Charles Causley

[poliphilo]

Ailz: What is this book you've just bought?

Me: The Collected Poems of Charles Causley

Ailz: Is he alive or dead?

Me: Dead.

Ailz (playing on my taste for channelled writings) Did he write them before or after?

Shewhomust brought it to my attention that- had he hung around for a few more years- Causley would have been celebrating his 100th birthday yesterday. I remembered how much I liked him and went looking for his work online. His Ballad for Katherine of Aragon brought tears to my eyes.

The Queen of Castile has a daughter
Who won't come home again
She lies in the grey cathedral
Under the arms of Spain.
O the Queen of Castile has a daughter
Torn out by the roots.
Her lovely breast in a stone cold chest
Under the farmers' boots.

There's something about the ballad form that predisposes my skin to prickle and my eyes to fill but even allowing for this weakness I don't believe there's any post-war English poem that moves me more- unless it's something else of Causley's.

I bought one of his collections in the late 60s and somehow never added to it. Well, that's rectified now.

Comments

[sovay]

I don't believe there's any post-war English poem that moves me more- unless it's something else of Causley's.

I discovered him with "At the British War Cemetery, Bayeaux." Multiple lines in that poem put chills across my spine.

[poliphilo]

I first read him in my teens- and there are several poems I encountered then that have nourished me ever since.

[chochiyo_sama]

There is nothing that affects me--and most humans, I imagine--than the death of a child--especially if it is a senseless death.

This does make me feel weepy. I imagine the girl as a young teen--just beginning to flower into womanhood when she is struck down and laid in a cold stone chest. All her warmth and beauty cold and imprisoned.

[poliphilo]

I think that's pretty much what Causley had in mind.