the Everests of desire,
And never, never quite reach the summit. No,
Neither the ultimate crystal of tameless snow
Nor the strange peak set afire
By a sunrise no God durst deny. It’s true, my friend . . .
Passion’s so poor a mountaineer, he must tire,
And he does not even lift up his eyes, to see the gold-steeped
end,
Gold on the unattained hill,
A moment beloved and still.
‘Five minutes . . .’ and out of that, a child might be
born,
And the snowy plumage of freedom be draggled and torn,
So dirty . . . so lost . . . so forlorn . . .
That’s it, what you said? ‘Not always,’ I whispered,
head bent
Very low. I meant
Not that some climbers are braver, more stubborn, you see . .
.
Only that five poor minutes can blaze through Eternity.
That’s what Joshua meant, when he stopped the sun.
That’s how it was done,
Though the gaping Hebrews about
Made a miracle out of a trumpet’s invincible shout.
As a matter of fact, he
And the rest carried on, in so far as their capability
Would let them. As a matter of fact, the desert flamed
Just as yesterday, when a sun sank down
And the palm-fronds bore the pearls of a moonrise crown.
But the whole was subdued, ashamed
By the glory the trumpet had named,
By a marvellous deathless call . . .
Everyone could have sworn that the rest never happened at all.
That’s how love should be,
Call it just what you please . . . five minutes, eternity.
Only I know why they write all those legends of towers
Invisible, such as Merlin’s, where Kings or fairies live on,
For ever and ever, the breath in their bodies not gone
But merely hovering . . . still
As white thoughts in a dream of white flowers.
Enchanted from the caresses of sunlight or rain,
Until the magical still
Five minutes shall bugle again.
I, lost in my ghostly hours,
Waiting and waiting that trumpet . . . perhaps the tale was
unfounded,
Perhaps the gold piercing notes never sounded
At all . . .
And on me will fall
For ever, the trance of the listless phantom flowers.
[AU 112.1]
Five Minutes (ii)
‘Five minutes,’ you said. Your voice had a bite of scorn.
You were thinking, I knew, how women neither wedded or on hire
Would catch their breath on the Everest of desire,
And never, never quite reach the summit. No,
Neither the ultimate crystals of tameless snow,
Nor the strange peak set afire
By a sunrise no God durst deny. It’s true, my friend . . .
Passion’s so poor a mountaineer, he must tire,
And he does not even lift up his eyes, to see the unattained
end,
Gold on the unattained hill,
A moment beloved and still.
‘Five minutes . . .’ And out of that, a child might be
born,
And the snowy plumage of freedom be draggled and torn,
So dirty . . . so lost . . . so forlorn.
That’s it, what you said? ‘Not always,’ I answered, head
bent
Very low. I meant
Not that some climbers are braver, more stubborn, you see . .
.
Only that five poor minutes can blaze through Eternity.
That’s what Joshua meant, when he stopped the sun.
That’s how it was done,
Though the gaping Hebrews about
Made a miracle out of a trumpet’s invincible shout.
As a matter of fact, he
And the rest carried on, in so far as their capability
Would let them. As a matter of fact, the desert flamed
Just as yesterday, when a sun sank down
And the palm fronds wore the pearls of a moonrise crown.
But the whole was subdued, ashamed
By the glory the trumpet had named,
By a marvellous deathless call.
Everyone could have sworn that the rest never happened at all,
That’s how love should be –
Call it just what you please, five minutes, Eternity.
[AU 113]
Red Leaf
Little fool, little mime, little traitress? Ah, nothing of
these . . .
Why won’t you see? For the weight of the iron years
It was ‘Walk along, step along, please:
Stand at ease:
Next, please.
You’re out of love with a phantom? Most opportune sir,
You are friendly to her,
(There’s a whisper of goblin orchids, a silver fox fur).
Didn’t you know? She never really cares.
It had vanished, the delicate lustre, the green opal fire,
Ere you’d leisure to tire.
No, she never
cares. Next, please.’
In hotel bedrooms, or deep in beloved grasses,
Moonlight piled up in drifts, whiter than blossom or truth,
Youth for an hour grown humble and tender with youth,
It was ‘Passion’s a tide, my friend. It ebbs and passes.
Love was the white hind never allowed on the Ark.
Here you’re a stranger. Here is a drop-scene park . . .
Why, she never
cares.’
I have heard a red leaf say that to its traitor tree.
A tinsel autumn was stifling the heart of me.
You came, with your dangerous wisdom, your seeing eyes,
Harsh, impatient of lies.
And a red leaf dropped . . . and a quiver of springtime rains
Pierced through a lost tree’s veins.
This was a madness. One can’t feel the springtime, and live.
No one can whisper for ever, ‘I love . . . I forgive . . .
Oh, truly I care.’
There’s a heart washed lonely in starlight, lonely and
clean.
And a tree shall perish in blossom. A Fiddlers’ Green
Of reckless birds shall be there,
Rainbows pelting the air.
I care . . . Yes, truly I care.
[AU 144.1]
Conversation
I wonder if you, with your queer
Notions of fair and unfair,
With the ostrich reserve, that is famed
As correct English wear
Upon most occasions, would simply be rather ashamed
If I told you one little thing?
(Don’t be alarmed. It’s only the simplest thing).
‘Well, I will leave you in peace.’ And you smiled. No
more.
Only the quietly-closing door . . .
I have noticed that doors don’t slam where you pass through.
I have noticed, too,
That your voice, half-heard below, brings a slow deep
happiness,
Calm of a mind-caress.
I never answered, ‘You bring me peace.’ Rather than
Be quite straightforward with any Englishman
Any woman, I suppose, would cut her throat,
Or set her body adrift in the muffled boat
That glided to Camelot once, in a strange tide, opaline, mute
–
Slender broken body, youth’s heart snapped like a lute.
Ah, but you haven’t gone . . .
Voice and smile dwell on
And an English phantom makes bold to sit on my bed.
I tell him the first child’s nonsense comes into my head . .
.
There was a little farm, once. Behind, on the hill,
Burned the red leaves . . . so red . . .
One felt, ‘Too still for safety, that flame, far too still.
At any moment, Beauty’s pillar of fire
May whirl down the steeps, in a marvellous ruby-red spire.
What will the farm-house say, or the apple tree
That is hoary and crabbed with age? What is the proper course
When Beauty’s pillar of fire sweeps over the boundary?’
But listen. One need not have feared.
There were two old women, each wearing a printed hood.
One was ninety, the other seventy-eight.
I believe that each was a Fate.
Such a thing never happened to them. They wouldn’t have
understood.
Beauty was quiet. She never interfered.
Sometimes a moonrise, perhaps, loosed crystal birds in the
wood,
But these came as a matter of course
To the crabbed old apple tree, to the cropping horse.
And the ruby leaves and the garnet leaves on the hill
Burned always lonely and still.
It is kind in you, phantom, to sit on the edge of my bed,
To smile so, and speak. And I will not lift up my head.
[AU 138.1]
Companionship in Dream
‘There is no such companionship,’ said the voice in my
dream to me –
Quietly enough. I awakened, heavy with sleeping,
Spent with the strange dream weeping.
I do not know what companionship I had sought,
Nor how dearly I might have bought
Behind those ivory gates, a dream love’s sowing and reaping.
‘There is no such companionship.’ Was it you who told me
this –
Who will have no dealing in lies,
Not for the plea of the mouth, the plea of the eyes,
The face upraised for your kiss?
I think that it must have been you:
None other could be so quiet . . . so stern . . . so true.
I think it is well, too,
That ever you veil your face, in the glades of my dream.
Since there at least it shines free, the entangled gleam
Of all that I long for. A chance-met human face
Should be little or nothing to turn from. But how shall you
turn from the grace
Of the necromancer larch trees, enchained with dew?
Of the secret well in the forest, where magic is spun
From the lint-white unbraided tresses of wintry sun?
These and more are mine: and are yours . . . if you knew
How the sighing white doves of the snow fly straight to my
hand
In that sorceress land.
‘There is no such companionship.’ Nay, but walk veiled in
my dream . . .
Since a man’s heart might break, if he once saw the white
birds gleam.
[AU 139.1]
The Duellists
You are too wise for me. Yet I could wear
Such crystal armour, the light mocking air
Of the strange hearts that make believe to feel.
I think, sir, I’d outmatch your flickering steel,
Outpoint you at the game . . . and all the while
Hunger for woodland silence, for your smile
That brings me peace, as a faint moonrise stills
The turbulence of gorse on flame-gold hills.
Since you rate trickeries high, I can be wise . . .
And ever seek some friendship in your eyes.
[AU 148.1]
Portia
Portia carried for Brutus some days in her thigh
A secret wound, of which she would not speak.
This was that she might prove
A still and resolute love.
No doubt, during that wrenched, half-frightened while,
She’d look at him with the same friendly smile,
Touch up the colour on a Roman cheek,
Say to the pain, ‘Well, women and pain . . . both weak.’
And I shall carry for ever in my heart
A wound as deep, and one not made with steel.
I do not think that such wounds will readily heal,
Or that they touch the grave physician’s art.
I know that I never shall tell,
It may be, I love you well.
[AU 156.1]
Astolat
I am weary of listening for a sound on the stair,
For a step without, and a man’s voice, steadfast and low;
No man does well to conquer a woman so
That blind and still she waits for him, russet hair
Spread in defeated glory over the white
Pillows from which she dare not lift her head;
Stilled is the room; for the tide of her being is fled
To ebb unseen round his going, come day, come night.
Sometimes she dreams, ‘I am rich. I shall see him great . .
.
Mine are the slender hands shall fasten well
His golden armour, what time he strives with Fate,
And a sleeve of pearls for the tourney at Tintagel.
Maid Elaine for the knight Sir Launcelot
In her ancient Astolat towers, made offerings such . . .
She died at the last, for he loved a Queen o’ermuch . . .
Yet haply her childish fingers were unforgot.’
Or, ‘I am a little like the Saracen maid
Who learned two names, the name of her Christian love
And his homeland’s name. I would venture unafraid,
Though the beryl stars, my friends, might change above,
Crusting with jewels the hilt of an enemy sword;
Though a strange wind stung my soul, and a jeering crowd
Pressed on my heels; I would stand up, veiled and proud,
Whispering over and over the name of my lord.’
Sometimes, (he knows it not), she is girt to ride
Where the mosses, grey and golden, are fine as lace;
Where the wet brown boughs are slashed like whips on her face,
And the stormy trees wear colours of death and pride.
A dark inn threatens the woods . . . he may rest him well . .
.
Sometimes, in dream, the blood of his enemy drips
From her dagger, in drops more bright than her pallid lips.
And the world lies tranced in a moonglade’s ivory spell.
Pebbles crunch on the roadway, rounded and white,
Spurned by the feet of one who passes by.
He will stand for a moment, gaze on the frosty sky
And the stars like swans in the black lagoon of night.
My heart is the lattice . . . limned there in frost and fire,
Look on the elfin flowers of a lone desire . . .
No man does well to conquer a woman so
That half she hears his step, on the dewy grass,
And the moonlit sea sweeps back to let him pass,
And her head sinks down, like a russet flag brought low.
[Persephone]
Snowstorm
(To a Pyschoanalyst)
There is Nirvana at last. And you shall not remember at all
That which you could not help, that which you could not save
–
That which no man may hold from the waiting arms of the grave,
And the lost leaves armoured in gold before they fall.
There is a dream so deep no cry shall pierce
The snowdrifts, deepening still to your ultimate peace –
Never a face be lifted, pleading or fierce;
And the thought how you strove to save them, that also shall
cease.
[AU 227.3]
Day in a Garden
Come, then. Since you well know how much I’m yours,
I know you wish my floral clock, this day,
Should tell what daring fragrances make wars
In my small garden: how the red rose has sway
For the present, over all, but should beware
Of a York rose that promises full fair.
And what persistent grumblings some dull bee
Conspires with: how a silver-cobwebbed tree
Is flattered by the winds that nakedness
Becomes her better than her leafy dress.
All these are yours, colour and scent and touch,
The hint of mockery in a far bird’s calling,
Bright fragile fountain-drops of silence falling
Into my heart. I gift you not too much
When I but tell you how my days shine up
Naked and proud, having tasted Iseult’s cup.
[AU 172]
Three Poems
The irises stand tall and blue and golden
Like the great banners borne by warrior kings.
But I am bowed like a reed, whose leaf is holden
Deep beneath the waters of troublous things.
Hands that meet in the darkness . . . the desperate clasping
of fingers . . .
‘Hold but an instant, Beloved, the light is won.’
But she who had sung like a child in the dappled Thessalian
meadows
Answers no word. And the limp hands loosen, are gone.
I should like to die in this room –
It looks towards the West.
Outside, the great bronze sickle of the dusk
Mows the red poppies of the sunset clouds.
[AU 102.1]
I never told this. One day, eyes closed, I drifted
On such a dark quiet tide, thinking ‘So, here’s Death’
(Death may be sweet, when the beggared soul wandereth).
Then in that darkness I was quietly lifted
By hands unseen, and lay in a shuttered room.
I did not quite open my eyes on the amber-shadowed gloom . . .
But I was well aware
Of who stood there
Watching: of music, and firelight, and a faint brittle
Perfume from flowers. I knew I lay still in your heart.
It had pleased you, some while, to draw one so wearied apart
–
There was no word, no touch. Only the faraway calling
Of music, the fragile fountain-drop music falling.
So, if it chanced you were dead,
Would it not please me best to be sealed in your tomb,
A jonquil, and scent for a little the hearts of your peace.
What other may say that he gave the entrapped release
And was gentle . . . saying no word, whilst the captive thing
Found again a use for its frightened wing?
So – each of my days shines up gallant and proud and blue.
Each of them yours. I would make them a fragrance for you.
[AU 355]
|
