Lynette Roberts: Collected Poems (12 page)
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Authors: Lynette Roberts
… mi a glywais lais y pedwerydd anifail yn dywedyd, Tyred, a gwêl. Ac mi a edrychais;
ac wele farch gwelw-las: ac enw yr hwn oedd yn eistedd arno oedd Marwolaeth: ac yr
oedd Uffern yn canlyn gyd âg ef. A rhoddwyd iddynt awdurdod ar y bedwaredd ran o’r
ddaear, i ladd â chleddyf, ac â newyn, ac â marwolaeth, ac â bwystfilod y ddaear.
A phan agorodd efe y bummed sêl, mi a welais dan yr allor
eneidiau
y rhai a laddesid am air Duw, ac am y dystiolaeth oedd ganddynt.
A hwy a lefasant â llef uchel, gan ddywedyd, Pa hyd, Arglwydd, sanctaidd a chywir,
nad ydwyt yn barnu ac yn dïal ein gwaed ni ar y rhai sydd yn trigo ar y ddaear?
A gynau gwynion a roed i bob un o honynt;
DATGUDDIAD. PENNOD VI
The same bay plated with ice. Industrial war progressing and the anxiety for
after-war
commerce and competitive air-lines. The soldiers recognising this futility, but also,
not without some faith in social and economic changes. The gunner returned, and faithful
to his girl, they rise through the strata of the sky to seek peace and solace from
the sun. Their love in harmony on cloud in fourth dimensional state. But memory bringing
with it a consciousness of war – responsibility – they work towards this end. Fail.
For the world demands their return, and down through the lower strata of the earth
they travel, to the wounded bay where no human contact is found, only pylons, telegraph
wires, and a monstrous placard which reads: ‘Mental Home for Poets’. The gunner interned
under pressure, resolves to free the dragon, and take fate in his own hands. The symbol
having been already introduced in Part I of this poem when the woodpecker seen as
a ‘dragon of wings’ introduced the gunner’s identity. He walks meekly into the Mental
Home. The girl turns away: towards a hard and new chemical dawn breaking up the traditional
skyline.
Air white with cold. Cycloid wind prevails.
On ichnolithic plain where no step stirs
And winter hardens into plate of ice:
Shoots an anthracite glitter of death
From their eyes, – these men shine darkly.
With stiff betrayal; dark suns on pillows
Of snow. But not eclipsed, for out of cauterised
Craters, a conclave of architects with
Ichnographic plans, shall bridge stronger
Ventricles of faith. They know also
Etonic vows: the abstractions which may arise:
That magnates out of prefabricated
Glass, may build Chromium Cenotaphs –
Work and pay for all! Contract aerodromes
To lift planes where ships once crawled, over
Baleful continents to the Caribbean Crane,
Down, to the Southern Christ of Palms.
Back on red competitive lines: chasing
Chinese blocks of uranium: above pack-ice
Snapping like wolves on Siberian shores.
Over wails of boracic and tundra torn wounds,
Darkening ‘peaked’ Fuji-yama, clearing
Cambrian caves where xylophone reeds hide
Menhir glaciers and appointed feet.
Out of this hard. Out of this sheet of zinc.
We by centrifugal force… rose softly…
Faded from bloodsight. We, he and I ran
On to a steel escalator, the white
Electric sun drilling down on the cubed ice;
Our cyanite flesh chilled on aluminium
Rail. Growing taller, our demon diminishing
With steep incline. Climbed at gradient
42°; on to a trauma stratus
Where a multitude of birds, each wing
A sunset against sheet of ice, dipped
And flew throughout our cloth piercing folds
Of pain and fear. Higher through moist
And luminous dust: up breathless to a jungle of
Winedamp, out of gravity and territorial
Sight on to a far outer belt muscling-in
The Earth’s curve. In such spirals of air
Sailed ketch and kestrel, fighting propeller,
Swastika wings and grey rubber rafts: this strange
Evidence reconciliating as
Tide and shape floated by on swift moving layer.
Out of it. Out of it. To a ceiling and clarity
Of
Peace
. Sweet white air varied as syllables.
Spray of air fresh, fragrant as beehive glossed
Over with beech. So quiet a terrace to tune-in-to
With Catena shine round each cell of light
To laze carelessly in the Crown of the Sky;
But timeless minds held us victims
To the sour truth.
War and responsibility
.
He, of Bethlehem treading a campaign
Of clouds the fleecy cade purring at his side:
Sun, serene sense, tinting page of his face roan.
Bent over wooden table and glazed chart
And with compass and astronomical calculations
He, again at my side, pricked lines and projected
Latitudes so that we stood we cared not
How, upside down over South American canes.
Boots proved cumbersome at the height. Bleak battledress
Irritating as old salvaged reed collar;
Black and gravel wings pinned to his heart,
A grief already told. In such radium
Activity – white starlings – suspended
On string like Calder ‘stills’ – shivered
Like morning stars in fresh open sky
I contented in this fourth dimensional state
Past through, him and the table, pursued
My own work slightly
below
him. In
Sandals and sunsuit lungs naked to the light,
Sitting on chair of glass with no fixed frame
Leaned to the swift machine threading over twill:
‘Singer’s’ perfect model scrolled with gold,
Chromium wheel and black structure, firm on
Mahogany plinth. Nails varnished with
Chanel shocking! Ears jewelled: light hand
Tipped with dorcas’ silver thimble tracing thin
Aertex edge: trimmings, and metal buttons
Stitched by hand. Slim needle and strong sharp
Thread. Coats’ cotton-twist No. 48. Excelling always as
Soldier shirt finished floated down to earth.
But cold at night. We wrapt our own mystery
Around us; trailed in cerulean mosquito nets
As kale canopy lifted from cooler zones below.
Pack of stars in full cry icing the heavens
As we were compelled to descend.
Disendowed
,
By the State. By will of those hankering
After pig standards of gold. The fall was heavy,
Too sudden for our laughter so that we
Took it with us; dragged it slowly down through
Waled skylanes. Shocked Capricorn and Cancer who
Winked to control us like Belisha beacons.
Tacked out of our course into opaline dusk.
A huge silence ashiver. Huge Witness dwells.
In Celestial Study to right and left lucid
Eyes pay tribute, angel secretaries with
Paper wings – and paper so scarce – dyed mauve-scarlet
With chemical rings; speech blue behind aniline minds.
Away from this. Flattery. God-Hypocrisy.
Not even a whisper escaped our lips as we
Continued in sharp descent, like old minesweepers
Creaking through boisterous storms,
our own God
Within us
. Down into xerophilous air clarion snow
Percolating, oölite flakes warm as
Owl tufts or deciduous leaves. Falling on
Flesh with the lightness of moths. Without breath
Or bell of joy lurched slipped-slid into icy
Vacuums. Fell out of frozen cylinders. Flew
Earthwards like arctic terns the spangled
Mirrors still on our wings. Colder. Continuous as
newsreel
,
Quadrillion cells spotting the air, stinging
The face like a swarm of bees. Lower. A vitreous green
Paperweight – the sky is greenglaze with snow flying
Upwards zionwards. Such iconic sky bears promise.
Dredging slowly down, veiling shield of sky hard.
Cold. Austere. Tumbled over each other lurched
Into the dark penumbra: then, through a
Rift as suddenly, the solid stone of earth
Rushed up; hit us hotly as household iron.
Over this maimed cadaverous globe, the wind
Had streaked each ridge with piercing prongs
Of a curry comb, leaving here and there
A thin sheet of aluminium which shone from out
Of the Earth’s crust. Over set currents
Of ice, emerald streams and blue electric lakes
Worked simultaneously to purify the
World… down driving down… following the thin
Strokes of mapping pens stretching page of
Music over vast terrain. This, and stronger
Network of rails: pylons and steel installations
The only landmarks of our territory…
Down, to this bleak telegraphic planet and its solid
Pyramids of canvas. Down, gunner and black
Madonna with heart of tin; surrounded
By fluttering greed of ravens, their
Beaks of bone breaking up the wounds of winter;
Croak; a mad voice sunk down a sink. The attendant
Curlews at the forage edge wearing moth-eaten
Shawls; shagreen legs brittle as ember twigs.
Pipe plaintive descants that sharpen the shale.
From ascending stirrups steps to the sun
, down,
Dragged-down we descended the slimerot ladders,
Rats withdrawing each foot: rust worn where other
Boots had rung. To the Bay known before,
The warm and stagnant air raising wellshafts
Of putrid flesh sunk deep in desert sands. Stepped out onto
Blue blaze of snow. Barbed wire. No man of bone.
A placard to the right which concerned us:
Mental Home For Poets
. He alone on this
Isotonic plain: against a jingle of Generals
And Cabinet Directors determined
A stand. Declared a Faith. Entered ‘Foreign
Field’ like a Plantagenet King: his spirit
Gorsefierce: hands like perfect quatrains.
Green spindle tears seep out of closed lids…
Mourn murmuring… remembering my brother.
His Cathedral mind in Bedlam. Sign and
Lettering-black grail of quavering curves.
Distrained… mallowfrail… turned to where.
But
today which is tomorrow
.
Salt spring from frosted sea filters palea light
Raising tangerine and hard line of rind on the
Astringent sky. Catoptric on waterice he of deep love
Frees dragon from the glacier glade
Sights death fading into chilblain ears.
Hast thou heard what Avaon sung,
The son of Taliesin of just lay?
The cheek will not conceal the anguish of the heart.
A crow sang a fable on the top
Of an oak, above the junction of two rivers.
Understanding is more powerful than strength.
Make the best on all occasions
Of what you already possess:
Better than nothing is the shelter of a rush.
CATTWG THE WISE SANG IT
(5
TH CENTURY
)
Part I
And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this?
Others mocking, said, These men are full of new wine.
ACTS II, CHAPTER II
Quotation
: from the Bible of William Morgan, the Bishop of St Asaph’s translation 1588: later
amended and revised by Richard Parry and John Davies, 1620. Here the English translation
is incorrect as the original Greek word implies sweet wine. John Kitto, DD, FSA, has
pointed this out. The Welsh rendering is
Gwin
(the G a mutation),
win
meaning wine,
melus
: sweet.
Saint Cadoc
: saint of the fifth century. Spelt in many ways including
Cattwg
(see Inscription, p. [42]). His festival is commemorated in early spring. To him are
attributed many miracles, triads, and fables. The last being
incorrect
, as they belong to a Cadoc of a later period. He is one of the too many Cambro-British
Saints (we gave some to Ireland!), Bernacus (Bernach), Beuno, Cadoc, Carantocus (Carannog),
David (Dewi), Gundleus (Cynlais), Iltutus (Illtyd), Kebius (Cybi), Paternus (Padarn),
and Winifred (Gwenfrewi), see
Lives of Cambro-British Saints
in translation from Ancient Welsh and Latin MSS in the British Museum, by the Rev.
W.J. Rees, MA, FSA and the more recent translation by the Rev. A.W. Wade Evans.
Homeric hills
: Geraldus Cambrensis wrote in 1180 in his
Itinerary Through Wales
: ‘Maenor Pyrr… that is, the Mansions of Pyrrus, who also possessed the Island of
Chaldey, which the Welsh call Inys Pyrr, or the Island of Pyrrus… distant about three
miles from Pembroch.’ There are historians who believe the Trojans came and settled
on this coast. In years to come archaeologists may discover both the Temples and City
as Sir Arthur Evans and Schliemann discovered Knossos and Troy – by studying the legends
in the locality.
Woolglints
: I had the image of iridescent bits of dust which float about in the sunbeams like
pieces of flock. As the estuary is covered with sheep, and the atmosphere I wanted
to create, a supernatural one, I felt that there was bound to be some density – a
stifling quality in the air. I therefore
imagined
these woolglints, which were bound to float about from the backs of the sheep, and
the minute weeds – almost-green invisible cells – hovering over the quagmires.
Ligustrum
: botanical name for privet. One of the sacred trees mentioned in Taliesin’s
Battle of the Trees
, see reference in
The White Goddess
by Robert Graves. Ash and lilac also belong to the Oleaceae family.
Orcadian birds
: whimbrel:
Numenius phaepus phaepus
(Linn.), small curlew which arrives on our shore with the third stream of migration
from the Shetlands and Orkneys, and is usually seen in early spring.
Cattraeth
: ‘The
Gododdin
, the subject of which is the disastrous battle of Cattraeth, contains upwards of
nine hundred lines, and is the oldest Welsh poem extant, it was written in the earlier
part of the sixth century.’ Of the three hundred who took part, only three returned.
Aneirin who wrote this Ancient Epic was one of the survivors.
Father of Denbigh Rock, Mother of Pembroke Stream
: Roberts of Ruthin (i.e. Great-grandfather John Roberts of Bryn Mawr, one of the
founders of the London Missionary Society): Garbutt ap Williams of Pembroke. My parents.
Stonehenge Blue
: Sir Cyril Fox (director of the National Museum of Wales), when lecturing on ‘Beaker
Man in Wales and Wilts 1900
BC
’, said: ‘The circle of blue stones at Stonehenge was of stone hewn and carried from
the Precelly Mountain in Pembrokeshire, but no factual evidence had been produced
as to why Precelly stone had been taken to Wiltshire’… he suggested that it might
have been because it was a Holy Mountain.
Gypsy slit on ears
: three notches cut by the gypsies on the ear with a wooden knife to prevent rickets.
Red Book of Hergest
: one of ‘The Four Ancient Books of Wales’ in the library of Jesus College, Oxford,
MSS of Ancient Welsh prose and poetry. Many of the authors still remain unknown. The
‘play’ here, is on the scribes who have tampered with the MSS in the thirteenth century,
and the poet Iolo Morganwg in particular, who forged numerous parchment poems.
Pull down the flag
: the Welsh flag was torn down by English soldiers who were drafted to a Welsh regiment.
East Coast, March 1941.
Coracle
: coracles are still used on the Towy and Teivy. ‘Two men work together and take the
river, one rowing and steering with one hand, and holds with his other hand one end
of the long net; the other end being grasped by the second coracle man, and together
they sweep the river for salmon and sewin.’ They have their own dialect ‘
Gwar bach y gored.’ Gored
means a weir for taking fish, and is a very early Welsh word, found in one of the
poems in the MS ‘Black Book of Carmarthen’,
c
. 1159. ‘The word coracle is probably derived from the Celtic word
Corawg
, which signifies ship.’ From ‘Geraldus Cambrensis’, written in 1180: ‘The boats are
made of twigs, not oblong nor pointed, but almost round, covered within and without
with raw hides. Today they are covered with Calico. The fishermen carry these boats
on their shoulders; on which occasion that famous dealer in fables, Bleddercus, who
lived a little before our time, thus mysteriously said, “There is amongst us a people
who, when they go out in search of prey, carry their horses on their backs to the
place of plunder.” Unfortunately they were used three days ago to transport stolen
butter across the river.’ This event was printed in the
Carmarthen Journal
with exclamation marks! See also an article in
The Field
, January 6th, 1945, by the Author.
Torque
: from Llywarch Hen, sixth century. (Translation H.I. Bell)
Four and twenty sons were mine,
Golden-torqued, princes of the host.
From Aneirin’s sixth-century ‘Gododdin’ (translation Ernest Rhys): ‘A brilliant spirited
melody it is ours to sing – to tell how Cynon came, and at his coming the beaks of
the grey eagles were sated by his hand. Of all the wearers of the gold torques, who
went to Cattraeth, there was not one better than Cynon.’
From Geraldus Cambrensis: ‘Moreover I must not be silent concerning the Collar (
torques
) which they call St Canauc’s (
AD
492); for it is most like
to gold in weight, nature, and colour; it is in four pieces wrought round, joined
together artificially, and clefted as it were in the middle, with a dog’s head, the
teeth standing upward; it is esteemed by the inhabitants so powerful a relic, that
no man dares swear falsely when it is laid upon him.’
From Sir John Lloyd, MA, D.Litt, FBA Historian: ‘A thick golden chain worn as a necklet
by Princes and persons of nobility.’
In 1692 one of these chains was found near Harlech; it weighed eight ounces and measured
four feet in length.
Semitic wings
: not enough is said of the active part Jews took in this war. It is for this reason
and no other, that I refer to a plane piloted by Jews.
Part II
Thou summer, father of delight,
With thy dense spray and thickets deep;
Gemmed monarch, with thy rapturous light,
Rousing thy subject glens from sleep,
Proud has thy march of triumph been,
Thou prophet, prince of forest green…
Fair swan, the lake you ride
Like white-robed abbot in your pride;
Round-foot bird of the drifted snow,
Like heavenly visitant you show…
Pure white through the wild waves shown;
In shirt as bright as crystal stone
And doublet all of lilies made
And flowered waistcoat you’re arrayed,
With jacket wove of the wild white rose;
And your gown like honeysuckle shows.
Radiant you all fowls among,
White-cloaked bird of heaven’s throng.
DAFYDD AP GWILYM
(
c
. 1325–85)
Quotation
: the first part of the above translation (i.e. ‘Praise to Summer’)
is by A.J. Johnes. The second part (i.e. ‘The Swan’) by H. Idris Bell. These I believe
to be the best representative translation of each poem. To shew the misinterpretation
under which an original poem goes, I will quote the first two lines of Dafydd’s other
translators to ‘Praise to Summer’. A.P. Graves:
Summer, father of fulness,
Green-tangled, flower-spangled brakes;
David Bell:
The father of loud ardency;
The father of the wildwood canopy;
W.J. Gruffydd, Ernest Rhys, Nigel Heseltine, George Borrow have also contributed different
translations to this poem. A rough and literal
translation
given to me by Keidrych Rhys would be:
You the Summer, father of potency,
Sire of the covered intoxicated tree-tops.
Myddfai Hills
: on the roads from Llandovery over the Carmarthen Vans lies Myddfai and the lake
from which the mother of the physicians is supposed to have returned. The physicians
not only attended the Royal Prince of Wales in the thirteenth century, but handed
down the famous book and talent from father to son ‘for more than two thousand years’
according to legend. ‘
How to be Merry
, If you would at all times be merry, eat saffron in meat or drink, and you will never
be sad. But, beware of eating over much, lest you should die of excessive joy.’ ‘
Recipe for Sore Eyes
, Take red roses, wild celery vervain, red fennell, maidenhair, house leek, celandine,
and wild thyme, wash them clean and macerate in white wine for a day and a night,
then distil from a brass pot. The first water you get will be like silver, this will
be useful for any affection of the eye and for a stye.’
Seiriol
: two monks that met at the well of Clorach, Llandyfrydog. Cybi had the morning sun
in his face as he approached the well, so his face soon
darkened
; while Seiriol, coming from the other direction, had the sun on his back… and was
pale… always.
Seiriol Wyn
, Seiriol the white, or pale.
Cybi Felyn
, Cybi the yellow, or sunburnt. Matthew Arnold wrote a poem about these two and mixed
up the colours!
Tin-blower
: a sheet of zinc to which is added a handle by the blacksmith. When the fires lose
heart the blower is hung up by a piece of wire to narrow and intensify the draught.
The rattle and ugliness of the tin is very
irritating
.
Ffyn-on-ol-Bri
: LCC spring surrounded by barbed wire six hundred yards from the village. The only
well that
does not
dry up; is not discoloured; and contains brown worms. This is the only supply of
fresh drinking water for the village.
Part III
Consider your ways. Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not
enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none
warm; and he that earneth wages earneth to put it into a bag of holes.
Thus saith the Lord of Hosts; Consider your ways.
THE MESSAGE OF HAGGAI. CHAPTER
I
Defending the Navy
: on the Island of South Ronaldsay, 1941, the RA batteries defended the Navy when
the
Prince of Wales
and other battleships lay in home waters. For this defence the RA received a special
divisional sign. In spite of this scraps were frequent between the two services so
that a distinction had to be made: the army attending the only pub at one hour and
the navy at another.
Swansea raid
: February 19th, 20th, 21st, 1941, when several members of the N.F.S. of Birmingham
said the intensity of the raid was worse than their own Midland tragedy. The severest
hardship was: no room for Welsh evacuees. In our village we had accommodated forty-five
from east London, so that we were compelled to refuse children whose parents we knew.
Warden of the Marches
: the Norman lords who took Wales piecemeal and divided it up into fretsaw boundaries.
Each territory was governed by its own administration and jurisdiction, and controlled
by an English King who was a Marcher Lord himself over larger domains.
Bézique
: from the game of cards with two packs, ‘probably from Spanish
besico
, little kiss, an allusion to the meeting of the Queen and Knave, an important feature
in the game’. Table of Bézique scores: Marriage (King and Queen of any suit) declared,
20 points; Royal Marriage (King and Queen of trumps) declared, 40 points; Bézique
(Queen of Spades and Knave of Diamonds) declared, 40 points. These are a few examples
of the score to show that the arrangement of the cards is based on early everyday
life. The symbol came to my mind as a good representative of soldiers
longing for their home: and the pattern of soldiers themselves playing with cards
at odd snatches of the day.
Pricket
: the candle pricket, sharp metallic point on which candles are stuck.
Rhizome cat
: the reference to a cat is linked with those mentioned at the beginning of Part II:
‘
On seafield pools shivering with watercats
.’ I used rhizome because it is an underground root just as this wild cat is of an
underground root and lives in the undergrowth. I also had an image of a yellow striped
cat: and rhizome is used throughout the country for yellow dyes. There is also something
about the jungle in the sound and spelling of the word rhizome. Wild cats are still
found in Wales.