Vivian de Sola Pinto

I mentioned in a recent post the book of poems by Vivian de Sola Pinto some kind benefactor sent me. It came at a busy time so it has taken me a while to peruse the book and write this post. Some of these poems I enjoyed as a boy, and I still like them. You have to understand that this is extraordinary because, generally, poetry doesn't light my fire. I am rather illiterate in this respect.

There is a common theme in many of the poems - the juxtaposition of the mundane of humanity versus the glory of nature - to the point where it becomes somewhat predictable. But that is OK: this theme is worthy of repetition: for example, so often Spring, and the daffodils it brings, passes me by almost unnoticed, meanwhile I slave away in my office trying to earn money.

I like these poems because they resonate with emotions I feel. Emotions that I have sometimes thought no one else in the world shares, and which as a result I have sometimes tried to tamp down. Now, if I were a poet, and if I didn't have to earn my bread, I could...

Another recurrent theme is his love for his two boys Vivian and Oliver, and for this I respect him. Here are two of his poems taken from his book This is my England and other poems:

FOR OLIVER, AGED SIX 

Now you are like a squirrel 

  or a shy woodland bird : 

your brown eyes full of surprise 

  as though you'd never heard 

a human voice before 

  or seen a human face, 

so delicate-swift your motions 

  strange your wayward grace. 

You come from a country 

  where skies are brighter than ours : 

fierce blue summer laughs at you 

  burn yellow and scarlet flowers : 

louder shouts the wind there 

  clearer sing the birds : 

the country undimmed by grey talk, 

  the land of no words. 

We came from that country, 

  long ago we came. 

Scarcely we now can see 

  an image of its flame 

of colours, remember its fountain 

  of clear shining sound, 

here where the air is empty, 

  bare and cold the ground. 

You must bring them back,

  magic, colour, song, 

touch the bare black branches there 

  make leaves and blossoms throng 

a sky flooded with new glory, 

  bid the dead world live again, 

tell sun to shine and wind to shout 

  bring lightning, swords of rain. 

Beat down our silly houses, 

  silence our vain chatter : 

you are wise, and do not need our lies, 

  our learning's but a tatter 

of an old splendid banner 

  that moulder'd long ago : 

scorn painted rags and flaunting flags, 

  you've flowers, fire and snow. 

THE PHOENIX 

TO MY SON STANDING IN AN OPEN DOORWAY 

The phoenix shall be born 

out of a blazing nest :

 leaping flames are his outspread pinions, 

soft fire burns in his breast. 

The door stands open and I see 

a world ablaze : 

the lintel glows, but it is from the skies 

that the soft fire of heavenly love 

comes to amaze my eyes. 

Pink peachblossom laughs victorious and the grass 

is pure emerald flame, 

but glory is in those dazzling clouds, 

where angels in triumphant crowds 

praise an ineffable name. 

But there is burning here a stronger fire 

than bright grass, flower or shining cloud, 

a flame more clear, a strength more proud, a power 

of untamed spirit in the boy's grey eyes, 

white brow, wild gleaming hair : 

This is the heart of flame, 

where there is neither shame nor lies nor fear : 

the true burning world of which our drear

pale cinder's a mockery, a dull unmeaning game. 

Out of the flames, dear phoenix rise, 

let your proud wings be spread : 

that fire shall fail, those flames grow pale, 

but in far skies a fire burns clear, 

  that is your home not here, 

  not here among the dead. 

Vivian's father, who was of Portuguese-Jewish ancestry, was a cigar importer, and my research suggests that his sons may have taken up the same profession. Vivian himself was an academic at Oxford and later a professor of English at Nottingham university. During the first World War he fought alongside fellow poet Siegfried Sassoon who, naturally, I had never heard of - but here is a fitting sample of Siegfried's poetry which I like because it sums up the horror of that war so economically :

Suicide in the Trenches

I knew a simple soldier boy

Who grinned at life in empty joy,

Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,

And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,

With crumps and lice and lack of rum,

He put a bullet through his brain.

No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye

Who cheer when soldier lads march by,

Sneak home and pray you'll never know

The hell where youth and laughter go.