Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off
My cycle-clips in awkward reverence,
io Move forward, run my hand around the font.
From where I stand, the roof looks almost new?
Cleaned, or restored? Someone would know: 1 don't.
Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few
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CHURCH GOING / 2567
Hectoring large-scale verses,1 and pronounce
is 'Here endeth' much more loudly than I'd meant. The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,2 Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.
Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,
20 And always end much at a loss like this, Wondering what to look for; wondering, too, When churches fall completely out of use What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep A few cathedrals chronically on show,
25 Their parchment, plate and pyx3 in locked cases, And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep. Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?
Or, after dark, will dubious women come To make their children touch a particular stone;
30 Pick simples0 for a cancer; or on some medicinal herbs Advised night see walking a dead one? Power of some sort or other will go on In games, in riddles, seemingly at random; But superstition, like belief, must die,
35 And what remains when disbelief has gone? Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky,
A shape less recognisable each week, A purpose more obscure. I wonder who Will be the last, the very last, to seek
40 This place for what it was; one of the crew That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts4 were? Some ruin- bibber, randy for antique, Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh? 5
45 Or will he be my representative,
Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground6 Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt So long and equably what since is found
50 Only in separation?marriage, and birth, And death, and thoughts of these?for which was built This special shell? For, though I've no idea What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth, It pleases me to stand in silence here;
I.e., Bible verses printed in large type for read
aloud. An Irish sixpence has no value in England. Box in which communion wafers are kept. Galleries on top of carved screens separating
? nave of a church from the choir. 5. Gum resin used in the making of incense; one of three presents given by the Three Wise Men to the infant Jesus. 'Gown-and-bands': gown and decorative collar worn by clergypeople. 6. Most churches were built in the shape of a cross.
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256 8 / PHILI P LARKI N 5560 A serious house on serious earth it is, In whose blent air all our compulsions meet, Are recognised, and robed as destinies. And that much never can be obsolete, Since someone will forever be surprising A hunger in himself to be more serious, And gravitating with it to this ground, Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in, If only that so many dead lie round. 1954 1955 MCMXIV' 5Those long uneven lines Standing as patiently As if they were stretched outside The Oval or Villa Park,2 The crowns of hats, the sun On moustached archaic faces Grinning as if it were all An August bank Holiday lark; io15And the shut shops, the bleached, Established names on the sunblinds, The farthings and sovereigns,3 And dark-clothed children at play Called after kings and queens, The tin advertisements For cocoa and twist,0 and the pubsWide open all day; tobacco 20And the countryside not caring: The place-names all hazed over With flowering grasses, and fields Shadowing Domesday lines4 Under wheat's restless silence; The differently-dressed servants With tiny rooms in huge houses, The dust behind limousines; 25 Never such innocence, Never before or since, As changed itself to past Without a word?the men Leaving the gardens tidy,
1. 1914, in Roman numerals, as incised on stone valuable British coins, respectively. memorials to the dead of World War I. 4. The still-visible boundaries of medieval farmers' 2. London cricket ground and Birmingham foot- long and narrow plots, ownership of which is ball ground. recorded in William the Conqueror's Domesday 3. At that time the least valuable and the most Book (1085-86).
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AMBULANCES / 256 9
30 Th e thousands of marriages Lasting a little while longer: Never such innocence again.
1960 1964
Talking in Bed
Talking in bed ought to be easiest, Lying together there goes back so far, An emblem of two people being honest.
Yet more and more time passes silently. 5 Outside, the wind's incomplete unrest Builds and disperses clouds about the sky,
An d dark towns heap up on the horizon. None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why At this unique
