SAMPHIRE
SAMPHIRE
by
John Cowper Powys
“Half way down
Hangs one that gathers Samphire, dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head.”
King Lear. Act IV. Scene VI.
NEW YORK
THOMAS SELTZER
1922
Copyright, 1922, by Thomas Seltzer, Inc.
All rights reserved
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
DEDICATED TO LLEWELYN POWYS
CONTENTS
| PAGE | |
| The Ultimate | 1 |
| Demogorgon | 4 |
| The Old Pier-Post | 6 |
| The Castle of Gathore | 9 |
| The Twilight of the Gods | 13 |
| The Face | 16 |
| The Heron’s Nest | 19 |
| Lubberlu | 22 |
| The Old Satyr to the Young Platonist | 25 |
| Youth and Age | 28 |
| Metaphysic | 31 |
| The Malice-Dance | 34 |
| Candle Light | 36 |
| The Eclipse | 39 |
| The Rider | 43 |
| William Corby | 45 |
| To a Certain Lady | 47 |
| The “Disaster” | 49 |
| November | 51 |
| Bon Espoir Y Gist Au Fond! | 52 |
SAMPHIRE
[Pg 1]
THE ULTIMATE
So this is the ultimate—
That we bleed with our backs to the wall,
While the rats and weasels of fate
Eat at our liver and gall;
Eat at our hearts with teeth of bane,
And tug at the sick white roots of pain
Where every man’s alone,
And scrape a tune on the deep nerve-string
That is love and life and everything,
And gnaw our flesh to the bone.
Is this the ultimate?
No! This is nothing at all!
Some human dramas stop with this;
[Pg 2] With this some curtains fall.
But the play that the high gods love
In their Theatre of Space
Has the mind, the mind for the stage thereof
And the soul for its dancing place!
Oh shapes of terror and fear,
Oh shapes of loathing and lust,
That gibber and jibe at us here
Ye break earth’s shallow crust.
Far back that stage recedes—
Who knows where that stairway goes?
Who knows where that passage leads?
And that door? Who knows? Who knows?
For the rats that again and again
Gnaw at each rib and joint
Of the vessel of our pain
Stop gasping at this point;
[Pg 3] And in crowds they flee from the ship
That steers for the open sea
And turns the prow of its bleeding lip
Towards eternity!
[Pg 4]
DEMOGORGON
I am the Devil of Notre Dame.
Salaam!
I dance my dance and I work my charm.
Salaam!
I cling to terror by the hair of her head,
I have taken Medusa to my bed.
I hug the Nightmare until she is dead.
Salaam!
Hush! By the Lord’s side I have stood—
Touch wood!
Before Orion rose out of the sky
Rose I!
Before the Hunter hunted the Ram
I am
I am the Demon of Socrates
On your knees!
The oldest of the Eumenides—
The she-ape of Mephistopheles—
The deadly wind in Dodona’s trees—
The poisonous smoke ’twixt the Pythia’s knees—
I am more terrible than these!
In Jotunheim, Loki I’m called—
Scald!
I am Asmódéus in Babylon.
In Egypt I am Osiris’ son
I am many and I am One.
At the Beginning I stood by the Lord
God!
At the last I shall be the Worm of the Pit
Uncurled
Who swallows Him and who swallows It
His World!
[Pg 6]
THE OLD PIER-POST
I am the sea-ward-looking one,
Covered with weed and slime—
“Fresh fish for sale!”—of a row of posts,
That rotted by centuries nod like ghosts
To the ebb and flow of time.
Sea-tangle and sea-scum
Will the Christ never come?
Two lovers that met at this ocean-mart,
With kissings and clingings pale
Breaking the shell of a human heart
And tearing its bleeding core apart,—
—“Fresh fish, fresh fish for sale!”—
[Pg 7] Left a tress of shining hair on me;
And two sea-gulls that once were mates
But were wrenched away by the blinding spray
And the unrelenting fates,
Left a feather on me, a shining feather,
With sea-scum covered and scales
Of the mackerel bright they had caught together,
—“Fresh fish for sale!”—in the wild storm-weather
And the fury of the gales.
And the terrible ultimate thought of one
Who had scooped at the shingle of things
Till he’d taken the light from the kindly sun—
—“Fresh fish for sale!”—and to death had done
The light that the sweet moon brings,
Graved itself on the grey sea-mark
Wherewith with eyeless stare
[Pg 8] I frown at the twilight and face the dark—
—“Fresh fish for sale!”—and with forehead stark
Confront a world’s despair.
A shining tress, a feather, a thought—
With these I create a soul,
A soul that is not to be sold or bought;
Yes; I who am nought and less than nought—
—“Fresh fish for sale!”—have something caught
From the waters as they roll!
Yes; I, the sea-ward-looking one,
Covered with weed and slime,
Have gathered a soul to rest upon
As I rock to the rhythm of time.
Bright hair, bright feather, brain-disease
Blotting the sun and moon—
If an old sea-pier steals a soul from these,
Christ must be coming soon!
[Pg 9]
THE CASTLE OF GATHORE
There is a place none knows but I—
The Castle of Gathore!
Black murky pools about it lie.
And the trees are sick with its mystery;
And dead things are its floor.
Each tree with twisted root entwines
The bones of older trees.
Moon after moon above them shines—
Beyond the moon—the Zodiac signs!
Beyond them—the Immensities!
[Pg 10] None would think that ever such pools could be!
Black morgues of leafy doom,
Where century after century
Old forests find their tomb.
Oh terrible steps of leaf-mould sod
Such as man never saw
That mount up—holy Mother of God!—
To the Castle of Gathore!
And I alone—yes only I—
Under Algol and Altair—
When a new-born moon was in the sky
Climbed up that mossy stair.
Old Cypress-roots of long decay
Troubled my noiseless tread;
[Pg 11] Old Yews made midnight of the day
As they met above my head.
Out of the trees, tier above tier,
Mossed stone above mossed stone,
Buttress on buttress, it towered there,
A Nightmare image, a thing of fear,
Revealed to me alone!
My home! My home! To my heart I said—
My home! To my soul I cried—
From here have been wafted those airs of the dead
That have driven my true love from my bed,
And my true love from my side!
[Pg 12] This is what divides me from him and her
And the blessed light of the sun;
Till the eyes of Algol and of Altair
Are my only benison!
This is what they guessed when in dumb surprise
They turned and let me pass—
This is what they saw behind my eyes
Like a phantom in a glass!
They saw those towers; they saw those trees;
And I am alone once more—
Alone with the Immensities
And the Castle of Gathore!
[Pg 13]
THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS
In a long sad row the old gods come;
They come and bow to me.
Like candle-flames in a raftered room,
Like trees in an avenue of doom,
They bend in unity.
And a sound comes from them, a terrible sound,
Like the wind in a tamarisk grove,
Or a howl from some treacherous marshy ground
Where the swamp-demons move.
And in that moan is the cracking of sticks
Where Behemoth stalks thro’ the trees;
And in that moan is the flame that licks
The knees of Rameses:
[Pg 14] And in that moan rocks Nineveh
With her golden roofs and floors!
And in that moan quakes Babylon
With her columned corridors!
From my little green seat of piled-up sods
Like a dwarf on a churchyard mound
I watch that row of bowing Gods
And I hear that terrible sound.
They nod and mutter; they sway and bend
Like monoliths of stone,
Like huge gaunt birds on a branches’ end,
And as they bend they moan.
They shiver like monstrous skeleton leaves;
They rattle like gibbets stark;
They reel like ruined autumn sheaves
In the stubble of the dark.
[Pg 15] Their eye-sockets are hollow and deep;
Their foreheads are cliffs of doom;
And they bleat at me like gigantic sheep
That are herded in a tomb.
And very slowly I lift my head—
And slowly I lift my hand
—And a row of horny beetles dead
Lie scattered in the sand!
[Pg 16]
THE FACE
In the hollow spaces I see a face
As I go whistling to my Dear,
And in those lineaments I trace
The ultimate Fear.
Throned on the dark that face I see,
As I go whistling to my Doll;
Of human terror the apogee—
Fol-de-rol!
The wreckage of the whole damned race,
As I go whistling to my white bird,
Is in that wavering ghastly face
That speaks no word!
[Pg 17] Is that face moulded by treachery
As I go whistling to my Poll,
And carved by lust out of lechery?
Fol-lol-de-rol!
Has it woven itself out of ancient sorrows
As I go whistling to my maid,
Out of all the To-days that to all the To-morrows
Shriek—“betrayed!”
I like not to see that face in the night,
As I go whistling to my own:
A terrible face for the sweet moonlight
To shine upon!
But as long as those lips utter no sound,
As I go whistling to my Troll,
[Pg 18] All is yet well above the ground,
Fol-lol-de-rol!
Oh white, white lips that hang so mute,
As I go whistling to my Love,
That ultimate Fear would be absolute
If you should move!
[Pg 19]
THE HERON’S NEST
The World-Mother sits on her sky-blue eggs—
“A mare’s nest!” cries the minstrel, laughing.
“Her wings are lovely—but what of her legs?”
Cries the youngest page to the courtiers scoffing.
“A wicked bird,” cries the mitred priest—
“To lay blue eggs and to sit on them!
Blue is no colour for bird or beast
Blue is the colour of our Lady’s hem.”
“A shameless bird!” cries the old queen mother,
“Eggs should be mottled white, not blue.”
“A pox on the bird!” cries the old king’s brother—
“There’s no such bird!” cry the courtier crew.
[Pg 20] Home from hunting returned the King—
White as a young birch-tree was he.
“Ye are all of you plotting a curséd thing!
And evil is your conspiracy!
“I have seen the World-Mother upon her nest;
I have seen those eggs, blue as the sky;
And for what I have seen I would give the rest
Of my kingdom; and willingly die!”
And the minstrel winked at the youngest page;
And the old queen pinched the fool;
And the mitred priest to hide his rage
Grinned at them like a ghoul.
“Down on your knees to the great World-Mother!
’Tis I, your King, who begs.”
But they stood stock-still and stared at each other—“The
[Pg 21] King is mad,” cried the old king’s brother.
“I’ve traveled the world from one end to another—
Those eggs are Heron’s eggs!”
From the walls of the Madhouse upon the hill,
When this traveler came to be crowned
At the Queen’s and the Priest’s and the Courtier’s will,
There fell a curious sound—
A sound that was like the flapping of wings;
And a radiant voice that was like the King’s!
[Pg 22]
LUBBERLU
“Green were her eyes,—yellow were her eyes—
Her eyes were like withered sedge!”
—“This is holy Mass and the hour flies
And there is red in the church-yard hedge.
“Raise me aloft my taper’s flame,
Light me my candles three,
For I must call on the Baby’s name
Who is born to young Mary!”—
“O father, I see a blood-red streak
In the reeds where first I caught her—
And I hear a cry makes my heart weak—
And turns my bones to water.
[Pg 23] “The marsh-bittern and lone curlew
That cry comes not from them—”
—“Bring me bread and wine my Lubberlu,
And hold my vestments’ hem!
“The candles burn—The oxen kneel.
Boy, bring me my holy book—
Born is the King of Israel!”
—“Oh father, my father, look!
“She is pressing her face ’gainst the window-pane,
Where the saints stare in a row
And her lips are red with the morning’s stain
And her cheeks are white like snow!”—
—“’Tis Christmas morn and the mass unsung
For the Baby of young Mary!”—
But the idiot-boy from his side had sprung.
At the window prone was he.
[Pg 24] And the oxen knelt in their frozen shed
And the sheep in their hurdled pen;
But Lubberlu lay stark and dead,
He never will come again.
They sign his breast and they sign his brow
With the cross to which they pray—
But two lost souls are flying now
Over the reeds and over the snow,
Over the hills and away.
[Pg 25]
THE OLD SATYR TO THE YOUNG PLATONIST
Go and get a monk for a lover,
And let me quietly sit
On this warm stone which the lichens cover.
I have had enough of it!
Did the high gods carve your polished flanks
And make liquid your hazel eyes,
That two should stand on a river’s banks
And offer up the scurvy thanks
Of being over wise?
Let me alone. I have heard your tale,
How Love is this and how Love is that.
[Pg 26] Is not milk still white in the pail
And wine still red in the vat?
I would have gathered you moschatel,
Wood-spurge, wood-sorel, wood-saxifrage!
When the moon rode forth I’d have taught you to tell
Every star in her equipage!
Because I’d loved you with satyr passion
Were that a reason I should not keep
Tenderness in my goat-foot fashion,
And watch beside your sleep?
The oldest of Centaurs is my brother—
The wild wood-ways are in my blood—
My mother was the great earth-mother—
Yet I can love you as well as another
For all my satyrhood!
[Pg 27] Go find your friend. I have pride of my own,
But every noon I’ll sit
On this warm lichen-covered stone,
And perhaps you’ll come back to it!
Perhaps when they talk of Love one day
In their high platonic hall,
You will curse their chatter and flee away
And find your Satyr’s grave and say,
“His love was best of all!”
[Pg 28]
YOUTH AND AGE
“O wanton youth, this wind was not
Over common highways blown
From gardens far from here—God wot!
It has caught that plaintive tone.
Listen! But ah! It touches you not!
Listen! But ah! I had forgot—
The heart of youth is stone.
“Did you not know such places were?
Lovely are they and few,
The gardens that breathe such perfumed air!
Listen! But what care you?
Over many a moon-lit terraced spot
It has come to claim its own
[Pg 29] Over Marjoram and Melilot,
Over London Pride and Bergamot,
It has come to trouble, doubt it not,
All hearts save those of stone!”
—“I like not this breath in the swaying grasses!
I like not that shadow on the rustling trees!
I suspect that wind as it softly passes
Back to its garden of memories!
Your walled-up pansies are faded and sere;
Your dark parterres of cypress-green
Make the very lizards listen in fear
Of phantom footsteps and forms unseen.
Your fountains are choked with hemlock weeds,
The toad croaks there and the night-owls call.
There are wandering dandelion-seeds
Where red rose-petals were wont to fall!
Oh woe-begone one, you can tempt me not
[Pg 30] With your proud sad gardens, your wind that sighs,
Your Mignonette and your Melilot!
The heart of youth is wise.”
[Pg 31]
METAPHYSIC
Dearie I! When I up and follows
Grand-dad Cooper’s cross-cut road,
The road that from Hawk’s Hill to Green Lane Hollows
Is nought but rabbits and cuckoos and swallows
And fields with turnip sowed,
Dearie I! the road that over
Badger’s Warren and Turnstile Hill
Skirts park-fence by Witham’s Cover,
Where old man Rob caught young Nell’s lover,
And leads to Dead Man’s Mill,
[Pg 32] Dearie I! I do stop and hear
Out of wind a terrible sound;
And Almighty, he do whisper clear
Like a girt wold owl long-side my ear—
“Nancy girl, this be holy ground!”
Dearie I! And he says to me—
“You’ve been here, Nancy, long ere this!”
And he lifts the veil of his mystery
From the face of his abyss.
And high Hawk Hill and Green Lane Hollows
Grow only dreams that I have dreamed;
And Grand-dad’s road with its cuckoos and swallows,
The road an old fox-bitch still follows,
Is a fairy-place that only seemed!
[Pg 33] And Dead Man’s Mill grows doubly dead,
For its old-time pond of terribleness,
And him it drowned, like mists are fled!
And nought bides there but nothingness!
Gone, gone—all gone—shadows and dreams!
Dearie I! and ’twere Grand-dad’s road
Whereon a’ drove Squire Withy’s teams
And many a turnip-load!
[Pg 34]
THE MALICE-DANCE
An intolerable singing
From an ancient haunted lawn
Where the ghost-moths whitely winging
Cross a moon-dial forlorn,
Drew me from you as you trifled
With the jasmin in your hair,
Dreaming that your beauty rifled
All my sense and held me there;
But I left you; and, escaping
With a lost tune in my head,
Set my memory reshaping
The old dances of the dead.
And the intolerable singing
[Pg 35] Heard across that haunted lawn,
Drew me to the ghost-moths winging,
Round that moon-dial forlorn.
Over me the clouds were running
Races with the naked stars,
And dark Yews were making cunning
Love to whispering Deodars.
And the ghost-moths drugged my reason,
And I danced to that old tune
Malice dances full of treason
Round that dial of the moon!
[Pg 36]
CANDLE LIGHT
Hush, true Love, as we sit and think
And talk to shadows and watch the coals
Redden up from beyond the brink
Of the common reach of our souls.
Do you not catch a cry in the air?
No! That is the wind in the chimney calling!
That is a curtain fluttering there!
That is a dead branch falling!
Burning wood when candles are lit
Has a bitter-sweet breath that can carry far;
That can carry two lovers from where they sit
[Pg 37] To the edge of the sea and over it
Where the unknown islands are.
Burning wood has a wizard spell
Full of old sad stories and long-dead things;
Like myrrh and cassia is that smell,
From the sepulchres of kings.
And whenever lovers like you and me
Sit together of a winter’s night,
There’s a cry on the wind, there’s a cry on the sea
There’s a tongue in the candlelight.
And a great host gathers out of the dark
From wild far places, from sunk sea-walls,
From fallen roofs where hyænas bark
From ruined tents and kraals.
[Pg 38] It gathers towards us while you and I
Talk to old shadows and sit and stare,
And let time and space and the world go by
Like smoke upon the air.
And as we gaze at the reddening coals
Lost in that amorous host are we;
That vast procession of lovers’ souls
Drowns our identity.
A procession, divided like Plato’s dream,
But rushing together on a winter’s night,
When the casement shakes and the red coals gleam
And we kiss by candle light!
[Pg 39]
THE ECLIPSE
I said, Tonight is her plenilune,
And the wise astronomers held their peace,
I said, Tonight this naked moon
To her prisoned passion will give release;
And she shall gather the forests to her
And draw the oceans up to her breast.
The mountain-torrents shall leap to undo her,
And the virgin valleys shall be at rest:
And the fish from their fathomless feeding-ground
In finny circles shall upward move,
And the furry things at the lightest sound
Shall make the forest ache with love!
And fallen boughs that for centuries
Have dreamed, I said, of such a night
[Pg 40] Shall feel in their mossy mortuaries
The living touch of her liquid light!
Great promontories, where dawn by dawn
Cormorants seeking the open sea
With yearning jet-black necks up-borne
Steer to the shoals of immensity,
Shall thrill as they feel that naked shape
Draw near with its luminous languorous power,
And over continent and cape
Float like an amorous lotus-flower.
Now, I said, with that moon at full,
While the wise astronomers kept them still,
Maids will grow more than beautiful,
And starved love-longings will have their will!
Now, I said, in this perfect night,
Lips that have paled and pined for passion
Will take at last their full delight
[Pg 41] Mouth upon mouth in sweet lunar fashion!
Tonight is the night, I said to them all,
While the wise astronomers held their peace,
That Christ’s own cloak on Love shall fall
And let mortal longings have full release!
Then I looked up. Oh pity, oh loss
Irremediable! For behold the shade
Of our own dark planet crept across,
And on that glory its image laid.
Treachery in the heavens! It grew—
That shadow of evil and suppression
Larger and larger with the smouldering hue
Of the old intolerable repression!
It grew like some monstrous shadow of doom
Crossing the threshold of a happy king
Who begins to reck that his bridal-room
Will be the place of his murdering!
Terribly, inch by inch it grew.
[Pg 42] Carved with the ruinous runic scrolls
Of our ancient woe and well I knew
Betrayed once more were our human souls.
Treachery in the heavens! From land
And sea and every forest way,
From frightened pastures and darkened sand
Rose up a cry of wild dismay—
And Christ bent down and hid His head;
And the haters of love laughed in their bed;
And “The Law is the law,” the astronomers said!
[Pg 43]
THE RIDER
On the horses of desire
Over the tossing trees
I have hunted the Pillar of
Fire
To his inmost fastnesses.
On the eagles of despair
Where the thunders meet,
I have hunted the Powers of
the Air
To their last retreat.
[Pg 44] Over chasm and over crag
On the horned moon riding,
I have hunted the night-hag
To her furthest hiding.
On the lions of exultation
I ride to my doom!
No tears of human desolation
Shall find my tomb.
[Pg 45]
WILLIAM CORBY
I drive my cows to Corby;
On sweet spring-grass they’re fed;
But it’s Madge who nestles wantonly
In William Corby’s bed.
I drive my sheep to Corby,
And the gold-dust’s on the willow;
But it’s Nellie’s winsome curls that lie
On William Corby’s pillow.
I drive my geese to Corby
When the bind-weed’s in the wheat;
But it’s Bess who cuddles warm and sly
’Neath William Corby’s sheet.
[Pg 46] I drive my pigs to Corby;
And the hips and haws are red;
But none but me will mind o’ he
When William Corby’s dead!
[Pg 47]
TO A CERTAIN LADY
They tore her scarlet gown.
“What’s in a kiss?” she said—
But they hunted her up and they hunted her down
From end to end of their moral town,
Till they left her there for dead.
But the bleeding throat of her cry
Was heard in another place;
And those who are older than earth or sky—
The austere ones of eternity ...
They knew her of their race.
[Pg 48] “What’s this?” they said. “For a kiss?” said they;
And they took the red from the dawn,
And they took the dance from the salt-sea spray,
And they took the purple out of the day,
And the yellow out of the corn.
“Give her life, give her love, give her peace,” they said.
“Give her back her scarlet gown;
Or with ashes of death upon every head
Dead you shall skip to the tune of the dead
In your moral modern town!”
[Pg 49]
THE “DISASTER”
Without rudder, without sail
Drifts my soul, the brig “Disaster,”
And the madness of the gale
Takes the place of mate or master!
Covered is its ghostly keel
With sea-slime, sea-weed, sea-crust;
And its bulkheads groan and reel;
And its bolts are caked with rust;
Storm-tossed sea-gulls phantom-white
On the spars of the “Disaster”
Scream while the great winds of night
Drive the derelict still faster.
[Pg 50] And the drowned men floating deep
Leagues beneath that churning sea,
Mutter in their careless sleep,
“The brig ‘Disaster’ goes merrily!”
And the brig “Disaster” drives right on,
Without captain, without mate,
Top-sails, bowsprit, compass gone,
Lost—exultant, desolate!
[Pg 51]
NOVEMBER
I will come back to you and you to me;
When the poplar-trees blow white and the rooks fly home,
And the fishermen draw their nets out of the sea;
I will come back to you and you to me.
When across the flooded weirs the wild-fowl fly,
When the dead leaves fall from each remembered tree,
When over the withered grass the plovers cry,
I will come back to you and you to me.
[Pg 52]
BON ESPOIR Y GIST AU FOND!
One shimmering opal is all the air
And the sun like a young girl’s loosened hair
Covers with pools of liquid yellow
Window-sill, floor, and bed and pillow!
And I touch the secret—yet have it not.
It is—God! I’ve forgotten what—
Yet the lovely madness wherewith we’re mad,
For no king’s penny is to be had!
Ha! Monsieur Maggot and my Lord Rat
More’s in this business than you guess at!
The road-dust sleeps in the summer-heat
And the hot noon drowses on ripened-wheat,
[Pg 53] And from weed to weed in the burnt-up grass
Heavy-winged butterflies flutter past.
Ha! Monsieur Maggot! Ha! my Lord Rat,
There’s more in this business than you guess at!
The moon floats high like a silver barge,
And the bracken ferns grow strange and large,
And the bull-rushes forget to shiver
As she pours her magic on meadow and river;
And the tall pond-reeds, where the cattle cross,
Stand silent; and silent dreams the moss;
And the hazel-wood as the owl hoots by,
Is too moon-tranced to heed his cry—
Ha! Monsieur Maggot and my Lord Rat,
Here’s something for you to squinny at!
We pine and pine—but by Holy Rood
There’s something here not understood—
And we are not yet the Devil’s food!
Transcriber’s Notes
p. 20 removed opening quote before “And evil”