Jeff Coleman
Chymist
Snow in Europe by David Gascoyne:
Out of their slumber Europeans spun
Dense dreams: appeasement, miracle, glimpsed flash
Of a new golden era; but could not restrain
The vertical white weight that fell last night
And made their continent a blank.
Hush, says the sameness of the snow
The Ural and the Jura now rejoin
The furthest Arctic's desolation. All is one;
Sheer monotone: plain, mountain, country, town:
Contours and boundaries no longer show.
The warring flags hang colourless a while;
Now midnight's icy zero feigns a truce
Between the signs and seasons, and fades out
All shots and cries. But when the great thaw comes,
How red shall be the melting snow, how loud the drums!
written December 25th, 1938
...
I was looking for a long poem by David Gascoyne called Night Thoughts, because I read it years ago, and looking back into the dim caverns of my memory I got it into my head that it had something to do with Christmas Eve, and that he had made a recording of it for the radio on Christmas Evening. I didn't find the recording or the text of Night Thoughts, but I found this poem.
Anyway, I think he deserves a thread here because I think he is a wonderful writer and I hardly ever see him mentioned anywhere. I want to write something more comprehensive, but I have to go back and read a lot more of his stuff before I can write something that does him justice.
Out of their slumber Europeans spun
Dense dreams: appeasement, miracle, glimpsed flash
Of a new golden era; but could not restrain
The vertical white weight that fell last night
And made their continent a blank.
Hush, says the sameness of the snow
The Ural and the Jura now rejoin
The furthest Arctic's desolation. All is one;
Sheer monotone: plain, mountain, country, town:
Contours and boundaries no longer show.
The warring flags hang colourless a while;
Now midnight's icy zero feigns a truce
Between the signs and seasons, and fades out
All shots and cries. But when the great thaw comes,
How red shall be the melting snow, how loud the drums!
written December 25th, 1938
...
I was looking for a long poem by David Gascoyne called Night Thoughts, because I read it years ago, and looking back into the dim caverns of my memory I got it into my head that it had something to do with Christmas Eve, and that he had made a recording of it for the radio on Christmas Evening. I didn't find the recording or the text of Night Thoughts, but I found this poem.
Anyway, I think he deserves a thread here because I think he is a wonderful writer and I hardly ever see him mentioned anywhere. I want to write something more comprehensive, but I have to go back and read a lot more of his stuff before I can write something that does him justice.