Testament of Beauty

Fragments of "The Testament of Beauty" by the British Poet Robert Seymour Bridges:

'Twas at that hour of beauty when the setting sun
squandereth his cloudy bed with rosy hues, to flood
his lov'd works as in turn he biddeth them Good-night...
...'Twas at sunset that I, fleeing to hide my soul
in refuge of beauty from a mortal distress,
walk'd alone with the Muse in her garden of thought,
discoursing at liberty with the mazy dreams
that came wavering pertinaciously about me...

Barn

                                                 Barn lost on the South Downs hills


                                                                      BARN

                                                              creaky old barn
                                                         shelters you from rain
                                                    old barn it's leaking through
                                                         the roof yet, when the
                                                             hard wind blows
                                                               you are eating
                                                                       dust.



                                                                    Corbett,
                                                                  Dec 7, 2012

Dusk at sea

 

                             Dusk at Sea

By Thomas S. Jones

1882-1932

---

To-night eternity alone is near:
         The sea, the sunset, and the darkening blue;
Within their shelter is no space for fear,
         Only the wonder that such things are true.

The thought of you is like the dusk at sea --
         Space and wide freedom and old shores left far,
The shelter of a lone immensity
         Sealed by the sunset and the evening star.

Among the many interesting monuments in the Chichester Cathedral is the fourteenth century table tomb on which lie the effigies of Richard Fitzalan Earl of Arundel (1313-1376), and his second wife Eleanor of Lancaster (1318-1372), holding hands. This is the tomb which inspired the poet Philip Larkin to write his poem : 'An Arundel Tomb'.

An Arundel Tomb

 

Side by side, their faces blurred,
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurd -
The little dogs under their feet.

Such plainness of the pre-baroque
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left-hand gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with a sharp tender shock,
His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.

They would not think to lie so long.
Such faithfulness in effigy
Was just a detail friends would see:
A sculptor's sweet commissioned grace
Thrown off in helping to prolong
The Latin names around the base.

They would no guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
The air would change to soundless damage,
Turn the old tenantry away;
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they

Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer thronged the grass. A bright
Litter of birdcalls strewed the same
Bone-littered ground. And up the paths
The endless altered people came,

Washing at their identity.
Now, helpless in the hollow of
An unarmorial age, a trough
Of smoke in slow suspended skeins
Above their scrap of history,
Only an attitude remains:

Time has transfigures them into
Untruth. The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.

PHILIP LARKIN