Clough: "In the Depths"

IN THE DEPTHS

It is not sweet content, be sure,
That moves the nobler Muse to song,
Yet when could truth come whole and pure
From hearts that inly writhe with wrong?

’Tis not the calm and peaceful breast
That sees or reads the problem true;
They only know on whom it has prest
Too hard to hope to solve it too.

Our ills are worse than at their ease
These blameless happy souls suspect,
They only study the disease,
Alas, who live not to detect.

--Arthur Hugh Clough

Triad

Treading water in place; then swimming forward.
Looking to see.

Mermaid Sighting: In The Creek

Freshwater mermaids.

Sculpture mix; blue or sea foam glazing, respectively; copper wire.

Robert Graves: Gift, Glance, Green, Glint

Four poems by Robert Graves:

GIFT OF SIGHT
I had long known the diverse tastes of the wood,
Each leaf, each bark, rank earth from every hollow;
Knew the smells of bird's breath and of bat's wing;
Yet sight I lacked; until you stole upon me,
Touching my eyelids with light finger-tips.
The trees blazed out, their colours whirled together,
Nor ever before had I been aware of sky.


AT FIRST SIGHT
'Love at first sight,' some say, misnaming
Discovery of twinned helplessness
Against the huge tug of procreation.

But friendship at first sight?  This also
Catches fiercely at the surprised heart
So that the cheek blanches and then blushes.


VARIABLES OF GREEN
Grass-green and aspen-green,
Laurel-green and sea-green,
Fine-emerald green,
And many another hue:
As green commands the variables of green
So love my loves of you.


CHANGE
'This year she has changed greatly'--meaning you--
My sanguine friends agree,
And hope thereby to reassure me.

No, child, you never change; neither do I.
Indeed all our lives long
We are still fated to do wrong,

Too fast caught by care of humankind,
Easily vexed and grieved,
Foolishly flattered and deceived;

And yet each knows that the changeless other
Must love and pardon still,
Be the new error what it will:

Assured by that same glint of deathlessness
Which neither can surprise
In any other pair of eyes.

Robert Graves, New Collected Poems, Doubleday & Company, Inc: Garden City, New York: 1977.

Robert Graves: Three Cantrips

RECOGNITION

When on the cliffs we met, by chance,

I startled at your quiet voice

And watched the swallows round you dance

Like children that had made a choice.

Simple it was, as I stood there,

To penetrate the mask you wore,

Your secret lineage to declare

And your lost dignities restore.

Yet thus I earned a poet's fee

So far out-distancing desire

That swallows yell in rage at me

As who would set their world on fire.

--Robert Graves

THE GIFT OF SIGHT

I had long known the diverse tastes of the wood,

Each leaf, each bark, rank earth from every hollow;

Knew the smells of bird's breath and of bat's wing;

Yet sight I lacked; until you stole upon me,

Touching my eyelids with light finger-tips,

The trees blazed out, their colours whirled together,

Nor ever before had I been aware of sky.

--Robert Graves

THE SNAP-COMB WILDERNESS

Magic is tangled in a woman's hair

For the enlightenment of male pride.

To slide a comb uxoriously

Through an even swell of tresses undisturbed

By their cascade from an exact parting

Could never hearten or enlighten me--

Not though her eyes were bluer than blue sea.

Magic rules an irreducible jungle

Dark as eclipse and scented with despair,

A stubborn snap-comb wilderness of hair,

Each strand a singular, wild, curling tree.

--Robert Graves