Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SATURN, by JOHN COWPER POWYS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SATURN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: It is the place! / no moon, no mist, no sound
Last Line: Oh love --
Subject(s): Death; Devil; Hope; Life; Moon; Planets; Sleep; Wind; Dead, The; Satan; Mephistopheles; Lucifer; Beelzebub; Optimism


It is the place!
No moon, no mist, no sound,
As the oracles had writ,
Only the huge and starry night,
Liquid, cool, and infinite,
Lit with lamps, by the old gods lit,
Floating, floating, over it,
Over the place I have found.

It is the place!
I had known it, in the deep
Full-brimmed cup of flowing sleep,
From which, in the vast silence, I
Had drunk inviolability.

It is the place!
Upon the terrace I step forth
And look to the east and look to the north.
On the north there are water-meadows wide,
With shadowy reeds on every side.
On the east -- ah! where can I have seen
Mists and marshes so grey and green?
In no human dream I have known this place.
How slow is the sun to show his face!

Did ever the winds with so indrawn breath
Wait and listen, and listen and wait?
Did ever life come so near to death
And remain so wistful and passionate?

The silence deepens. The grey cold light,
Stealing over the pools and the reeds --
Is it only the common dawn? This night
For more than the morning intercedes.

Oh night, and have I not also prayed?
Oh dawn, and have I not also cried --
Betrayed! betrayed! betrayed! betrayed! --
Unto the hollow spaces wide?

It is the place!
And now as the vapours rise,
And now as the mist recedes,
In his old immortal guise,
Looking down on the reeds,
Luminous, lovely, silver bright,
Heaven's antagonist, bearer of light;
Still untouched by passion's stir,
Loving the earth and laughing at her --
Son of the Morning, Lucifer!

Then I heard them. From the far
Ledges of the dawn I heard them.
Every fragile, quivering thing
Of earth's primal gendering;
Every hidden, trembling, shy
Child of ancient mystery,
Raised a cry out of the cold
Shadows of the forests old;
Cold and low and sweet and clear,
Like a sea-shell held to a sea-god's ear --
"They have buried him in vain!
Saturn, Saturn comes again!
He was old. He was weak. He was dolorous,
And they buried him far away from us.

They planted mountains upon his breast
And they mocked and said, 'There let him rest!
Let the leaves of aeons of forests dead
Cover his eyelids, hide his head!
Into a midnight deep as the world,
Let his old sad, mad heart be hurled!'"
Ah, that cry! From many a pool
Where are reflected strange dim faces,
Faces tender and sad and cool,
Under the shadow of leafy places,
Came that voice that still I hear,
Wild and low and sweet and clear,
Over hushed dew-drenched lawns,
Where rivers flow from secret dawns;
Over forests faint and dim,
Where the leaves and the shadows remember him.
"They have buried him in vain!
Saturn, Saturn comes again!"

Oh tremulous hope! Oh large escape
From the intolerable oppressors!
Oh bent and bowed, resume your shape
And dispossess the dispossessors!

Bring back the old and tender things,
The things that weep, the things that play
By the margins of eternal springs,
Where twilight is lovelier than day,

And the white dawn never flows away.
Oh tremulous hope! Oh large escape!
Oh bent and bowed, resume your shape
And dispossess the dispossessors!

Can it be true?
Can the weak overcome the strong?
Can forgiveness all things cover?
Can the singer hear the end of his song?
Can the loved return to the lover?

Oh planet silver-scornful, oh planet calm!
Riding the ether alone,
Will this great dawn bring us the longed-for balm
And for all griefs atone?

Still low and sweet the cry comes to my ears --
"They have buried him in vain!" --
But fainter, fainter, comes it, and cold salt tears
Are on my cheek again.

It is the place!
From the high terrace I lean forth
And look to the east and look to the north.
Oh pity! Why does that sweet cry fail?
And why grows Lucifer so pale?
Why do the lovely and tender things
Sink back again to their primal springs?
What wheels are those whose terror draws nigh,
Rolling up the slope of the sky?
Look!
Must it forever be like this?
Oh Fate! Oh Fate remediless!
Look!

Out of the east with a stream of blood,
With music no man has understood,
With splendour, with power, with terrible joy,
With strength to create and strength to destroy;
Kissing all life with a careless kiss,
Creating pain, creating bliss;
The dead, the dead only, free from him,
Red with blood from rim to rim,
Over the conquered throat of the world
The chariot of the sun is hurled!

And so -- it is not the place;
And once more I bow my face.
They have not buried him in vain!
Saturn will never come again!
They rule -- they rule from sky to sky.
Hopeless -- hopeless, was that cry!
And yet --
Though the oracles have lied to us,
And the gulfs of space have cried to us,
And every chance has died to us,
Oh Saturn, Oh Lucifer, Oh Christ --
Oh Love --





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