Our Literary Heritage

I. Riverside Drive, 1929 “ ‘Good-by, Ralph. It should end some other way. Not this,’ Corinna said. ‘Now go away.’ No. Rhymes. It’s ludicrous. Try ‘Dear, good-by.’ No. Repetitious. Maybe ‘Dear, farewell.’ No. Stagy. Out of character. Oh, hell. Time for a drink.” The Smith-Corona heaves As he retracts his knickerbockered knees To rise. Outside, a southbound tug receives The sun broadside, and the bold Linit sign Pales on the Jersey shore. Fresh gin, tk-tk- Tk-tk-tk-tk, quite clearly fills his glass Half full from the unlabelled bottle. Now His boyish fingers grip the siphon’s worn Wire basketweave and press the trigger down To utter soda water. One long sip Subtracts a third of it for carrying. On the way back, he pauses at the door Beside his football picture, where a snore Attests that all is well and promises Him time to work. To work: before the tall, Black, idle typewriter, before the small Black type elitely inching on the blank White sea of bond, he quails and takes a drink. First, demolitions: the slant shilling mark Defaces half a hundred characters With killing strike-overs. Now, a new start: “ ‘Good-by, Ralph. I don’t know why it should end Like tihs,’ Corinna said. ‘But be my friend.’ ’’ II. Hotel Shawmut, Boston, 1946 (From a commercial travellers’ hotel, Professor S. jumped straight down into hell, While—jug-o’-rum-rum—engines made their way Beneath him, one so cold December day). While he prepares his body, cold gears mate And chuckle in the long draught of the street. He shaves; his silver spectacles peruse An issue of The North American Muse. He uses Mum; outside him in the hall, Maids talk their language; snow begins to fall. He puts on his old clothes. The narrow room Has nothing, nothing to discuss with him Except what time you should send out your suit And shoes for cleaning. Now he stamps his foot: Outside the window, not saying anything, Appears a seagull, standing on one wing; A long-awaited colleague. With glad cry, Professor S. embraces the white sky. While S. demolishes a taxicab, His spectacles review the life of Crabbe. (From a commercial travellers’ hotel, Profesor S. descended into hell. But once in April in New Haven he Kissed a friend’s sister in the gloom of trees.) III. Deus Ex Machina, Flushing, 1966 La Guardia. Knee-deep in storyboards, I line up for the shuttle, which arrives Outside the gate and off-loads shuffling streams Of transferees—each in his uniform Of sober stuff and nonsense, with a case Of talents at his side—who pass our line Of somber-suited shuttlers carrying Our cases on. Then one appears, a rare Bird in migration to New York, a bare- Crowned singer of the stony coast of Maine, And of Third Avenue in rain; a bard. The way of the almost-extinct is hard. He peers through tortoise-shelly glasses at The crowd, the place, the year. He is not here And is. In his check jacket, he describes An arc of back and arms as he proceeds Between two city starlings, carrying His store of songs in a beat leather grip And a dried drop of his brown lamb’s blood on His wilted collar. A Time-reader in Glenurquhart plaid identifies his bird— “Godwit, the poet”—to a flannel friend. The bard stalks on on his two legs, aware He has been spotted; in, I’d say, some pain At an existence which anticipates Its end and in the meantime tolerates Intolerance of the wing, the whim, the one Unanswerable voice which sings alone. IV. Lament of the Makers, Including Me: 1967 New-minted coin, my poet’s mask (A small denomination in Demotic nickel, brass, or tin) Passes from hand to hand to hand Beyond my six acres of land. Did I desire such currency Among the meritocracy Of tri-named ladies who preserve The flame of art in mackled hands, Of universitarians And decimal librarians Who shore and store up textual Addenda, of asexual Old arbiters and referees Who startle letters with a sneeze, Of critics whose incautious cough Halts a new wave or sends it off To break on uninhabited shores, Of publishers, insensual bores Procuring art—“A maidenhead!”— To Jack the Reader, of well-read Young underfaced admirers who Impinge on undefended you At readings in all colleges? No, I did not; but knowledge is All-powerless to seek redress From injuries to innocence. I think continually of Abjurers, who, fed on self-love, Housed in an incommodious cave, Clothed in three-button sackcloth, crave Indulgence of no audience But their own laudatory ears. Alack, this anchoritic few Dwindles; these ticking times are too Struck with celebrity’s arrears, And heap past-due advances on The embryonic artisan; All hours from dawn to night are lauds, All auditors are all applause (However electronic), all Tempters conspire in Adam’s fall. The world turned upside-down, without A beast in view, without a doubt, Recalls its exiles and bestows On them the palm, the bays, the rose (Art sick?), the Laurel Wormser Prize, Whose debased dollar only buys More nods, more goods, more fame, more praise: Not art, as in the rude old days. Now worldward poets turn and say, Timor vitae conturbat me.