Poem of the Week – Merlin by Geoffrey Hill

Influenced by TS Eliot’s later work, Geoffrey Hill was famed for his esoteric density. His poems rarely reveal their true meaning to a casual glance. They can be called complexes of obscure allusions, lyrical riddles of vivid imagery, meandering yet meaningful labyrinths of inventive language. Born in Worcestershire in 1932, Hill wrote extensive critical works and published eleven books of poetry. A fellow of Oxford and Cambridge, he was described as “the greatest living poet in the English language” by Nicholas Lezard and was called a “mind-altering talent” by Grey Gowrie.

Hill’s poetry was not designed for mass consumption and has never matched its critical acclaim with commercial success. That is not to say that he had supercilious aims for his art. Despite the implied exclusivity that an understanding of his work might necessitate, Hill considered literature to be a thoroughly democratic activity, one that no social class or single perspective should control. He proved that an inevitably heterogeneous audience hungers for varieties and craves for specialities. There is something acutely democratic about the difficulty of Hill’s poetry. He writes in a way that suggests he expected his reader to be as clever, if not cleverer, than himself. Being a markedly capable thinker, Hill’s approach of assumed equality with his reader should be acknowledged as modesty.

His deep sense of native history influenced and informed much of his poetic output. This resulted in many melodious and atonal triumphs that focused on the forgotten chapters of England’s cultural saga. His passing in 2016 deprived a dedicated readership of more unashamedly rich and rewarding creations from Britain’s most intellectually ambitious post-war poet. This week’s poem is in many ways characteristic of his wider work; it explores the spiritual relevance of myth for an absolute understanding of landscape. Perhaps of all our poets, none have been so aware of the effect landscape, language and the deeds and deaths of our ancestors have on our way of seeing the world. Happily, this is one of Hill’s simpler poems and is unlikely to cause confusion. We got the gist of it (we think), and hope you enjoy this week’s poem as much as we did.

Merlin

I will consider the outnumbering dead:
For they are the husks of what was rich seed.
Now, should they come together to be fed,
They would outstrip the locusts’ covering tide.

Arthur, Elaine, Mordred; they are all gone
Among the raftered galleries of bone.
By the long barrows of Logres they are made one,
And over their city stands the pinnacled corn.