Tony Cousins: ‘On a Statue of Eros, after Lysippus’, ‘Jerusalem’ and ‘On a Portrait of Edmund Waller (1606–1687)’

On a Statue of Eros, after Lysippus

Not a plump cherub with a fragile bow
but a young man—lithe, dispassionate—
stringing a heavy bow made for the hunt:
to strike with havoc, or to pierce with grief;
to end a life, or wound it beyond healing.

Not bow nor body made the image true.
The face was set in study of its task,
unknowing how it seemed to the observer—
and it was callous, beautiful, astute:
the face of Eros carved in helpless warning,
with art as accurate as the god’s, but powerless.

Wisely fearful stone whispering to flesh.

Tony Cousins

Jerusalem
Filled with crooked ways, entwined religions;
a labyrinth echoing to whispers and screams,
the babble of liars and the mystery
of oracles disbelieved,
misread in desperation, or discarded.
Streaked with the blood of pilgrims
and inconvenient prophets, and the blind
factions and prowling clans,
and wars of delusion across
the generations without number.

One day, over your many voices,
it will seem that your very stones cry out—
and there will be silence
in the stillness of incomprehension.
Then, in a moment of prelude,
it will seem that the stars,
sounding once more their incandescent music,
sing you disquieting songs.

Tony Cousins

On a Portrait of Edmund Waller (1606–1687)
In Memory of Earl Miner

Across the troubled years, he wrote calm verse
Bright with the play of mind, that could rehearse
Th’ imaginary glory of hard fools—
Victors, indeed, yet subject to the rules
Of his art’s governance, and its subtle force
When lauding with feigned wonder the divorce
Of power from reason. Or his fluent wit
Could teach a gilded dilettante to sit
And read without suspicion the high praise—
Apotheosis! in these latter days!—
That listed virtues never to be known
By libertines in ermine or a crown:
Virtues, of course, seldom to be his own.
Passionless grace smoothed all his songs of love
For rank or woman; and would thereby prove
Devotion to his muse to be unfeigned:
His love for her alone was unconstrained.
He scorned devotion to failed heads of state;
Why dully earn unnecessary hate?
Let weak minds keep dead oaths, reach for their swords;
The sage will pen a few placating words.
Wisdom’s first lesson is to wear a mask,
No slight, contemptible, or artless task.
Let various passions’ victims choose to burn
Their lives in self-delusion, not to learn
That clear-eyed Prudence will set Truth, in time,
Free from fanatic hands, each wretched crime
Offending civil life, and every creed
Spawned by obtuse desires, blinded by need.
Let Hobbes and all the modish Doctors share
Their quaintly vaporous dreams spun from the air
Of murky days. The protean soul will smile,
And watch the shadows creep across the dial.
In age, perhaps, whispers from the light
May lead to stillness born of clearer sight.

Tony Cousins