Wilbur's Precept and Richard Howard

 My most recent charity bookshop purchase was a slim volume of essays by Clive James titled Latest Readings. 'Essays' is pushing it, actually: most of these pieces are little more than jottings occasioned by James's most recent reading and rereading in the long period of relapse before his  death. As he says, 'If you don't know the exact moment when the lights will go out, you might as well read until they do.' One of the more substantial pieces is 'Richard Wilbur's Precept', the precept being that 'in poetry, all the revolutions are palace revolutions'. Wilbur's essay, 'Poetry's Debt to Poetry' strikes James as 'the ideal lesson, for beginning students, in how to think about the way the poetic heritage is handed down through the generations'. Poetry, in other words, is born of poetry, and the way to become a poet is to read poetry – the poetry of the past, needless to say. This is a lesson anyone aspiring to write poetry should learn and inwardly digest – as too few, alas, do. 
  James moves on to consider his enduring pockets of ignorance, even after a lifetime of reading and writing poetry. Surprisingly, he had never come across Edgar Bowers, but a less surprising name perhaps is Richard Howard, a poet I had never heard of till I read this essay. His Wikipedia entry will give you the facts – including that he 'read French letters [fnar fnar] at the Sorbonne'. As James notes, 'brevity is not in his gift, or anyway not among his interests', but Howard's poems in which he imagines letters and monologues of historical figures from the 19th century seem richly rewarding.  Here is 'Venetian Interior, 1889', which James describes as 'a sumptuous piece of work, a boutique with the range of a supermarket'. Written very much in the manner of Robert Browning, it tells us all we need to know about what happened to that poet's son, Pen...

Stand to one side. No, over here with me:   

out of the light but out of darkness too,   

where everything that is not odd or old

is gold and subjugates the shadows. There,   

now you will be no trouble and behold none—

anything but trouble, at first glance,

last chance to see what I say is worth a look.

This whole palazzo is the property

of a middle-aged and penniless dilettante,

Pen Browning (Robert’s son), who has made terms   

—palatial terms, in fact—with towering

premises afforded by the tact

of his New York heiress, Fannie Coddington   

Browning, dutiful daughter-in-law, doubtful wife.

Yet who would not be full of doubts, perplexed   

at having to define Pen’s talents and finance

his tastes? Their Ca’ Rezzonico itself

is dubious. The ripened fruit of centuries,

rat- and roach-infested, peeling, rank,

withers with each tide that rots the piles,

though apt withal to weather these tenants as well ...

He is painting from the model: Dryope,

undressed of course but draped against the draft   

in a looping swathe of silver-printed stuff   

that seems to move, glistening over flesh—

it does move! lapped in its silver mesh are coils   

of a python wrapped in loving torpor round   

the contadina’s undistracted torso.

The afternoon is numb: Dryope sleeps   

in her pose, the python slips a little

down the umber slope of her thigh, and Pen,   

spired, slaps a dashing curlicue

across his canvas. “I had the Jew come by   

with this brocaded velvet yesterday—

I bargained some old clothes against it, Fan,

so you needn’t ask how much it cost in dollars.”

To whom does Pen speak, his eyes intent, his hands   

“working busily”? Beyond his “subject,” look   

past the unimposing Dryope, look through

the tufts of pampas grass extending up

to the tufa vault whose patination casts

a pall of watery splendor on the scene—

if you manage to overlook the sumptuous junk,   

jasper urns, a suit of Japanese armor,

two stuffed bears, on the divan bearskins too—   

there, or in this atmosphere let me say lo!

on that very divan Robert Browning lolls,

a short and foreshortened colossus with feet of clay   

but the hardest imaginable cranium, among

his son’s possessions slightly ill at ease

though well bestowed on slippery pelts, and plays

(against the wealthy Fannie—see her white shawl?)

at draughts with agate pieces, red and green,

like a page from some old parchment of kings and queens.   

In approbation of his son’s economies   

the old man smiles now—but does she? The skull

interfering with our view of Fannie is,

I believe, or was the Mahdi’s which Pen keeps   

beside his easel (Victorians could make   

anything into a tobacco jar). “I took

my pipe through Cannareggio on a long tramp   

yesterday morning, right into the Ghetto,   

looking for likely faces, which I found!

Didn’t you say, Father, a satisfactory Jew

is worth a dozen Gentiles? The one who sold   

that velvet to me is sure to be ready by Spring:   

for Lear, you know, or Lazarus at least ...”   

Pen chatters on to charm the python, not   

Dryope or Fannie who look up

only when the poet, roused, exclaims—

as rapt before himself as a child in front   

of the Christmas tree: “A satisfactory Jew!   

Setting mere Rothschildsplay aside, Pen,   

I never saw but one in all my life:

Dizzy, I mean—the potent wizard himself,   

at Hampton Court a dozen years ago,   

murmuring at the Queen’s ear like a wasp

who hoped to buzz his way into the diamonds ...   

With that olive cast and those glowing-coal-black eyes   

and the mighty dome of his forehead (to be sure,   

no Christian temple), as unlike a living man

as any waxwork at Madame Tussaud’s:

he had a face more mocking than a domino—

I would as soon have thought of sitting down

to tea with Hamlet or Ahasuerus ...”

As if on cue, the poet’s high voice fades,

the lights on his tree go out. Yet we have seen   

enough and heard enough: the secret of losing   

listeners—did Browning never learn?—

is to tell them everything. We lose details.   

The Mahdi’s skull and Fannie’s coincide ...

The scene blurs and the sounds become no more   

than exaggerated silence. Stand with me

another moment till our presence is

sacrificed to transitions altogether.

Time will not console—at best it orders

into a kind of seasonable chaos.

Let me tell you, it will not take much

longer than a medical prescription—

give you ingredients, no cure ...   

Visitors to the palazzo used to speak

of the dangerous ménage—the menagerie!   

yet the Costa Rican python that cost Pen

(or Fannie) sixteen pounds was the first to go,   

untempted by the rats of Rezzonico;

Dryope followed Dryope underground,   

the girl carried off by a chill and buried   

at San Michele, the great daub interred   

in the cellars of the Metropolitan ...

“Dear dead women, with such hair, too,”   

we quote, and notice that hair is the first

of ourselves to decay before—last after—death.

In a year Robert Browning too was dead, immortal;   

in another, Fannie dropped her shawl and took   

the veil and vows of an Episcopalian nun;

and Pen? Oh, Pen went on painting, of course—

buono di cuore, in yellow chamois gloves,

obese, oblivious, dithering into debt

and an easy death. The sale of what we saw

or saw through in Venice realized, as they say,   

some thirty thousand pounds at Sotheby’s.   

I told you: first glance is last chance.

Darkness slides over the waters—oil sludge   

spreading under, till even Venice dies,

immortally immerded. Earth has no other way,   

our provisional earth, than to become

invisible in us and rise again.

Rezzonico ... Disraeli ... We realize our task.   

It is to print earth so deep in memory

that a meaning reaches the surface. Nothing but   

darkness abides, darkness demanding not   

illumination—not from the likes of us—

but only that we yield. And we yield.

   And here is John Ruskin writing a letter home...

1851: A Message to Denmark Hill

The writer is John Ruskin, on his wedding journey in Venice.

My dearest father, it is the year’s First Day,

      Yet so like the Last, in Venice, no one

            Could tell this birth from the lees.

                  I know it is some while

Since you received a word of mine: there has been   

      The shabbiest sort of interruption   

            To our exchanges (to mine

                  At least) in the shape

Of a fever—nights of those imaginings,   

      Strange but shameful too, of the Infinite   

            By way of bedcovers and

                  Boa constrictors,

With cold wedges of ice, as I thought, laid down   

      At the corners of the bed, making me   

            Slip to its coiling center

                  Where I could not breathe.   

You knew from my last, I think, I had again

      Gone to the Zoological Gardens

            And seen the great boa take

                  Rabbits, which gave me   

An idea or two, and a headache. Then

      I had too much wine that same night, & dreamed

            Of a walk with Nurse, to whom

                  I showed a lovely

Snake I promised her was an innocent one:

      It had a slender neck with a green ring

            Round it, and I made her feel

                  The scales. When she bade

Me feel them too, it turned to a fat thing, like   

      A leech, and adhered to my hand, so that   

            I could scarcely pull it off—

                  And I awakened

(So much, father, for my serpentine fancies)   

      To a vermillion dawn, fever fallen,

            And the sea horizon dark,

                  Sharp and blue, and far

Beyond it, faint with trebled distance, came on   

      The red vertical cliffs in a tremor

            Of light I could not see without   

                  Recalling Turner

Who had taught me so to see it, yet the whole   

      Subdued to one soft gray. And that morning   

            I had your letter, father,

                  Telling of the death

Of my earthly master. How much more I feel   

      This now (perhaps it is worth noting here   

            The appearance of my first

                  Gray hair, this morning)

—More than I thought I should: everything

      In the sun, in the sky so speaks of him,

            So mourns their Great Witness lost.

                  Today, the weather

Is wretched, cold and rainy, dark like England   

      At this season. I do begin to lose

            All faith in these provinces.

                  Even the people

Look to me ugly, except children from eight   

      To fourteen, who here as in Italy

            Anywhere are glorious:

                  So playful and bright

In expression, so beautiful in feature,

      So dark in eye and soft in hair—creatures   

            Quite unrivalled. At fifteen

                  They degenerate

Into malignant vagabonds, or sensual

      Lumps of lounging fat. And this latter-day

            Venice, father! where by night

                  The black gondolas

Are just traceable beside one, as if Cadmus

      Had sown the wrong teeth and grown dragons, not

            Men. The Grand Canal, this month,

                  Is all hung, from end

To end, with carpets and tapestries like a street

      Of old-clothes warehouses. And now there is

            Even talk of taking down,

                  Soon, Tintoretto’s   

Paradise to “restore” it. Father, without

      The Turner Gallery, I do believe

            I should go today and live

                  In a cave on some

Cliffside—among crows. Oh what fools they are, this

      Restoring pack, yet smoothing all manner

            Of rottenness up with words.   

                  My Turner would not

Phrase like these, and only once in all the years

      I knew him said, “Thank you, Mr. Ruskin.”

            My own power, if it be that,   

                  Would be lost by mere

Fine Writing. You know I promised no Romance—

      I promised them Stones. Not even bread.

            Father, I do not feel any

                  Romance in Venice!   

Here is no “abiding city,” here is but

      A heap of ruins trodden underfoot

            By such men as Ezekiel

                  Angrily describes,

Here are lonely and stagnant canals, bordered

      For the most part by blank walls of gardens

            (Now waste ground) or by patches

                  Of mud, with decayed   

Black gondolas lying keel-upmost, sinking

      Gradually into the putrid soil.

            To give Turner’s joy of this

                  Place would not take ten

Days of study, father, or of residence:

      It is more than joy that must be the great   

            Fact I would teach. I am not sure,   

                  Even, that joy is

A fact. I am certain only of the strong   

      Instinct in me (I cannot reason this)   

            To draw, delimit the things

                  I love—oh not for

Reputation or the good of others or

      My own advantage, but a sort of need,

            Like that for water and food.

                  I should like to draw

All Saint Mark’s, stone by stone, and all this city,   

      Oppressive and choked with slime as it is   

            (Effie of course declares, each

                  Day, that we must leave:

A woman cannot help having no heart, but   

      That is hardly a reason she should have   

            No manners), yes, to eat it

                  All into my mind—

Touch by touch. I have been reading Paradise

      Regained lately, father. It seems to me   

            A parallel to Turner’s

                  Last pictures—the mind

Failing altogether, yet with intervals

      And such returns of power! “Thereupon   

            Satan, bowing low his gray   

                  Dissimulation,

Disappeared.” Now he is gone, my dark angel,

      And I never had such a conception

            Of the way I must mourn—not

                  What I lose, now, but

What I have lost, until now. Yet there is more   

      Pain knowing that I must forget it all,   

            That in a year I shall have

                  No more awareness

Of his loss than of that fair landscape I saw,   

      Waking, the morning your letter arrived,

            No more left about me than

                  A fading pigment.

All the present glory, like the present pain,

      Is no use to me; it hurts me rather

            From my fear of leaving it,

                  Of losing it, yet

I know that were I to stay here, it would soon

      Cease being glory to me—that it has

            Ceased, already, to produce

                  The impression and

The delight. I can bear only the first days   

      At a place, when all the dread of losing   

            Is lost in the delirium

                  Of its possession.

I daresay love is very well when it does not   

      Mean leaving behind, as it does always,

            Somehow, with me. I have not

                  The heart for more now,

Father, though I thank you and Mother for all   

      The comfort of your words. They bring me,

            With his loss, to what I said

                  Once, the lines on this

Place you will know: “The shore lies naked under   

      The night, pathless, comfortless and infirm

            In dark languor, still except

                  Where salt runlets plash

Into tideless pools, or seabirds flit from their   

      Margins with a questioning cry.” The light

            Is gone from the waters with

                  My fallen angel,

Gone now as all must go. Your loving son,

                                                 JOHN

(And here –  nothing to do with Howard's poem – is John Ruskin again, in a letter to Charles Eliot Norton, revealing an unexpected taste for... penguins! 
'When I begin to think at all I get into states of disgust and fury at the way the mob is going on (meaning by mob, chiefly Dukes, crown princes, and such like persons) that I choke; and have to go to the British Museum and look at Penguins till I get cool. I find Penguins at present the only comfort in life. One feels everything in the world so sympathetically ridiculous; one can’t be angry when one looks at a Penguin.'
If only the London zoo had had living penguins and a penguin pool in Ruskin's day, the great sage might have been spared a deal of mental anguish.)
   Another, even longer Richard Howard poem, 'Wildflowers', imagines Walt Whitman receiving a visit from Oscar Wilde. It's very long, but a great read.