Four Seasonal Poems (1913-22)
Snowstorm
In this outer quarter where never a foot
Stepped except for the foot of a blizzard
Or sibyl, steeped in a demon region,
Where snows are sleeping a sleep of the dead –
Stop, in this outer quarter where never
Foot ever stepped except for a sibyl’s
Foot or a blizzard’s, the wayward shard
Of a halter battered a dormer’s glass.
No jot to be seen, and yet this very quarter
Could be a part of a borough, an area
Nearer the border (some wanderer, haunter
Of midnight, went shying from me with a shudder) –
Listen, in this far quarter where never
Foot ever stepped, there’s no one but murderers.
Lipless and speechless, a spectre, an aspen
Leaf is your messenger, whiter than linen.
It knocked at all portals, it hurtled and tossed,
Peered round in a spiral of snow from the road . . .
‘This is not the right city, it’s not the right midnight,
And you, night’s herald – you’re utterly lost!’
But you whispered a purposeful message to me.
In this outer quarter where biped never . . .
I too am utterly lost . . . I’m a sort of . . .
‘Not the right midnight and not the right city.’
Translated by Angela Livingstone
Page(s) 118
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The