the corpse came down the river - struck fast
on the bank till it was partly pulled up
bare-headed and splintered - a sallow mast
from some ship or tree of state corrupt
at heart or man of failed generation -
soundless in the grey’s golden gloom
autumn’s leaves are an infestation
gathered in small wreaths in the branches’ boom
just as the last wasps grasp the ivy -
at the beginning were the Lie and love
and now in the flow the hands look lively
still letting go as they grab above
because blessing is what silence gives
when words unbroken die with such a sieve
Oxford
18 October 2018
I refer here to the poems ” Silentium” and ” The Last Love” by the Russian poet and diplomat Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev (1803-73). Also to Gray’s ” Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”. I witnessed the wrecked tree on the morning of 17 October upstream from Osney Bridge, Oxford, along the towpath.