T H E C O M P L E T E T E X T S O F
THE HARD HOURS
MILLIONS OF STRANGE SHADOWS
THE VENETIAN VESPERS
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.
Copyright © 1990 by Anthony E. Hecht
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Distributed by Random House, Inc., New York.
Originally published in 3 volumes by Atheneum Publishers.
The Hard Hours: Copyright 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, © 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967 by Anthony E. Hecht
Millions of Strange Shadows: Copyright © 1977 by Anthony E. Hecht
The Venetian Vespers: Copyright © 1979 by Anthony E. Hecht
Poems from these 3 volumes were originally published in the following:
The American Scholar, Antaeus, Book Week, Botteghe Oscure, Encounter, Georgia Review, Harpers, Harpers Bazaar, Harvard Advocate, Hudson Review, Kenyon Review, Marxist Perspectives, The Nation, New American Review, The New Leader, The New Republic, New Statesman, The New Yorker, The Noble Savage, Partisan Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, Quarterly Review of Literature, Times Literary Supplement, Transatlantic Review, Voices, and Wild Places.
“The Seven Deadly Sins” and “Improvisations on Aesop” were originally published by The Gehenna Press, with wood engravings by Leonard Baskin.
Acknowledgment to George Dimock, Jr., and William Arrowsmith for assistance in translating the chorus from Sophocles’ Oedipus at Kolonos.
The translation of Voltaire’s “Poem Upon the Lisbon Disaster” originally appeared in a limited edition published by The Penmaen Press.
“Green: An Epistle” was the Phi Beta Kappa poem for Swarthmore in 1971; “The Odds” was the Phi Beta Kappa poem for Harvard in 1975.
“The Venetian Vespers” appeared first in book form in a limited edition published by David R. Godine. Copyright © 1979 by Anthony E. Hecht.
The versions of the two poems of Joseph Brodsky were made for his book of poems, A Part of Speech, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc., 1980. Copyright © 1979 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hecht, Anthony
[Poems]
Collected earlier poems : the complete texts of The hard hours, Millions of strange shadows, The Venetian vespers / Anthony Hecht. — 1 st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-80514-0
I. Title.
PS3558.E28A17 1990 89-43356
811’54—dc20 CIP
v3.1
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
THE HARD HOURS
A HILL
THIRD AVENUE IN SUNLIGHT
TARANTULA, OR, THE DANCE OF DEATH
THE END OF THE WEEKEND
MESSAGE FROM THE CITY
JASON
BEHOLD THE LILIES OF THE FIELD
PIG
OSTIA ANTICA
THE DOVER BITCH
TO A MADONNA (after Baudelaire)
CLAIRE DE LUNE
THREE PROMPTERS FROM THE WINGS
LIZARDS AND SNAKES
ADAM
THE ORIGIN OF CENTAURS
THE VOW
HEUREUX QUI, COMME ULYSSE, A FAIT UN BEAU VOYAGE (after du Bellay)
RITES AND CEREMONIES
A LETTER
THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS
UPON THE DEATH OF GEORGE SANTAYANA
BIRDWATCHERS OF AMERICA
THE SONG OF THE FLEA
THE MAN WHO MARRIED MAGDALENE
(Variations on a Theme by Louis Simpson)
IMPROVISATIONS ON AESOP
THE THOUGHTFUL ROISTERER DECLINES THE GAMBIT
(after Charles Vion De Dalib ray)
GIANT TORTOISE
“MORE LIGHT! MORE LIGHT!”
“AND CAN YE SING BALULOO WHEN THE BAIRN GREETS?”
“IT OUT-HERODS HEROD. PRAY YOU, AVOID IT.”
From A SUMMONING OF STONES
DOUBLE SONNET
LA CONDITION BOTANIQUE
JAPAN
LE MASSEUR DE MA SOEUR
AS PLATO SAID
DISCOURSE CONCERNING TEMPTATION
SAMUEL SEWALL
DRINKING SONG
A POEM FOR JULIA
CHRISTMAS IS COMING
IMITATION
THE GARDENS OF THE VILLA D’ESTE
A DEEP BREATH AT DAWN
A ROMAN HOLIDAY
ALCESTE IN THE WILDERNESS
MILLIONS OF STRANGE SHADOWS
THE COST
BLACK BOY IN THE DARK
AN AUTUMNAL
“DICHTUNG UND WAHRHEIT”
A VOICE AT A SEANCE
GREEN: AN EPISTLE
SOMEBODY’S LIFE
A LOT OF NIGHT MUSIC
A BIRTHDAY POEM
COMING HOME
PRAISE FOR KOLONOS
SESTINA D’INVERNO
ROME
SWAN DIVE
“AUGURIES OF INNOCENCE”
PERIPETEIA
AFTER THE RAIN
APPLES FOR PAUL SUTTMAN
THE HUNT
EXILE
THE FEAST OF STEPHEN
THE ODDS
APPREHENSIONS
THE GHOST IN THE MARTINI
GOING THE ROUNDS
GOLIARDIC SONG
“GLADNESS OF THE BEST”
POEM UPON THE LISBON DISASTER
FIFTH AVENUE PARADE
THE LULL
THE VENETIAN VESPERS
I
THE GRAPES
THE DEODAND
THE SHORT END
INVECTIVE AGAINST DENISE, A WITCH
AUSPICES
APPLICATION FOR A GRANT
AN OVERVIEW
STILL LIFE
PERSISTENCES
A CAST OF LIGHT
HOUSE SPARROWS
AN OLD MALEDICTION
II
THE VENETIAN VESPERS
III
Poems of Joseph Brodsky, versions by Anthony Hecht
CAPE COD LULLABY
LAGOON
NOTES
A Note About the Author
Other Books by This Author
THE HARD HOURS
For my sons, JASON and ADAM
Were is that lawhing and that song
That trayling and that proude gong,
Tho havekes and tho houndes?
Al that joye is went away,
That wele is comen to weylaway,
To manye harde stoundes.
A HILL
In Italy, where this sort of thing can occur,
I had a vision once—though you understand
It was nothing at all like Dante’s, or the visions of saints,
And perhaps not a vision at all. I was with some friends,
Picking my way through a warm sunlit piazza
In the early morning. A clear fretwork of shadows
From huge umbrellas littered the pavement and made
A sort of lucent shallows in which was moored
A small navy of carts. Books, coins, old maps,
Cheap landscapes and ugly religious prints
Were all on sale. The colors and noise
Like the flying hands were gestures of exultation,
So that even the bargaining
Rose to the ear like a voluble godliness.
And then, when it happened, the noises suddenly st
opped,
And it got darker; pushcarts and people dissolved
And even the great Farnese Palace itself
Was gone, for all its marble; in its place
Was a hill, mole-colored and bare. It was very cold,
Close to freezing, with a promise of snow.
The trees were like old ironwork gathered for scrap
Outside a factory wall. There was no wind,
And the only sound for a while was the little click
Of ice as it broke in the mud under my feet.
I saw a piece of ribbon snagged on a hedge,
But no other sign of life. And then I heard
What seemed the crack of a rifle. A hunter, I guessed;
At least I was not alone. But just after that
Came the soft and papery crash
Of a great branch somewhere unseen falling to earth.
And that was all, except for the cold and silence
That promised to last forever, like the hill.
Then prices came through, and fingers, and I was restored
To the sunlight and my friends. But for more than a week
I was scared by the plain bitterness of what I had seen.
All this happened about ten years ago,
And it hasn’t troubled me since, but at last, today,
I remembered that hill; it lies just to the left
Of the road north of Poughkeepsie; and as a boy
I stood before it for hours in wintertime.
Third Avenue in sunlight. Nature’s error.
Already the bars are filled and John is there.
Beneath a plentiful lady over the mirror
He tilts his glass in the mild mahogany air.
I think of him when he first got out of college,
Serious, thin, unlikely to succeed;
For several months he hung around the Village,
Boldly T-shirted, unfettered but unfreed.
Now he confides to a stranger, “I was first scout,
And kept my glimmers peeled till after dark.
Our outfit had as its sign a bloody knout,
We met behind the museum in Central Park.
Of course, we were kids.” But still those savages,
War-painted, a flap of leather at the loins,
File silently against him. Hostages
Are never taken. One summer, in Des Moines,
They entered his hotel room, tomahawks
Flashing like barracuda. He tried to pray.
Three years of treatment. Occasionally he talks
About how he almost didn’t get away.
Daily the prowling sunlight whets its knife
Along the sidewalk. We almost never meet.
In the Rembrandt dark he lifts his amber life.
My bar is somewhat further down the street.
TARANTULA OR THE DANCE OF DEATH
During the plague I came into my own.
It was a time of smoke-pots in the house
Against infection. The blind head of bone
Grinned its abuse
Like a good democrat at everyone.
Runes were recited daily, charms were applied.
That was the time I came into my own.
Half Europe died.
The symptoms are a fever and dark spots
First on the hands, then on the face and neck,
But even before the body, the mind rots.
You can be sick
Only a day with it before you’re dead.
But the most curious part of it is the dance.
The victim goes, in short, out of his head.
A sort of trance
Glazes the eyes, and then the muscles take
His will away from him, the legs begin
Their funeral jig, the arms and belly shake
Like souls in sin.
Some, caught in these convulsions, have been known
To fall from windows, fracturing the spine.
Others have drowned in streams. The smooth head-stone,
The box of pine,
Are not for the likes of these. Moreover, flame
Is powerless against contagion.
That was the black winter when I came
Into my own.
THE END OF THE WEEKEND
A dying firelight slides along the quirt
Of the cast-iron cowboy where he leans
Against my father’s books. The lariat
Whirls into darkness. My girl, in skin-tight jeans,
Fingers a page of Captain Marryat,
Inviting insolent shadows to her shirt.
We rise together to the second floor.
Outside, across the lake, an endless wind
Whips at the headstones of the dead and wails
In the trees for all who have and have not sinned.
She rubs against me and I feel her nails.
Although we are alone, I lock the door.
The eventual shapes of all our formless prayers,
This dark, this cabin of loose imaginings,
Wind, lake, lip, everything awaits
The slow unloosening of her underthings.
And then the noise. Something is dropped. It grates
Against the attic beams.
I climb the stairs,
Armed with a belt.
A long magnesium strip
Of moonlight from the dormer cuts a path
Among the shattered skeletons of mice.
A great black presence beats its wings in wrath.
Above the boneyard burn its golden eyes.
Some small grey fur is pulsing in its grip.
MESSAGE FROM THE CITY
It is raining here.
On my neighbor’s fire escape
geraniums are set out
in their brick-clay pots,
along with the mop,
old dishrags, and a cracked
enamel bowl for the dog.
I think of you out there
on the sandy edge of things,
rain strafing the beach,
the white maturity
of bones and broken shells,
and little tin shovels and cars
rusting under the house.
And between us there is—what?
Love and constraint,
conditions, conditions,
and several hundred miles
of billboards, filling-stations,
and little dripping gardens.
The fir tree full of whispers,
trinkets of water,
the bob, duck, and release
of the weighted rose,
life in the freshened stones.
(They used to say that rain
is good for growing boys,
and once I stood out in it
hoping to rise a foot.
The biggest drops fattened
on the gutters under the eaves,
sidled along the slant,
picked up speed, let go,
and met their dooms in a “plock”
beside my gleaming shins.
I must have been near the size
of your older son.)
Yesterday was nice.
I took my boys to the park.
We played Ogre on the grass.
I am, of course, the Ogre,
and invariably get killed.
Merciless and barefooted,
they sneak up from behind
and they let me have it.
O my dear, my dear,
today the rain pummels
the sour geraniums
and darkens the grey pilings
of your house, built upon sand.
And both of us, full grown,
have weathered a long year.
Perhaps your casual glance
will settle from time to time
on the sea’s travelling muscles
that flex and roll their strength
&n
bsp; under its rain-pocked skin.
And you’ll see where the salt winds
have blown bare the seaward side
of the berry bushes,
and will notice
the faint, fresh
smell of iodine.
JASON
And from America the golden fleece MARLOWE
The room is full of gold.
Is it a chapel? Is that the genuine buzz
Of cherubim, the wingèd goods?
Is it no more than sun that floods
To pool itself at her uncovered breast?
O lights, o numina, behold
How we are gifted. He who never was,
Is, and her fingers bless him and are blessed.
That blessedness is tossed
In a wild, dodging light. Suddenly clear
And poised in heavenly desire
Prophets and eastern saints take fire
And fuse with gold in windows across the way,
And turn to liquid, and are lost.
And now there deepens over lakes of air
A remembered stillness of the seventh day
Borne in on the soft cruise
And sway of birds. Slowly the ancient seas,
Those black, predestined waters rise
Lisping and calm before my eyes,
And Massachusetts rises out of foam
A state of mind in which by twos
All beasts browse among barns and apple trees
As in their earliest peace, and the dove comes home.
Tonight, my dear, when the moon
Settles the radiant dust of every man,
Powders the bedsheets and the floor
With lightness of those gone before,
Sleep then, and dream the story as foretold:
Dream how a little boy alone
With a wooden sword and the top of a garbage can
Triumphs in gardens full of marigold.
BEHOLD THE LILIES OF THE FIELD
for Leonard Baskin
And now. An attempt.
Don’t tense yourself; take it easy.
Look at the flowers there in the glass bowl.
Yes, they are lovely and fresh. I remember
Giving my mother flowers once, rather like those
(Are they narcissus or jonquils?)