. . . Visionary power
Attends the motions of the viewless winds,
Embodied in the mystery of words:
There, darkness makes abode, and all the host
Of shadowy things work endless changes.William Wordsworth
1
pure as a Thrush.
The Rothay, deliquescent
& the sinuous yews.
There is a blinding
in Grasmere Churchyard
with the movement
as it has
past Wordsworth's grave-side
who could not see
'huge forms', Presences & earth 'working
like a sea'.
It was Dorothy
at his side,
lichen & cushions of
these Lakes
'dim mirrors',
- the sheens like herrings
of polished steel.
For William
wind off
that, that had no
'skiey
to animate some inner country
Windermeres
As I sit in this darkness,
like its geese
& the night
into shapes of yew
& blackbird songs,
I wish
syllable perhaps -
something more
warble
But this soil, once
I wish
of this 'wheel' of
flowering thing in its
planted in homage
over each ridge
& valley.
But having come
from where the Lakes radiate
I see only the descent
to this darkness -
the rest
- the steaming breath of sheep,
high, upon the fells:
the view
to Silver How -
a cone of light, thickening
- & down
- waterfall.
Down, to
The burning blues
the spectral
- hydrangea,
This soil, once
O,
Substance to this
subtle, yet enduring mold,
a snare
for bird-song,
night, & rivers flowing.
Let us catch
syllable, following
somewhere in these airs, these
sinuous yews
- Gentian, Great Tongue, Westmorland,
out of this soil, once
Tsee! Tsee!
continuous warbles,
moved toward me in
To the horizon,
waving & sparkling with hidden
The edges
against the stars,
sounds as of great doors
as their bases bit
into earth.
I lay
& saw stars
through snow-white brightness
of the skies -
'as if
for the Snow is reflected
just as Fire by Night
is'.
And as the grass grew higher,
as of a field of infinite
& shapes reforming in
of beasts & curious
vegetation.
I traced
the convolutions of
turf, laid out by men,
& made new windings with the mole
through undisturbed
barrows.
I entered the architecture of
bees - the gold of
their mossed bodies
linked in warmth.
I followed
the patterns of waters
within earth,
& saw the whorls of buried
shells.
I followed the mottled lizard into
scrolls of leaves
& traced the plover to its
nest.
And came, at last, to pastures
where the spiders
had built
on every bush -
that intricate webbing
to which the 'dew
doth perch'.
And on webs, more
tenuous
than these, & of even more
complexity -
the interweavings
of man with earth: warp & woof with
the stuff of Mountains -
I retraced my steps around
the Lakes:
encompassing
Ullswater,
Derwent, Crummock, Buttermere,
Ennerdale, Wastwater,
Conniston, Esthwaite,
Windermere to Elterwater, Rydal, & finally
in a circle back
to Wordsworth & Grasmere.
And this, where I began, was the center
where the blackbird still sang - its song more
into the night, than any
ambiguity,
redoubling
of the viewless
winds'.
Lion's shin, oak-limb, tomb:
skin,
that 'being
break out
& wax greene'.
Mistletoe. Its seeds
out of the quickening gut,
An aerial
white-berried.
Ivy. Springs out
with dark, shining leaves.
It is the mythic coat
made of a shining
lightnings
of its hollows.
There are connections in these
- between an earth, sentient with moles,
fine as a web drawn
close as the grain of oak'
from earth, to mistletoe, ivy & lichen, to owl's-
There are many ways
to look at an oak, & one, with its
the blunt, burning push
in an earth full
of movements, slight rustlings, as a passage of night-birds,
& bones
that 'being striken one against another
break out like fire
& wax greene'.
Tchink, Tchink. Tsee!
Then low,
continuous warbles
A maze
of sound!
somewhere
in these airs
Tsee!
darkness, here,
of yews, blackbirds & River Rothay
running,
a hundred years
- Wordsworth
daffodils
only
who lies
who brought home
moss,
who saw
in all their weathers -
'bright slate'
& spear-shaped
streaks
there was only
one
the Lakes -
boundary, but entered
influences'
into his pores
of deep, clear Lakes.
of his mind's eye.
the Rothay hissing
forming itself
for this earth, beneath,
to move, to issue some dark, meditated
than this inarticulate
& seething.
Wordsworth, lies
in silence.
to make something circular,
seasonal, out
mountains
- some
cycle - an image of our footsteps
to Grasmere,
like spokes,
vanishes
from Great Tongue
to greys
down its slopes
by a ghyll lined with
rowan. Red-berry
A rising mist to meet us.
the quickly darkness
Lake.
of Dove Cottage
garden -
October flowers
of night
gentian.
Wordsworth. . .
let us give stems to
the flowers!
fog: some
the labyrinthine wind,
in words -
on syllable,
England:
Wordsworth. . .
Then low,
pure,
as a Thrush.
2
I slept
& dreamed
the encircling Mountains
my sleep.
the grass
was a deep indigo:
lights.
of the Mountains moved
slowly,
& there were
opening
on the sublime motions
of the grasses
descend like snow,
the Sun shined
by the Air
I entered into
its Maze -
hoar-frosts melting
shapes
of the Maze:
clear
words -
with the boundless
ceaseless turnings &
& 'motions
3
The Oak of the Maze
all acquire
a hundred years'
a winter's pelt - bones
striken one against
another
like fire
ripened
within birds -
it clings to oak.
green,
of earth,
to cover it
of an oak -
& dark-
leaved thunder,
& the owls
& the owl's
radiant eyes -
by spiders,
wing, to thunder, to lightning, to earth - & back.
own eyes:
of acorns
Got to Light and Dust Anthology of Poetry
Copyright © 1967 by Ronald Johnson
First Published by W.W. Norton
Reproduced here by permission of the Literary Estate of Ronald Johnson, 2001
"Francis," by Basil King, the painting that appears with this poem,
comes from a series based on Green Man lore. Copyright © 1996 by Basil King.
Light and Dust Anthology of Poetry