I remember listening to the great pianist Andras Schiff talking about his love of accompanying Schubert lieder. There are any number he might have been talking about - Der Atlas, perhaps, or Der Doppelganger, or really it could have been anything from Schwanengesang - and remarking that there this song contained more drama than an entire Wagner opera.
That’s how I feel about Basil Bunting’s 12 liner ‘At Brigflatts’, compared with his huge symphonic modernist epic ‘Briggflatts’. Whilst ‘Briggflatts’ attempts to synthesize the history of Eric Bloodaxe (king in York & Dublin and seaways inbetween) with episodes of his own life (I think), ‘At Brigflatts’ is just a poem about what it’s like to attend a Quaker meeting at this ancient Meeting House.
Here’s the whole poem. Don’t be put off by the heavy heavy pounding of the first line, he’s doing ‘difficult’ for a reason. If you just listen to it, all is marvellously revealed.
Boast time mocks cumber Rome. Wren
set up his own monument.
Others watch fells dwindle, think
the sun's fires sink.
Stones indeed sift to sand, oak
blends with saints' bones.
Yet for a little longer here
stone and oak shelter
silence while we ask nothing
but silence. Look how the clouds dance
under the wind's wing, and leaves
delight in transience.