Soap Suds
This brand of soap has the same smell as once in the big
House he visited when he was eight: the walls of the bathroom open
To reveal a lawn where a great yellow ball rolls back through a hoop
To rest at the head of a mallet held in the hands of a child.
And these were the joys of that house: a tower with a telescope;
Two great faded globes, one of the earth, one of the stars;
A stuffed black dog in the hall; a walled garden with bees;
A rabbit warren; a rockery; a vine under glass; the sea.
To which he has now returned. The day of course is fine
And a grown-up voice cries Play! The mallet slowly swings,
Then crack, a great gong booms from the dog-dark hall and the ball
Skims forward through the hoop and then through the next and then
Through hoops where no hoops were and each dissolves in turn
And the grass has grown head-high and an angry voice cries Play!
But the ball is lost and the mallet slipped long since from the hands
Under the running tap that are not the hands of a child.
(1961)
Snow
The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink rose against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.
World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.
And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than once supposes --
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one's hands--
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.
(Jan. 1935)
A site with commentary on Louis MacNeice
Louis
MacNeice, "The Sunlight on the Garden"
A few more of his poems:
MacNeice
poems
Selected
Poems of Louis MacNeice (hardcover) and
Selected
Poems of Louis MacNeice (paperback) Links to
Amazon.com
My tribute, including a few poems, to the amazing Zbigniew Herbert Zbigniew Herbert is No More and his books (again Amazon.com links) Mr. Cogito (poems) and Still Life With a Bridle : Essays and Apocryphas (essays).
a key to other snippets that I retyped: Readings key
Back to Abby's Workshop: A Haven