Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 4. PORTLAND, by EDWARD CARPENTER Poet's Biography First Line: In the grey north-east of winter the great granite rock Last Line: Is the easier fate reserved! Subject(s): Portland (penisula), England | ||||||||
IN the grey North-East of winter the great granite rock, see, overhung with cloud! And from the top no portion of the mainland visibleonly a few war-ships below, and Chesil Bank, its far end rising into fog. But behind, on the high plateau of the rock, among the quarries, Where neither the sea nor the ships nor the mainland, but only the dreary piles of stone and drearier prison-walls, can at any time be descried, and the arméd sentinels There, behold! the convicts in gangs, ten or twelve to a gangand to each gang one or two warders, with muskets The sullen heavy-faced convicts, and (in that place) every day more sullen growinghauling at trollies, or quarrying or dressing the stone: Damned, Without interest in life. And so onward, through more warders, some with and some without muskets, And through huge stone gateways and bastions, and through heavy clamped doors, with endless turning of keys, Till at last amid all this absurd and lumbering display of brute force, as if for wild beastsbehind bars thick enough to confine an elephant Lo! a well-known face! A gentle unharmful face, making the whole apparatus look foolish and ashamed of itself The face of your friend whom you came to see So tender and hesitating, thoughtful, and lover of children: His face, also alas! grown monotone, And like a caged wild animal's indeed, With dull and quavering eyes, that fill with tears, And lips whose tremulous smile belies the words They speak so bravely. And so more clanging of doors and turning of keys, and this one left behind again, clamped down, And buried in stone and iron. Damned, Without interest in life: Neither to speak nor to hear, to speed nor to welcome, a word of fellowship, a single act of kindness; [Even a warder for tucking the scanty blanket round an ailing prisoner was fined;] Never to use nor exercise the sense of helpfulnessthe source of all human virtue Never to feed but only starve the soul; Is this the Doom? To hear no news from the outer world, save at unimaginable intervals a letter; To read no booksave some goody-goody inhuman rubbish recommended by the Chaplain; To nauseate, and yet to hunger ravenously for the same scant ever-same food; To sicken at and hate the same insults and loud imperatives of the jailer, unendingly continued, unendingly bornethe same idiotic vacancy of the cell The three-legged stool, the can, the barred little window; The same long hours of the night with pain at the heart, the sound of silly fingers every hour at the slide of the spyhole, and the flashing of the night-officer's lantern in one's face; The recurring effort of the irritated mind and starved body to compose themselves to sleep; In vain: the same same thoughts thought over and over and over and over again; The same little stock of memories and fancies brought with one into this whited sepulchregetting smaller and slighter dailynow like a wheel with ever rapider motion going round and round, Till the brain itself is reeling. [And now a Fear, perhaps for the safety of some loved one outside, leaps into the grinning circle and courses with it; and now another, perhaps for one's own fate in the years still in front; and nowworst of all phantomsthe Dread that one's mind is giving way: till, in fact, out of momentary sleep awaking to the same awful nightmare, a chill runs down the back, the body breaks in sweat, forms gibber and voices jabberand presently the doctor is called.] Mind starved and body starved, and heart, too, starved Is this the Doom of Man to his outcast fellow? Only for those whose minds and hearts are already stuntedfor the merely brutish by naturethe fate reserved is easier. For them, two thoughts alone dominateHunger, the ever-present craving for food, the counting and computing of meals in prospect, sufficiently degrading; And Sex, the everlasting curiosity and imagination (and act if possible); But no word, no possibility presented to them, of Manhood; no word, no possibility, of Love. And so for those who care not that such possibilities should be presented, Is the easier fate reserved! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AS A MOULD FOR SOME FAIR FORM by EDWARD CARPENTER THE STUPID OLD BODY by EDWARD CARPENTER TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: AFTER LONG AGES by EDWARD CARPENTER TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 1 by EDWARD CARPENTER TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 2. A MILITARY BAND by EDWARD CARPENTER TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 2. AMONG THE FERNS by EDWARD CARPENTER TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 2. AS A WOMAN OF A MAN by EDWARD CARPENTER TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 2. AS ONE WHO FROM A HIGH CLIFF by EDWARD CARPENTER TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 2. AS TO YOU O MOON by EDWARD CARPENTER TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 2. BY LAKE WACHUSETT by EDWARD CARPENTER TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 2. BY THE SHORE by EDWARD CARPENTER TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 2. BY THIS HEART by EDWARD CARPENTER |
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