A PARABLE FOR WRITERS
What should I fear? Have I not testimony
In her own hand, signed with her own name
That my love fell as lightning on her heart?
These questions, bird, are not rhetorical.
Watch how the straw twitches and leaps
As though the earth quaked at a distance.
Requited love; but better unrequited
If this chance instrument gives warning
Of cataclysmic anguish far away.
Were she at ease, warmed by the thought of me,
Would not my hand stay steady as this rock?
Have I undone her by my vehemence?
53
These poems are distinctly unlike any written by other poets in
£ngland or, for that matter, in the United States today; they are in–
dependent of any heritage except the peculiar Anglo-Irish tradition
of Graves's childhood and his choices of later readings both of which
are at great distance from the common reading lists of the majority
of contemporary poets. Like many a writer who has lived for a gen–
eration apart from the literary fashions of his time, the best of his
writing suffers critical neglect and a defensive attitude colors the
forewords to his recent books of poems; he protests too loudly that he
writes for his contemporaries, and wisely in a lower tone of voice
says that he shall make no attempt to anticipate the literary tastes of
posterity.3
3. Mention should be made of Robert Graves's recent translation of Apuleius:
The Golden Ass.
In this translation Graves succeeds completely in writing to
and for his contemporaries. How weI! and firmly he accomplishes his intention
may be shown by contrasting Walter Pater's version of Cupid and Psyche in
Marius the Epicurean
and Robert Graves's version of the same story; both
have their origin in
The Golden Ass.
The following brief quotations, the first
from Pater, the second from Graves, illustrate the contrast:
"Apollo sang to the lyre, while a little Pan prattled on his reeds, and Venus
danced very sweetly to the soft music. Thus with due rites, did Psyche pass
into the power of Cupid; and from them was born the daughter whom men call
Voluptas."
"Finally Apollo sang to his own lyre and the music was so sweet that Venus
came forward and performed a lively step-dance
in
time to it. Psyche was
(Footnote continued
on
following page.)
