I know I am but summer to your heart,
And not the full four seasons of the year;
And you must welcome from another part
Such noble moods as are not mine, my dear.
No gracious weight of golden fruits to sell
Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing;
And I have loved you all too long and well
To carry still the high sweet breast of Spring.
Wherefore I say: O love, as summer goes,
I must be gone, steal forth with silent drums,
That you may hail anew the bird and rose
When I come back to you, as summer comes.
Else will you seek, at some not distant time,
Even your summer in another clime.
What they are saying is that there is life there, too: that the universe is the size it is to enable us to catch up.
They have gone on from the human: that shining is a reflection of their intelligence. Godhead is the colonisation by mind
of untenanted space. It is its own light, a statement beyond language of conceptual truth. Every night is a rinsing myself of the darkness
that is in my veins. I let the stars inject me with fire, silent as it is far, but certain in its cauterising of my despair. I am a slow
traveller, but there is more than time to arrive. Resting in the intervals of my breathing, I pick up the signals relayed to me from a periphery I comprehend.
I do not know what dust is. I do not know where it comes from. I only know that it settles on things. I cannot see it in the air or watch it fall. Sometimes I’m home all day But I never see it sliding about looking for a place to rest when my back is turned. Does it wait ’til I go out? Or does it happen in the night when I go to sleep? Dust is not fussy about the places it chooses Though it seems to prefer still objects. Sometimes, out of kindness, I let it lie for weeks. On some places it will lie forever However, dust holds no grudges and once removed It will always return in a friendly way.
Now fully in Brighton Festival mode, last night I went to the Theatre Royal for the first night (and indeed the English premiere) of The Beautiful Cosmos of Ivor Cutler, which continues until Saturday at the same venue. The show is a collaboration between Vanishing Point and the National Theatre of Scotland and continues at the Theatre Royal until Sunday (17th May).
If you don’t know who Ivor Cutler was, he was a Scottish poet and songwriter who gained a cult following through his many appearances on BBC Radio programmes, notably with John Peel. I was introduced to him by an undergraduate friend of mine, Richard Allen, himself a Scot, who loved Ivor Cutler’s poetry and had many cassette tapes of performances by the poet in which he either spoke the poems or sang them to a musical accompaniment, often a harmonium. I loved listening to Ivor Cutler’s voice on these recordings, which added an extra dimension of lugubriousness to the whimsical and at times downright bizarrely comic verses. Many of his poems are about the various bizarre ways in which people try (and usually fail) to communicate with each other. Some of these are joyously silly but they also, like the very best jokes, convey quite profound things about the limitations of language. Here, for example, is Ivor Cutler’s inimitable hymn to the joy of Morse Code:
Little Black Buzzer is one of the pieces included in The Beautiful Cosmos of Ivor Cutler, but the show is far more than a collection of the poet’s work. It’s also an exploration and celebration of the life of one of the great eccentrics, from his impoverished childhood, through his period of critical and popular success, his long relationship with another poet, Phyllis King , and his old age in which he suffered from dementia, arthritis and Parkinson’s disease. Music and poetry, life and death, joy and sadness, comedy and tragedy are all woven together in a fitting tribute to a unique individual who lived an extraordinary life.
I don’t need to describe the production in detail because there’s a video trailer that gives a very accurate idea:
My verdict on The Beautiful Cosmos of Ivor Cutler is that it’s the best thing I’ve seen in a theatre for decades. If you’re in Brighton then get yourself to the Theatre Royal and see this show. You won’t regret it.
P.S. The Beautiful Cosmos of the title comes from this poem, which I have posted before:
You are the centre of your little world
and I am of mine.
No one again we meet for tea
we’re two of a kind.
This is our universe… cups of tea. We have a beautiful cosmos, you and me. We have a beautiful cosmos.
What do we talk of whenever we meet: nothing at all. You sit with a sandwich, I look at a roll. Sometimes I open my mouth, then shut it.
We have a beautiful cosmos, you and me. We have a beautiful cosmos.
You are the centre of your little world and I am of mine. No one again we meet for tea we’re two of a kind.
This is our universe… cups of tea. We have a beautiful cosmos, you and me. We have a beautiful cosmos.
On the bus coming up to campus just now, I was looking through the Brighton Festival (which starts on 2nd May) and found that there is a show called The Beautiful Cosmos of Ivor Cutler, which is on at the Theatre Royal. As a devout fan of Ivor Cutler I’ll definitely be going, but in the mean time here is the title track (set to video…)
And here be the lyrics:
You are the centre of your little world
and I am of mine.
No one again we meet for tea
we’re two of a kind.
This is our universe… cups of tea. We have a beautiful cosmos, you and me. We have a beautiful cosmos.
What do we talk of whenever we meet: nothing at all. You sit with a sandwich, I look at a roll. Sometimes I open my mouth, then shut it.
We have a beautiful cosmos, you and me. We have a beautiful cosmos.
You are the centre of your little world and I am of mine. No one again we meet for tea we’re two of a kind.
This is our universe… cups of tea. We have a beautiful cosmos, you and me. We have a beautiful cosmos.
To what purpose, April, do you return again? Beauty is not enough. You can no longer quiet me with the redness Of little leaves opening stickily. I know what I know. The sun is hot on my neck as I observe The spikes of the crocus. The smell of the earth is good. It is apparent that there is no death. But what does that signify? Not only under ground are the brains of men Eaten by maggots. Life in itself Is nothing, An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. It is not enough that yearly, down this hill, April Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.
In that great journey of the stars through space About the mighty, all-directing Sun, The pallid, faithful Moon, has been the one Companion of the Earth. Her tender face, Pale with the swift, keen purpose of that race, Which at Time’s natal hour was first begun, Shines ever on her lover as they run And lights his orbit with her silvery smile.
Sometimes such passionate love doth in her rise, Down from her beaten path she softly slips, And with her mantle veils the Sun’s bold eyes, Then in the gloaming finds her lover’s lips. While far and near the men our world call wise See only that the Sun is in eclipse.
“She can’t be unhappy,” you said, “The smiles are like stars in her eyes, And her laughter is thistledown Around her low replies.” “Is she unhappy?” you said– But who has ever known Another’s heartbreak– All he can know is his own; And she seems hushed to me, As hushed as though Her heart were a hunter’s fire Smothered in snow.
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In the Dark 