To appreciate this brilliant parody of T.S.Eliot fully requires a degree of familiarity with Eliot’s work, in particular with ‘Four Quartets’, which some may feel is too high a price to pay, but even a superficial acquaintance should be enough to enjoy the adroitness with which Henry Reed echoes and undercuts the great man’s more sententious passages.

To give credit to Eliot, it has to be said that he took the parody very sportingly, commenting ‘Most parodies of one’s own work strike one as very poor. In fact, one is apt to think one could parody oneself much better. (As a matter of fact, some critics have said that I have done so.) But there is one which deserves the success it has had, Henry Reed’s ‘Chard Whitlow’’.

The title of the poem is a made-up name, parodying the English place names used as titles of the sections in ‘Four Quartets’, such as Burnt Norton.

For Henry Reed (1914-1986) see also week 279.

Chard Whitlow
(Mr. Eliot’s Sunday Evening Postscript)

As we get older we do not get any younger.
Seasons return, and to-day I am fifty-five,
And this time last year I was fifty-four
And this time next year I shall be sixty-two.
And I cannot say I should like (to speak for myself)
To see my time over again – if you can call it time:
Fidgeting uneasily under a draughty stair,
Or counting sleepless nights in the crowded tube.

There are certain precautions – though none of them very reliable –
Against the blast from bombs and the flying splinter,
But not against the blast from heaven, vento dei venti,
The wind within a wind unable to speak for wind;
And the frigid burnings of purgatory will not be touched
By any emollient.
I think you will find this put,
Better than I could ever hope to express it,
In the words of Kharma: ‘It is, we believe,
Idle to hope that the simple stirrup-pump
Will extinguish hell.’
Oh, listeners,
And you especially who have turned off the wireless,
And sit in Stoke or Basingstoke listening appreciatively to the silence,
(Which is also the silence of hell) pray, not for your sins, but for your souls.

And pray for me also under the draughty stair.
As we get older we do not get any younger.
And pray for Kharma under the holy mountain.

Henry Reed

This is part of a sequence called ‘Lessons of the War’, written in 1942 by the Second World War poet Henry Reed (1914-1986). It seems to be the only poem he is remembered by, but at least it is remembered: indeed, it was quoted, albeit somewhat inappositely, in last Sunday’s episode of the police drama ‘Endeavour’, by an army colonel who seemed to think it was a poem in praise of military routine and pride in regimental tradition, similar to Sir Henry Newbolt’s ‘Vitaī Lampada’ which had been quoted a little earlier. Polite cough from me: ‘Er, excuse me, script-writers, but I don’t think that was quite what Henry Reed had in mind.’

Naming of Parts

Today we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And tomorrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But today,
Today we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all the neighbouring gardens,
And today we have naming of parts.

This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which in our case we have not got.

This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
Any of them using their finger.

And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.

They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
For today we have naming of parts.

Henry Reed