DOLPHIN Dorothy Auchterloniedorothy
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H Xrn The Ö O r* DOLPHIN "d X OROTHYAUCHTERLONIE Dorothy Auchterlonie Dorothy Auchterlonie, in ordinary life Mrs Dorothy Green, was born in Sunderland, England and educated partly in that country and partly in Australia, at the University of Sydney, where she distinguished herself in English and in Oriental History. For some years she was a reader and journalist and news editor with the News Service of the Australian Broad casting Commission. After her marri age to H. M. Green, she was for some time a housewife, and then in turn headmistress of a large girls’ school in Queensland, lecturer in English at Monash University, and senior lecturer at the Australian National University. Her special interests are in drama, poetry, and English prose. The present volume is her first since the publication of Kaleidoscope in 1940, but in the intervening years she has continued to contribute verse to journals such as Meanjin, Quadrant, Southerly, and London Letters. Her poetry is marked by its reflective in sight and its metaphysical passion on the one hand, and by its intense in volvement in contemporary life and political events on the other. Though her output is small she has made her mark as one of the outstanding poets of her time and country. A. D. H ope Jacket designed by Roderick Shaw $A2.50 This book was published by ANU Press between 1965–1991. This republication is part of the digitisation project being carried out by Scholarly Information Services/Library and ANU Press. This project aims to make past scholarly works published by The Australian National University available to a global audience under its open-access policy. THE DOLPHIN THE DOLPHIN Dorothy Auchterlonie AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY PRESS CANBERRA First published 1967 This book is copyright; reproduction in whole or part, without written permission of the publishers, is forbidden Text set in 11/12 point Linotype Georgian and printed on 85 gsm Burnie machine finished paper by the Printing Department of the Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Victoria 3053 Printed and manufactured in Australia Registered in Australia for transmission by post as a book Library of Congress catalog card no. 67-31147 National Library of Australia reg. no. AUS 67-1338 To J. and D. B. W., poets in their own way ‘Poeta agit de inferno isto, in quo, peregrinando ut viatores, mereri et demereri possumus.’ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Some of the poems have been published before, and I should like to express my gratitude to the following for granting permission to reprint: Age (Melbourne): ‘The Dolphin’ and ‘Present Tense’; Australian (Sydney): ‘The Lament of Brangäne’, ‘Drought’, ‘Even-song’, and ‘Meditation of a Mariner’; Bulletin (Sydney): ‘The Tree’, ‘Anser Barbara‘Resurrection’, and ‘After-dinner Speech’; Canberra Times: ‘A Consent to Mourn the Death of a Man . .’, ‘Service Numbers’, and ‘Questions for Kaspar’; Mean jin Quarterly (Melbourne): ‘The Second Tree’, ‘The Last Tree’, ‘Question for Thomas’, ‘Release’, ‘Morning and Evening’, ‘Chess by the Sea’, ‘Labour-saving’, ‘In Absentia’, ‘A Problem of Language’, ‘Night at the Opera’, ‘Questions for Kaspar’, and ‘The Second Coming’; Overland (Melbourne): ‘Apopemptic Hymn’; Quadrant (Sydney): ‘Rope Trick’ and ‘Spring Song’; Sydney Morning Herald: ‘Nativity’ and ‘Magpies at Night’. ‘The Knife’ was first published in Modern Australian Poetry, edited by H. M. Green (Melbourne University Press, 1946), and ‘Soldiers Abroad’ first appeared in Australia Week-end Book (Ure Smith, 1943). D. A. CONTENTS Acknowledgments vii The Dolphin i The Tree 3 The Second Tree 5 The Last Tree 8 Question for Thomas 10 Release 11 The Knife 12 Morning and Evening 13 Nativity 14 Rope Trick 15 Magpies at Night 16 Anser Barbara 17 Resurrection 18 First Night 19 Jour Perdu 20 The Lament of Brangäne 21 Apopemptic Hymn 22 Chess hy the Sea 23 Labour-saving 24 A Consent to mourn the death of a man, hy fire, in Sydney, 1965 27 Missa Brevis 28 ix D ro u g h t 2 9 Spring Song 30 In Absentia 3 1 Present Tense 3 2 Waiting for the Post 33 E q u a tio n 34 A Problem of Language 3 6 E ven-song 37 After-dinner Speech 39 Night at the Opera 4 1 Service Numbers 45 Questions for Kaspar 47 Wilhelmine and the Red Herring 49 The Second Coming 5 1 Soldiers Abroad 56 Meditation of a Mariner 57 D a n kgesang 58 Index of first lines 59 X THE DOLPHIN Swiftness, diligence and love: The gifts the dolphin brings In simple joy and innocence Are richer than a king’s. The foot is quick, the hand is deft Where love has room and right; The dolphin lives to serve a god Whose absence is the night. He who strikes the dolphin down Blasphemes the generous sun, The motion and the energy By which his will is done. The poet on the dolphin’s hack Sets his course with ease Through solitudes of sun and moon, On dark prodigious seas. Stay your hand before you cloud The dolphin’s candid eyes: When swiftness, diligence and love Are gone, the whole world dies. i THE TREE He watched them as they walked towards the tree, Through the green garden when the leaves stood still He saw his scarlet fruit hang tremulously: He whispered, ‘Eat it if you will.’ Knowing as yet they had no will but his, Were as his hand, his foot, his braided hair, His own face mocked him from his own abyss: He whispered, ‘Eat it if you dare!’ Without him they could neither will nor dare; Courage and will yet slumbered in the fruit, Desire forbore, they still were unaware That doubt was set to feed the root. God held his breath: If they should miss it now, Standing within the shadow of the tree . Always the I, never to know the Thou Imprisoned in my own eternity. ‘Death sits within the fruit, you’ll surely die!’ He scarcely formed the words upon a breath; ‘O liberating seed! Eat, then, and I For this release will die your every death. ‘Thus time shall be confounded till you come Full-circle to this garden where we stand, From the dark maze of knowledge, with the sum Of good and evil in your hand. ‘Then you will shed the journey you have made, See millenniums fall about your feet, Behold the light that flares within each blade Of grass, the visible paraclete.’ 3 The harsh Word stirred the leaves, the fruit glowed red, Adam’s foot struck against the root; He saw his naked doubt and raised his head: Eve stretched her hand and plucked the fruit. 4 THE SECOND TREE They watch him as he walks towards the Tree: Black, like an upraised finger on the hill, No scarlet fruit, no leaf’s green broidery, Disturb the fierce direction of its will. He bends beneath the weight of its one branch, Rough-hewed, misshapen, void of sap and breath, Life stirs within that living cannot staunch, The tree of being is a tree of death. With his own hands he stripped his tree of fruit, Turning its energy towards its source: No waste fecundity, only the harsh root Soars from the ground upon its upward course. He cleaves the thickened crust of time and space, Back from his endless journey into man; Resolves his own divisions, face to face With self once more, where selfhood first began. They watch him as his way draws to an end, Turn their resentful eyes upon his face, Drawn after him, against their wills, to rend Divinity from its sole dwelling-place. How can they know it if they do not kill? Or love unless they cast their love away? They raise desire upon a barren hill And then lift up love’s weapon, strike and slay! Take back your godhead from us! is their cry, Lest we should lose it now for evermore: Leave us our hard-won privilege, to die As you once died for Adam, long before. 5 Once you withdrew to give your creature room To move, where nothing moved but you alone; Withdraw once more within Time’s procreant womb, Die once again—your dying shall atone For this our life, forced on us by your will, The gift you gave us, here we give again; Be now our sad mortality, O still Accept our death of us, our human pain. From the harsh soil of our rejection you will spring, From the great rock we press upon your grave, Fairer than if we now had called you king, Take now the life only your death can save. He watched them, as he walked towards the Tree, Heavy with love, with pity and despair: All these I have created endlessly, To doubt and dread, to dream, exult and dare— Only to know me from a vast abyss, To apprehend me from the end of space, To touch me, blindfold, in a moment’s bliss, And to deny me if they see my face. These are the issue of my ancient tree, The fruit of doubt, of evil and of good; My God, why have you now forsaken me? Stretch forth your hand and rend the living wood! Doubt and division, these are your absolutes: Forsake these people if you wish them well; Nourish them with death’s astringent fruits, Without the barren certainties of hell. 6 He watched them as the nails were hammered in, He saw the sword and felt it probe his side, Each human sorrow, every separate sin Stabbed home with it in anguish, and he died. Descended into hell, where all is still, Far beyond hope, where all doubt is denied And no wind stirs to wake the sleeping will, No scent, no light, no echo from outside.