High Windows

T
o step over the low wall that divides

Road from concrete walk above the shore

Brings sharply back something known long before—

The miniature gaiety of seasides.

Everything crowds under the low horizon:

Steep beach, blue water, towels, red bathing caps,

The small hushed waves’ repeated fresh collapse

Up the warm yellow sand, and further off

A white steamer stuck in the afternoon—

Still going on, all of it, still going on!

To lie, eat, sleep in hearing of the surf

(Ears to transistors, that sound tame enough

Under the sky), or gently up and down

Lead the uncertain children, frilled in white

And grasping at enormous air, or wheel

The rigid old along for them to feel

A final summer, plainly still occurs

As half an annual pleasure, half a rite,

As when, happy at being on my own,

I searched the sand for Famous Cricketers,

Or, farther back, my parents, listeners

To the same seaside quack, first became known.

Strange to it now, I watch the cloudless scene:

The same clear water over smoothed pebbles,

The distant bathers’ weak protesting trebles

Down at its edge, and then the cheap cigars,

The chocolate-papers, tea-leaves, and, between

The rocks, the rusting soup-tins, till the first

Few families start the trek back to the cars.

The white steamer has gone. Like breathed-on glass

The sunlight has turned milky. If the worst

Of flawless weather is our falling short,

It may be that through habit these do best,

Coming to water clumsily undressed

Yearly; teaching their children by a sort

Of clowning; helping the old, too, as they ought.

W
hen I drop four cubes of ice

Chimingly in a glass, and add

Three goes of gin, a lemon slice,

And let a ten-ounce tonic void

In foaming gulps until it smothers

Everything else up to the edge,

I lift the lot in private pledge:

He
devoted
his
life
to
others.

While other people wore like clothes

The human beings in their days

I set myself to bring to those

Who thought I could the lost displays;

It didn’t work for them or me,

But all concerned were nearer thus

(Or so we thought) to all the fuss

Than if we’d missed it separately.

A
decent
chap,
a
real
good
sort,

Straight
as
a
die,
one
of
the
best,

A
brick,
a
trump,
a
proper
sport,

Head
and
shoulders
above
the
rest;

How
many
lives
would
have
been
duller

Had
he
not
been
here
below?

Here’s
to
the
whitest
man
I
know
—

Though white is not my favourite colour.

T
he trees are coming into leaf

Like something almost being said;

The recent buds relax and spread,

Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again 

And we grow old? No, they die too.

Their yearly trick of looking new

Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh

In fullgrown thickness every May.

Last year is dead, they seem to say,

Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

I
deal with farmers, things like dips and feed.

Every third month I book myself in at

The ------ Hotel in ----ton for three days.

The boots carries my lean old leather case

Up to a single, where I hang my hat.

One beer, and then ‘the dinner’, at which I read

The ---
shire
Times
from soup to stewed pears.

Births, deaths. For sale. Police court. Motor spares.

Afterwards, whisky in the Smoke Room: Clough,

Margetts, the Captain, Dr. Watterson;

Who makes ends meet, who’s taking the knock,

Government tariffs, wages, price of stock.

Smoke hangs under the light. The pictures on

The walls are comic—hunting, the trenches, stuff

Nobody minds or notices. A sound

Of dominoes from the Bar. I stand a round.

Later, the square is empty: a big sky

Drains down the estuary like the bed

Of a gold river, and the Customs House

Still has its office lit. I drowse

Between ex-Army sheets, wondering why

I think it’s worth while coming. Father’s dead:

He used to, but the business now is mine.

It’s time for change, in nineteen twenty-nine.

Seventy feet down

The sea explodes upwards,

Relapsing, to slaver

Off landing-stage steps—

Running suds, rejoice!

Rocks writhe back to sight.

Mussels, limpets,

Husband their tenacity

In the freezing slither—

Creatures, I cherish you!

By day, sky builds

Grape-dark over the salt

Unsown stirring fields.

Radio rubs its legs,

Telling me of elsewhere:

Barometers falling,

Ports wind-shuttered,

Fleets pent like hounds,

Fires in humped inns

Kippering sea-pictures—

Keep it all off!

By night, snow swerves

(O loose moth world)

Through the stare travelling

Leather-black waters.

Guarded by brilliance

I set plate and spoon,

And after, divining-cards.

Lit shelved liners

Grope like mad worlds westward.

Tonight we dine without the Master

(Nocturnal vapours do not please);

The port goes round so much the faster,

Topics are raised with no less ease—

Which advowson looks the fairest,

What the wood from Snape will fetch,

Names for
pudendum
mulieris
,

Why is Judas like Jack Ketch?

The candleflames grow thin, then broaden:

Our butler Starveling piles the logs

And sets behind the screen a Jordan

(Quicker than going to the bogs).

The wine heats temper and complexion:

Oath-enforced assertions fly

On rheumy fevers, resurrection,

Regicide and rabbit pie.

The fields around are cold and muddy,

The cobbled streets close by are still,

A sizar shivers at his study,

The kitchen cat has made a kill;

The bells discuss the hour’s gradations,

Dusty shelves hold prayers and proofs:

Above, Chaldean constellations

Sparkle over crowded roofs.

S
topping the diary

Was a stun to memory,

Was a blank starting,

One no longer cicatrized

By such words, such actions

As bleakened waking.

I wanted them over,

Hurried to burial

And looked back on

Like the wars and winters

Missing behind the windows

Of an opaque childhood.

And the empty pages?

Should they ever be filled

Let it be with observed

Celestial recurrences,

The day the flowers come,

And when the birds go.