Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, OUR LADY OF THE TERRACES; FOR ROBERT BAGEHOT PORCH, by AUSTIN PHILIPS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

OUR LADY OF THE TERRACES; FOR ROBERT BAGEHOT PORCH, by                    
First Line: Terrace and turf and tow'r!
Last Line: Serene, august, smiles down on severn's gracious plain.
Subject(s): Youth


TERRACE and Turf and Tow'r!
Stars in a still-blue sky,
Lost clouds that lurk and lie,
At this soft twilight hour,
Athwart the slopes of those Eternal Hills
At whose fair feet there stands—
Stands, waits, serves ... so fulfils
Herself—our Lovely Lady Whose high fane,
Serene, august, smiles down on Severn's gracious Plain.

Terrace and Turf and Tow'r!
Five decades back a band
Of boys, at this same hour,
Stood where to-night I stand:
Scholars, come far to seek
Purse to help parents eke
Exiguous means ... strangers who upward gazed,
Indifferent or amazed,
Each sensing in Your beauty what he brought
To Beauty's comprehension ... little, much, or naught.

One of that band, at least,
(One who was villa-bred,
Reared in unrest and free'd
For those brief hours from harsh suburban home
Where, chained in spirit, he led
Such life as convicts lead!)
Stood these exalted, dumb,
Felt a fresh influence come
Into his world, which seemed as though illumed ...
Saw sudden sunshine pierce his night,
Had swiftest solace at Your sight,
A sense that right may conquer might:
Found the foul fogs of fourteen years unroll
And, Absolute Beauty for the first time seeing,
Trembled and thrilled through all his ardent being,
Which—thus tempestuously revolving—
Knew fibre, flesh, blood, bone resolving
In mystical enlargement of a long-crushed soul.

Love at first sight? Ah, yes!
Since elemental fires
And forces measureless,
Which Love alone inspires,
Touched at that moment into white-hot heat
Some long-dimmed spark which lay,
At shut of summer day,
Submerged but living yet ...
Showed me what surged, repressed,
Deep in my midmost breast,
Gave me swift-passing Peace, revealed the Best,
Uncurtained Heaven, and sent me venturing forth,
(Pursuing quests hopeless alike and binding,
Aims which at once were beautiful but blinding,
Far-distant goals—illusions in their finding!)
Hardships and griefs encountering yet unheeding,
Henceforward, with horizons fast receding,
To keep Life's compass constant ... towards some spiritual North.

Constant? Ah, not at first!
The equinoctial gales
Of Youth, that insatiate thirst
To experience—which assails
All those in whom a vital force o'erflows—
Circumstance, narrow, stern,
Each of these things in turn,
Mastered my life's light bark
Which, feeble to the mark,
Drifted the sport of every wind that blows ...
And most its course was curst
By him who did his worst—
Seeking to do his narrow-visioned best!—
Who, always slave to haste, and always preaching
Patience he never practised, ever teaching
The self-control he lacked, once more o'er-reaching
His thrice-impetuous aims, a pilot frail,
Foundered my ship of life on sandy shoals,
Blind to her captain's inborn, self-set goals ...
And, having wrecked him, held the son he ruined blest!

Am'rous of self, he thought,
Narcissus-like, to make
Me in his image ... sought,
Insensate fool! to break
And bend me to his will till I became
Built up on narrow plan,
His own ideal man,
His own dull duplicate ...
Then took me into hate
Because he, furious, failed to fit me into frame.
Goethe said, long ago,
That each true artist spends
His life as task to show
What he felt when eighteen:
But if my life lasted ten thousand years,
Time would still be too brief
For me to tell the grief,
Or bring myself to name
The unvoiced, the secret shame—
Or staunch those fierce-repressed, those unshed tears—
Which welled that awful day
I heard my tyrant say,
In his accustomed, self-ecstatic way,
Just at that moment when I was beginning
To emerge in work and play, and looked like winning
Place among peers, "It's time you earned your living.
My 'Service' is a great one and a thriving,
In it lie many chances for the striving,
So, (you are seventeen!) a week to-day,
You start as postal sorter, with a pound for pay!"

Ah, how it all comes back!
The drab, the dull, the drear,
Culture-less city where,
Through the long tedious night,
Before that varnished rack,
In that glass-ceilinged, hot, high, gas-lit hall,
I stood, eight hours on end,
Forcing myself to intend
My strained and aching sight
On screeds so often cabalistical:
Hearing foul words and filth from colleagues falling,
Forced to obey each Overseer's bawling,
Subtly aware of some strange degradation,
Feeling, in undeserved disorientation,
Accomplice in my own assassination ...
Unfinished athlete, half-fledged scholar, brought
To less than very nothing ... stultified, distraught.

Terrace and Turf and Tow'r!
Stars in a still-blue sky,
Lost clouds that lurk and lie,
At this soft twilight hour,
Athwart the slopes of those Eternal Hills
At whose fair feet there stands—
Stands, waits, serves ... so fulfils
Herself—our Lovely Lady Whose high fane,
Serene. august, smiles down on Severn's gracious Plain.

Malvern, to Whom I owe
Emergence from such mire,
Malvern, Who, long ago,
Filled me with high desire,
Gave me true standards, showed me upward way ...
'Twas only thoughts of Thee
Which kept my spirit free
In such imprisonment,
And, spite of suffering, sent
Me seeking still an intellectual day:
Else, with a plummet's fall,
Swift, sad and tragical,
I should have sunk and been
Doomed to unending teen ...
But what You taught me served
As stand and stay, preserved
The three-parts broken boy throughout his darkest duress,
Stood my companion then—
Mine in that loathsome den—
Malvern, Dear Mother of Men!
In my appalling spiritual loneliness.

On through the long, lean years,
Neither fish, flesh nor fowl,
Robbed of my rightful goal,
I beat clipped wings on bars:
Damned through my father's folly, from the start,
Doomed to take minor place
In Life's relentless race,
Mixing with men—and yet a man apart!
Half-breaking through, then finding
Red Tape and Rules all binding,
Thus forced back ruthlessly within the ruck ...
Hearing my murderer say,
In his habitual, self-ecstatic way,
As, unctuous and bearded, he stood leaning
Against the mantelpiece and preening
Himself—while, joyful at his gibe and jape,
His wife and horde of goslings hung, agape,
On his least, lightest word—
"My son will never be the man his father is!"
While he who sat and heard,
Winced—as though stabbed with sword ...
Knowing the dictum true,
Yet saying inwardly,
Feelingly, fervently,
"Thank God I never shall be such a man as you!"

But, as one night I stood,
Tracking some Postal thief,
Tired but tentative,
Within a secret intra-mural gallery—
Stood with my eyes fast-glued
To gap in frosted glass,
Seeing the sorters pass,
(And, a paid common spy,
Staring as each went by,)
A swift and splendid inspiration came to me ...
An inner voice cried: "Dare!"
And I became aware
Of a last-moment plan for my emerging ...
While soon, and crystal-clear, a scheme came surging,
What time that inner voice—my Daimon's—still went urging.
Thus, then, I saw my chance
And, risking all, grasped opportunity—
To foes' delight, and every friend's dismay,
Recoiling to advance,
Dropping both rank and pay,
And—fronting Fortune's future smile or frown—
Deliberate, set me down
As Postmaster of tiny Midland town,
To start my life anew,
To make my dreams come true. ...
Inspired, as always, Malvern, Mother of men, by You!

Tied to that tiny town,
Still as of old I knew
Humiliations, woes,
Wore rosemary, wore rue,
Formed friendships, found fresh foes—
Those varying fates which follow personality!
But there, in pre-War peace,
My gifts knew swift release,
My fortunes changed and leaped:
Since, in a few brief years,
Miraculously I reaped
Reward of blood and tears,
Of faithful work afore fulfilled in secrecy,
Of fresh-done tasks, of tale and verse created
Out of my own experience and rated
Worthless and worse by kith and kin, who hated
To see their scapegoat thus so boldly daring
To express one single thought they were not sharing,
Or which my tyrant had not first dictated.
For, lo! Distinguished men
Bought that work eagerly; then
Urged me to utter more ...
Till I (who so long in vain
Had toiled in tram and train,
In waiting-room and Court,
Who, those dark days, had fought
To give myself equipment, education
To fit that inhibited boy for his true station,)
Entered a wider world,
Dared again, once more hurled
Myself out of dark towards daylight ... and, at long last, won free.

But, even then, no word,
No generous, frank "Well done!"
Came from my father. None
Spontaneously seemed stirred
In that poor little mother whom he crushed:
Who, though her heart was sound,
Was weak in will, and found
Her outlook fixed and formed
By him who raged and stormed
Till natural emotion, mother-love, lay hushed:
Her every letter, drafted before sending,
Awaited his censorious amending
And, fashioned into phrases few and frigid,
Seemed like a dead thing, ice-cold, hateful, rigid.
My swift emergence flailed
Her husband, who had failed
To make me—like himself—a mediocrity:
One who, in Youth pursuing
The Muse, had found his wooing
Result in dire undoing ...
So that my small success,
Which better men had hailed
As triumph over Fate and Circumstance,
Served but to deepen, widen and enhance
That gulf which yawns, alas!
Twixt the dull middle class
And those foredoomed to pass
As aliens in a foolish family.

Terrace and Turf and Tow'r!
Stars in a still-blue sky,
Lost clouds that lurk and lie,
At this soft twilight hour,
Athwart the slopes of those Eternal Hills
At whose fair feet there stands—
Stands, waits, serves ... so fulfils
Herself—our Lovely Lady Whose high fane,
Serene, august, smiles down on Severn's gracious Plain.

So, though my kith and kin
(Those who, if close in blood,
Remote in spirit stood,
Hating to see me win
Praise) still misunderstood—
Viewing me ever, in their pained surprise,
Through the myopic eyes
Of that fantastic, shallow harlequin ...
Since she who had given me birth
Still held me nothing worth,
Still showed me utter dearth
Of love, of comprehension, sympathy ...
Eager and swift I turned
To Her for Whom I yearned,
To Her for Whom affection
So long ago had fired me,
Had given me true direction,
Had heartened and inspired me.
Towards Her I set my glad and grateful face
And, one boon April day,
(Like men of earlier age,
Going on pilgrimage)
Took my devoted way
To make my genuflection,
Give thanks for Her protection,
And seek fresh benediction
From Malvern—my spiritual Mother, by Whose grace
I had not wholly failed in Life's relentless race.

In exaltation, joy,
Tenderness, passion, tears—
As exile who resorts
Home, after many years—
Mother, I trod Your Courts
In sweetest, most delicious solitude,
Climb'd Your tall Tow'r, and from Your Terraces,
At happy, leisured ease,
Looked long o'er silver Severn's outstretched Plain:
Then turned my steps again,
Once more within Your fane,
To mount those worn stone stairs,
To seek the Fifth-Form Room,
And, sitting there awhile with close-shut eyes,
Clearly to visualise
That kindly, gentle, soft-voiced scholar whom
Malvernians think of, still, with love and gratitude:
Who, Heaven-born child of Light—
True genius!—could excite
A thirst for Beauty and a taste for Art
Even in hide-bound, harsh, Philistian heart ...
Then, wandering forth at last,
I took dear leave, and passed
Back to the never-ending Battle of Life—
Refreshed, restored, renewed,
Ready for action, prompt for spiritual strife ...
And haply with some touch of Malvern's strength endued.

Is it a cult, this love
Which we, Your offspring, prove?
Is it mirage, a mere
Phantasma of man's soul,
Some foolish, outworn lere
Contrived but to cajole
And cramp and cage our aims in callow Youth?
A thing of caste and class,
Flaunting of social flag,
Right to wear coloured rag,
Conspiracy to amass
Collective pow'r, place, riches ... wanting shame or ruth?
Is it for this, each son
(Proconsul, Priest,
Soldier and Colonist,
Lawyer and Business Man,
Artist alike and Don)
Successively comes down,
Some pious morn, to crown
You, Mother of men, with gifts,
And at your altar lifts
His secret pæan of heartfelt thankfulness?
Is it not, rather, highest, deepest feeling
Which bids him, who in boyhood had revealing
Of loftiest standards, thus commemorate
Your name and ever go insatiate:
Still striving to pass on Your gift of Light,
Toiling to hang some new star in the Night ...
Failing—yet in his failure, none the less,
Knowing there lies his Malvern's true success,
Whose message was that mankind's noblest need
Must be ... that man's horizon should recede.

But though You stand to me,
Mother and Deity!
Alone, supreme, Life's Beacon, my true Star,
Let no man think that I,
Blind, would ignore, decry
Your shining Sisters, scattered near or far,
Who equal influence on their own sons are!
For I believe and hold
(Even if, here and there,
Some jealous journalist,
Some matricide, some fool,
Some ice-bound egoist,
Or cynic-satirist
Should denigrate his School ...

Though imperfections stain
Her teachings in this all-imperfect world—
Where faithless priests are found in every fane)
That such true temples stand
As bulwarks in our land,
Blending the best in both the old and new,
That if, in larger way,
England is free to-day,
'Tis that there percolates
Down from a fortunate few,
To the less fortunate of all condition,
Something of Plato's message—High Tradition,
Which, Orphan of the Storms
That sweep o'er Europe's face,
Illuminates, informs,
Sustains—and saves—our Race.

Terrace and Turf and Tow'r!
Stars in a still-blue sky,
Lost clouds that lurk and lie,
At this soft twilight hour,
Athwart the slopes of those Eternal Hills
At whose fair feet there stands—
Stands, waits, serves ... so fulfils
Herself—our Lovely Lady Whose high fane,
Serene, august, smiles down on Severn's gracious Plain.





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