He does what is done in many places what he does other                           he does after the mode of what has always been done. What did he do other                           recumbent at the garnished supper? What did he do yet other                           riding the Axile Tree?                                        The Anathemata

Moving Towards the Southfacing Form Voices Of In A Shadow Dance for Puppets on Stilts SOUTH WALES ECHO For The Night Before All Souls’ Day Foreword ‘A man in himself is a city, beginning, seeking, achieving and concluding his life in the ways which the various aspects of the city may embody…’                    (William Carlos Williams: ‘Paterson’)      That a child, uncertain as children are of the boundaries of guilt and innocence, should in certain circumstances surrender to the sense of an invading darkness will occasion no surprise. That the darkness should establish itself as unchangingly central in the consciousness of the child and on into youth and maturity, that the uncertainty should remain unresolved, that for the man - even though perhaps one of a naturally sanguine disposition - The sun should remain centred in darkness . . . what then? Have we here entered the realm of the pathological? Yet to the man himself it may well seem that the boundaries between health and sickness are as uncertain as those between innocence and guilt.      However all this may be see the child - playing in his school playground, games broken into to chant in unison with his companions ‘bonfire night, bonfire night . . .’ and excited talk of coming fireworks and guy. The eyes are bright, the voice clear yet these things veil an inward quailing before the necessary return home through the winter nightfall. His way will take him by the long wall of the City Gaol and the slums of Adam’s Down. And he knows - it is the talk of the City - that inside the Gaol are three men, of whom two are brothers, awaiting execution, condemned to death for murder. He believes - perhaps mistakenly, who knows? - yet he believes with his father and mother and many others in the City that one of the men is innocent. Was he not sitting, his hat beside him, in the Anchor at the time of the murder, before leaping up at the sound of police whistles to rush into the street and run towards the Castle? He has heard too that another of the men has become insane - and for the child there is a peculiar slant of horror in the story going round the City that this man’s insanity grows from his knowledge of his companion’s innocence.      So the child walks home through the darkening streets each evening in growing apprehension and dread. At first there is some comfort in the bells sounding faintly across the sky from his school church. Yet as the evenings pass it seems to him there is fear in the sound of the bells too, as, in remembrance of another death, another execution of three, they call to prayer.      He marks, on more than one evening, a woeful group moving at the pavement edges among the passers-by in City Road - an elderly man tremulously singing out of a gaunt countenance, a ragged girlchild holding out his cap beside him, a tall black man a little apart only occasionally attempting to loin the singing. There is that about the haggard singer - an air of utter dereliction, a hint of more than half crazy - that is never to fade from memory. All the riff-raff of the world collects in Tiger Bay’: so the child has been warned. Who is the singer? Some veritable Ishmael - outcast and wanderer from the outer reaches of the world - drifting up from Tiger Bay even as another Ishmael might have turned up, derelict and half-crazy, at some dingy seaport after the sinking of the Pequod by the White Whale? With a ghostly dagoo in tow? Some late-born Odysseus after dreadful chance – ‘and I only am escaped to tell thee’ - cast up at the mouth of the Taff to follow his small white-faced Nausicaa to the grim palace in her home-city? The child never sees him again yet always sees him; shadowed away in the background, glimpsed in the eyes of any man, for the most part but a sleep and a forgetting, at a moment of stress or remembrance. Sees him more especially inwardly present in all those around the singing fool - those who hurry by indifferent, mocking, leering, worried, or compassionate.      In the mind of the child this trinity of threes becomes confusedly inter-related; later indistinguishably one. So at least memory with blurred edges symbolises in the mind of the man the initiation in the mind of the child of the still enduring darkness.      One may perhaps fancy - why should one not? - the presence among the crowds in the city streets, on the night before the execution, of a stranger - a man from another place - waiting and listening, pausing and observing, and as he watches he overhears snatches of conversation, words spoken or sung, voices too breaking in from the background reaches of his own mind, from the remote past, from the future, senses unuttered pressures in those around him as part of the total complex of thoughts and feelings and reactions charging the atmosphere in that particular time and space. It is certain the child of our story sensed the presence of some such stranger - a stranger unknowing it may be of the things which had come to pass in the city in those days. Yet the child thought not: and in this writing attempts to re-echo the words the stranger heard.      The scene is outside ‘The Anchor’ as evening moves on to closing time. Passages printed in italics are singing voices.

the day of the Lord is darkness ... even very dark … he maketh the day dark with night ... and God made a wind to pass over the earth   ‘What if this present were the world’s last night?’ John Donne NIGHT CITY STREET SOUNDS AND VOICES late news South Wales Echo late night news now get along home now Lizzie get along home you’ll catch your death of cold in this wind this night is no night for the likes of you to be out in echo echo there’s the paperboy there can’t you hear him? get the Echo old bones at the fort of Didius where the seaway crosses the river have no ears muffled crushed under many tramplings they hear no voices hear the bells of St Peter’s ringing they received no provisions for the way have long been deaf to bells to braying mules to crackling flames when the splashing wave hid the church set where the streams empty they heard no sound when the northmen moved in the creek they heard no prayer (1) listen the bells of St Peter’s ringing ringing to evening prayer living men though short of time have ears to hear ... let them listen to the praying of the bells we can’t hear you the wind is snatching the words right out of your mouth  … besides we’re busy men with little time to spare time is pressing we must think of other things of iron and coal and bank accounts and then of course there’s silicosis aye! it’s the dust they say that does it from the assumptions of the grex good Lord deliver us when two or three are gathered together in the name of the grex make yourself scarce Tom listen to the bells withering in the wind you remember Huw how Tim (2) laughed like a blasted drain at the stuttering old man in the billiard hall who found his tongue to say he’d heard the dogs of Annwn barking in Parc Wyllt bet y march bet y guythur bet y gugaun cletyfrut anoeth bid bet y arthur (3) bright spearpower declines to fibrin all that maddens and torments all muck in the lees what felo de se in bedlam?... no keep the old sumpety sarcage moving on the tump Tom outwalk Uranus (4) he’s out in the dark and cold but he’s bigger and older than Lizzie echo          echo little Dai loves sheep but Lord! he’s terrified of dragons there’s Salvation Band down at the corner playing Cwm Rhondda they are a saint I said a saint you call ‘im ‘umble and meek you call ‘im? the umbug of ‘ippo I call ‘im ‘is Jesus ‘as a bloody great snout ... like ‘im my Jesus is a snotty little tyke ... like me ‘e’d ave knocked me down for tuppence he would                                   my old man said follow the band                                   and don’t you dare dilly dally on the way eight frozen plutonian years since the dark fell in spring sunlight hidden still in blueblack fire the phoenix sings of flashing ice and snow frozen to the dark rock and sparkling stone (5) in time we’re weary aye! weary even of the dead it’s a bitter wind the east wind ... smells empty Courage mes enfants le diable est mort this night before cockcrow dancing bones will be crushed Nox eat perpetua una dormienda what no ears for oblique hints from Tophet? (6) let’s all off to the hop lads and our Tudor Rose (7) our truest treasure our red red rose our dearworthy darling our Rose of Sharon and we’ll dance a jig to the melody she so sweetly plays in tune bubble up bubble up! all got sixpence? ain’t it grand to be blumin’ well dead and now I’ll not be lost in a maze this sparkling stone will mark my days aye won it up the valleys on a ticket in the raffle for the cracked chapel bell but ‘e won’t last long ‘e’ll soon be with Dai central-‘eatin’ mutton for ‘Arry the boxer (7) it’s the dust they say that does it let’s drop in at the Anchor don’t y’know my dear the only thing I’d like my dear is a little bit off the top    a little bit off the top late news     echo     echo                                          who is that calling                                                                        calling                                                                                     calling calling all down Adam’s Down and now I’ll not be lost in a maze this sparkling stone will mark my days let him call in vain aye! Gentleman Jim the baby giant! left ‘is ‘at at the Anchor there’s talk ‘e may get off but tomorrow they’ll all three hang down they’ll drop following the elephant man-monster Merrick with his broken neck (8) one’s gone clean daft they say there’s the paperboy there get the Echo see what the Echo says old Adam’s cold (9) frozen still staring south from the Castle Gate the guileful deceptions of God (10) what man can escape them by what sprightly leaping leaps he beyond them snared in his blindness slips he the noose scatheless? sunny Jim ‘e was unlucky Jim now no tears for Priam? even Achilles wept what voice is this echoing down the airwaves?   (11) sightlesse he drownes againe he strides the blast in teares teares teares echo      echo eyes darkened at Plwcca halog sockets emptied at Cae budr smoked out at the end of the way                    at Crwys Bychan (12) bonfire night bonfire night three little angels dressed in white hush children just been down Adam’s Street seeing Mary Anne ... she said quietlike tomorrow is All Souls’ Day so still and small she was watching the candlef lame they’ve sent for the priest she’s expecting too now come along home children it’s time for bed come along home to Daddy Howe’s down Sapphire Street (7) and I’ll tell you the story of Jack the Giantkiller yes … and of blessed Michael the darkangel bonfire night bonfire night three little angels dressed in white only a penny for the guy mister not tuppence not tuppence? are prices down then? what matters tuppence or two and tuppence Rawlins flung out his nets along the mudbanks pulled out fish along the river then ... eyes thinned forsook his nets and proved combustible outcapped Capper at four and fourpence what matter rising prices? we the townsfolk meet the cost we the indwellers pay the piper (13) I too am under orders to carry provisions for the way down Adam’s Street down Adam’s Down poor Mary Anne ... and a child in her womb a wild night this for men at sea in the morning the crowd will be waiting at the wall staring at the wall the wall without windows save us from eternal death save us from eternal death in that day ... dies illa    dies irae       dona nobis pacem night I dream all ways lots of people about out somewhere and lost voices calling all ways lost in a dream no way home much will be well much manner of thing will be well Roland’s horn will be heard (14) and grief-harbour’s joy shall touch them at the time I’ll be easy I’ll say quietlike well lads its time take it quietly come on lads its time waiting             the lightning                                 the silence                                                    the thunder                                                               across Mockery Gap (15) fire burns wind blows sun flames thunder claps and death comes on at last He hurls the dark lux est perpetua una give us rest let light shine fallen fallen light renew who’ll head Corpus Christ (16) to the Keeper at the Gate? freezing the black fire burns ringed in threefold fire (17) the iceberg splashes the northern lights astream to the bear and turning pole gannet plunges babble on Bert babble on babble on in air the day is dark the wind has blown the sun right out of the sky but one more ancient than the sun fireborn bright from the ancient waters walks down Adam’s Down tonight                                                          echo                                                                      echo                                                                                  late night news *   *   *   *   * VOICES IN THE WIND SINGING (18) the bright     the utter     the still                      we utter bright           beyond bright                                 beyond bright utter           beyond utter                                 beyond utter still           beyond still                                 beyond still           blue-winged              flashing    flashing snowfire              we utter beyond bright     beyond utter       beyond still *    *    *    *    * echo     echo mae bys Man Ann wedi brifo A Dafydd y gwas ddim yn iach Maer baban yn y cryd yn crio A’r geth wedi crafu Joni bach (19) there goes Tom again singing for his supper wonder where he comes from sospan fach yn berwi ar y tan sospan fawr yn berwi ar y llawr a’r gath wedi crafu Joni bach (20) ‘e’s a regular queer plain scatty doesn’t know ‘oo ‘e is and the whitefaced kid with staring eyes white as chalk she is always with ‘im dosses down Tyger Bay with Omed ‘amed ‘e’ s big enough to knock spots off Jack Johnson (21) look at ‘im black as the ace of spades ‘e is should ‘av been born in a rainstorm ‘e’s coming ‘e’s coming ‘is ‘ead is banded low I ‘ear them angel voices calling           poor old Tom                    poor old Tom                             poor old Tom Tom? who the devil’s Tom? Tom? Tom’s Tom mister who I am or what I am who knows or cares call me Ishmael...or Ulysses he that poured libations to all the dead come stormdriven back from that hateful stream where powerful heads throng to the dark blood flotsam I come as to a place much longed for as to one much prayed to to the place where the streams empty but I knew Tom of old...long ago far back in the storm of the world-flow he foresuffered all humped trembling over Esau bent in flamelight over Tilphussa’s spring gulped the black water all worlds consumed in everliving fire And eyeless under Suhir sang with Shiddeh his bahilowi (22) three blind mice three blind mice see how they run see how they run they all... there’s tricky Tom Dolittle the artful dodger in port after stormie seas rejoycing with Sinbad the Sailor Darkinbad sailing the Brightdayler Rudolf Steiner on Pen-maen-mawr (23) echo     echo the valley spirit never dies take Tom now old Tom Mope-along he’s the joker in the pack always rummaging in the dark groping in odd corners grumbling to himself things get lost harking back to old unhappy far-off things things far away and long ago Tom mooches south at sunrise through the valley where the horses graze heading for the northfacing form lefthand touched by the brightshiner he stills to the instant and sees Alpha of the Cross invisible in light but tiring forgets and nodding to the turn lefthand shadowed slantwise crosses the stubble plough edging the wood to Basho’s pool (24) dwinges muttering babbles at the bear and turning pole centres to the zodiacal light faint foolscap glimmer Hyades rising Jupiter setting among the constellations of the heart glances askance at the brightshiner rising in the east (25) and mumbles don’t you remember you said he’d feed us all jetsam from worldstorm and lead us and cracked skulls and rags and crushed bones will dance then slopes off north to the breaking of the bread and turtle soup *    *    *    *    * echo     echo Diawl Dai let’s get home the wind’s whipping savage right across the tidefields enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey God help us all every manjack of us blow up seawind along Paumanok’s shore I woke up in the dark last night thinking on every side in the flaring dark the paths tangle beyond ken to scan going to the incinerator it started to cry old nobodaddy’s kid O ma ga ma ga O pa gas pie zoo (26) please put a penny in the old man’s hat and he’ll sing a song of      O I’m a sorrowful                   sorrowful                   very sorrowful                           sweet fanny adams move along there move along the world’s on the move death is now the phoenix nest and the turtle’s any bits or pieces any silver come on mister you’ve the look of a stranger let’s divide by thirty sixpence for all souls eh? (27) look at all the lights in the windows look eyes in the wind eyes in the wind down Adam’s Down                                                down Adam’s Down                                                                           down Adam’s                                                                                               down all right Lizzie Mae bys Marl Ann wedi gwella A flafydd y gwas yn el fedd Meer babi yn y crud wedi tyfu Maer babi yn y crud wedi tyfu A’r gath wedi huno mewn hedd (28) this night is no night fire born from the bright the ancient waters burns down Adam’s Down tonight (29) hurry along there hurry along but hurrying men have ears to hear bells in the wind ringing voices praying in the wind voices failing in the wind voices in the wind singing sospan fawr yn berwi ar y tan sospan fach yn berwi ar y llawr a’r gath wedi crafu Joni bach O Dal bach y sowjur Dal bach y sowjur Dal bach y sowjur a chwt igrys e                                                  mas (30) time now lads come on lads its time  echo         echo                late night news white to red along the wall the crosses blaze get along there get along the world’s at the crack won t you put a penny in the old bloke’s hat? echo        echo London’s burning London’s burning look yonder look yonder fire      fire                  fire                       fire O bring me some water koax O meg gimme the clock gimme the clock (31) no no put it back gimme Alph's button that scream        that nameless unimaginable thing                                           out there Judy judy judy jud ju ju ju d koax (32) THE WIND BLOWS ON IN THE DARKNESS INCREASING TO GALEFORCE LATER YOU HEAR THE SOUND OF IT *    *    *    *    * VOICES IN THE WIND SINGING [Children’s voices very softly pp]       blow wind blow wind blow blow from the sea to this seagirt land blow wind blow wind blow                          brekekekex [Women's voices P] blow wind blow wind blow blow from the moon to this moonlit land blow wind blow wind blow                          brekekekex koax [Mens voices f] blow wind blow wind blow blow from the stars to this starlit land blow wind blow wind blow                          brekekekex koax koax [all souls ff] blow wind blow wind blow       blow from the dark (33)       blow from the dark       blow from the dark blow wind blow wind blow       blow blow blow                           koax NIGHT NOW ALL WAYS LOST NOW NIGHT NOW NIGHT NIGHT NIGHT DOWN ADAM’S DOWN NIGHT AND NIGHTLIGHT GLOW

Notes      A certain familiarity with the history of Cardiff as far back as Roman times is assumed.      A number of echoes from other writings are integrated into the substance of the work, If these are read in their original contexts they provide any comment necessary for fuller understanding. Peter Pinch, the only living poet whose work I have consciously used in this way, has generously given me permission so to use it. Friends have drawn my attention to some passages that seemed to them obscure. In this connection the following notes may be helpful.      Among the Somali a man under extreme nervous mental or spiritual stress may seek help by calling his friends and womenfolk to a ‘bahilowi’. They all meet at night in the open away from dwelling places and stand round him in a circle. He gives utterance to his suffering perplexity in a questioning chant. The others reply - sometimes singly, sometimes in unison - with comments, admonitions and exhortations accompanied by singing, clapping, and stamping.      A Somali - an old seaman who, when I knew him, had long been back in his own country - once told me how years before he had found himself stranded for a time in Tiger Bay. Friendless and in distress he had solaced himself one night by walking out onto a piece of waste land and holding a ‘bahilowi’ - pretending some of his people were present. He had been, he said, ‘made whole’ in this way. This lonely ‘bahilowi’ seems to have been held somewhere in the desolate area I often played in as a child - and knew as ‘the tidefields’.      South Wales Echo might perhaps best be understood as the result of a similar attempt to recover wholeness. To the many ghostly friends whose voices sound in the circle an expression of gratitude is due: more especially to Smart, Blake, Clara            and Tom O’Bedlam: I knowe more they Apollo far oft when hee ly’s sleeping I see the starres att bloudie warres In the wounded welkin weeping. (1) Throughout the 8th and 8th centuries A.D. the prayer ‘from the fury of the Northman deliver us’ was commonly included in the litanies of the Church along the coastal regions of north-west Europe. (2) I remember walking with Huw Menai from Coity aver the bill past Parc Wyllt. There we were glimpsed from within, over a wail, by a group of women standing among trees. They greeted us with a wild outcry: clamorously babbling, laughing and screaming: ‘For upon us all had come grief that might not be borne’. Huw started talking of the Dogs of Annwn. His formidable presence has been constantly with me in this attempt to restate our theme that afternoon as we talked the sun down the sky. (3) ‘a grave for Mark, a grave for Gwythur      a grave for Gugaun of the ruddy sword      not wise (the thought) a grave for Arthur’                                               The Black Book of Carmarthan                                                                  Trans. Sir John Rhys. The Arthur of Preiddeu Annwn. ‘Arcturus’: ‘the Watcher of the North’. In Celtic Myth ‘the wild land of hell’ lies, frozen and dark, to the north. (4) During one revolution of Uranus earthborne Tom might circle the sun fourscore odd times even as Uranus achieves all but three completions of his orbit in one plutonian year. Each instant in all such gripped circlings within the structured order of the cosmos holds hidden within itself an end and a beginning: all the possibilities of a death and a birth into ... but to stay outside these circles, to follow Tom on this walk, one must needs buy stout boots - such as were stitched by Master Jacob at Bonito.      See also Fludd’s geocentric picture of the universe reproduced by Otto R Frisch on page 11 of his work The Nature of Matter. (5) ‘this stone is sparkling white and red like a flame of fire ... a flawless mirror in which all things live ...’ see The Book of the Sparkling Stone by Jan van Ruysbroek, chapter 4.      Compare also Ezekiel 10:1; Isaiah 54:11.      ‘in dense darkness thy stainless beauty sparkles’. Hindu Hymn to The Destroyer. (6) Tophet: ‘the beating of the drum’. ‘and this, as they say, was the manner of sacrificing in Tophet ... The statue of Moloch was of brass, hollow within, with its arms extended, and stooping a little forward. They lighted a great fire within the statue, and another before it. They put upon its arms the child they intended to sacrifice, which soon fell into the fire at the foot of the statue, putting forth cries … To stifle the noise of these cries they made a greet rattling of drums, that the spectators might not be moved with compassion …’                                                            Cruden’s Concordance. (7) Tudor Rose - a popular streetgirl Dal central-‘eatin’ - the Devil ‘Arry the boxer - the undertaker. Such humorous sobriquets are common in Wales. Daddy Howe : an old man. Well known for his kindness and integrity, He received into his home several orphaned children. (See also Exodus 24:10). (8) See The Elephant Man and other Reminiscences by Sir Frederick Treves 1923. (TLS 9th June 1972 page 855). Merrick known as the Elephant Man lived by exhibiting himself at freak shows - ‘tuppence a time’. He is described as ‘the most disgusting specimen of humanity ... a frightful creature that could only have been possible in a nightmare ... There emanated from him a sickening stench ... what made his fungoid deformity perhaps even more appalling were those portions of the body not invaded: the left ear perfect, the left arm and shoulder delicate as a woman’s, the genitalia normal as any man’s ... his only idea of happiness was to creep into the dark and hide ... he was a gentle affectionate and lovable creature free from any trace of resentment ... the weight of his head was so great that he could only sleep by raising his knees and resting his head against the ...’      He often told Sir Frederick Treves the surgeon who befriended him in the last years of his life that he wished he could lie down ‘like other people’. One afternoon, in April 1890, he was found lying back on his pillow ‘like other people’. He was dead - his neck broken by the weight of his head. (9) old Adam’s cold an early keeper at the Castle Gate was named Adam. He acquired landrights on the East Moor which lay between the ‘warths’ or tidefields along the Severn Estuary and the Castle. Ha sent his sons to herd his cattle and swine on the moor which became known as Adam’s Down. This Adam became identified in my imagination with the First Adam. (10) a multitude of men of all nations bus passed the point of no return. Then silence. In deepening anguish and despair after long waiting those left behind join in prayer for tidings : see the opening chorus of elders in Aeschylus’ The Persians (lines 107-114). (11) ‘but ever-ageing time teaches all things’. (See Prometheus Bound trans. Weir-Smyth, lines 980-983). Plotinus, who accepted the possibility of re-incarnation, in speaking of ‘the sorrows of Priam’ (Enneads 1 : 4) echoes the taunt of Hermes to Prometheus: ‘alas? that is a word unknown to Zeus.’ ‘the one and only transmigrant is the Supreme Spirit’ (Shankara). Plotinus shared this view. (12) Public executions were carried out for many years at Crwys Bychan: the Little Cross in Cae Budr: ‘the defiled field’. The area was known as Plwcca halog: ‘place of pollution’. Here the way from the north entered the town to run along the old Castle Road to the Big Cross. There it joined the ancient via maritima and swung west to cross the river beyond the south wall of the Castle. Before the Castle Gate another way branched south along St Mary’s Street to the mouth at the river end the Church which was swept away by a tidal wave in 1907.      From early times these crossing ways carried the flows of human movement towards and away from the Castle. To venture too far from a stronghold brings danger. Men sailing from the estuary in the Nova Terra would, after a long voyage, come to a cold end under the shining of the Southern Cross: a constellation hidden below the horizons of their northern latitudes. And many an ocean-wanderer moving north under the ever-circling, ever-watchful, southward-gazing Bear reached an end likewise ‘without fire, without bed.’ Yet midgetina movements between the river-mouth and Castle - an impatient turning from his nets, or a careless running away from his hat - might initiate for a man, whether with or without fire, even darker farings. (13) Rawlins White, a fisherman from the Estuary, was burned at the stake before the Castle Gate in the reign of Mary under the revived statute de heretica comburendo.      Richard Capper suffered the same fate some years earlier.      The sheriff recorded the cost of the burning to the townsfolk at four and fourpence. A century earlier ropes for public hanging close to the present site of the Blue Anchor were priced at two pence. (14) The sentence on John Rowland one of the brothers convicted of murder was commuted shortly before execution to detention at His Majesty’s pleasure in Broadmoor. (15) Compare Matthew 24 : 27. Mockery Gap: refers to the yawning gap of ‘Chaos’, which came into being on the separation of heaven and earth: see Hesiod’s Theogony line 116 following. (16) At this time in Cardiff, each year at the Feast of Corpus Christi, processions of children would converge from all quarters of the city at the south end of St Mary’s Street and walk up to the Castle Gate - there to enter the Castle grounds end receive the Eucharistic Blessing. Doubtless for this reason some hint of the numinous attached itself for me to the way up to the Gate, and the endless coming and going of people there shared in the significance of these processions.      I remember, as a child, late one evening becoming - in some way I cannot now account for - lost among the ever-moving crowds in St Mary’s Street. I was caught up among those strange anonymously hurrying crowds - crowds hurrying, as it seemed to me, nowhere ... with growing inward panic I hurried too - hoping to reach the Castle: a central and known thing. The street then was to me endless. I did not reach the Castle and after some time I thought despairingly I was moving in the wrong direction. At that I turned and ran back and again failed to reach it. In this way I ran to and fro several times. Gripped by a sense of nightmare I could not ask for help ... at last my tears caught the attention of a friendly stranger who quickly pressed a sixpence into my hand and saw me safely onto a tramcar for home.      It was with a shock of strangely significant repetition that years later I read Dostoievsky’s account of his encounter with the child in the Haymarket. (17) ringed in threefold fire in the Christian tradition : baptismal, pentecostal, apocalyptic.      From the point of view of another tradition light will he thrown on this passage by reference to the translations from the Rigveda end notes in Macdonnell’s Vedic Reader. Of more especial interest are the hymns to Agni, Apam napat, and the Funeral Hymn.      Agni, the Sacred Fire burning at the heart of all the worlds appears as threefold light in the beggar at evening to command Ratri, Night, to ‘bring the world to rest’. One of the functions of Agni, who is born of the celestial waters and appears in the east, ‘clothed in lightning’, ‘widely shining forth to all men’, is to conduct the dead by the paths of the ancestors to the highest heaven, where they are united to bodies ‘free from disease and frailties, complete and without imperfections’. (18) Compare Isaiah 6:3. One thinks too of the music heard by Boehme ‘shortly after midnight’ on November 21st, 1624. (19) Mae bys Marl Ann wedi brifo -        Mary Anne’s finger is cut        David is not well        and baby is crying in the cradle        and puss has scratched little Johnny (20) sospan fach yn berwl ar y llawr -        the small saucepan is on the tire        the big one on the bob        and puss has scratched little Johnny … (21) During this period Jack Johnson, the great American Negro boxer, (at one time heavyweight champion of the world) was held in high honour in South Wales. (22) the Somali name Shiddeh means ‘born in pain’ Shiddeh sings under Suhir - the star Sirius - believed to exert a baneful influence. See Jacob Boehme Signatura Rerum chapter xvi ‘on the weeping of Adam in Esau.’ (23) Steiner spoke at Pen-maen-mawr of gigantic elemental presences locked up in the planetary structures under his feet. (24) Basho’s pool Suzuki in his commentary on the Lankavatra Sutra speaks of the shadow dance as ‘reflected on a screen of eternal solitude and tranquillity . . .’      ‘the Mahayanist aye is always gazing at the screen itself . . .’      the whole passage from which these words are taken will be found one of intense interest for our theme ... but for Tom a sudden flaming word has, more decisively than for Yeats at the crossways, broken into the ancient reverie. (25) Compare Revelation 7:2. The Catholic Requiem Mass for the Dead. (26) ‘O mother earth, mother earth,        O Father, Son of Earth, Zeus’ compare Aeschylus’ The Suppliant Maidens lines 885-901. (27) sixpence for all souls Compare Dostaievsky’s account of his visit to the Haymarket In 1862: ‘In the Haymarket .... I saw a girl of about six, no older, all in rugs .... no one paid any attention to her .... she walked along with a look of such sorrow, such hopeless despair .... she kept shaking her head from side to side as if discussing something .... I offered her sixpence. She took the silver coin, then shyly with timid amazement, looked me in the eyes and suddenly took to her heels, as if afraid I would take the money back from her.’ (See also Luke 24:18). (28) Mary Anne’s finger is better        David is in his grave        the baby in the cradle has grown        the baby in the cradle has grown        and puss is asleep . . . (29) Heraclitus: ‘fire when it has advanced will judge and convict all things’. cf. Heraclitus Fragments xx; xxii; and xxvi an infinite eternal self-creating substance .... differentiating itself into the returning movement of the many to itself .... Isaiah: ‘The shining of a flaming fire by night’. (30) Voices singing in chorus from inside ‘The Anchor’, ‘the big pot is boiling on the fire he little one on the hob and puss has scratched little Johnny again    O little Dal the soldier       little Dal the soldier       little Dal the soldier Look! the tail of his shirt is out . . .’ Compare the pair Dadeni or ‘Cauldron of Rebirth’ (31) the prototypes of Punch and Judy have been seen as - in as old mystery play - Pontius Pilate and Judas, See Revelation 21:6. (32) the ghosts of vivisected frogs respond in chorus from the underworld. Compare Aristophanes’ The Frogs in which the frogs croak in time to the oar-strokes of Dionysus an he rows perforce across to Hades: croaking ‘faster faster’... (33) the dark beyond the stars: ungrund equally to both Great Bear and Southern Cross. Compare Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes lines 854-860       ‘as you sigh dear friends       as you weep       beat with your hands       oarstrokes in the wind across Acheron       speeding the black ship unknown to Apollo       unknown to the sunlight       to the dark shore       that welcomes all’