MAKING OF A POEM
299
he wants to avoid stating, or even being too concerned with. His job
is to recreate his vision, and let it speak its moral for itself. The poet
must distinguish clearly in his own mind between that which most
definitely must be said and that which must not be said. The unsaid
inner meaning is revealed in the music and the tonality of the poem,
and the poet is conscious of it in his knowledge that a certain tone of
voice, a certain rhythm, are necessary.
In the next twenty versions of the poem I felt my way towards
the clarification of the seen picture, the music and the inner feeling.
In the first version quoted above, there is the phrase in the second
and third lines
The waves
Like wires burn with the sun's copper glow.
This phrase fuses the image of the sea with the idea of music, and
it is therefore a key-phrase, because the theme of the poem is the
fusion of the land with the sea. Here, then are several versions of
these one and a quarter lines, in the order in which they were writ–
ten:-
b)
c)
d)
e)
f)
g)
The waves are wires
Burning as with the. secret song of fires
The day burns in th,ei trembling wires
With a vast music golden in the eyes
The day glows on its trembling wires
Singing a golden music in the eyes
The day glows on it's burning wires
Like waves of music golden to the eyes.
Afternoon burns upon its wires
Lines of music dazzling the eyes
Afternoon gilds its tingling wires
To a visual silent music of the eyes
In the final version, these two lines appear as m the following
stanza:-
h)
There are some days the happy ocean lies
Like an unfingered harp, below the land.
