Perspectives

Primeval Beasts rearing from green slime— an illiterate country, unable to read its own name. Stones moved into position on the hills’ sides; snakes laid their eggs in their cold shadow. The earth suffered the sky’s shrapnel, bled yellow into the enraged sea. At night heavily over the heaving forests the moon sagged. The ancestors of the tigers brightened their claws. Such sounds as there were came from the strong torn by the stronger. The dawn tilted an unpolished mirror for the runt mind to look at itself in without recognition. Neolithic I shall not be here, and the way things are going now won’t want to be. Wheels go no faster than what pulls them. That land visible over the sea in clear weather, they say we will get there some time soon and take possession of it. What then? More acres to cultivate and no markets for the crops. The young are not what they were, smirking at the auspices of the entrails. Some think there will be a revival. I don’t believe it. This plucked music has come to stay. The natural breathing of the pipes was to a different god. Imagine depending on the intestines of a polecat for accompaniment to one’s worship! I have attended at the sacrifice of the language that is the liturgy the priests like, and felt the draught that was God leaving. I think some day there will be nothing left but to go back to the place I came from and wrap myself in the memory of how I was young once and under the covenant of that God not given to folly. Christian They were bearded like the sea they came from; rang stone bells for their stone hearers. Their cells fitted them like a coffin. Out of them their prayers seeped, delicate flowers where weeds grew. Their dry bread broke like a bone. Wine in the cup was a blood-stained mirror for sinners to look into with one eye closed, and see themselves forgiven. Mediaeval I was my lord’s bard, telling again sweetly what had been done bloodily. We lived in a valley; he had no lady. Fame was our horizon. In the spring of the year the wind brought the news of a woman’s beauty. Her eyes were still stones in her smooth-running hair. Her voice was the birds’ envy. We made a brave foray; the engagement was furious. We came back alone. Sing me, my lord said, the things nearer home: my falcons, my horse. I did so, he listened. My harp was of fire; the notes bounced like sparks off his spirit’s anvil. To-morrow, he promised, we will ride forth again. Modern And the brittle gardens of Dinorwig, deep in the fallen petals of their slate flowers: such the autumn of a people! Whose spring is it sleeps in a glass bulb, ready to astonish us with its brilliance? Bring on the dancing girls of the future, the swaying pylons with their metal hair bickering towards England.