C Day Lewis's poem ‘The Hawk Comes Down From The Air’ (1936) starts as Ted Hughesy avant la lettre:
The hawk comes down from the air.The cowers/Below enjambment is a bit clumsy; and the third stanza has the feel of marking time that makes it seem more anticlimactic than it needs to after such a sweeping opening. But then the poem takes a turn for the twee:
Sharpening his eye upon
A wheeling horizon
Turning scrutiny to prayer.
He guessed the prey that cowers
Below, and learnt to keep
The distance which can strip
Earth to its black contours.
Then trod the air, content
With contemplation till
The truth of valley and hill
Should be self-evident.
Or as the little lark ...I'll stop there, for a moment, to observe that I don't think there's a poet in the English tradition with the skill to prevent ‘or as the little lark’ coming off as soppy. Anyway.
Or as the little larkThat ending, retrogressing from Hughes to Newman or indeed Newbolt, feels unearned. A shame, because it starts pretty well.
Who veins the sky with song,
Asking from dawn to dark
No revenues of spring:
But with the night descends
Into his chosen tree,
And the famed singer ends
In anonymity.
So from a summer's height
I come into my peace;
The wings have earned their night
And the song may cease.
So: I took this poem, fed it into Google translate on an English-Dutch setting, then took the result and fed it back through the Dutch-English filter. What emerged is below. I prefer it to the original, I think.
The hawk comes down from the sky.I'd say it needs a little extra tinkering to take out the residual rhymes, which are now just distracting now. But otherwise: better!
Grinding his eye
Wheeling a horizon
Test run prayer.
He recommended that to the cowering prey
Below, and learned to keep
The distances that strip
The earth for its black contours.
Then enter the air, the contents
With contemplation of
The truth of the valley and hill
Must of course be
Or the Lark
Whose veins the sky singing,
Questions from dawn to sunset
No income of spring:
But with the night falls
In his chosen tree,
And the famous singer ends
In anonymity.
So from a summer height
I come into my peace;
The wings have earned their night
And the song may be present.
Adam Two Hawks > John Twelve Hawks.
ReplyDeleteIn an interesting bit of synchronicity, I was sat in a pub in Greenwich on Wednesday night, and directly across the road from the window I was sat in I observed a blue plaque declaring the former Day Lewis residence. Clearly you are a harbinger, though of what exactly, I dare not even guess.
Adam "Two Sheds" ...
Deletelol
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of the idea behind McSweeny's Quarterly #42, which was a giant game of literary telephone: https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/mcsweeneys-issue-42
ReplyDelete(different Paul, by the way)
So! Many! Pauls!
DeleteGood link, though: thanks!
DeleteI do like the idea of a test run prayer.
ReplyDelete