Paternis suppar
‘Barely as good
As our begetters
And betters’:
They feel they are
Inferior
Only to those who were
Of the same blood;
But almost on a par,
And proud they should
Be from that stud.
Astra, castra,
Numen, lumen,
Et munimen
‘The stars my camp,
God is my lamp,
And my defence’:
Splendeo tritus
‘I shine from use’:
The name being Ferrers,
A horse-shoe
In the blazon
Plays on
That, as ‘farriers’.
So, to pursue
Virtue in service
Wears the dull surface,
To reveal
The shine of steel.
One thing they knew
As obviously true,
That all things come from God;
And gave him credit:
Omne bonum Dei donum
‘God is giver of all good’
Or Dei dono sum quod sum
‘I am what I have become
Through God.’
Non fecimus ipsi
‘We did not do it
Ourselves’; they went through it
Soberly, and said it
That flesh and blood
Once, perhaps tipsy,
Cried Quae fecimus ipsi
‘We ourselves did do it.’
Quidni prod sodali?
‘Why not,
For a comrade?’
—So one Burnet,
A Scot.
But it is sad
To be totally
Unbriefed, and wonder Quidni
‘Why not’
And then,
But why not—what?
So we imagine
Some episode of war;
A few beset,
Some rescue in
A scene of slaughter:
Something more
Than Sidney
At Zutphen
Giving up
A cup
Pedetentim
‘Step by step’:
So nothing can prevent him,
With his patience
And long prep-
arations;
And no blood will be spilt.
But we might miss some
Others who cried
Ad admissum
‘Charge, full tilt!’
The family was called Best;
Like most, a phantom
But for the shield and crest
And motto—here, the claim
Haud nomine tantum
‘Not only in the name’.
But all these families
Of course were ‘best’,
Loved and resented
And admired and hated.
They might defy
The discontented:
Qui invidet minor est
‘The envious confess
But most upheld and rated
As their dearest perquisite
The claim to righteousness,
Though sometimes muting it:
Patior ut potiar
‘To be worthy I endure’
Or humbly ‘We shall try’
Conabimur
Hinc orior
‘Hence I arise’ or
‘I begin here’:
Some good advisor
Saw that it
Can
Be understood
In two ways:
One, to admit
Freely the lack
Of ancestor;
The other to make clear
That the new man,
Far from winning
Praise
And sitting back,
Has to make good
Sic donec may be
‘Thus for the nonce’
‘Thus as long
As’ or ‘Thus until’;
And may sound wrong
As a response
To what we call success—
Calcar honestè
‘The spur won honestly.’
Like Ero quod eram
‘What I was I will be’
(‘And as I am’
Is understood);
It may express
Piety or humility,
Disdain or bitterness.
Other new blood,
Ready to slight its new name
With a will,
Chose to proclaim:
Denuo fortasse
Lutescat ‘It may
Yet again be mud.’
And the French brings that clear
Half-mocking gaiety
Again, even when
We are to guess
The face of war,
The fingers on the rein
The stab of doubt—
The moment
When a Yes
Or No meant
Life or death:
Prenez haleine
Trez fort
‘Take a deep breath.’
Pro lusu et praedâ
‘For fun
And for the prize’, as they
Politely say.
Like him, delighting
In the thought of fighting,
The old hot
Tribal pursuit—
‘And for the loot’?
Rosas coronat
Spina ‘A thorn
Crowns every rose’:
To say that
Instead of the trite
Opposite,
Should warn
Of wit
Or mischief,
To amuse or miff.
Do we need
Then, to read
It
Right,
A glose
On thorn and rose?
Lesses dire
‘Let them talk’:
That someone like a hawk
Up there, is free
To do and be,
And drop here
Like a stone
To kill;
While others dwelling
In the barnyard below
Will
Undoubtedly
Squawk.
Ubi lapsus? Quid feci?
‘How am I fallen so low?
What have I done?’
It might be
The complaint
Of a saint
Betrayed by vice
Like Shakespeare’s Angelo,
Or Milton’s Evil One
Outcast from Heaven:
But is wailing for
The forfeit
By attaint,
Two hundred years before,
Of the coronet
Stained twice
Volo non valeo
‘I am willing but unable’
Or ‘I wish but am too weak’
Seeming to grovel is unique,
But not inexplicable
If you know
The occasion.
It was when, with the award
Of his new rank, that lord
Had
To forsake
His faith, ‘the old persuasion’;
And felt sad
Not to both have and eat his cake.
Christi pennatus sidera morte peto
‘Winged by the death of Christ I seek the sky’:
To understand the claim
You have to know
The name—
Fetherston.
And as in Calvin,
Are the heart
Made hard by sin,
And faith by which alone
It learns to love
And fly
Above.
Apparet quod is
Anybody’s
Guess, to apply
‘It is apparent why’
Or ‘It is clear in what’;
Part of the joke
Would be that it is not.
The crest
A branch of oak
With some leaves dry,
Some greening,
Fails to suggest
A meaning.
Quaecunque
‘Whatsoever’
But then it plays
A trick,
Springs
And breaks free
With a kick:
And suddenly
It is the Apostle Paul
Who says
‘Whatsoever things
Are true, are honorable,
Are just, pure, lovable
And of good fame;
If any virtue, any praise …’
Sapere aude
‘Dare to be wise’
The first says, and complies
Gravely with Horace:
Know and judge.
The second gives his nudge
Et incipe
‘And begin now’:
You are not too young.
But the third
Like an ass
Adds a last word
Like a smudge
To tell you how:
Et tace
Nunc mihi grata quies
‘Now at last quiet
Is sweet, and my best diet’:
How good now
Not to be on the run
Not to be wanted—
To be unwanted
By anyone;
And think how
In my calendar
The days
Are
Every one
A dies
Non.
Dulces ante omnia Musae
‘Sweet above all else the Muses’
Comes like a true sigh
After wounds and bruises
In body and mind,
From one who looks
About at last, to find
Like balm, his books.