The Mediterranean
In this country of grapes Where the architecture Plays musical interludes, flays The emotions with the barest statement Or, confusing the issue and the beholder, Bewilders with an excessive formality, There is also the sea.
11 The sea, Whether it is " wrinkled " and '' crawls " Pounds, plunders, rounding On itself in thunderous showers, a Broken, bellowing foam canopy Rock-riven and driven wild By its own formless griefs—the sea Carries, midway, its burning stripe of light.
III This country of grapes Is a country, also, of trains, planes and gasworks.
" Tramway and palace !' rankles. It is an idea Neither the guide book nor the imagination Tolerates. The guide book half lies Of " twenty minutes in a comfortable bus " Of " rows of cypresses, an Uninterrupted series of matchless sights." The imagination cannot lie. It bites brick ; Says : " This is steel—I will taste steel. Bred on a lie, I am merely Guide books, advertisements, politics.", The sea laps by the railroad tracks. To have admitted this also defines the sea.
CHARLES TOMLINSON.
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