What collection
on a tram going… anywhere.
There’s always beauty to absorb
And forgive me this
But I don’t rely on the soft
Murmurings of children,
Their whispering delights,
The sheer ecstasy in their laughter:
Its peel, its shrill,
Its peak, its crescendo.
I mean not this!
What collection,
Collective beauty
Striking in their multitude,
Amazing to behold.
And I do not mean
The Christmas lights,
The street stalls,
Vendors and all;
I do not imply
That the passers-by,
Each with his tale;
That’s not for me.
The cars full,
Or just one,
Going some other places.
The workmen starting, finishing,
The orange light flashing
as it darts by,
and I by it do fly.
I do not mean this either.
For this is not my beauty now.
Above, beyond the streetside buildings
The glowing castle on the hill,
It stands above its dominion grand,
A pleasure to behold.
The literature around its streets
The tourists amassing
In Its wake;
The history,
The lineage deep – but
This is not here what I mean.
The river gently rolling by
between two banks
both day and night.
It is not blue, not anymore,
for darkness and the
time have fallen.
Yet secretly
in sleepers’ dreams
it moves
between two cities
still; a waltzing,
gliding majesty:
but this still is
not the one beauty.
High Culture, low,
theatre or pub
where voices eloquent erupt
and wisdom
often hid in slur
still not the beauty to
which I refer.
All beauty, every single thing
transformed by smiles
and my thinking –
Finally it diminishes with this,
My basic urge, my flailing thrust.
I am a man quite positive
and sitting on this tram tonight
I think of all
That art has found
but my fond lust
is still around.