Most Read... Rebecca WattsThe Cult of the Noble Amateur
(PN Review 239)
John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Eavan BolandA Lyric Voice at Bay
(PN Review 121)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Vahni CapildeoOn Judging Prizes, & Reading More than Six Really Good Books
(PN Review 237)
Tim Parksin conversation with Natalia Ginzburg
(PN Review 49)
Next Issue Hal Coase 'Ochre Pitch' Gregory Woods 'On Queerness' Kirsty Gunn 'On Risk! Carl Phillips' Galina Rymbu 'What I Haven't Written' translated by Sasha Dugdale Gabriel Josipovici 'No More Stories' Valerie Duff-Strautmann 'Anne Carson's Wrong Norma'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
PN Review 276
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 81, Volume 18 Number 1, September - October 1991.

Three Poems C.H. Sisson

THE MENDIPS

The stream that runs
Under the earth and is the stream of death
Is also that of life: without
Its sombre unheard flow
What pulse would beat here or what ghost
Re-visit? Where
The sparkling shapes come tumbling from the mouth
Of that dark cave into the light of day
The living are, and see
The splash and laughter of their ecstasy:
No sound. Imagination only made
That single figure dancing in the shade,
Naked as air, and it is she who slides
Into the mind and eats the heart away.
Turn back the spring
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image