The title is, of course, the first line and a bit of John Donne's great poem, 'A Nocturnal Upon St Lucy's Day,' which traditionally was regarded as the shortest day of the year. The first and last stanzas mention Dante ("the hell-worn Guelph"). In the Divine Comedy St Lucy was asked by the Blessed Virgin to send Beatrice to instruct Virgil to guide Dante through Hell. Afterwards, St Lucy, who Dante dreams of as an eagle, carried the sleeping Dante to the gate of Purgatory to continue his journey to Paradise.
For "Larkin's hospital" see his late poem, 'The Building.' For Mr Pontifex's farewell to the sun see the third chapter of Samuel Butler's 'The Way of All Flesh.' For Fagin, in case you didn't know, see 'Oliver Twist.'
For "those unlifted gates" see Psalm 23 (Douay-Rheims); for Svengali see George du Maurier's 'Trilby' and for "Conrad's terse Professor" see his 'The Secret Agent.'
By tradition, St Lucy is often depicted carrying the weapon of her martyrdom, a sword or knife.
Note the end words of the first two lines are repeated at the ends of the last two lines of the first stanza and again at the beginning and end of the last stanza. This was serendipity as I wrote the poem but I like the effect.
Saint Lucy’s day, the shortest day,
A day of loss and sour decay,
The martyrdom of truth, Dantean echt;
Ageing, I sought insight and self-haled rest;
Instead, maggots enfleshed
Of love, of hate, gorged with regrets and pain,
Crawled through my heart; and stark dark to the west,
At east a sallow sheen, a chill of rain,
Announce morning of the eighth day,
Creation limping in decay.
The body’s pain, its weakness, tell
With the insistence of a bell,
And twist-knife horror felt for the first time,
That I shall die, in Larkin’s hospital,
Perhaps, its washed-rags grime,
Unblessed like Pontifex to hail the sun
“Goodbye,” and so to peaceful sleep eternal;
Rather, like Fagin, screeching as he spun
At rope’s end, his miserly soul
Wrenched through his mouth to pay his dole.
Sin-eater of self, strung with weights,
Gog-eyed at those unlifted gates,
Each deadly fault was mine in life and work:
Colleagues betrayed, Svengali to my loves,
Assassin with a smirk
Of any kicking hope which swells a womb;
A self-hug casuist in a pair of gloves,
Like Conrad’s terse Professor with his bomb,
Cold-shouldered, vain, I stalked the town,
Aloof and throwing frown at frown.
Now dog-faced dusk garrottes the day,
Ego collapses, lies decay;
Like Ulysses in frenzy at his mast
I searched futures toothed as the shrieking fife
And in brute sea-mist cast;
For all that shipwrecked banditry I’ve wept:
Lucy, truth’s eagle with your martyr’s knife,
Engraft in me a light, and you who swept
The hell-worn Guelph from death to day,
Sear my murk brain, purge its decay.
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©
December 2015
