A modern Sir Henry memorialized
('An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country'- Sir Henry Wotton, 1604)
Enough lying abroad, here I see you all
discreetly marking, to either side of the aisle,
the dwindling velleities of G's and K's.
While grey heads nod to each other, the organ plays
excerpts from Vierne or Walton, and a thin smile
passes from someone whose name you now struggle to recall.
Behind family, the ushers guide to 'Reserved'
places those whose precedence I at last displace,
but not for long. And further back (yes, over there!)
just a hint on that brow suggests a colleague is aware
of a feud unburied as he confronts a face
he'd rather not... (Hush! Let the rites be observed.)
The music's the thing: sing the Byrd introit, used
years ago at St Paul's ; then hymns in a lower key,
such as Wesley/Blaenwern, that offer full vent to the voice.
Now, open your book on the readings, the odds for their choice
incline nowadays to a memoir; even poetry
by the departed's a solecism excused.
The old friend's address. All ear-piece tuners spin
to catch his figures in my nil nisi equation -
'Gilded youth, sword of honour, prizes, a certain career
during which he exhibited skills where few were his peer':
Ciceronian prose that borders on dissimulation
while deftly presenting each zero-sum game as a win.
Such rank encomium shouts for Alternative Version:
Do I hear ‘pusher, and brawler, and pedant to boot,
unsound on some policies favoured by inner cabal,
a loner, abrasive, at home in the high chaparral
where it's progress through friction, and woe if you're caught under
foot,
which is why those who dance the glissade might nurse an aversion'?
That's better! Now you may depart in relief,
humming toccata in F. Over tea in the Crypt
resolve, if you found it too bland, to check through the pages
of any 'obits', see if chat at the Garrick assuages
that yen for the hidden flaws you alone can decrypt -
always a great consolation in coping with grief.
Thucydides' home truth compels this envoy:
Praise becomes foreign, at the point of envy.
Enough lying abroad, here I see you all
discreetly marking, to either side of the aisle,
the dwindling velleities of G's and K's.
While grey heads nod to each other, the organ plays
excerpts from Vierne or Walton, and a thin smile
passes from someone whose name you now struggle to recall.
Behind family, the ushers guide to 'Reserved'
places those whose precedence I at last displace,
but not for long. And further back (yes, over there!)
just a hint on that brow suggests a colleague is aware
of a feud unburied as he confronts a face
he'd rather not... (Hush! Let the rites be observed.)
The music's the thing: sing the Byrd introit, used
years ago at St Paul's ; then hymns in a lower key,
such as Wesley/Blaenwern, that offer full vent to the voice.
Now, open your book on the readings, the odds for their choice
incline nowadays to a memoir; even poetry
by the departed's a solecism excused.
The old friend's address. All ear-piece tuners spin
to catch his figures in my nil nisi equation -
'Gilded youth, sword of honour, prizes, a certain career
during which he exhibited skills where few were his peer':
Ciceronian prose that borders on dissimulation
while deftly presenting each zero-sum game as a win.
Such rank encomium shouts for Alternative Version:
Do I hear ‘pusher, and brawler, and pedant to boot,
unsound on some policies favoured by inner cabal,
a loner, abrasive, at home in the high chaparral
where it's progress through friction, and woe if you're caught under
foot,
which is why those who dance the glissade might nurse an aversion'?
That's better! Now you may depart in relief,
humming toccata in F. Over tea in the Crypt
resolve, if you found it too bland, to check through the pages
of any 'obits', see if chat at the Garrick assuages
that yen for the hidden flaws you alone can decrypt -
always a great consolation in coping with grief.
Thucydides' home truth compels this envoy:
Praise becomes foreign, at the point of envy.
John Weston was Britain's Ambassador to the UN when he retired from the Foreign Office in 1998. He won first prize in the 2004 Peterloo Open competition. His work appears in the new Shoestring anthology and a first collection is due from Peterloo in 2005.
Page(s) 44-45
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