"Snow is what melts. I distrust / the cycles of water. / The sun has withdrawn itself"

Monday is, among other things, a Poetry Monday day. And in this case, it’s a back to MacSpauday day.


Thalassa, Louis MacNeice

Run out the boat, my broken comrades;
Let the old seaweed crack, the surge
Burgeon oblivious of the last
Embarkation of feckless men,
Let every adverse force converge --
Here we must needs embark again.

Run up the sail, my heartsick comrades;
Let each horizon tilt and lurch --
You know the worst: your wills are fickle,
Your values blurred, your hearts impure
And your past life a ruined church --
But let your poison be your cure.

Put out to sea, ignoble comrades,
Whose record shall be noble yet;
Butting through scarps of moving marble
The narwhal dares us to be free;
By a high star our course is set,
Our end is Life. Put out to sea.


This undated poem was found in MacNeice’s papers after his death in 1963, but by the style and theme it's certainly post-WWII, probably written in the last years of his life. The title means “the sea” in ancient Greek.

---L.

Subject quote from “The Snow,” Donald Hall.