Introduction to Verse 1951

Poets may look for the peace of the soul or the peace of the flesh. It seems to me to matter little which. It has sat on my mind for a long time, waking and asleep, that at the heart of every poem is the same idea. A damnable monism! Yet what does every poet finger but the truth of himself: whether it be the ‘weeping threatening accusing thing’, or the heart that sings like a bird for no reason but the multiple mirrored face of God?

Curiously enough, the latter are often the worse poets. Their peace is possible, for a while at least, without self-analysis. The abominable operation of cutting the heart out of old Adam and holding it up smoking to the sun of godliness and peace would seem to them unnecessary, even blasphemous. But when they first know that they are dying they begin to live; and grow a little mad.

Why are the best poems of this book love poems? Because the eyes have been fixed on another creature in that strangest of all emulsive solutions to the human dichotomy of charity and lust. The words say in one breath ‘I want you’ and ‘I want you to be.’ But perhaps every poem is a love poem – the worst to oneself, the second best (and notice this) to God, the best to a fellow creature or even at times a pattern of hills, the tranquil harp of water in a summer sea.

I cannot tell you about this book: that is the poets’ job. What you get from it will depend on you all the way, as it always does. So keep your eyes open, and don’t recoil before you’ve started to understand.

1951 (50)