And Berrigan, my guide, replied:
‘Hold your horses, you’ll see
soon enough.’
And I, biting my lip,
Said nothing more,
until we reached the muddy shore.
Then suddenly, coming towards us in a bark,
An old man, hoary white with eld,
Bellowed: ‘Woe to you, wicked students! Hope not
Ever to see a grant again. I come to take
You to the main campus
Into eternal loans, there to dwell
In sticky heat and dry-ice. And thou, who there
Standest, live spirit! Get thee hence, and leave
These who are dead.’ And when he saw I didn’t
Budge, he added: ‘By other way
Shalt thou come ashore, not by this passage.
Thee a nimbler boat must carry.’
Then Berrigan spoke slowly: ‘This is no time to get
Imperious, Dr May, it is willed by Senate,
That is all you need to know. Step aside.’
His words brought silence to the woolly cheeks
Of the boatman guarding the muddy swamp,
Whose eyes glowed like burning coals.
But all the students, shagged out and naked,
Grew pale, and their teeth began to chatter,
At the pronouncement they’d heard.
They cursed the day they were born, they
Cursed the coalition, they cursed their fathers
For not having vasectomies.
Then, like lost souls, wailing bitterly,
They squelched knee-deep in mud, towards
The shore of the forsaken building site.
Dr May called them together with his
Ferryman’s song, and with his oar he walloped the
Latecomers, saying: ‘Put that on your SACS forms!’
As at the start of the Autumn term,
When the leaves begin to fall,
Covering the ground with a slippery carpet,
So did the doomed freshers
Drop from that shore into the bark,
Lured by the siren song.
Off they go across the swamp waters,
And before they reach the opposite shore
A new crowd gathers on this side.
‘My friend,’ Berrigan said to me then,
‘Everyone who wants to get a degree
Gathers here, from all corners of the globe;
They want to cross the swamp, they are eager;
It is the fear of being left on the
Scrapheap that urges them on
Into debt and toil and hardship;
Only a fool would follow, so if Dr May
Warns you off, you see what he’s saying.’
As he finished, the ground shook with a violent
Tremor, as the Wivenhoe fault opened
Anew in the Palaeozoic rocks.
A whirlwind burst out of the cracked earth,
A wind that crackled like an electric storm;
It struck my body like a cattle prod
And as a man in Guantanamo Bay, I fell.
CANTO IV
The crack of fiercely hit squash balls
Woke me from my blackout so that I started
Like one woken from a deep sleep
Or like some unfortunate commuter
Rising to the call of alarm-clock Britain;
Once on my feet I steadied myself
And saw from an illuminated sign
That I had been borne to a place called
Valley, though it more resembled a ditch;
The place thundered with endless wailing
Which issued from the Sports Hall, but when I
Put my face to the glass, I discerned nothing,
For it was all steamed up with sweat;
‘It’s time to begin our descent into the
Blind world below,’ said Berrigan, his face
All pale, and I, who saw his complexion,
For even his beard could not hide it, asked
‘How will I cope, when even you’re afraid,
Who art wont to be my strength in doubt?’
And he spoke back: ‘It’s the misery of the
Fuck-ups here below which paints my face with
That pity which you mistake for fear;
Though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow
A lot more insane than this Valley.
Now, let’s get moving, the journey is long.’
He stepped forward then, leading the way for me,
Towards our next port of call. As we advanced
Along a straight track, no wailing could be heard,
Only the sound of sighs coming from
A vast car park, where none of the vehicles
Could be moved for all had been clamped,
Sighs that rose from grief without torment.
Berrigan then said: ‘If you want to know
What kind of souls these are that surround you,
I’ll let you in on their secret: they are all
Essex Alumni, Honorary PhDs,
And retired academics: here they live
Forever, but because they have left the
University,
they are forever
Deprived of their departments.
Without hope, they live on in desire.
There’s a joke going round campus which sums
Up their plight: “Academics never retire,
They just lose their faculties.”’
‘My God,’ I said, ‘you mean they’re stuck here
Forever in Limbo? Are there none that
Manage to get away from here?’
‘Not many,’ he said, ‘but occasionally,
When the VC raises the retirement age,
Say, you hear of a lucky few
Who find re-employment in one of our
Partner Colleges: Colchester Institute,
University Campus Suffolk, Writtle College.’
We didn’t stop to dawdle while we spoke
But made our way onwards, past a wood.
We had not gone far from where I woke
When I made out a fire burning up ahead,
Which lit up a hemisphere in the darkness.
We were still some distance from it,
But we were close enough for me to begin
To make out some of the shades up there.
‘Berrigan,’ I said, ‘who are these souls
Who seem to occupy some place of special
Honour, set apart from the rest?’
And Berrigan, my guide: ‘Their honoured
Names, which still resound in the world of
The living, gain them favour here.
They are poets who once taught here,
Or studied, rare souls,
who had the gift of sabi.’
And as he talked I heard a voice exclaim:
‘Honour the poet of the New York School!
His shade returns that was departed!’
As the voice fell silent, I saw eight
Shades step towards us, with an aspect
Neither sad nor joyful.
The good master began: ‘Mark him
With the Havana cigar clenched in his teeth,
Who walks steadily at the head of the pack,
That’s Robert Lowell, the illustrious poet,
Who was once a professor here, in the
70s; the next, just behind him, is
The satirist, Ed Dorn; then look, that stately
Figure with the handlebar moustache is
Tom Raworth, who wrote his Logbook
When he was here, but of course, you’ve met them;
Next is Doug Oliver, who descended into
The caves at Winnats Pass to write his epic;
Behind him there’s Elaine Feinstein,
Jeremy Reed, who was a student her
e,
Tony Lopez and Kelvin Corcoran.’
As we drew level with them, they came
To greet Berrigan, and after they had
Talked a while, they turned towards me,
Welcoming me with a gesture, and when
I turned to gaze at Berrigan I saw him smile.
We walked together,
Talking of this and that, until we reached
The boundary of a splendid villa,
Set in a sweet vale all by itself.
It was circled by a security fence,
Bounded by woodland and a clear lake,
And once we had passed through seven
Surveillance gates, like those at Stansted,
We stepped onto a brightly lit lawn.
On it were shades with eyes slow
And grave; they were of great authority
In their demeanour, speaking slowly,
With mild voices. Then moving to one side
In unison, to where the cocktails were
Being handed out, we stepped onto a
Raised veranda, from where they could all be seen.
From this vantage point, as he lit a cigarette,
Berrigan pointed out the illustrious
Shades who peopled the verdant pasture.
There was Charles Leatherland, standing with a group,
Amongst whom was Óscar Arias, the
Nobel Prize Winner, and Dimitrij Rupel,
Foreign Minister of Slovenia.
I saw too Virginia Bottomley,
John Bercow and Siobhain McDonagh,
And when I looked up a little I saw
The master of thought, Simon Critchley,
Chatting away with his philosophical crowd,
Who were hanging on his every word;
I spotted, too, Richard Bartle and Roy
Trubshaw, co-creators of the Multi-User
Dungeon, MUD1, and Rodolfo Vela,
Mexico’s first astronaut; then, cracking jokes,
In a way that made them stand out from the crowd,
I saw Nick Broomfield and Mike Leigh, Stephen
Daldry, Lucy Ellmann and Ben Okri,
Who won the Booker Prize.
I can’t paint them all in full, as they deserve,
My theme is long, and many times the words
Must fall short of the reality.
The company of ten diminishes to two.
Berrigan leads me by another path,
Out of the quiet, into the trembling air.
I come to a part where there is no light.
CANTO V
We left the garden behind us, descending
By a long track, till we reached Square 2,
Which encompasses less space,
But greater pain. Nearby Todd Landman,
Professor of Government, has his desk,
Where he sits, interrogating new arrivals.
Barely have they entered his room
Than he shows them how many books he’s written;
If they have a weakness, he pounces on it,
And he, who is an expert judge,
Then leaps up, winding his scarf round his neck,
And tells them where to go.
‘Hi,’ he said, when he caught sight of me,
‘And welcome to the place where pain is host –
As we say round here, no pain no gain
(That’s one from our team in marketing).
Now, please, be careful where you go,
There’s a health and safety talk in half an hour,
And an address from our Faculty Manager
Will follow – be warned, it may be easy
To get in, but don’t let that deceive you.’
‘Put a sock in it you windbag,’
Said Berrigan, ‘this one doesn’t need
All that bullshit, he’s just visiting;
It is willed there where the power is,
That’s all
you have to know.’
And now the cries of anguish
struck my ears
Drowning out all else.
I came to a place void of light
Which rioted like the sea in a tempest
When it is buffeted by warring winds.
The hellish storm
forever tossed
helpless screaming spirits
into the black air
It was like some infernal
fairground ride
And when the faces whirled past our eyes
they had the look
of those grown sick with fear.
I learned that to such torment are doomed
The lustful,
who subject reason to appetite.
As the wings of crows roosting in winter
Bear them along in vast swirling flocks,
as Mark Cocker has written,
So that blast transported these souls,
Stretching as far as the eye can see.
And I asked: ‘Berrigan, tell me,
Who are these people, lashed in the black air?’
‘The one who’s just going by,’
Berrigan replied, ‘is Maeve, Queen of Connacht,
She had so many lovers you couldn’t count them,
And more husbands than the Wife of Bath;
In her kingdom she made lust and law alike.
It was she who started the cattle raid
To steal Ulster’s prize bull from her former husband,
And there are those who say she had bull-longing.
That other one is Marilyn, who slew
Herself for love, behind her’s Berlusconi
Whose scandal knew no shame,
That’s King Edward and Mrs Simpson, whose affair
Rocked the crown, then Bill Clinton,
Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor,
And there’s Paris Hilton…’ – then over a thousand
Shades he showed to me, and pointing with
His finger gave me their stories.
When I had heard my teacher name so many,
I was overcome by pity, and felt faint.
‘Poet,’ I began, ‘I would like to talk to
That pair that go together
And seem so light upon the wind.’
‘Wait till they’re a bit nearer,’ he said,
‘If you entreat them in the name of
That love they share, they’ll come.’
As soon as the wind gusted them towards us
I raised my voice: ‘Oh wearied spirits!
Come and speak with us if it isn’t forbidden!’
And then, just as on Shooting Stars
The dove comes down, when bidden, so those
Spirits issued from the band where Ulrika is,
Such was the power of my call.
When they came into view, I beheld
An aged tutor, balding on top,
And a young student, with coal black hair.
‘Oh living creature, gracious and kind,
Who goes through the black air
to visit us,’ said the girl,
‘Whatever you wish to hear
you shall hear it, whilst the wind,
as now, is silent for us.
The place I was born was Londonderry,
I came here to study,
and to escape the Troubles.
Love, quick to kindle in a seasoned heart,
Led my tutor to fall for my young body,
And I in turn loved back.’
‘Dear creature,’ I said, ‘the terrible torment
You suffer brings tears of pity
To my eyes,
but tell me,
How, and by what signs, did love let you
know your desires?’
And she replied: ‘There is no greater pain
Than to recall a happy time from a state
Of wretchedness (as your companion knows)
But if you wish to know
t
he first root of our love
I will tell it, though I weep.
It was the Essex way, when Donald Davie still
Held sway, to teach in tutorials, one on one;
One day, the course was LT361:
Arthurian Literature, we were comparing
Malory with an Old French version of
The legend; we read of Lancelot,
Of how he fell in love, time and again
Our eyes were united by the text,
Gregory tried to impress me with an
Interpretative aside; we blushed.
To the movement of one line alone we yielded:
When we read about the forbidden kiss
Then my teacher kissed me on the mouth
Tremblingly; that book was our Galeotto;
That day we read it no further.’
Whilst the one spirit thus spake she wept
Constantly, while the other bowed his head.
The sight of these wretched souls filled me with pity,
And I fell, as a body, dead, falls.
CANTO VI
Regaining now my senses, which had zoned out