Part 3
“London may not be the place for poetry to keep healthy in, but Shakespeare did most of his work there, and Donne, Keats, Milton, Blake—I think nearly all our big poets. But, after all, that is a matter of personal likings or otherwise. Most of the French country I have seen has been devastated by war, torn up—even the woods look ghastly with their shell-shattered trees; our only recollections of warm and comfortable feelings are the rare times amongst human villages, which happened about twice in a year; but who can tell what one will like or do after the war? If the twentieth century is so awful, tell me what period you believe most enviable. Even Pater points out the Renaissance was not an outburst—it was no simultaneous marked impulse of minds living in a certain period of time—but scattered and isolated.”
_To Edward Marsh (Postmark, January 30, 1917)._
“I think with you that poetry should be definite thought and clear expressions, however subtle; I don’t think there should be any vagueness at all, but a sense of something hidden and felt to be there. Now, when my things fail to be clear, I am sure it is because of the luckless choice of a word or the failure to introduce a word that would flash my idea plain, as it is to my own mind. I believe my Amazon poem to be my best poem. If there is any difficulty, it must be in words here and there, the changing or elimination of which may make the poem clear. It has taken me about a year to write; for I have changed and rechanged it and thought hard over that poem, and striven to get that sense of inexorableness the human (or unhuman) side of this war has. It even penetrates behind human life; for the ‘Amazon’ who speaks in the second half of the poem is imagined to be without her lover yet, while all her sisters have theirs, the released spirits of the slain earth-men; her lover yet remains to be released.”
_To Miss Seaton (1916)._
“Many thanks for book and chocolate. Both are being devoured with equal pleasure. I can’t get quite the delight in Whitman as from one poem of his I know—‘Captain, my Captain.’ I admire the vigour and independence of his mind, but his diction is so diffused. Emerson and not Whitman is America’s poet. You will persist in refusing to see my side of our little debate on criticism. Everybody has agreed with you about the faults, and the reason is obvious; the faults are so glaring that nobody can fail to see them. But how many have seen the beauties? And it is here more than the other that the true critic shows himself. And I absolutely disagree that it is blindness or carelessness; it is the brain succumbing to the herculean attempt to enrich the world of ideas.”
_To Laurence Binyon (1916)._
“It is far, very far, to the British Museum from here (situated as I am, Siberia is no further and certainly no colder), but not too far for that tiny mite of myself, my letter, to reach there. Winter has found its way into the trenches at last, but I will assure you, and leave to your imagination, the transport of delight with which we welcomed its coming. Winter is not the least of the horrors of war. I am determined that this war, with all its powers for devastation, shall not master my poeting; that is, if I am lucky enough to come through all right. I will not leave a corner of my consciousness covered up, but saturate myself with the strange and extraordinary new conditions of this life, and it will all refine itself into poetry later on. I have thoughts of a play round our Jewish hero, Judas Maccabeus. I have much real material here, and also there is some parallel in the savagery of the invaders then to this war. I am not decided whether truth of period is a good quality or a negative one. Flaubert’s ‘Salambo’ proves, perhaps, that it is good. It decides the tone of the work, though it makes it hard to give the human side and make it more living. However, it is impossible now to work and difficult even to think of poetry, one is so cramped intellectually.”
_To Gordon Bottomley (February, 1917)._
“Your letters always give me a strange and large pleasure; and I shall never think I have written poetry in vain, since it has brought your friendliness in my way. Now, feeling as I am, cast away and used up, you don’t know what a letter like yours is to me. Ever since November, when we first started on our long marches, I have felt weak; but it seems to be some inscrutable mysterious quality of weakness that defies all doctors. I have been examined most thoroughly several times by our doctor, and there seems to be nothing at all wrong with my lungs. I believe I have strained my abdomen in some way, and I shall know of it later on. We have had desperate weather, but the poor fellows in the trenches where there are no dug-outs are the chaps to pity. I am sending a very slight sketch of a louse-hunt. It may be a bit vague, as I could not work it out here, but if you can keep it till I get back I can work on it then. I do believe I could make a fine thing of Judas. Judas as a character is more magnanimous than Moses, and I believe I could make it very intense and write a lot from material out here. Thanks very much for your joining in with me to rout the pest out, but I have tried all kinds of stuff; if you can think of any preparation you believe effective I’d be most grateful for it.”
The “louse-hunt” refers to a night scene in which Rosenberg took part, and which forcibly struck his imagination as a subject for a Goya picture or for a poem like the “Jolly Beggars”: a barn full of naked soldiers—Scottish and others—singing, swearing, and laughing, in mad antics as they pursued the chase.
_To Gordon Bottomley (Postmark, April 8, 1917)._
“All through this winter I have felt most crotchety, all kinds of small things interfering with my fitness. My hands would get chilblains or bad boots would make my feet sore; and this aggravating a general run-down-ness, I have not felt too happy. I have gone less warmly clad during the winter than through the summer, because of the increased liveliness on my clothes. I’ve been stung to what we call ‘dumping’ a great part of my clothing, as I thought it wisest to go cold than lousy. It may have been this that caused all the crotchetiness. However, we’ve been in no danger—that is, from shell-fire—for a good long while, though so very close to most terrible fighting. But as far as houses or sign of ordinary human living is concerned, we might as well be in the Sahara Desert. I think I could give some blood-curdling touches if I wished to tell all I see, of dead buried men blown out of their graves, and more, but I will spare you all this.”
_To Edward Marsh (Postmark, May, 1917)._
“Regular rhythms I do not like much, but, of course, it depends on where the stress and accent are laid. I think there is nothing finer than the vigorous opening to ‘Lycidas’ for music; yet it is regular.... It is only when we get a bit of a rest and the others might be gambling or squabbling I do a line or two and continue this way. The weather is gorgeous now, and we are bivouacked in the fields.”
_To Edward Marsh (1917)._
“I hope you have not yet got my poem, ‘The Amulet,’ I’ve asked my sister to send you. If you get it, please don’t read it, because it’s the merest sketch and the best is yet to come. If I am able to carry on with it, I’ll send you it in a more presentable fashion. I believe I have a good idea at bottom. It’s a kind of ‘Rape of the Sabine Women’ idea: some strange race of wanderers have settled in some wild place and are perishing out for lack of women. The prince of these explores some country near where the women are most fair. But the natives will not hear of foreign marriages; and he plots another Rape of the Sabines, but is trapped in the act.”
_To Edward Marsh (1917)._
“I am now fearfully rushed, but find energy enough to scribble this in the minute I plunder from my work. I believe I can see the obscurities in the ‘Daughters,’ but hardly hope to clear them up in France. The first part, the picture of the Daughters dancing and calling to the spirits of the slain before their last ones have ceased among the boughs of the tree of life, I must still work on. In that part obscure the description of the voice of the Daughter I have not made clear, I see; I have tried to suggest the wonderful sound of her voice, spiritual and voluptuous at the same time. The end is an attempt to imagine the severance of all human relationship and the fading away of human love. Later on I will try and work on it, because I think it a pity if the ideas are to be lost for want of work. My ‘Unicorn’ play is stopped because of my increased toil, and I forget how much or little I told you of it. I want to do it in one Act, although I think I have a subject here that could make a gigantic play. I have not the time to write out the sketch of it as far as it’s gone, though I’d like to know your criticism of it very much. The most difficult part I shrink from; I think even Shakespeare might:—the first time Tel, the chief of the decaying race, sees a woman (who is Lilith, Saul’s wife), and he is called upon to talk. Saul and Lilith are ordinary folk into whose ordinary lives the Unicorn bursts. It is to be a play of terror—terror of hidden things and the fear of the supernatural. But I see no hope of doing the play while out here. I have a way, when I write, to try and put myself in the situation, and I make gestures and grimaces.”
_To Gordon Bottomley (Postmark, July 20, 1917)._
“My sister wrote me of your note, and it made me very glad to feel you thought in that way about my poem, because I liked it myself above anything I have yet done. I know my letters are not what they should be; but I must take any chance I get of writing for fear another chance does not come, so I write hastily and leave out most I should write about. I wished to say last time a lot about your poem, but I could think of nothing that would properly express my great pleasure in it; and I can think of nothing now. If anything, I think it is too brief—although it is so rare and compressed and full of hinted matter. I wish I could get back and read your plays; and if my luck still continues, I shall. Leaves have commenced with us, but it may be a good while before I get mine. We are more busy now than when I last wrote, but I generally manage to knock something up if my brain means to, and I am sketching out a little play. My great fear is that I may lose what I’ve written, which can happen here so easily. I send home any bit I write, for safety, but that can easily get lost in transmission. However, I live in an immense trust that things will turn out well.”
_To Gordon Bottomley (1917)._
“The other poems I have not yet read, but I will follow on with letters and shall send the bits of—or rather the bit of—a play I’ve written. Just now it is interfered with by a punishment I am undergoing for the offence of being endowed with a poor memory, which continually causes me trouble and often punishment. I forgot to wear my gas-helmet one day; in fact, I’ve often forgotten it, but I was noticed one day, and seven days’ pack drill is the consequence, which I do between the hours of going up the line and sleep. My memory, always weak, has become worse since I’ve been out here.”
_To Gordon Bottomley (Postmark, August 3, 1917)._
“I don’t think I’ll get my play complete for it in time, though it will hardly take much space, it’s so slight. If I could get home on leave I’d work at it and get it done, no doubt, but leaves are so chancy. It’s called ‘The Unicorn.’ Now, it’s about a decaying race who have never seen a woman; animals take the place of women, but they yearn for continuity. The chief’s Unicorn breaks away and he goes in chase. The Unicorn is found by boys outside a city and brought in, and breaks away again. Saul, who has seen the Unicorn on his way to the city for the week’s victuals, gives chase in his cart. A storm comes on, the mules break down, and by the lightning he sees the Unicorn race by; a naked black like an apparition rises up and easily lifts the wheels from the rut, and together they ride to Saul’s hut. There Lilith is in great consternation, having seen the Unicorn and knowing the legend of this race of men. The emotions of the black (the Chief) are the really difficult part of my story. Afterwards a host of blacks on horses, like centaurs and buffaloes, come rushing up, the Unicorn in front. On every horse is clasped a woman. Lilith faints, Saul stabs himself, the Chief places Lilith on the Unicorn, and they all race away.”
In the late summer of this year (1917) Rosenberg came to England on leave.
_To Gordon Bottomley (dated September 21, 1917)._
“The greatest thing of my leave after seeing my mother was your letter which has just arrived.... I wish I could have seen you, but now I must go on and hope that things will turn out well, and some happy day will give me the chance of meeting you.... I am afraid I can do no writing or reading; I feel so restless here and unanchored. We have lived in such an elemental way so long, things here don’t look quite right to me somehow; or it may be the consciousness of my so limited time here for freedom—so little time to do so many things bewilders me. ‘The Unicorn,’ as will be obvious, is just a basis; its final form will be very different, I hope.”
On returning to France he was taken ill and sent down the line. The time in hospital was a relief, especially as his restlessness in England had prevented writing or reading.
_To Miss Seaton (dated February 14, 1918)._
“We had a rough time in the trenches with the mud, but now we’re out for a bit of a rest, and I will try and write longer letters. You must know by now what a rest behind the line means. I can call the evenings—that is, from tea to lights out—my own; but there is no chance whatever for seclusion or any hope of writing poetry now. Sometimes I give way and am appalled at the devastation this life seems to have made in my nature. It seems to have blunted me. I seem to be powerless to compel my will to any direction, and all I do is without energy and interest.”
_To Gordon Bottomley (Postmark, February 26, 1918)._
“I wanted to send some bits I wrote for the ‘Unicorn’ while I was in hospital, and if I find them I’ll enclose them. I tried to work on your suggestion and divided it into four acts, but since I left the hospital all the poetry has gone quite out of me. I seem even to forget words, and I believe if I met anybody with ideas I’d be dumb. No drug could be more stupefying than our work (to me anyway), and this goes on like that old torture of water trickling, drop by drop unendingly, on one’s helplessness.”
_To Gordon Bottomley (Dated, March 7, 1918)._
“I believe our interlude is nearly over, and we may go up the line any moment now, so I answer your letter straightaway. If only this war were over our eyes would not be on death so much: it seems to underlie even our underthoughts. Yet when I have been so near to it as anybody could be, the idea has never crossed my mind, certainly not so much as when some lying doctor told me I had consumption. I like to think of myself as a poet; so what you say, though I know it to be extravagant, gives me immense pleasure.”
_To Miss Seaton (March 8, 1918)._
“I do not feel that I have much to say, but I do know that unless I write now it will be a long time before you hear from me again, without something exceptional happens. It is not very cold now, but I dread the wet weather, which is keeping off while we are out, and, I fear, saving itself up for us. We will become like mummies—look warm and lifelike, but a touch and we crumble to pieces. Did I send you a little poem, ‘The Burning of the Temple’? I thought it was poor, or rather, difficult in expression, but G. Bottomley thinks it fine. Was it clear to you? If I am lucky, and come off undamaged, I mean to put all my innermost experiences into the ‘Unicorn.’ I want it to symbolize the war and all the devastating forces let loose by an ambitious and unscrupulous will. Last summer I wrote pieces for it and had the whole of it planned out, but since then I’ve had no chance of working on it and it may have gone quite out of my mind.”
_To Edward Marsh (dated March 28, 1918)._
“I think I wrote you I was about to go up the line again after our little rest. We are now in the trenches again, and though I feel very sleepy, I just have a chance to answer your letter, so I will while I may. It’s really my being lucky enough to bag an inch of candle that incites me to this pitch of punctual epistolary. I must measure my letter by the light....”
The date of the postmark on this letter is April 2, when the writer was already dead.
LAURENCE BINYON.
MOSES A PLAY (1916)
PERSONS
MOSES _An Egyptian Prince_ ABINOAH _An Overseer_ TWO HEBREWS KOELUE _Abinoah’s Daughter_ MESSENGER
MOSES
## SCENE I.: _Outside a college in Thebes. Egyptian students pass by._
MOSES _alone in meditation_.
[_Enter_ MESSENGER.]
MESSENGER
[_Handing papyrus._] Pharaoh’s desires.
MOSES
[_Reads._] To our beloved son, greeting. Add to our thoughts of you, if possible to add, but a little, and you are more than old heroes—not to bemean your genius, who might cry “Was that all!” We pile barriers everywhere: we give you idiots for tools, tree stumps for swords, skin sacks for souls. The sixteenth pyramid remains to be built: we give you the last draft of slaves. Move! Forget not the edict. PHARAOH.
MOSES
[_To_ MESSENGER.] What is the edict?
MESSENGER
The royal paunch of Pharaoh dangled worriedly, Not knowing where the wrong: viands once giant-like Came to him thin and thinner—what rats gnawed? Horror, the swarm of slaves! The satraps swore Their wives’ bones hurt them when they lay abed, That before were soft and plump: the people howled They’d boil the slaves three days to get their fat, Ending the famine. A haggard council held Decrees the two hind molars, those two staunchest Busy labourers in the belly’s service, to be drawn From out each slave’s greased mouth, which soon From incapacity will lose the habit Of eating.
MOSES
Well, should their bones stick out to find the air, I’ll make a use of them for pleasantness— Droll demonstrations of anatomy.
MESSENGER
And when you’ve ended find ’twas one on sharks.
[MOSES _signs to_ MESSENGER _to go. Exit_ MESSENGER.]
MOSES
Fine! Fine! See, in my brain What madmen have rushed through And like a tornado Torn up the tight roots Of some dead universe: The old clay is broken For a power to soak in and knit It all into tougher tissues To hold life; Pricking my nerves till the brain might crack It boils to my finger-tips, Till my hands ache to grip The hammer—the lone hammer That breaks lives into a road Through which my genius drives. Pharaoh well peruked and oiled, And your admirable pyramids, And your interminable procession Of crowded kings, You are my little fishing rods Wherewith I catch the fish To suit my hungry belly. I am rough now, and new, and will have no tailor. Startlingly, As a mountain-side Wakes aware of its other side When from a cave a leopard comes, On its heels the same red sand, Springing with acquainted air, Sprang an intelligence Coloured as a whim of mine, Showed to my dull outer eyes The living eyes underneath. Did I not shrivel up and take the place of air, Secret as those eyes were, And those strong eyes call up a giant frame? And I am that now.
Pharaoh is sleek and deep; And where his love for me is set—under The deeps, on their floor, or in the shallow ways, Though I have been as a diver—never yet Could I find.... I have a way, a touchstone! A small misdemeanour, touch of rebelliousness; To prick the vein of father, monitor, foe, Will tell which of these his kingship is. If I shut my eyes to the edict, And leave the pincers to rust And the slaves’ teeth as God made them, Then hide from the summoning tribunal, Pharaoh will speak; and I’ll seize that word to act. Should the word be a foe’s I can use it well As a poison to soak into Egypt’s bowels; A wraith from old Nile will cry “For his mercy they break his back” And I shall have a great following for this, The rude, touched heart of the mauled, sweaty horde, Their rough tongues fawn at my hands, their red-streaked eyes Glitter with sacrifice. Well! Pharaoh bids me act.... Hah! I’m all a-bristle.... Lord, his eyes would go wide If he knew the road my rampant dreams would race! I am too much awake now—restless, so restless. Behind white mists invisibly My thoughts stood like a mountain; But Power, watching as a man, Saw no mountain there— Only the mixing mist and sky And the flat earth. What shoulder pushed through those mists Of gay fantastic pastimes And startled hills of sleep?
[_He looks in a mirror._]
Oh, apparition of me, Ruddy flesh soon hueless, Fade and show to my eyes The lasting bare body; Soul-sack fall away And show what you hold! Sing! Let me hear you sing.
A VOICE
[_Sings._]
Upon my lips, like a cloud To burst on the peaks of light, Sit cowled impossible things To tie my hands at their prime and height. Power, break through their shroud; Pierce them so thoroughly, Thoroughly enter me, Know me for one dead; Break the shadowy thread, The cowering spirit’s bond Writ by illusions blond!