Holkham Hall: The Wall.
Kevin Crossley-Holland
When I wrote these lines about the north-facing wall of Holkham Hall in my early twenties, I had in mind the Great Flood of 1953. I tried to echo the pounding line of Anglo-Saxon poetry that is based not on metre but on stress and alliteration.
This poem is the copyright of Kevin Crossley-Holland and is reproduced by permission of the Enitharmon Press.
The Wall
I am a desolate wall, accumulator of lichen.
Men made me with flint chippings and, fickle as always,
ignored me; time did not ignore them.
My business is to divide things: the green ribbons
of grass from the streams of macadam; the kitchen gardens
from the marsh acres, garish with sea-lavender;
the copses of ilex and pine from the North Sea,
the bludgeoning waves of salt water where seabirds play.
I stand grey under the East Anglian sky,
glint when the occasional sun opens its eye.
My business is to divide things, my duty to protect.
I am unrepaired; men neglect me at their own risk.
Time takes me in mouthfuls; the teeth of the frost
bit into my body here; here my mortar crumbles;
the wind rubs salt into every wound.
Elsewhere I am overgrown with insidious ivy;
it wound its arms around me only to strangle me.
Relentless, the sea rolls down from the Pole.
It levelled the dunes last year, removed the marram grass,
clashed its steel cymbals over the marsh and macadam.
It attacked me and undermined me; I sway
like a drunkard now; yet it could not gash me
with its gleaming scythes; it was not strong enough.
I stand, sad, and stare at all this estate,
the lawns, the kitchen gardens, copses garrulous
in the wind. I carefully listen, listen and wait
for the fierce outsider to force his way in.
For more information about Kevin’s work visit www.kevincrossley-holland.com.
Holkham Hall, NHER 1801