this season’s performance—ha! leaping the footlights
Where your beating blood is most gay with his masking,
Marks your time too with his ticking bomb.
THE AIRMAN WHO FLEW OYER SHAKESPEARE’S ENGLAND
A nation of hayricks spotting the green solace Of grass,
And thrones of thatch ruling a yellow kingdom Of barley.
In the green lands, the white nation of sheep. And the woodlands,
Red, the delicate tribes of roebuck, doe And fawn.
A senate of steeples guarding the slaty and gabled Shires,
While aloof the elder houses hold a secret Sceptre.
To the north, a wall touching two stone-grey reaches Of water;
A circle of stones; then to the south a chalk-white Stallion.
To the north, the wireless towers upon the cliff. Southward
The powerhouse, and monstrous constellations Of cities.
To the north, the pilgrims along the holy roads To Walsingham,
And southward, the road to Shottery, shining With daisies.
Over the castle of Warwick frightened birds Are fleeing,
And on the bridge, faces upturned to a roaring Falcon.
THE PRIEST EKRANATH
I who am sanctified—
Having lain with the holy harlots at Askelon
On the roof of the great temple under her visage
Who graces with splendor the night in the god-filled sky:
Mother, rich-wombed mistress, whose thighs are forever
Rising and falling like the tides in the roadstead of Gath,
To strike with fear the arid and impotent damned
And assure the fruit of field and man and animal
With Adonis and her chosen, fortunate priests—
Must tell you of these barbarians from the mountains,
From the anarchic hills come to destroy us,
Recent siftings out of the east and south.
They call her the White One or the White Lady
But do not worship her nor any mother-goddess.
I have seen them on the high days in Askelon
When the harlots dance naked through the gala streets
For the joy of Adonis and the blessed thirst of the loins
Turn away angry, cursing these holy bodies,
Crying, “Let them be stoned and their evil wombs ripped up.”
They hate delight. They have but a lone god
And he is their enemy. I met a certain one:
Sly as a jackal yet arrogant as a lion,
Rough-bearded, out of the desert, desperate
With his private phantoms, his eyes like an animal’s
(Fearful, and darting here and there, yet ready
To spring and rend), his hair and garments filthy
With the rot of caves, his skin flayed red by scorpions.
Though his nights are writhings of fire, he will not clasp
The salvation of sweet flesh, but for sustenance
Communes with this impossible imageless demon,
Stuff of a barren race, who has tainted him
With a sickness I cannot fathom, an evil spirit
Like the guilt which dogs a murderer. So always
He looks behind him, before, and within himself,
And the voice he hears becomes this maniacal thundering
On our sunlit streets and before our gleaming temples.
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