It was always so, always –
My too meticulous words
Mocked by the unhinged cries
Of playground, mouse or gull,
By throats of nestling birds
Like bells upturned in a peal –
All that has innocence
To praise and far to fall.
I fear this careful art
Would never storm the sense:
Its agonies are but the eager
Retching of an empty heart;
It never was possessed
By divine incontinence,
And for him whom that eygre1
Sweeps not, silence were best.
Your politicians pray silence
For the ribald trumpeter,
The falsetto crook, the twitching
Unappeasable dictator.
For any else you should be pleased
To hold your tongue: but Satan
Himself would disown his teaching
And turn to spit on these.
When madmen play the piper
And knaves call the tune,
Honesty’s a right passion –
She must call to her own.
Let yours be the start and stir
Of a flooding indignation
That channels the dry heart deeper
And sings through the dry bone.
1938
1 A tidal wave of unusual height caused by the rushing of the tide up a narrowing estuary.