At last the secret is out…
At last the secret is out, as it always must come in the end,
The delicious story is ripe to tell to the intimate friend;
Over the tea-cups and in the square the tongue has its desire;
Still waters run deep, my dear, there's never smoke without fire.
Behind the corpse in the reservoir, behind the ghost on the links,
Behind the lady who dances and the man who madly drinks,
Under the look of fatigue, the attack of migraine and the sigh
There is always another story, there is more than meets the eye.
For the clear voice suddenly singing, high up on the cement wall,
The scent of the elder bushes, the sporting prints in the hall,
The croquet matches in summer, the handshake, the cough, the kiss,
There is always a wicked secret, a private reason for this.
The chimney sweepers
Wash their faces and forget to wash the neck;
The lighthouse keepers
Let the lamps go out and leave the ships to wreck;
The prosperous baker
Leaves the rolls in hundreds in the oven to burn;
The undertaker
Puts a small note on the coffin saying: "Wait till I return,
I've got a date with Love!"
And deep-sea divers
Cut their boots off and come bubbling to the top;
And engine drivers
Bring expresses in the tunnel to a stop;
The village rector
Dashes down the side-aisle half-way through a psalm;
The sanitary inspector
Runs off with the cover of the cesspool on his arm —
To keep his date with Love!
"What's in Your Mind, My Dove, My Coney…"
What's in your mind, my dove, my coney;
Do thoughts grow like feathers, the dead end of life;
Is it making of love or counting of money,
Or raid on the jewels, the plans of a thief?
Open your eyes, my dearest dallier;
Let hunt with your hands for escaping me;
Go through the motions of exploring the familiar
Stand on the brink of the warm white day.
Rise with the wind, my great big serpent;
Silence the birds and darken the air;
Change me with terror, alive in a moment;
Strike for the heart and have me there.
The silly fool, the silly fool
Was sillier in school
But beat the bully as a rule
The youngest son, the youngest son
Was certainly no wise one
Yet could surprise one.
Or rather, or rather,
To be posh, we gather
One should have no father.
Simple to prove
That deeds indeed
In life succeed,
But love in love,
And tales in tales
Where no one fails.
The soldier loves his rifle,
The scholar loves his books,
The farmer loves his horses,
The film star loves her looks.
There's love the whole world over
Wherever you may be;
Some lose their rest for gay Mae West,
But you're my cup of tea.
Some talk of Alexander
And some of Fred Astaire,
Some like their heroes hairy
Some like them debonair,
Some prefer a curate
And some an A.D.C.,
Some like a tough to treat'em rough,
But you're my cup of tea.
Some are mad on Airedales
And some on Pekinese,
On tabby cats or parrots
Or guinea pigs or geese.
There are patients in asylums
Who think that they're a tree;
I had an ant who loved a plant,
But you're my cup of tea.
Some have sagging waistlines
And some a bulbous nose
And some a floating kidney
And some have hammer toes,
Some have tennis elbow
And some have housemaid's knee,
And some I know have got B.O.,
But you're my cup of tea.
The blackbird loves the earthworm,
The adder loves the sun,
The polar bear an iceberg,
The elephant a bun,
The trout enjoys the river,
The whale enjoys the sea,
And dogs love most an old lamp-post,
But you're my cup of tea.
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eatting or opening a window
or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On the pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martydrom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind in a tree.
In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
A shilling life will give you all the facts:
How Father beat him, how he ran away,
What were the struggles of his youth, what acts
Made him the greatest figure of his day
Of how he fought, fished, hunted, worked all night,
Though giddy, climbed new mountains; named a sea:
Some of the last researchers even write
Love made him weep his pints like you and me.
With all his honours on, he sighed for one,
Who, say astonished critics, lived at home;
Did little jobs about the house with skill
And nothing else; could whistle; would sit still
Or potter round the garden; answered some
Of his long marvelous letters but kept none
All streets are brightly lit; our city is kept clean;
Her Third-Class deal from greasy packs, her First bid high;
Her beggars banished to the bows have never seen
What can be done in state-rooms: no one asks why.
Lovers are writing latters, athletes playing ball,
One doubts the virtue, one the beauty of his wife,
A boy's ambitious: perhaps the Captain hates us all;
Someone perhaps is leading a civilised life.
Slowly our Western culture in full pomp progresses
Over the barren plains of the sea; somewhere ahead
A septic East, odd fowl and flowers, odder dresses:
Somewhere a strange and shrewd To-morrow goes to bed,
Planning a test for men from Europe; no one guesses
Who will be most ashamed, who richer, and who dead.
"O, Tell Me The Truth About Love"
Some say that love 's a little boy,
And some say it's a bird,
Some say it makes the world go round,
And some say that's absurd,
And when I asked the man next-door,
Who looked as if he knew,
His wife got very cross indeed,
And said it wouldn't do.
Does it look like a pair of pyjamas,
Or the ham in a temperance hotel?
Does its odour remind one of llamas,
Or has it a comforting smell?
Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is,
Or soft as eiderdown fluff?
Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?
O tell me the truth about love.
Our history books refer to it
In cryptic little notes.
It's quite a common topic on
The Transatlantic boats;
I've found the subject mentioned in
Account of suicides,
And even seen it scribbled on
The back of railway-guides.
Does it howl like a hungry Alsatian,
Or boom like a military band?
Could one give a first-rate imitation
On a saw or a Steinway Grand?
Is it's singing at parties a riot?
Does it only like classical stuff?
Will it stop when one wants to be quiet?
O tell me the truth about love.
I looked inside the summer-house;
It wasn't ever there:
I tried the Thames at Maidenhead,
And Brighton's bracing air.
I don't know what the blackbird sang,
Or what the tulip said;
But it wasn't in the chicken-run,
Or underneath the bed.
Can it pull extraordinary faces?
Is it usually sick on a swing?
Does it spend all its time at the races,
Or fiddling with pieces of string?
Has it views of its own about money?
Does it think Patriotism enough?
Are its stories vulgar but funny?
O tell me the truth about love.
When it comes, will it come without warning
Just as I'm picking my nose?
Will it knock on my door in the morning,
Or tread in the bus on my toes?
Will it come like a change in the weather?
Will its greeting be courteous or rough?
Will it alter my life altogether?
O tell me the truth about love.
As I listened from a beach-chair in the shade
To all the noises that my garden made,
It seemed to me only proper that words
Should be withheld from vegetables and birds.
A robin with no Christian name ran through
The Robin-Anthem which was all it knew,
And rustling flowers for some third party waited
To say which pairs, if any, should get mated.
Not one of them was capable of lying,
There was not one which knew that it was dying
Or could have with a rhythm or a rhyme
Assumed responsibility for time.
Let them leave language to their lonely betters
Who count some days and long for certain letters;
We, too, make noises when we laugh or weep:
Words are for those with promises to keep.
Pick a quarrel, go to war,
Leave the hero in the bar;
Hunt the lion, climb the peak:
No one guesses you are weak.
The friends of the born nurse
Are always getting worse.
I'm beginning to lose patience
With my personal relations:
They are not deep,
And they are not cheap.
I'm for freedom because I mistrust the Censor in office,
But if I held the job, my! how severe I should be!
When he is well
She gives him hell;
But she's a brick
When he is sick.
Those who will not reason
Perish in the act;
Those who will not act
Perish for that reason.
Let us honor if we can
The vertical man,
Though we value none
But the horizontal one.
Private faces
In public places
Are wiser and nicer
Than public faces
In private places.
The conversation of birds
Say very little,
But mean a great deal.
Among the mammals
Only Man has ears
That can display no emotion.
In moments of joy
All of us wish we possessed
A tail we could wag.
The shame in ageing
is not that Desire should fail
(Who mourns for something
he no longer needs?): it is
That someone else must be told.
The tyrant's device:
Whatever is Posiible
Is Necessary.
Passing Beauty
still delights him,
but he no longer
has to turn round.
Does God ever judge us
by appearances?
I suspect that He does.
Today two poems begged to be written: I had to refuse them.
Sorry, no longer, my dear! Sorry, my precious, not yet!
Only look in the mirror to detect a removable blamish,
As of the permanent ones already you know quite enough.
God never makes knots,
But is expert, if asked to,
At untying them.
A poet's hope: to be,
Like some valley cheese,
Local, but prized elsewhere.
