Monday, August 6, 2012

In Country Sleep by Dylan Thomas


I

Never and never, my girl riding far and near
In the land of the hearthstone tales, and spelled asleep,
Fear or believe that the wolf in a sheepwhite hood
Loping and bleating roughly and blithely shall leap,
                                         My dear, my dear,
Out of a lair in the flocked leaves in the dew dipped year
To eat your heart in the house in the rosy wood.

Sleep, good, for ever, slow and deep, spelled rare and wise,
My girl ranging the night in the rose and shire
Of the hobnail tales: no gooseherd or swine will turn
Into a homestall king or hamlet of fire
                                         And prince of ice
To court the honeyed heart from your side before sunrise
In a spinney of ringed boys and ganders, spike and burn,

Nor the innocent lie in the rooting dingle wooed
And staved, and riven among plumes my rider weep.
From the broomed witch's spume you are shielded by fern
And flower of country sleep and the greenwood keep.
                                         Lie fast and soothed,
Safe be and smooth from the bellows of the rushy brood.
Never, my girl, until tolled to sleep by the stern

Bell believe or fear that the rustic shade or spell
Shall harrow and snow the blood while you ride wide and near,
For who unmanningly haunts the mountain ravened eaves
Or skulks in the dell moon but moonshine echoing clear
                                         From the starred well?
A hill touches an angel. Out of a saint's cell
The nightbird lauds through nunneries and domes of leaves

Her robin breasted tree, three Marys in the rays.
Sanctum sanctorum the animal eye of the wood
In the rain telling its beads, and the gravest ghost
The owl at its knelling. Fox and holt kneel before blood.
                                         Now the tales praise
The star rise at pasture and nightlong the fables graze
On the lord's-table of the bowing grass. Fear most

For ever of all not the wolf in his baaing hood
Nor the tusked prince, in the ruttish farm, at the rind
And mire of love, but the Thief as meek as the dew.
The country is holy: O bide in that country kind,
                                         Know the green good,
Under the prayer wheeling moon in the rosy wood
Be shielded by chant and flower and gay may you

Lie in grace. Sleep spelled at rest in the lowly house
In the squirrel nimble grove, under linen and thatch
And star: held and blessed, though you scour the high four
Winds, from the dousing shade and the roarer at the latch,
                                         Cool in your vows.
Yet out of the beaked, web dark and the pouncing boughs
Be you sure the Thief will seek a way sly and sure

And sly as snow and meek as dew blown to the thorn,
This night and each vast night until the stern bell talks
In the tower and tolls to sleep over the stalls
Of the hearthstone tales my own, lost love; and the soul walks
                                         The waters shorn.
This night and each night since the falling star you were born,
Ever and ever he finds a way, as the snow falls,

As the rain falls, hail on the fleece, as the vale mist rides
Through the haygold stalls, as the dew falls on the wind-
Milled dust of the apple tree and the pounded islands
Of the morning leaves, as the star falls, as the winged
                                         Apple seed glides,
And falls, and flowers in the yawning wound at our sides,
As the world falls, silent as the cyclone of silence.


II

Night and the reindeer on the clouds above the haycocks
And the wings of the great roc ribboned for the fair!
The leaping saga of prayer! And high, there, on the hare-
                                         Heeled winds the rooks
Cawing from their black bethels soaring, the holy books
Of birds! Among the cocks like fire the red fox

Burning! Night and the vein of birds in the winged, sloe wrist
Of the wood! Pastoral beat of blood through the laced leaves!
The stream from the priest black wristed spinney and sleeves
                                         Of thistling frost
Of the nightingale's din and tale! The upgiven ghost
Of the dingle torn to singing and the surpliced

Hill of cypresses! The din and tale in the skimmed
Yard of the buttermilk rain on the pail! The sermon
Of blood! The bird loud vein! The saga from mermen
                                         To seraphim
Leaping! The gospel rooks! All tell, this night, of him
Who comes as red as the fox and sly as the heeled wind.

Illumination of music! the lulled black-backed
Gull, on the wave with sand in its eyes! And the foal moves
Through the shaken greensward lake, silent, on moonshod hooves,
                                         In the winds' wakes.
Music of elements, that a miracle makes!
Earth, air, water, fire, singing into the white act,

The haygold haired, my love asleep, and the rift blue
Eyed, in the haloed house, in her rareness and hilly
High riding, held and blessed and true, and so stilly
                                         Lying the sky
Might cross its planets, the bell weep, night gather her eyes,
The Thief fall on the dead like the willy nilly dew,

Only for the turning of the earth in her holy
Heart! Slyly, slowly, hearing the wound in her side go
Round the sun, he comes to my love like the designed snow,
                                         And truly he
Flows to the strand of flowers like the dew's ruly sea,
And surely he sails like the ship shape clouds. Oh he

Comes designed to my love to steal not her tide raking
Wound, nor her riding high, nor her eyes, nor kindled hair,
But her faith that each vast night and the saga of prayer
                                         He comes to take
Her faith that this last night for his unsacred sake
He comes to leave her in the lawless sun awaking

Naked and forsaken to grieve he will not come.
Ever and ever by all your vows believe and fear
My dear this night he comes and night without end my dear
                                         Since you were born:
And you shall wake, from country sleep, this dawn and each first dawn,
Your faith as deathless as the outcry of the ruled sun.




Dylan Thomas takes my breath away. 

Thursday, March 22, 2012

The Scent of the South

I've been missing Virginia lately, but what I seem to remember most (besides, of course, the wonderful people) is the scent of my old home.

Scent is so different in the two states where I’ve lived.

Here, I am blessed to smell sea air as soon as I walk outdoors. I was brought up in its rhythms. I know the scent of a cold sea breeze versus a warmer one, and how it changes on the boardwalk and on the wide streets. I’ve felt the spaces in my mind expand upon inhaling. I recognize the peppery, sun-drenched scent of the sand and its creatures. I breathe in the gentle wind off the lake after it has wafted through trees. I anticipate the scents of cake baking downstairs, of onions frying, of garlic and cooked chicken, of tea with honey. I delight in the pleasure of well aired rooms, fresh bed linens, candles burning. I welcome the scent of incense at Mass and the perfumes of church ladies. All of these scents sum up home in my mind.

If my hometown’s scents are bright and invigorating, Virginia’s scents were heady and languid. Sure, there was the crisp fragrance of fresh-mowed lawns, coffee brewing in the shops, or spring breezes on the river. But overall the fragrance of Virginia seemed somehow older, permanent, full of wisdom. There was sunshine on brick paths as old as the Colonies, mossy trees, and dew-soaked grass. Indoor scents like waxed furniture, lemon polish, sachets, even gunpowder. The sweat of swing and contra dancers, and the hand lotion of good friends. Above all, the flowers- the fragile, yet timeless scent of magnolia. The sweet allure of wisteria. The pervasive benediction of Carolina jasmine.

Even the way scent travels is different in my two home states.

Here, fog always smells like the ocean. You can be miles past it, but if you close your eyes it seems like low tide is right next to you. The world is alive, beckoning, and full of possibility as you imagine places an ocean away.

In Virginia, mist smells lush and humid, as if it has carried every leaf, every bush, every ancient building and garden it has touched. Yet, for all its fullness it is not heavy, and the sweetness in the air is inescapable. The world seems older and settled in its ways, and there is comfort in the fact that all is both pleasant and unchanging.

I miss my Southern smells, especially the flowers- magnolia, wisteria, Carolina jasmine. I miss the presence of enormous trees and all of the secrets that they hold. I am grateful for scent memory, because even eight months later I can remember the joys of a world I’ve (for now) left behind.