Elizabeth Bishop The Moose, English Studies, English Literature, Books and Poems
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Elizabeth Bishop “The Moose”
for Grace Bulmer Bowers
From narrow provinces
of fish and bread and tea,
home of the long tides
where the bay leaves the sea
twice a day and takes
5
where if the river
enters or retreats
in a wall of brown foam
depends on if it meets
10
and others, veins the flats’
lavender, rich mud
in bumming rivulets;
15
past clapboard farmhouses
and neat, clapboard churches,
bleached, ridged as clamshells,
past twin silver birches,
20
through late afternoon
25
a bus journeys west,
the windshield flashing pink,
pink glancing off of metal,
brushing the dented flank
of blue, beat-up enamel;
30
down hollows, up rises,
and waits, patient, while
a lone traveller gives
kisses and embraces
to seven relatives
35
Goodbye to the elms,
to the farm, to the dog.
The bus starts. The light
grows richer; the fog,
40
1
the herrings long rides,
the bay coming in
the bay not at home;
where, silted red,
sometimes the sun sets
facing a red sea,
on red, gravelly roads,
down rows of sugar maples,
and a collie supervises.
shifting, salty, thin,
comes closing in.
Its cold, round crystals
form and slide and settle
in the white hens’ feathers,
45
on the whitewashed fences;
bumblebees creep
inside the foxgloves,
and evening commences.
50
One stop at Bass River.
55
Then the Economies –
Lower, Middle, Upper;
Five Islands, Five Houses,
where a woman shakes a tablecloth
out after supper.
60
A pale flickering. Gone.
The Tantramar marshes
and the smell of salt hay,
An iron bridge trembles
and a loose plank rattles
65
On the left, a red light
swims through the dark:
a ship's port lantern.
Two rubber boots show,
70
“A grand night. Yes, sir,
all the way to Boston.”
She regards us amicably.
75
hairy, scratchy, splintery;
moonlight and mist
caught in them like lamb's wool
on bushes in a pasture.
80
Snores. Some long sighs.
A dreamy divagation
85
2
in gray glazed cabbages,
on the cabbage roses
and lupins like apostles;
the sweet peas cling
to their wet white string
but doesn't give way.
illuminated, solemn.
A dog gives one bark.
A woman climbs in
with two market bags,
brisk, freckled, elderly.
Moonlight as we enter
the New Brunswick woods,
The passengers lie back.
begins in the night,
a gentle, auditory,
slow hallucination. . . .
90
In the creakings and noises,
an old conversation,
– not concerning us,
but recognizable, somewhere,
back in the bus:
95
uninterruptedly
talking, in Eternity:
names being mentioned,
things cleared up finally;
100
deaths, deaths and sicknesses;
the year he remarried;
the year (something) happened.
105
When Amos began to pray
even in the store and
finally the family had
to put him away.
110
“Yes . . .” that peculiar
115
affirmative. “Yes . . .”
A sharp, indrawn breath,
half groan, half acceptance,
that means “Life's like that.
We know
it
(also death).”
120
Talking the way they talked
in the old featherbed,
peacefully, on and on,
dim lamplight in the hall,
down in the kitchen, the dog
125
Now, it's all right now
even to fall asleep
just as on all those nights.
– Suddenly the bus driver
130
3
Grandparents' voices
what he said, what she said,
who got pensioned;
She died in childbirth.
That was the son lost
when the schooner foundered.
He took to drink. Yes.
She went to the bad.
tucked in her shawl.
stops with a jolt,
turns off his lights.
A moose has come out of
the impenetrable wood
and stands there, looms, rather,
135
homely as a house
(or, safe as houses).
A man’s voice assures us
“Perfectly harmless . . . .”
140
Some of the passengers
145
exclaim in whispers,
childishly, softly,
“Sure are big creatures.”
“It's awful plain.”
“Look! It's a she!”
150
Taking her time,
she looks the bus over,
grand, otherworldly.
Why, why do we feel
(we all feel) this sweet
155
“Curious creatures,”
says our quiet driver,
rolling his
r
’s.
“Look at that, would you.”
160
by craning backward,
the moose can be seen
on the moonlit macadam.
165
1976
4
in the middle of the road.
It approaches; it sniffs at
the bus’s hot hood.
Towering, antlerless,
high as a church,
sensation of joy?
Then he shifts gears.
For a moment longer,
then there’s a dim
smell of moose, an acrid
smell of gasoline.
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Elizabeth Bishop “The Moose”
for Grace Bulmer Bowers
From narrow provinces
of fish and bread and tea,
home of the long tides
where the bay leaves the sea
twice a day and takes
5
where if the river
enters or retreats
in a wall of brown foam
depends on if it meets
10
and others, veins the flats’
lavender, rich mud
in bumming rivulets;
15
past clapboard farmhouses
and neat, clapboard churches,
bleached, ridged as clamshells,
past twin silver birches,
20
through late afternoon
25
a bus journeys west,
the windshield flashing pink,
pink glancing off of metal,
brushing the dented flank
of blue, beat-up enamel;
30
down hollows, up rises,
and waits, patient, while
a lone traveller gives
kisses and embraces
to seven relatives
35
Goodbye to the elms,
to the farm, to the dog.
The bus starts. The light
grows richer; the fog,
40
1
the herrings long rides,
the bay coming in
the bay not at home;
where, silted red,
sometimes the sun sets
facing a red sea,
on red, gravelly roads,
down rows of sugar maples,
and a collie supervises.
shifting, salty, thin,
comes closing in.
Its cold, round crystals
form and slide and settle
in the white hens’ feathers,
45
on the whitewashed fences;
bumblebees creep
inside the foxgloves,
and evening commences.
50
One stop at Bass River.
55
Then the Economies –
Lower, Middle, Upper;
Five Islands, Five Houses,
where a woman shakes a tablecloth
out after supper.
60
A pale flickering. Gone.
The Tantramar marshes
and the smell of salt hay,
An iron bridge trembles
and a loose plank rattles
65
On the left, a red light
swims through the dark:
a ship's port lantern.
Two rubber boots show,
70
“A grand night. Yes, sir,
all the way to Boston.”
She regards us amicably.
75
hairy, scratchy, splintery;
moonlight and mist
caught in them like lamb's wool
on bushes in a pasture.
80
Snores. Some long sighs.
A dreamy divagation
85
2
in gray glazed cabbages,
on the cabbage roses
and lupins like apostles;
the sweet peas cling
to their wet white string
but doesn't give way.
illuminated, solemn.
A dog gives one bark.
A woman climbs in
with two market bags,
brisk, freckled, elderly.
Moonlight as we enter
the New Brunswick woods,
The passengers lie back.
begins in the night,
a gentle, auditory,
slow hallucination. . . .
90
In the creakings and noises,
an old conversation,
– not concerning us,
but recognizable, somewhere,
back in the bus:
95
uninterruptedly
talking, in Eternity:
names being mentioned,
things cleared up finally;
100
deaths, deaths and sicknesses;
the year he remarried;
the year (something) happened.
105
When Amos began to pray
even in the store and
finally the family had
to put him away.
110
“Yes . . .” that peculiar
115
affirmative. “Yes . . .”
A sharp, indrawn breath,
half groan, half acceptance,
that means “Life's like that.
We know
it
(also death).”
120
Talking the way they talked
in the old featherbed,
peacefully, on and on,
dim lamplight in the hall,
down in the kitchen, the dog
125
Now, it's all right now
even to fall asleep
just as on all those nights.
– Suddenly the bus driver
130
3
Grandparents' voices
what he said, what she said,
who got pensioned;
She died in childbirth.
That was the son lost
when the schooner foundered.
He took to drink. Yes.
She went to the bad.
tucked in her shawl.
stops with a jolt,
turns off his lights.
A moose has come out of
the impenetrable wood
and stands there, looms, rather,
135
homely as a house
(or, safe as houses).
A man’s voice assures us
“Perfectly harmless . . . .”
140
Some of the passengers
145
exclaim in whispers,
childishly, softly,
“Sure are big creatures.”
“It's awful plain.”
“Look! It's a she!”
150
Taking her time,
she looks the bus over,
grand, otherworldly.
Why, why do we feel
(we all feel) this sweet
155
“Curious creatures,”
says our quiet driver,
rolling his
r
’s.
“Look at that, would you.”
160
by craning backward,
the moose can be seen
on the moonlit macadam.
165
1976
4
in the middle of the road.
It approaches; it sniffs at
the bus’s hot hood.
Towering, antlerless,
high as a church,
sensation of joy?
Then he shifts gears.
For a moment longer,
then there’s a dim
smell of moose, an acrid
smell of gasoline.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]