An Arundel Tomb Flashcards
(16 cards)
First Four Verses?
Side by side, their faces blurred,
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
pre-baroque
And that faint hint of the absurd-
And that faint hint of the absurd—
The little dogs under their feet.
Such plainness of the pre-baroque
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left-hand gauntlet, still
It meets his left-hand gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with a sharp tender shock,
His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.
detail friends
They would not think to lie so long.
They would not think to lie so long.
Such faithfulness in effigy
Was just a detail friends would see:
A sculptor’s sweet commissioned grace
Thrown off in helping…
Thrown off in helping to prolong
The Latin names around the base.
They would not guess…
They would not guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
tenantry
The air would…
The air would change to soundless damage,
Turn the old tenantry away;
How soon succeeding…
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they
Persisted, linked…
Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer…
Each summer thronged the glass. A bright
Litter of birdcalls strewed the same
Bone-riddled…
Bone-riddled ground. And up the paths
The endless altered people came,
Washing at their…
Washing at their identity.
Now, helpless in the hollow of
An unarmorial…
An unarmorial age, a trough
Of smoke in slow suspended skeins
Above their scrap…
Above their scrap of history,
Only an attitude remains:
Time has…
Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone fidelity
Final Four Verses?
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.
