I was killed seven times, but I still fought again

[sovay]

      To groves always men come both to their joys and their undoing. Come lightfoot in heart's ease and school-free; walk on a leafy holiday with kindred and kind; come perplexedly with first loves—to tread the tangle frustrated, striking—bruising the green.
      Come on night's fall for ambuscade.
Find harbour with a remnant.
Share with the proscribed their unleavened cake.
      Come for sweet princes by malignant interests deprived.
Wait, wait long for—
with the broken men, nest with badger and the marten-cat till such time as he come again, crying the waste for his chosen.
      Or come in gathering nuts and may;
or run want-wit in a shirt for the queen's unreason.
Beat boys-bush with Robin and Bobin.
      Come with Merlin in his madness, for the pity of it; for the young men reaped like green barley,
for the folly of it.
      Seek a way separate and more strait.
      Keep date with the genius of the place—come with a weapon or effectual branch—and here this winter copse might well be special to Diana's Jack, for none might attempt it, but by perilous bough-plucking.
—David Jones, In Parenthesis (1937)

Comments

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Oh lovely.

Thank you.

Nine

[sovay]

Thank you.

You're welcome. It seemed appropriate to the day.

[setsuled.livejournal.com]

That's a nice piece of writing.

[sovay]

That's a nice piece of writing.

I discovered him a few years ago; he's much less well known than T.S. Eliot and I wish that were not the case. In Parenthesis retells his own experiences of World War I through the sixth-century Welsh Y Gododdin and the results are amazing.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

My, that's lovely.

I googled David Jones after you posted this, and I think I'm going to have to hunt up In Parenthesis

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I've known for years that I need to read David Jones, but it has just moved far up the list.

[sovay]

I've known for years that I need to read David Jones, but it has just moved far up the list.

There is a recent edition still in print, but if you happen to be in the Boston area any time in the near future (or I manage to make it to D.C.), I will be pleased to lend you my copy. I am still looking for Wedding Poems and The Anathémata.