Hrdia

French was his mother's voice, sweet, close and warm,
Muffling the Spanish of their vast estate -
Their backwater baroquely out of date,
Time's flotsam from a long-forgotten storm.
Latin and Greek sustained him through the swarm
Of present truths his heart could not translate:
Paris would distance them: there the debate
Would poise contingency against pure form.

Paris returns the febrile compliment
And her Academician seeks the sea;
Sated with Rome and with the orient
He walks the barren cliffs of Brittany -
Gazing across the formless waves to where
The huge sun sinks beyond Cape Finistere.

 

© Dick Davis