Allen Tate(1899–1979)
The Swimmers
SCENE: Montgomery County,
Kentucky, July 1911
Kentucky water, clear springs: a boy fleeing
To water under the dry Kentucky sun,
His four little friends in tandem with him, seeing
Long shadows of grapevine wriggle and run
Over the green swirl; mullein under the ear
Soft as Nausicaa's5 palm; sullen fun
Savage as childhood's thin harmonious tear:
O fountain, bosom source undying-dead
Replenish me the spring of love and fear
And give me back the eye that looked and fled
When a thrush idling in the tulip tree
Unwound the cold dream of the copperhead.
—Along the creek the road was winding; we
Felt the quicksilver sky. I see again
The shrill companions of that odyssey:
Bill Eaton, Charlie Watson, "Nigger Layne
The doctor's son, Harry Duesler who played
The flute; and Tate, with water on the brain.
Dog-days:6 the dusty leaves where rain delayed
Hung low on poison-oak and scuppernong,7
And we were following the active shade
Of water, that bells and bickers all night long.
"No more'n a mile, Layne said. All five stood still.
Listening, I heard what seemed at first a song;
Peering, I heard the hooves come down the hill.
The posse passed, twelve horse; the leader's face
Was worn as limestone on an ancient sill.
Then, as sleepwalkers shift from a hard place
In bed, and rising to keep a formal pledge
Descend a ladder into empty space,
W e s c u t t l e d d o w n t h e b a n k b e l o w a l e d g e
And marched stiff-legged in our common fright
Along a hog-track by the riffle's8 edge:
Into a world where sound shaded the sight
Dropped the dull hooves again; the horsemen came
Again, all but the leader: it was night
M o m e n t l y a n d I f e a r e d : e l e v e n s a m e
J e s u s - C h r i s t e r s u n m e m b e r e d a n d u n m a d e ,
W h o s e C o r p s e h a d d i e d a g a i n i n dirty s h a m e .
The bank then levelling in a speckled glade,
We stopped to breathe above the swimming-hole;
I gazed at its reticulated 0 shadenetlike
R e c o i l i n g i n b l u e f e a r , a n d f e l t i t roll
O v e r m y e a r s a n d e y e s a n d lift m y hair
Like s e a w e e d t o s s i n g on a s u n k atoll.
I r o s e a g a i n . B o r n e o n t h e c o p p e r air
A d i s t a n t v o i c e g r e e n as a f u n e r a l w r e a t h
A g a i n s t a grave: "That d e a d n i g g e r t h e r e . "
The melancholy sheriff slouched beneath
A giant sycamore; shaking his h e a d
H e p l u c k e d a s a s s a f r a s t w i g a n d p i c k e d h i s t e e t h :
"We come too late. He spoke to the tired dead
Whose ragged shirt soaked up the viscous flow
Of blood in which It lay discomfited.
A b u t t i n g h o r s e - f l y gave o n e ear a b l o w
And glanced off, as the sheriff kicked the rope
Loose from the neck and hooked it with his toe
Away from the blood.—I looked back down the slope:
The friends were gone that I had hoped to greet.—
A s i n g l e h o r s e m a n c a m e at a s l o w l o p e
And pulled up at the hanged man's horny feet;
The sheriff noosed the feet, the other end
The stranger tied to his pommel in a neat
Slip-knot. I saw the Negro's body bend
And straighten, as a fish-line cast transverse
Yields to the current that it must subtend.
The sheriff's Goddamn was a murmured curse
Not for the dead but for the blinding dust
That boxed the cortege9 in a cloudy hearse
And dragged it towards our town. I knew I must
Not stay till twilight in that silent road;
Sliding my bare feet into the warm crust,
I hopped the stonecrop like a panting toad
Mouth open, following the heaving cloud
That floated to the court-house square its load
Of limber corpse that took the sun for shroud.
There were three figures in the dying sun
Whose light were company where three was crowd.
My breath crackled the dead air like a shotgun
As, sheriff and the stranger disappearing,
The faceless head lay still. I could not run
Or walk, but stood. Alone in the public clearing
This private thing was owned by all the town,
Though never claimed by us within my hearing.