A New Dawn, A New Day
The poem brings to mind an extremely large room I once rented on the first floor of an unconverted, unmodernised 19th-century terrace. My room was heated by a gas fire too feeble to warm the far side of the room. It was the most unusual place, and probably wouldn't exist outside London. The ceiling height can't have been much less than 18 feet, and I had to climb a ladder to get into bed. It had beautiful, dusty, cornicing and an elaborate centre rose. The length of the light fitting's cord was far too long and it had to be looped and coiled around the ceiling in a series of Heath-Robinsonesque fixtures, so as not to trail on the ground. There were a couple of pieces of heavy, substantial-looking polished wood furniture - one of which was a dresser, where two porcelian roses stood in a slender vase. They were there when I arrived and I often admired them. In a more modern room or building they would have been out of place, or kitsch. But they were perfect there, where someone else had left them. I couldn't imagine a better place for them. The windows rattled in their frames in this room, too, but the most striking thing was the London Underground which ran directly beneath the building. I was initially baffled to feel the tremblings of the northern line every couple of minutes. At midnight! I'd had no idea it ran so frequently, so late. Of course, the vibrations were from both north- and southbound trains. A metropolitan ambience permeated this room, in one way and another. In addition to the tube rattling the foundations, a pair of pigeons were nesting in one of the window boxes. It was a plastic, terracota-effect window box, about waist height as you stood inside the room. It wasn't Spring yet, and a pair of pigeons were making valiant attempts to hatch their young. They would fly away to a lamppost across the road whenever I approached that end of the room, then back again. I couldn't stand seeing them for more than a couple of weeks, though, after which time I had to ask the landlord to remove the windowbox which contained nothing but earth and a solitary white pigeon egg.
Here's the poem, which now always makes me think about that curious, richly atmospheric room (in spite of the fact I was there alone during my short tenancy).
From Trilogy for X
And love hung still as crystal over the bed
And filled the corners of the enormous room;
The boom of dawn that left her sleeping, showing
The flowers mirrored in the mahogany table.
O my love, if only I were able
To protract this hour of quiet after passion,
Not ration happiness but keep this door for ever
Closed on the world, its own world closed within it.
But dawn's waves trouble with the bubbling minute,
The names of books come clear upon their shelves,
The reason delves for duty and you will wake
With a start and go on living on your own.
The first train passes and the windows groan,
Voices will hector and your voice become
A drum in tune with theirs, which all last night
Like sap that fingered through a hungry tree
Asserted our one night's identity.
The poem brings to mind an extremely large room I once rented on the first floor of an unconverted, unmodernised 19th-century terrace. My room was heated by a gas fire too feeble to warm the far side of the room. It was the most unusual place, and probably wouldn't exist outside London. The ceiling height can't have been much less than 18 feet, and I had to climb a ladder to get into bed. It had beautiful, dusty, cornicing and an elaborate centre rose. The length of the light fitting's cord was far too long and it had to be looped and coiled around the ceiling in a series of Heath-Robinsonesque fixtures, so as not to trail on the ground. There were a couple of pieces of heavy, substantial-looking polished wood furniture - one of which was a dresser, where two porcelian roses stood in a slender vase. They were there when I arrived and I often admired them. In a more modern room or building they would have been out of place, or kitsch. But they were perfect there, where someone else had left them. I couldn't imagine a better place for them. The windows rattled in their frames in this room, too, but the most striking thing was the London Underground which ran directly beneath the building. I was initially baffled to feel the tremblings of the northern line every couple of minutes. At midnight! I'd had no idea it ran so frequently, so late. Of course, the vibrations were from both north- and southbound trains. A metropolitan ambience permeated this room, in one way and another. In addition to the tube rattling the foundations, a pair of pigeons were nesting in one of the window boxes. It was a plastic, terracota-effect window box, about waist height as you stood inside the room. It wasn't Spring yet, and a pair of pigeons were making valiant attempts to hatch their young. They would fly away to a lamppost across the road whenever I approached that end of the room, then back again. I couldn't stand seeing them for more than a couple of weeks, though, after which time I had to ask the landlord to remove the windowbox which contained nothing but earth and a solitary white pigeon egg.
Here's the poem, which now always makes me think about that curious, richly atmospheric room (in spite of the fact I was there alone during my short tenancy).
From Trilogy for X
And love hung still as crystal over the bed
And filled the corners of the enormous room;
The boom of dawn that left her sleeping, showing
The flowers mirrored in the mahogany table.
O my love, if only I were able
To protract this hour of quiet after passion,
Not ration happiness but keep this door for ever
Closed on the world, its own world closed within it.
But dawn's waves trouble with the bubbling minute,
The names of books come clear upon their shelves,
The reason delves for duty and you will wake
With a start and go on living on your own.
The first train passes and the windows groan,
Voices will hector and your voice become
A drum in tune with theirs, which all last night
Like sap that fingered through a hungry tree
Asserted our one night's identity.
