A decimation of the novel by John Buchan
Philosophic historian,
chronicle that bleak night,
the corncrakes, the explosives,
the exact condition of the owl.
Deliver judgement on the breakdown
of the soul of the general manager
and linger over that summer
in the penitentiary. Alison,
I have not forgotten the ginger
cigarettes and Maurice’s face
in repose. I was sick.
You civilised that solitude.
Fashion our private landscape
out of the world’s howl.
Write me a cure in poetry.
Go far. Go too far.
Find that glimpse.
The inn at Beechen.
Hot rye-cheese and onion bread,
a coarse red track
through beet-fields and water-cress.
No map, only moth and star
and pine, the German weather
pleasing but without glamour.
The peasants laughed. He could not.
Something was waiting for him,
a little havoc of exquisite blue eyes,
the kindness of puzzles
and the quarrels of politicians.
His heart spoke in an unknown tongue.
Daylight and velveteen morning,
fried eggs and blue granite.
His mind was a dark stone.
Was there really a corpse?
Might not the purpose of the devil
be to break the plump and soft?
He rested for ten minutes
by the car factory
where Said was burned.
He had tasted the prince’s hand
in Cairo. Bees, verbena,
agapanthus, that hot breath.
He had been filled. But after that?
Strawberries, turquoise snowdrifts,
satisfactory hot food, the same pumpkins
drying on the shingle, green water.
The afternoon enlivened by the thought
of being unpleasant in the sulphur baths
with her English friend. Letters
to Bolivia, Uruguay, Scotland.
The quiet cancelling-out of the soul.
Meaning is nothing. Nothing.
To understand you have to get down
into the meadow of twinkling lights.
The sun, the road, this earth,
the body, food, sleep, questions,
judgement, medicines,
a rifle bullet, endless walks,
the works of Walter Savage Landor,
public houses, veal, goat, tea,
good government, bad government,
old mischief, new brooms,
a woman shot against a wall,
a deal, an aeroplane, the logic
of events, that solemn river,
a tombstone over the border.
They did not expect comfort.
They turned and stood
in the acetylene dazzle,
the gentleman queer
and the plain German dyke.
Her car was in disrepair.
He suggested coffee.
“I know you.” “How?”
“The prince. That evening …”
Question. Answer. Bad news.
His blue eyes had a light in them
that scored the heart.
The delicacy of the situation.
The youth of a nation.
The toy shops of fame.
The old, fierce game.
Delirious applause.
Loyalty to the cause.
The smoke of a train.
The cornfield plain.
The wolf’s cup.
Farm boys strung up.
The heart a stone.
The years alone.
A photograph of a face.
The mercy of the human embrace.
The sack over his head.
His last minutes,
treated as a common dog.
A toilet, blood,
two smoking wires.
A memory of Cambridge,
soda water on the terrace,
a sleepy cat.
The sound of triggers
at the back of his head.
An open window.
Guns. A turtle-dove.
We expect a pattern,
but the only song
is a crazy noise
of philosophy and accident,
calamity and transformation,
a rare black comedy
of hideous things
and ragged lights
in an adjacent field.
So small a thing
that little room of sleep,
yet it was sealed to him.
He walked the empty street.
Hot breath of baking.
Garbage in the gutters.
A bicycle. The derelict
torches of the stars.
Sea-sick, light-headed,
the swell strong, the honeycomb
clouds scattering. Time
telescoped. Mere antique dust
her lovers now. She was a wolf,
exotic, reckless. Women
were like horses, to be broken.
The troubled girl with amber hair
that she had forced, the trembling
countess, Janet, picturesque
Miss Squire … That desperate
hot trust. Her heart poised
like a falcon for the swoop.
The wild relief of sex.
The English had the house under observation
and had come to certain conclusions.
It was done circumspectly so as not to alarm.
There was no evidence of human presence.
But what was the meaning of the distant bells?
That horrid certainty. The halted, faint notes.
Spilt lime. A spiral staircase. Light.
A door unlocked. Inside, rotting boards
and paper dropping from the walls, the odour
of a barber’s shop, the slow turn
of the monstrous gargoyle and that click,
as if a clock were running down.
The city sparkled in the sunlight
as a waiter brought the morning paper.
From it stared a face of … Oh,
it was ridiculous. Her nerves,
the doctor said, were frail.
He was civil, God be praised,
if whisky-scented. But … that man
was so familiar. His name was …
what? Beard, morning suit …
She hesitated. Something stirred
on the horizon, scarlet, blind,
immense. A distant groundswell.
One long blaze of men and women
kissed and rapturous, that roar
of thousands in the heart.
Almost dark. The last moraine.
Uplands, twilight, prospect.
Lights, cars, baggage.
You have had your dream
and felt the spell of ordinary
things made young again.
You can be mortal now.