stw The Journal of the Sylvia Townsend Warner Society 2398-0605 UCL Press 10.14324/111.444.stw.2021.12 A Heart on the Sand Warner Sylvia Townsend * (1893–1978) 21 06 2022 21 2 133 136 Copyright © 2022, Tanya Stobbs 2022 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC-BY) 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

A sequence of five poems by Sylvia Townsend Warner dedicated to Valentine Ackland and dated Easter 1952.

 Keywords Sylvia Townsend Warner Valentine Ackland sequence of poems <xref id="page_134" ref-type="other"/>A Heart on the Sand

For Valentine Ackland

Easter 1952

Sylvia Townsend Warner

A Heart on the Sand 1 Between the violent sea And the absorbed land, Smoothly, speedily, With a stick in her hand She drew a heart on the sand. It was a day when wind And stress and threat of sky Bade one immediately Set down an ‘I am I,’ Though none should mark or mind. The waves along the shore Scumbled and effaced A brief self-portraiture, The marrom blades incised Their diameter, And the fisherman unwound, Slowly, warily, His autobiography With every step he paced. But she, but she For past and for future Her signature designed, Who drew a heart on the sand Round an S and a V. 2 Oh, spare a trifle to a blinded musician, And raise him up from exile and from derision. Far and further than far it is my lot to roam, Sweet Auburn was my lovely rustic home. Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain, Kind Nolly sang it, who was Auburn’s pride. He went to sing it in London and in London he died, And none will ever see sweet Auburn again. The day of Nolly’s funeral was such, Ten thousand beggars followed him to the grave And every loose woman was weeping like a wife, For the poor have longer memories than the rich. Like a true son of Auburn, he wore Pink breeches neat and clean as the flowers of the may. He shared his last crust with my good dog Tray, And when I hear him forgotten my heart is sore. So do not turn away from poor blind harper, But bear me home and wash me with soap and water, For the sake of kind Nell convey me to your humble dwelling, And for Thomas Moore also, and William Butler Yeats, sons of old Erin. 3 I saw the snow-wreaths lying in desolate whiteness Like innocent angels thrown down. To see them in their solitude of unlikeness Scattered upon the usual ground And still too heavenly to accomplish dying, I thought that I could scarcely forgive the spring. 4 Vault up the ceiling, Vanbrugh, and enchain Saloon on long saloon, vast as you will – There’s no geometry that can contain Atossa’s voice, so scolding and so shrill. Stretch out the grand Approach, her little shoe Hastening to war, shrivels the promenade; Her crowding fantasies of wrath outdo The mustered skyline vaunts of your facade. What’s roomy for those who have inhabited legend? Huddled in Blenheim, she weeps with red eyes The lost majestic dwelling that she planned And Marlborough filled up with victories. 5 Between the west and the east, Between silence and absence – Tower without a bell And altar impalpable – Stands the green priest, And now is grown so tall That his wide arms recline on the roofless wall.

Sylvia Townsend Warner and Valentine Ackland Archive, Dorset History Centre; DHC reference number D/TWA/A09; previous reference number at the Dorset County Museum 2012.125.3253.