LATEST RELEASE

MIXED BUSINESS
A sequence of inter-connected narratives from pre–World War One to the 2020s, Mixed Business is Alan Wearne’s latest contribution to the verse novel genre. With a cast of over one hundred characters, this book is a risky, imaginative, large-scale history of 20th and 21st Century urban Australia.

POEM OF THE MONTH:

Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College

by THOMAS GRAY

Ye distant spires, ye antique tow’rs,
         That crown the wat’ry glade,
Where grateful Science still adores
         Her Henry’s holy Shade;
And ye, that from the stately brow
Of Windsor’s heights th’ expanse below
         Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,
Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowr’s among
Wanders the hoary Thames along
         His silver-winding way.

Ah, happy hills, ah, pleasing shade,
         Ah, fields belov’d in vain,
Where once my careless childhood stray’d,
         A stranger yet to pain!
I feel the gales, that from ye blow,
A momentary bliss bestow,
         As waving fresh their gladsome wing,
My weary soul they seem to soothe,
And, redolent of joy and youth,
         To breathe a second spring.

Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen
         Full many a sprightly race
Disporting on thy margent green
         The paths of pleasure trace,
Who foremost now delight to cleave
With pliant arm thy glassy wave?
         The captive linnet which enthrall?
What idle progeny succeed
To chase the rolling circle’s speed,
         Or urge the flying ball?

While some on earnest business bent
         Their murm’ring labours ply
‘Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint
         To sweeten liberty:
Some bold adventurers disdain
The limits of their little reign,
         And unknown regions dare descry:
Still as they run they look behind,
They hear a voice in ev’ry wind,
         And snatch a fearful joy.

Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,
         Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
         The sunshine of the breast:
Theirs buxom health of rosy hue,
Wild wit, invention ever-new,
         And lively cheer of vigour born;
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,
         That fly th’ approach of morn.

Alas, regardless of their doom,
         The little victims play!
No sense have they of ills to come,
         Nor care beyond to-day:
Yet see how all around ’em wait
The ministers of human fate,
         And black Misfortune’s baleful train!
Ah, show them where in ambush stand
To seize their prey the murth’rous band!
         Ah, tell them they are men!

These shall the fury Passions tear,
         The vultures of the mind
Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,
         And Shame that skulks behind;
Or pining Love shall waste their youth,
Or Jealousy with rankling tooth,
         That inly gnaws the secret heart,
And Envy wan, and faded Care,
Grim-visag’d comfortless Despair,
         And Sorrow’s piercing dart.

Ambition this shall tempt to rise,
         Then whirl the wretch from high,
To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,
         And grinning Infamy.
The stings of Falsehood those shall try,
And hard Unkindness’ alter’d eye,
         That mocks the tear it forc’d to flow;
And keen Remorse with blood defil’d,
And moody Madness laughing wild
         Amid severest woe.

Lo, in the vale of years beneath
         A griesly troop are seen,
The painful family of Death,
         More hideous than their Queen:
This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
That ev’ry labouring sinew strains,
         Those in the deeper vitals rage:
Lo, Poverty, to fill the band,
That numbs the soul with icy hand,
         And slow-consuming Age.

To each his suff’rings: all are men,
         Condemn’d alike to groan,
The tender for another’s pain;
         Th’ unfeeling for his own.
Yet ah! why should they know their fate?
Since sorrow never comes too late,
         And happiness too swiftly flies.
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
       ‘Tis folly to be wise.

The following is a slight adaptation of ‘Spirit and Action’, my contribution to Homage to John Forbes edited by Ken Bolton.

In the early 90s our friend Robert Langsford, although dying of Aids, still held plenty of parties with him usually propped on a couch in his ‘Beulah, peel me a grape’ mode, pumped full of what was keeping him alive and sane, whilst his Prahran home bopped along to plenty of reggae. Poetry too had its place at these events, and I recall Forbes reciting Hopkins’ ‘The Windhover’ by heart, whilst later Robert read us from an anthology the following by Thomas Grey:

Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes

’Twas on a lofty vase’s side,
Where China’s gayest art had dyed
The azure flowers that blow;
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima, reclined,
Gazed on the lake below.

Her conscious tail her joy declared;
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,
Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,
She saw; and purred applause.

Still had she gazed; but ’midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide,
The genii of the stream;
Their scaly armour’s Tyrian hue
Through richest purple to the view
Betrayed a golden gleam.

The hapless nymph with wonder saw;
A whisker first and then a claw,
With many an ardent wish,
She stretched in vain to reach the prize.
What female heart can gold despise?
What cat’s averse to fish?

Presumptuous maid! with looks intent
Again she stretch’d, again she bent,
Nor knew the gulf between.
(Malignant Fate sat by, and smiled)
The slippery verge her feet beguiled,
She tumbled headlong in.

Eight times emerging from the flood
She mewed to every watery god,
Some speedy aid to send.
No dolphin came, no Nereid stirred;
Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard;
A Favourite has no friend!

From hence, ye beauties, undeceived,
Know, one false step is ne’er retrieved,
And be with caution bold.
Not all that tempts your wandering eyes
And heedless hearts, is lawful prize;
Nor all that glisters, gold.

Forbes knew this could be topped in the way Frank O’Hara’s ‘In Memory of My Feelings’ tops his ‘Lana Turner has collapsed!’ or indeed how the Forbes ‘Speed a pastoral’ can top his ‘At the Pool’. As a kind of Paradise Lost in miniature (as I’ve read somewhere) ‘Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College’ made John extremely excited as the poet in 100 lines watches schoolboys at play and muses on the fate that awaits them. The tension slowly accrues and then, after Grey has finally shown how ghastly life will be after loss of innocence, the work concludes:

To each his suff’rings: all are men,
         Condemn’d alike to groan,
The tender for another’s pain;
         Th’ unfeeling for his own.
Yet ah! why should they know their fate?
Since sorrow never comes too late,
         And happiness too swiftly flies.
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
       ‘Tis folly to be wise.

“Christ!” cried John. “It’s enough to make you go out and hang yourself!”