As often as I try to pick another poem of his to prefer or inspire me during one of my dark nights of the soul, I cannot. There are plenty of literary experts out there who will tell you it would be a sin to appropriate or seperate any one line from any of the others but I did it once anyway. I cannot beg for pardon. It was the last line in the third stanza, the one that is based on Anthony's speech to Cleopatra. Come to think of it, I titled the poem "any of" and I really like that poem. I really love this poem. Hope you enjoy it. MacNeice' wife had left him for another man when he penned this, taking his only child with her. What sheer beauty such pain can offer up to the world.
The Sunlight on the Garden
The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold,
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon.
Our freedom as free lances
Advances towards its end;
The earth compels, upon it
Sonnets and birds descend;
And soon, my friend,
We shall have no time for dances.
The sky was good for flying
Defying the church bells
And every evil iron
Siren and what it tells:
The earth compels,
We are dying, Egypt, dying
And not expecting pardon,
Hardened in heart anew,
But glad to have sat under
Thunder and rain with you,
And grateful too
For sunlight on the garden.
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