Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, NEW YEAR'S DAY, by JOHN DAVIDSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

NEW YEAR'S DAY, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: This trade that we ply with the pen
Last Line: Drinc hael!
Subject(s): Drinks & Drinking; Holidays; New Year; Wine


Brian
This trade that we ply with the pen,
Unworthy of heroes or men,
Assorts ever less with my humour:
Mere tongues in the raiment of rumour,
We review and report and invent:
In drivel our virtue is spent.

Basil
From the muted tread of the feet,
And the slackening wheels, I know
The air is hung with snow,
And carpeted the street.

Brian
Ambition, and passion, and power
Come out of the north and the west,
Every year, every day, every hour,
Into Fleet Street to fashion their best;
They would shape what is noble and wise;
They must live by a traffic in lies.

Basil
Sweet rivers of living blood
Poured into an ocean of mud.

Brian
Newspapers flap o'er the land,
And darken the face of the sky;
A covey of dragons, wide-vanned,
Circle-wise clanging, they fly.
No nightingale sings; overhead
The lark never mounts to the sun;
Beauty and truth are dead,
And the end of the world begun.

Basil
Far away in a valley of peace,
Swaddled in emerald,
The snow-happed primroses
Tarry till spring has called.

Sandy
And here where the Fleet once tripped
In its ditch to the drumlie Thames,
We journalists, haughty though hipped,
Are calling our calling names.

Brian
But you know, as I know, that our craft
Is the meanest in act and intention;
You know that the Time-spirit laughed
In his sleeve at the Dutchman's invention:
Old Coster of Haarlem, I mean,
Whose print was the first ever seen.

Basil
I can hear in that valley of mine,
Loud-voiced on a leafless spray,
How the robin sings, flushed with his holly wine,
Of the moonlight blossoms of May.

Brian
These dragons that hide the sun!
The serpents, flying and fiery,
That knotted a nation in one
Writhen mass; the scaley and wirey,
And flame-breathing terror the saint
Still manfully slays on our coins;
The reptile hedge-artists paint
On creaking tavern-signs;
Gargouille, famous in France
That entered Rouen to his sorrow;
The dragon, Petrarca's lance
Overthrew in defence of his Laura;
The sea-beast Perseus killed;
Proserpine's triple team;
Tarasque whose blood was spilled
In Rhone's empurpled stream;
For far-flying strength and ire
And venom might never withstand
The least of the flourishing quire
In Fleet Street stalled and the Strand.

Basil
Through the opening gate of the year
Sunbeams and snowdrops peer.

Brian
Fed by us here and groomed
In this pestilent reeking stye,
These dragons I say have doomed
Religion and poetry.

Sandy
They may doom till the moon forsakes
Her dark, star-daisied lawn;
They may doom till doomsday breaks
With angels to trumpet the dawn;
While love enchants the young,
And the old have sorrow and care,
No song shall be unsung,
Unprayed no prayer.

Brian
Leaving the dragons alone -
I say what the prophet says -
The tyrant on the throne
Is the morning and evening press.
In all the land his spies,
A little folk but strong,
A second plague of flies,
Buzz of the right and the wrong;
Swarm in our ears and our eyes -
News and scandal and lies.
Men stand upon the brink
Of a precipice every day;
A drop of printer's ink
Their poise may overweigh;
So they think what the papers think,
And do as the papers say.
Who reads the daily press,
His soul's lost here and now;
Who writes for it is less
Than the beast that tugs a plough.

Basil
Round happy household fires
I hear sweet voices sing;
And the lamb's-wool of our sires,
Spiced ale, is a draught for a king.

Sandy
Now, journalist, perpend.
You soil your bread and butter:
Shall guttersnipes pretend
To satirise the gutter?
Are parsons ever seen
To butt against the steeple?
Brian, I fear you've been
With very superior people.
We, the valour and brains of the age
The brilliant, adventurous souls,
No longer in berserkir rage -

Brian
Spare us the berserkir rage!

Sandy
Not I; the phrase outrolls
As freshly to me this hour,
As when on my boyish sense
It struck like a trumpet-blare.
You may cringe and cower
To critical pretence;
If people will go bare
They may count on bloody backs;
Cold are the hearts that care
If a girl be blue-eyed or black-eyed;
Only to souls of hacks
Are phrases hackneyed. -
When the damsel had her bower,
And the lady kept her state,
The splendour and the power
That made adventure great,
Were not more strong and splendid
Than the subtle might we wield;
Though chivalry be ended,
There are champions in the field.
Nor are we warriors giftless:
Deep magic's in our stroke;
Ours are the shoes of swiftness:
And ours the darkling cloak;
We fear no golden charmer;
We dread no form of words;
We wear enchanted armour,
We wield enchanted swords.
To us the hour belongs;
Our daily victory is
O'er hydras, giant wrongs,
And dwarf iniquities.
We also may behold,
Before our boys are old,
When time shall have unfurled
His heavy-hanging mists,
How the future of the world
Was shaped by journalists.

Basil
Sing hey for the journalist!
He is your true soldado;
Both time and chance he'll lead a dance,
And find out Eldorado.

Brian
Sing hey for Eldorado!

Basil
A catch, a catch, we'll trowl!

Brian
Sing hey for Eldorado!

Sandy
And bring a mazer-bowl,
With ale a-frothing brimmed.

Brian
We may not rest without it.

Sandy
With dainty ribbons trimmed,
And love-birds carved about it.

Basil
With roasted apples scented
And spiced with cloves and mace.

Brian
Praise him who ale invented!

Sandy
In heaven he has a place!

Basil
Such a camarado
Heaven's hostel never missed!

Brian
Sing hey for Eldorado!

Sandy
Sing ho for the journalist!

Basil
We drink them and we sing them
In mighty humming ale.

Brian
May fate together bring them!

Sandy
Amen!

Basil
Wass hael!

Brian
Drinc hael!





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