(Tobias Hume’s Good Againe)
Good again
this night, this late
to hear that tune and fall
again, the slow dark drag,
texture
of thickly branched trees
swaying above water,
of sound moving
from the farthest pit
to pour down.
God and the devil
must play the viol.
The door of the world
swings open
on Hume’s excited figure.
After sadness, hunger,
royal blindness
to the great shame of this land
and those that do not help me
after a bellyful of snails
and the sniping of lutenists
good again to stand
with the night
in Jordi’s hands
and listen
and walk in
as far as the tune will go.
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1 comment:
This poem really took me back... I used to play the viol years ago(I no longer have one) and very much enjoyed playing Tobias Hume's eccentric pieces.
The idea of this man sitting in his tent on some military campaign or other writing viol music (he was said to have been a mercenary soldier) appealed to my imagination too.
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