When one of them passed through the market place of Seleucia, toward the hour that night falls as a tall and perfectly handsome youth, with the joy of immortality in his eyes, with his scented black hair, the passers-by would stare at him and one would ask the other if he knew him, and if he were a Greek of Syria, or a stranger. But some, who watched with greater attention, would understand and stand aside; and as he vanished under the arcades, into the shadows and into the lights of the evening, heading toward the district that lives only at night, with orgies and debauchery, and every sort of drunkenness and lust, they would ponder which of Them he might be, and for what suspect enjoyment he had descended to the streets of Seleucia from the Venerable, Most Hallowed Halls.
As I listened from a beach-chair in the shade To all the noises that my garden made, It seemed to me only proper that words Should be withheld from vegetables and birds.
A robin with no Christian name ran through The Robin-Anthem which was all it knew, And rustling flowers for some third party waited To say which pairs, if any, should get mated.
Not one of them was capable of lying, There was not one which knew that it was dying Or could have with a rhythm or a rhyme Assumed responsibility for time.
Let them leave language to their lonely betters Who count some days and long for certain letters; We, too, make noises when we laugh or weep: Words are for those with promises to keep.
Graham Donald reads “Crossing the Bar” by Lord Tennyson
The ‘bar’ is a barrier at the entrance to a harbour – so to ‘cross the bar’ means to go out into the wide ocean – a metaphor for death. The ‘Pilot” is God
