Georgian Poetry 1913-15 Part 33

Look out! Between the elms! There's my fierce thing.

Merrick:

He means the star with the tail like a feather of fire.

Sollers:

Comet, it's called.

Huff:

Do you mean the comet, mister?

Dowser:

What do you think of it?

Huff:

Pretty enough.

But I saw a man loose off a rocket once; It made more stir and flare of itself; though yon Does better at steady burning.

Dowser:

Stir and flare!

You'll soon forget your rocket.

Merrick:

Tell you what I thought last night, now, going home. Says I, 'Tis just like the look of a tadpole: if I saw A tadpole silver as a dace that swam Upside-down towards me through black water, I'ld see the plain spit of that star and his tail.

Sollers:

And how does your thought go?

Dowser:

It's what I know!-- A tadpole and a rocket!--My dear G.o.d, And I can still laugh out!--What do you think Your tadpole's made of? What lets your rocket fling Those streaming sparks across the half of night, Splas.h.i.+ng the burning spray of its haste among The quiet business of the other stars?

Ay, that's a fiery jet it leaves behind In such enormous drift! What sort of fire Is spouted so, spouted and never quenching?-- There is no name for that star's fire: it is The fire that was before the world was made, The fire that all the things we live among Remember being; and whitest fire we know Is its poor copy in their dreaming trance!

Huff:

That would be h.e.l.l fire.

Dowser:

Ay, if you like, h.e.l.l fire, h.e.l.l fire flying through the night! 'Twould be A thing to blink about, a blast of it Swept in your face, eh? and a thing to set The whole stuff of the earth smoking rarely?

Which of you said 'the heat's a wonder to-night'?

You have not done with marvelling. There'll come A night when all your clothes are a pickle of sweat, And, for all that, the sweat on your salty skin Shall dry and crack, in the breathing of a wind That's like a draught come through an open'd furnace.

The leaf.a.ge of the trees shall brown and faint, All sappy growth turning to brittle rubbish As the near heat of the star strokes the green earth; And time shall brush the fields as visibly As a rough hand brushes against the nap Of gleaming cloth--killing the season's colour, Each hour charged with the wasting of a year; And sailors panting on their warping decks Will watch the sea steam like broth about them.

You'll know what I know then!--That towering star Hangs like a fiery buzzard in the night Intent over our earth--Ay, now his journey Points, straight as a plummet's drop, down to us!

Huff:

Why, that's the end of the world!

Dowser:

You've said it now.

Sollers:

What, soon? In a day or two?

Merrick:

You can't mean that!

Vine:

End of the World! Well now, I never thought To hear the news of that. If you've the truth In what you say, likely this is an evening That we'll be talking over often and often.

'How was it, Sellers?' I'll say; 'or you, Merrick, Do you mind clearly how he lookt?'--And then-- "End of the world" he said, and drank--like that, Solemn!'--And right he was: he had it all As sure as I have when my sow's to farrow.

Dowser:

Are you making a joke of me? Keep your mind For tippling while you can.

Vine:

Was that a joke?