I
At night
The two gravediggers work
No time to waste.
Their fingers deftly mesh
The marsh bed reeds
That weave the great man’s shroud
Whose simple plea
They would avow:
To be buried in his Suffolk weeds.
Now beyond the violence of creation
The tortured soul is laid to rest
In the graveyard of St Peter’s Church:
The upper class gent
In his tie and vest
Liegeman to the English Queen
Companion to her mother
So carefully modulated his self
Beyond the sea worn lad.
What stark, clarifying disorder
He disclosed in his life
And lean music.
II
He hunted along the parallel lines
Of forgetting and forgiving
Loving with predatory intent.
Impaled on a monstrous talent
Precocious, precarious
Wilfully inspired
He never raged for glory
The tempers tantrums
Coursed on fear
Not Wagnerian amplitudes:
Just the ego in dispute
Wretched and alone
Wondering if the world might agree
That Schumann was the better composer.
Across the lighted town
The voice of Grimes
Is heard in fitful rage.
Surely the manhunt
Haunted his days
Rehearsing all that febrile fear
The pain of exile intact.
The plummy voice
Could not elide
The deep respect
That stark sense of time and place
That ‘native, rooted here’
Became his supple muse:
To be useful, and to the living.
III
The locals still volunteer
Their ushering tread
Within the Maltings hall
Still wear with pride
A sense of grand achievement:
“Mr Britten made Aldeburgh”
Even when struggling to gauge
His dark intent
His dazzling transformations.
One moment the light chameleon songbird
Chirruping within a foreign tongue
In breathless allure of forbidden pleasures.
Then deftly channelling
Old Rossini’s crazy danzas
With voice and xylophone.
And always
The irresistible clip of his native élan
The cool spring of ‘Diana huntress chase and fair”.
Like Purcell and “our Kaff”
He made each word count
Both in its surprise and piercéd emotion.
In the energy of the storm
As the North Sea dwells
He bested Wagner
Then wove the wisdom of crafty old Strauss
Into the soprano shards of lament
That anchor deep
The rigid scaffolding
The dark secretness
Of all impossible dreams.
IV
Do we know him for such conjuring?
Do we praise him for his pain and erudition
The inextinguishable beauty and sorrow
He could always map:
Both Chaste and conflicted?
Haunted by the chilling reminder
Of how all went well
Once, before the birth of consciousness
A truth
That by its very utterance
Stakes our human frailty
Into scarifying redemption.
Mr Britten gave us
a rare dispatch of missives
Enlivened, enriched
Rethought, retold
And never shaped himself
Above the communal
Even when they sounded flat:
He knew how quickly
People could respond to simple robust sounds
or how enjoined in song
A chorus of anger might crack its pain
And turn upon its own.
V
The gravediggers
Help prepare his rest.
In the churchyard
His truth is named:
Edward Benjamin
Carved simply on a granite block
As if the laconic integrity of his teacher
Frank Bridge
(Old Clarity of thought and resource)
Had smote his name
Belshazzar like
On the blackly tonsured grave.
Here in this prosperous town
His music
Still Inspires
Still speaks upon the achedness
Embedded in our hearts
Still raids our well being.
Across the muffled mere
The wind carries each note
On its supple ease
Lauding its lightness of touch
That his shared pain
Might surrender its forgiveness.
In loving weft
The shroud
Becalms his mortal fears
His fragile bones are laid to rest
In settled ease
Freed from the burdens of creation
As local hearts
This honour bed
Home at last
In the boy song trill
In the high string call
Safe amongst the whistling reeds.
Gar Jones - Aldeburgh July 2013.
At night
The two gravediggers work
No time to waste.
Their fingers deftly mesh
The marsh bed reeds
That weave the great man’s shroud
Whose simple plea
They would avow:
To be buried in his Suffolk weeds.
Now beyond the violence of creation
The tortured soul is laid to rest
In the graveyard of St Peter’s Church:
The upper class gent
In his tie and vest
Liegeman to the English Queen
Companion to her mother
So carefully modulated his self
Beyond the sea worn lad.
What stark, clarifying disorder
He disclosed in his life
And lean music.
II
He hunted along the parallel lines
Of forgetting and forgiving
Loving with predatory intent.
Impaled on a monstrous talent
Precocious, precarious
Wilfully inspired
He never raged for glory
The tempers tantrums
Coursed on fear
Not Wagnerian amplitudes:
Just the ego in dispute
Wretched and alone
Wondering if the world might agree
That Schumann was the better composer.
Across the lighted town
The voice of Grimes
Is heard in fitful rage.
Surely the manhunt
Haunted his days
Rehearsing all that febrile fear
The pain of exile intact.
The plummy voice
Could not elide
The deep respect
That stark sense of time and place
That ‘native, rooted here’
Became his supple muse:
To be useful, and to the living.
III
The locals still volunteer
Their ushering tread
Within the Maltings hall
Still wear with pride
A sense of grand achievement:
“Mr Britten made Aldeburgh”
Even when struggling to gauge
His dark intent
His dazzling transformations.
One moment the light chameleon songbird
Chirruping within a foreign tongue
In breathless allure of forbidden pleasures.
Then deftly channelling
Old Rossini’s crazy danzas
With voice and xylophone.
And always
The irresistible clip of his native élan
The cool spring of ‘Diana huntress chase and fair”.
Like Purcell and “our Kaff”
He made each word count
Both in its surprise and piercéd emotion.
In the energy of the storm
As the North Sea dwells
He bested Wagner
Then wove the wisdom of crafty old Strauss
Into the soprano shards of lament
That anchor deep
The rigid scaffolding
The dark secretness
Of all impossible dreams.
IV
Do we know him for such conjuring?
Do we praise him for his pain and erudition
The inextinguishable beauty and sorrow
He could always map:
Both Chaste and conflicted?
Haunted by the chilling reminder
Of how all went well
Once, before the birth of consciousness
A truth
That by its very utterance
Stakes our human frailty
Into scarifying redemption.
Mr Britten gave us
a rare dispatch of missives
Enlivened, enriched
Rethought, retold
And never shaped himself
Above the communal
Even when they sounded flat:
He knew how quickly
People could respond to simple robust sounds
or how enjoined in song
A chorus of anger might crack its pain
And turn upon its own.
V
The gravediggers
Help prepare his rest.
In the churchyard
His truth is named:
Edward Benjamin
Carved simply on a granite block
As if the laconic integrity of his teacher
Frank Bridge
(Old Clarity of thought and resource)
Had smote his name
Belshazzar like
On the blackly tonsured grave.
Here in this prosperous town
His music
Still Inspires
Still speaks upon the achedness
Embedded in our hearts
Still raids our well being.
Across the muffled mere
The wind carries each note
On its supple ease
Lauding its lightness of touch
That his shared pain
Might surrender its forgiveness.
In loving weft
The shroud
Becalms his mortal fears
His fragile bones are laid to rest
In settled ease
Freed from the burdens of creation
As local hearts
This honour bed
Home at last
In the boy song trill
In the high string call
Safe amongst the whistling reeds.
Gar Jones - Aldeburgh July 2013.