In procession

This piece was written a few weeks after the

remainder of the book: I had no cold-blooded

intention of summarizing the paradox of

poetic Arrogance contained in the last section, but

so it happened, and I print it here.

Donne (for example's sake)

Keats, Marlowe, Spenser, Blake,

Shelley and Milton,

Shakespeare and Chaucer, Skelton

I love them as I know them,

But who could dare outgo them

At their several arts

At their particular parts

Of wisdom, power and knowledge?

In the Poet's College

Are no degrees nor stations,

Comparisons, rivals,

Stern examinations,

Class declarations,

Senior survivals;

No creeds, religions, nations

Combatant together

With mutual damnations.

Or tell me whether

Shelley's hand could take

The laurel wreath from Blake?

Could Shakespeare make the less

Chaucer's goodliness?

The poets of old

Each with his pen of gold

Gloriously writing

Found no need for fighting,

In common being so rich;

None need take the ditch,

Unless this Chaucer beats

That Chaucer, or this Keats

With other Keats is flyting:

See Donne deny Donne's feats,

Shelley take Shelley down,

Blake snatch at his own crown.

Without comparison aiming high,

Watching with no jealous eye,

A neighbour's renown,

Each in his time contended

But with a mood late ended,

Some manner now put by,

Or force expended,

Sinking a new well when the old ran dry.

So, like my masters, I

Voice my ambition loud,

In prospect proud,

Treading the poet's road,

In retrospect most humble

For I stumble and tumble,

I spill my load.

But often half-way to sleep,

On a mountain shagged and steep,

The sudden moment on me comes

With terrible roll of dream drums,

Reverberations, cymbals, horns replying,

When with standards flying,

A cloud of horsemen behind,

The coloured pomps unwind

The Carnival wagons

With their saints and their dragons

On the screen of my teeming mind,

The Creation and Flood

With our Saviour's Blood

And fat Silenus' flagons,

With every rare beast

From the South and East,

Both greatest and least,

On and on,

In endless variable procession.

I stand on the top rungs

Of a ladder reared in the air

And I speak with strange tongues

So the crowds murmur and stare,

Then volleys again the blare

Of horns, and Summer flowers

Fly scattering in showers,

Ami Ae Sun rolls in the sky,

While the drums thumping by

Proclaim me,...

Oh then, when I wake

Could I recovering take

And propose on this page

The words of my rage

And my blandishing speech

Steadfast and sage,

Could I stretch and reach

The flowers and the ripe fruit

Laid out at the ladder's foot,

Could I rip a silken shred

From the banner tossed ahead,

Could I call a double flam

From the drums, could the Goat

Horned with gold, could the Ram

With a flank like a barn-door

The dwarf and blackamoor,

Could

Jonah and the Whale

And the

Holy Grail

With the

"Sacking of Rome"

And

"Lot at his home"

The Ape with his platter,

Going clitter-clatter,

The Nymphs and the Satyr,

And every other such matter

Come before me here

Standing and speaking clear

With a "how do ye do?"

And "who are ye, who?"

Could I show them to you

That you saw them with me,

Oh then, then I could be

The Prince of all Poetry

With never a peer,

Seeing my way so clear

To unveil mystery.

Telling you of land and sea

Of Heaven blithe and free,

How I know there to be

Such and such Castles built in Spain,

Telling also of Cockaigne

Of that glorious kingdom, Cand

Of the Delectable Land,

The Land of Crooked Stiles,

The Fortunate Isles,

Of the more than three score miles

That to Babylon lead,

A pretty city indeed

Built on a foursquare plan,

Of the land of the Gold Man

Whose eager horses whinney

In their cribs of gold,

Of the lands of Whipperginny

Of the land where none grow old.

Especially I could tell

Of the Town of Hell,

A huddle of dirty woes

And houses in endless rows

Straggling across all space;

Hell has no market place,

Nor point where four ways meet,

Nor principal street,

Nor barracks, nor Town Hall,

Nor shops at all,

Nor rest for weary feet?

Nor theatre, square or park,

Nor lights after dark

Nor churches nor inns,

Nor convenience for sins,

Hell nowhere begins,

Hell nowhere ends,

But over the world extends

Rambling, dreamy, limitless, hated well:

The suburbs of itself, I say, is Hell

But back to the sweets

Of Spenser and Keats

And the calm joy that greets

The chosen of Apollo!

Here let me mope, quirk, holloa

With a gesture that meets

The needs that I follow

In my own fierce way,

Let me be grave-gay

Or merry-sad,

Who rhyming here have had

Marvellous hope of achievement

And deeds of ample scope,

Then deceiving and bereavement

Of this same hope.