This poem is taken from PN Review 50, Volume 12 Number 6, July - August 1986.

Poems

Charles Tomlinson
 
FROM PORLOCK

Winding on up by the public way
 The roar of descending water in his ears
From the torrent that runs counter to his climb,
 This person does not pause to investigate
The sheen, the shimmer at the edge
 Of visibility, or the sway and glint
Off the new mintings of metallic sea
 Down back below him. His eye
Is elsewhere than the spindly trees
 Wooding the gullies, writhen by their growth
Into such shapes as (judging by that look)
 Might figure forth his mind into a book,
Its script all knots and tilting stems
 Huddled within sheer margins. That wood
Of his can never emerge as trees
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