I

Excuse, my lord, the liberty I take

    In thus addressing you. I know that you

Will pay the price of authorship and make

    The allowances an author has to do.

    A poet’s fan-mail will be nothing new.

And then a lord—Good Lord, you must be peppered,

Like Gary Cooper, Coughlin, or Dick Sheppard,

With notes from perfect strangers starting, ‘Sir,

    I liked your lyrics, but Childe Harold’s trash,’

‘My daughter writes, should I encourage her?’

    Sometimes containing frank demands for cash,

    Sometimes sly hints at a platonic pash,

And sometimes, though I think this rather crude,

The correspondent’s photo in the nude.

 And as for manuscripts—by every post. . . 

    I can’t improve on Pope’s shrill indignation,

But hope that it will please his spiteful ghost

    To learn the use in culture’s propagation

    Of modern methods of communication;

New roads, new rails, new contacts, as we know

From documentaries by the G.P.O.

So if ostensibly I write to you

    To chat about your poetry or mine,

There’s many other reasons: though it’s true

    That I have, at the age of twenty-nine

    Just read Don Juan and I found it fine.

I read it on the boat to Reykjavik

Except when eating or asleep or sick.

The thought of writing carne to me today

    (I like to give these facts of time and space);

The bus was in the desert on its way

    From Mothrudalur to some other place:

    The tears were streaming down my burning face;

I’d caught a heavy cold in Akureyri,

And lunch was late and life looked very dreary.

But still a proper explanation’s lacking;

    Why write to you? I see I must begin

Right at the start when I was at my packing.

    The extra pair of sucks, the airtight tin

    Of China tea, the anti-fly were in;

I asked myself what sort of books I’d read

In Iceland, if I ever felt the need.

In certain quarters I had heard a rumour

    (For all I know the rumour’s only silly)

That Icelanders have little sense of humour.

    I knew the country was extremely hilly,

    The climate unreliable and chilly;

So looking round for something light and easy

I pounced on you as warm and civilisé.

Then she's a novelist. I don't know whether

    You will agree, but novel writing is

A higher art than poetry altogether

    In my opinion, and success implies

    Both finer character and faculties

Perhaps that's why real novels are as rare

As winter thunder or a polar bear.

I must remember, though, that you were dead

    Before the four great Russians lived, who brought

The art of novel writing to a head;

    The help of Boots had not been sought.

    But now the art for which Jane Austen fought,

Under the right persuasion bravely warms

And is the most prodigious of the forms.

You could not shock her more than she shocks me;

    Beside her Joyce seems innocent as grass.

It makes me most uncomfortable to see

    An English spinster of the middle-class

    Describe the amorous effects of 'brass',

Reveal so frankly and with such sobriety

The economic basis of society.

Every exciting letter has enclosures,

    And so shall this—a bunch of photographs,

Some out of focus, some with wrong exposures,

    Press cuttings, gossip, maps, statistics, graphs;

    I don’t intend to do the thing by halves.

I’m going to be very up to date indeed.

It is a collage that you’re going to read.

Ottava Rima would, I know, be proper,

    The proper instrument on which to pay

My compliments, but I should come a cropper;

    Rhyme-royal’s difficult enough to play.

    But if no classics as in Chaucer’s day,

At least my modern pieces shall be cheery

Like English bishops on the Quantum Theory.

‘The fascination of what’s difficult’,

    The wish to do what one’s nor done before.

Is, I hope, proper to Quincunque Vult,

    The proper card to show at Heaven’s door.

    Gerettet nor Gerichtet be the Law,

Et cetera, et cetera. O curse,

That is the flattest one in English verse.

A publisher’s an author’s greatest friend,

    A generous uncle, or he ought to be.

(I’m sure we hope it pays him in the end.)

    I love my publishers and they love me,

    At least they paid a very handsome fee

To send me here. I’ve never heard a grouse

Either from Russell Square um Random House,

I know I’ve not the least chance of survival

    Beside the major travellers of the day.

I am no Lawrence who, on his arrival,

    Sat down and typed out all he had to say;

    I am not even Ernest Hemingway.

I shall not run to a two-bob edition,

So just won’t enter for the competition.

The Haig Thomases are at Myvatn now,

    At Hvitarvatn and at Vatnajökull

Cambridge research goes on, I don’t know how:

    The shades of Asquith and of Auden Skökull

    Turn in their coffins a three-quarter circle

To see their son, upon whose help they reckoned,

Being as frivolous as Charles the Second.

For since the British Isles went Protestant

    A church confession is too high for most.

But still confession is a human want,

    So Englishmen must make theirs now by post

    And authors hear them over breakfast toast.

For, failing them, there’s nothing but the wall

Of public lavatories on which to scrawl.

Now home is miles away, and miles away

    No matter who, and I am quite alone

And cannot understand what people say,

    But like a dog must guess it by the tone;

    At any language other than my own

I’m no great shakes, and here I’ve found no tutor

Nor sleeping lexicon to make me cuter.

Professor Housman was I think the first

    To say in print how very stimulating

The little ills by which mankind is cursed,

    The colds, the aches, the pains are to creating;

    Indeed one hardly goes too far in stating

That many a flawless lyric may be due

Not to a lover’s broken heart, but ‘flu.

I can’t read Jefferies on the Wiltshire Downs,

    Nor browse on limericks in a smoking-room;

Who would try Trollope in cathedral towns,

    Or Marie Stopes inside his mother’s womb?

    Perhaps you feel the same beyond the tomb.

Do the celestial highbrows only care

For works on Clydeside, Fascists, or Mayfair?

There is one other author in my pack

    For some time I debated which to write to.

Which would least likely send my letter back?

    But I decided I'd give a fright to

    Jane Austen if I wrote when I'd no right to,

And share in her contempt the dreadful fates

Of Crawford, Musgrove, and of Mr. Yates.

The average poet by comparison

    Is unobservant, immature, and lazy.

You must admit, when all is said and done,

    His sense of other people’s very hazy,

    His moral judgements are too often crazy,

A slick and easy generalization

Appeal too well to his imagination.

She was not an unshockable blue-stocking;

    If shades remain the characters they were,

No doubt she still considers you as shocking.

    But tell Jane Austen, that is if you dare,

    How much her novels are beloved down here.

She wrote them for posterity, she said;

'Twas rash, but by posterity she's read.

So it is you who is to get this letter.

    The experiment may nor be a success.

There’re many others who could do it better,

    But I shall not enjoy myself the less.

    Shaw of the Air Force said that happiness

Comes in absorption: he was right, I know it;

Even in scribbling to a long—dead poet.

I want a form that’s large enough to swim in,

    And talk on any subject that I choose,

From natural scenery to men and women,

    Myself, the arts, the European news:

    And since she’s on a holiday, my Muse

Is out to please, find everything delightful

And only now and then be mildly spiteful.

Light verse, poor girl, is under a sad weather;

    Except by Milne and persons of that kind

She’s treated as démodé altogether.

    It’s strange and very unjust to my mind

    Her brief appearances should be confined,

Apart from Belloc’s Cautionary Tales,

To the more bourgeois periodicals.

Parnassus after all is not a mountain,

    Reserved for A.I. climbers such as you;

It’s got a park, it’s got a public fountain.

    The most I ask is leave to shame a pew

    With Bradford or with Cottam, that will do:

To pasture my few silly sheep with Dyer

And picnic on the lower slopes with Prior,

But now I’ve got uncomfortable suspicions,

    I’m going to put their patience out of joint.

Though it’s in keeping with the best traditions

    For Travel Books to wander from the point

    (There is no other rhyme except anoint),

They well may charge me with - I’ve no defences—

Obtaining money under false pretences.

And even here the steps I flounder in .

    Were worn by most distinguished boots of old.

Dasent and Morris and Lord Dufferin,

    Hooker and men of that heroic mould

    Welcome me icily into the fold;

I’m not like Peter Fleming an Etonian,

But, if I’m Judas, I’m an old Oxonian.

So this, my opening chapter, has to stop

    With humbly begging everybody’s pardon.

From Faber first in case the book’s a flop,

    Then from the critics lest they should be hard on

    The author when he leads them up the garden,

Last from the general public he must beg

Permission now and then to pull their leg.

II

I’m writing this in pencil on my knee,

    Using my other hand to stop me yawning,

Upon a primitive, unsheltered quay

    In the small hours of a Wednesday morning.

    I cannot add the summer day is dawning;

In Seydhisfjördur every schoolboy knows

That daylight in the summer never goes.

To get to sleep in latitudes called upper

    Is difficult at first for Englishmen.

It’s like being sent to bed before your supper

    For playing darts with father’s fountain-pen,

    Or like returning after orgies, when

Your breath’s like luggage and you realize

You’ve been more confidential than was wise.

I’ve done my duty, taken many notes

    Upon the almost total lack of greenery,

The roads, the illegitimates, the goats:

    To use a rhyme of yours, there’s handsome scenery

    Bur little agricultural machinery;

And with the help of Sunlight Soap the Geysir

Affords to visitors le plus grand plaisir.

I’ll clear my throat and take a Rover’s breath

    And skip a century of hope and sin—

For far too much has happened since your death.

    Crying went out and the cold bath came in,

    With drains, bananas, bicycles, and tin,

And Europe saw from Ireland to Albania

The Gothic revival and the Railway Mania.

Well, you might think so if you went to Surrey

    And stayed for week-ends with the well-to--do,

Your car too fast, too personal your worry

    To look too closely at the wheeling view.

    But in the north it simply isn’t true.

To those who live in Warrington or Wigan,

It’s not a white lie, it’s a whacking big ‘un.

On economic, health, um moral grounds

    It hasn’t got the least excuse to show;

No more than chamber pots or otter hounds;

    But let me say before it has to go,

    It’s the must lovely country that I know;

Clearer than Seafell Pike, my heart has stamped on

The view from Birmingham to Wolverhampton.

Hail to the New World! Hail to those who’ll love

    Its antiseptic objects, feel at home.

Lovers will gaze at an electric stove,

    Another poésie de départ come

    Centred round bus-stops or the aerodrome.

But give me still, to stir imagination

The chiaroscuro of the railway station,

But you want facts, not sighs. I’ll do my best

    To give a few; you can’t expect them all.

To start with, on the whole we’re better dressed;

    For chic the difference to-day is small

    Of barmaid from my lady at the Hall.

It’s sad no spoil this democratic vision

With millions suffering from malnutrition.

We’ve always had a penchant for field sports,

    But what do you think has grown up in our towns?

A passion for the open air and shorts;

    The sun is one of our emotive nouns.

    Go down by chara’ to the Sussex Downs,

Watch the manoeuvres of the week-end hikers

Massed on parade with Kodaks or with Leicas.

You lived and moved among the best society

    And so could introduce your hero to it

Without the slightest tremor of anxiety;

    Because he was your hero and you knew it,

    He’d know instinctively what’s done, and do it.

He’d find our day more difficult than yours

For industry has mixed the social drawers.

The porter at the Carlton is my brother,

    He’ll wish me a good evening if I pay,

For tips and men are equal to each other.

    I’m sure that Vogue would be the first to say

    Que le Beau Monde is socialist today;

And many a bandit, nor so gently born

Kills vermin every winter with the Quorn.

Don Juan was a mixer and no doubt

    Would find this century as good as any

For getting hostesses to ask him out,

    And mistresses that need not cost a penny.

    Indeed our ways to waste time are so many,

Thanks to technology, a list of these

Would make a longer book than Ulysses.

I see his face in every magazine.

    ‘Don Juan at lunch with one of Cochran’s ladies.’

‘Don Juan with his red setter May MacQueen.’

    ‘Don Juan, who’s just been wintering in Cadiz,

    Caught at the wheel of his maroon Mercedes.’

‘Don Juan at Croydon Aerodrome.’ ‘Don Juan

Snapped in the paddock with the Aga Khan.’

The vogue for Black Mass and the cult of devils

    Has sunk. The Good, the Beautiful, the True

Still fluctuate about the lower levels.

    Joyces are firm and there there’s nothing new.

    Eliots have hardened just a point or two.

Hopkins are brisk, thanks to some recent boosts.

There’s been some further weakening in Prousts.

Now for the spirit of the people. Here

    I know I’m treading on more dangerous ground:

I know there’re many changes in the air,

    But know my data too slight to be sound,

    I know, too, I’m inviting the renowned

Retort of all who love the Status Quo:

‘you can’t change human nature, don’t you know!’

But he’s another man in many ways:

    Ask the cartoonist first, for he knows best.

Where is the John Bull of the good old days,

    The swaggering bully with the clumsy jest?

    His meaty neck has long been laid to rest,

His acres of self-confidence for sale;

He passed away at Ypres and Passchendaele.

Begot on Hire Purchase by Insurance,

     Forms at his christening worshipped and adored;

A season ticket schooled him in endurance,

    A tax collector and a waterboard

    Admonished him. In boyhood he was awed

By a matric, and complex apparatuses

Keep his heart conscious of Divine Afflatuses.

‘I am the ogre’s private secretary;

    I’ve felt his stature and his powers, learned

To give his ogreship the raspberry

    Only when his gigantic back is turned.

    One day, who knows, I’ll do as I have yearned.

The short man, all his fingers on the door,

The North, though, never was your cup of tea;

    ‘Moral’ you thought it so you kept away.

And what I’m sure you’re wanting now from me

    Is news about the England of the day,

    What sort of things La Jeunesse do and say.

Is Brighton still as proud of her pavilion,

And is it safe for girls to travel pillion?

We’re entering now the Eotechnic Phase

    Thanks to the Grid and all these new alloys;

That is, at least, what Lewis Mumford says.

    A world of Aertex underwear for boys,

    Huge plate-glass windows, walls absorbing noise,

Where the smoke nuisance is utterly abated

And all the furniture is chromium-plated.

There on the old historic battlefield,

    The cold ferocity of human wills,

The scars of struggle are as yet unhealed;

    Slattern the tenements on sombre hills,

    And gaunt in valleys the square-windowed mills

That, since the Georgian house, in my conjecture

Remain our finest native architecture.

Long, long ago, when I was only four,

    Going towards my grandmother, the line

Passed through a coal-field. From the corridor

    I watched it pass with envy, thought ‘How fine!

    Oh how I wish that situation mine.’

Tramlines and slagheaps, pieces of machinery,

That was, and still is, my ideal scenery.

Preserve me from the Shape of Things to Be;

    The high-grade posters at the public meeting,

The influence of Art on Industry,

    The cinemas with perfect taste in seating;

    Preserve me, above all, from central heating.

It may be D. H. Lawrence hocus-pocus,

But I prefer a room that’s got a focus.

Again, our age is highly educated;

    There is no lie our children cannot read,

And as MacDonald might so well have stated

    We’re growing up and up and up indeed.

    Advertisements can teach us all we need;

And death is better, as the millions know,

Than dandruff, night-starvation, or B.O.

Those movements signify our age-long role

    Of insularity has lost its powers;

The cult of salads and the swimming pool

    Comes from a climate sunnier than ours,

    And lands which never heard of licensed hours,

The south of England before very long

Will look no different from the Continong.

We’ve grown, you see, a lot more democratic,

    And Fortune’s ladder is for all to climb;

Carnegie on this point was must emphatic.

    A humble grandfather is not a crime,

    At least, if father made enough in time!

Today, thank God, we’ve got no snobbish feeling

Against the more efficient modes of stealing.

Adventurers, though, must take things as they find them

    And look for pickings where the pickings are.

The drives of love and hunger are behind them,

    They can’t afford to be particular:

    And these who like good cooking and a car,

A certain kind of costume or of face,

Must seek them in a certain kind of place.

Yes, in the smart set he would know his way

    By second nature with no tips from me.

Tennis and Golf have come in since your day;

    But those who are as good at games as he

    Acquire the back-hand quite instinctively,

Take to the steel.-shaft and hole out in one,

Master the books of Ely Culbertson.

But if in highbrow circles he would sally

    It’s just as well to warn him there’s no stain on

Picasso, all-in-wrestling, or the Ballet.

    Sibelius is the man. To get a pain on

    Listening to Elgar is a sine qua non.

A second-hand acquaintance of Pareto’s

Ranks higher than an intimate of Plato’s.

I’m saying this to tell you who’s the rage,

    And not to loose a sneer from my interior.

Because there’s snobbery in every age,

    Because some names are loved by the superior,

    It does nor follow they’re the least inferior:

For all I know the Beatific Vision’s

On view at all Surrealist Exhibitions.

We’ve still, it’s true, the same shape and appearance,

    We haven’t changed the way that kissing’s done;

The average man still hates all interference,

    Is just as proud still of his new-born sun:

    Still, like a hen, he likes his private run,

Scratches for self-esteem, and slyly pocks

A good deal in the neighbourhood of sex.

Tom to the work of Disney or of Strube;

    There stands our hero in um threadbare seams;

The bowler hat who strap-hangs in the tube,

    And kicks the tyrant only in his dreams,

    Trading on pathos, dreading all extremes;

The little Mickey with the hidden grudge;

Which is the better, I leave you to judge.

‘I am like you,’ he says, ‘and you, and you,

    I love my life, I love the home.-fires, have

To keep them burning. Heroes never do.

    Heroes are sent by ogres to the grave.

    I may net be courageous, but I save.

I am the one who somehow turns the corner,

I may perhaps be fortunate Jack Horner.

One day, which day? O any other day,

    But not today. The ogre knows his man.

To kill the ogre that would take away

    The fear in which his happy dreams began,

    And with his life he’ll guard dreams while he can.

Those who would really kill his dream’s contentment

He hates with real implacable resentment.

Byron, thou should’st be living at this hour!

    What would you do, I wonder, if you were?

Britannia’s lost prestige and cash and power,

    Her middle classes show some wear and tear,

    We’ve learned to bomb each other from the air;

I can’t imagine what the Duke of Wellington

Would say about the music of Duke Ellington.

‘Lord Byron at the head of his storm—troopers!’

    Nothing, says science, is impossible:

The Pope may quit to join the Oxford Groupers,

    Nuffield may leave one farthing in his Will,

    There may be someone who trusts Baldwin still,

Someone may think that Empire wines are nice,

There may be people who hear Tauber twice,

You never were an Isolationist;

    Injustice you had always hatred for,

And we can hardly blame you, if you missed

    Injustice just outside your lordship’s door:

    Nearer than Greece were cotton and the poor.

Today you might have seen them, might indeed

Have walked in the United Front with Gide,

Milton beheld him on the English throne,

    And Bunyan sitting in the Papal chair;

The hermits fought him in their caves alone,

    At the first Empire he was also there,

    Dangling his Pax Romana in the air:

He comes in dreams at puberty to man,

To scare him back to childhood if he can.

He that in Athens murdered Socrates,

    And Plato then seduced, prepares to make

A desolation and to call it peace

    Today for dying magnates, for the sake

    Of generals who can scarcely keep awake,

And for that doughy mass in great and small

That doesn’t want to stir itself at all.