Geoffrey Hill, "Mercian Hymns"

FinsburyParkCarrots

If you get the chance, read some of Geoffrey Hill's work. These are extracts from his long poem "Mercian Hymns":

I

King of the perennial holly-groves, the riven sandstone: overlord of the
M5: architect of the historic rampart and ditch, the citadel at
Tamworth, the summer hermitage in Holy Cross: guardian of the Welsh
Bridge and the Iron Bridge: contractor to the desirable new estates:
saltmaster: money-changer: commissioner for oaths: martyrologist: the
friend of Charlemagne.

'I liked that,' said Offa, 'sing it again.'


VII

Gasholders, russet among fields. Milldams, marlpools that lay
unstirring. Eel-swarms. Coagulations of frogs: once, with branches and
half-bricks, he battered a ditchful; then sidled away from the stillness
and silence.

Ceolred was his friend and remained so, even after the day of the lost
fighter: a biplane, already obsolete and irreplaceable, two inches of
heavy snub silver. Ceolred let it spin through a hole in the
classroom-floorboards, softly, into the rat-droppings and coins.

After school he lured Ceolred, who was sniggering with fright, down to
the old quarries, and flayed him. Then, leaving Ceolred, he journeyed
for hours, calm and alone, in his private derelict sandlorry named
Albion.


XVII

He drove at evening through the hushed Vosges. The car radio,
glimmering, received broken utterance from the horizon of storms...

'God's honours - our bikes touched: he skidded and came off.' 'Liar.' A
timid father's protective bellow. Disfigurement of a village king. 'Just
look at the bugger...'

His maroon GT chanted then overtook. He lavished on the high valleys its
haleine.


XXV

Brooding on the eightieth letter of Fors Clavigera, I speak this in
memory of my grandmother, whose childhood and prime womanhood were spent
in the nailer's darg.

The nailshop stood back of the cottage, by the fold. It reeked stale
mineral sweat. Sparks had furred its low roof. In dawn-light the
troughed water floated a damson-bloom of dust ---

not to be shaken by posthumous clamour. It is one thing to celebrate the
'quick forge', another to cradle a face hare-lipped by the searing wire.

Brooding on the eightieth letter of Fors Clavigera, I speak this in
memory of my grandmother, whose childhood and prime womanhood were spent
in the nailer's darg.

Ali

Interesting finns.The lives of the poeple around us are defintely colorful,
and quite ordinary to our middle class...such as the carpenter and bricklayer to those mentoined.

EvilToasterElf

Have you been reading a lot of this lately Finns, it seems to reflect in the last few you've posted

FinsburyParkCarrots

EvilToasterElf wrote:

Have you been reading a lot of this lately Finns, it seems to reflect in the last few you've posted

Nope. I haven't read him for years but I was thinking about this poem today and thought I'd share it.