William Empson

Aubade (1937)

Hours before dawn we were woken by the quake.
My house was on a cliff. The thing could take
Bookloads off shelves, break bottles in a row.
Then the long pause and then the bigger shake.
It seemed the best thing to be up and go.

And far too large for my feet to step by.
I hoped that various buildings were brought low.
The heart of standing is you cannot fly.

It seemed quite safe till she got up and dressed.
The guarded tourist makes the guide the test.
Then I said The Garden? Laughing she said No.
Taxi for her and for me healthy rest.
It seemed the best thing to be up and go.

The language problem but you have to try.
Some solid ground for lying could she show?
The heart of standing is you cannot fly.

None of these deaths were her point at all.
The thing was that being woken he would bawl
And finding her not in earshot he would know.
I tried saying Half an Hour to pay this call.
It seemed the best thing to be up and go.

I slept, and blank as that I would yet lie.
Till you have seen what a threat holds below,
The heart of standing is you cannot fly.

Tell me again about Europe and her pains,
Who’s tortured by the drought, who by the rains.
Glut me with floods where only the swine can row
Who cuts his throat and let him count his gains.
It seemed the best thing to be up and go.

A bedshift flight to a Far Eastern sky.
Only the same war on a stronger toe.
The heart of standing is you cannot fly.

Tell me more quickly what I lost by this,
Or tell me with less drama what they miss
Who call no die for a god for a throw,
Who says after two aliens had one kiss
It seemed the best thing to be up and go.

But as to risings, I can tell you why.
It is on contradiction that they grow.
It seemed the best thing to be up and go.
Up was the heartening and the strong reply.
The heart of standing is we cannot fly.

Empson’s note:

The same war in Tokyo then was the Manchurian Incident.

‘Aubade’ appeared in a slightly longer version in Life and Letters 17 (1937), pp. 68-69, and in this shorter version in The Gathering Storm (BF9) and Empson’s Collected Poems (BF14). For critical notes about both the original and revised version see the Bibliography BF7, and for an overview of Empson’s relation with Japan see William Empson and Japan.

Among Empson titles in print are several that have a relation with his years in Japan: The Complete Poems, edited by John Haffenden (available in the UK here and the US here), Collected Poems (BF14, in the UK here, the US here), Some Versions of Pastoral (BF5, here and here), and Haffenden’s edition of The Royal Beasts and Other Works (BF21, in the UK here).