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.Pretty tales, gods and nymphs stolen from the marbles Elgin stole.Meanwhile a body hung on a cross and a mother wept.Play.Sonnet competitions over the teacups in Leigh Hunt's untidy house.Crowning each other with laurels: play.Apollo was not amused, was not mocked.John sweated in fear and prayed: "Whoever presides over poetry, spare me to dare the darkness.Everything is an allegory of the unknown.Teach me the way of the reading of the signs.Give me time to grow.I promise faithful service.No more play." Then he fell into heavy sleep.SIXSevern came early the next morning to John's room.He had been out in the cool sunlight to post a letter to Will Haslam.It had been on Haslam's recommendation that John had come here, Haslam was a true friend who would be happy to learn that the advice had proved sound, that John was stronger in body and as active as ever in mind.A hopeful letter, then, and hope was confirmed in Severn as he found John awake, sitting up in bed and scribbling.He had made a knee desk of a big old book whose faded title Severn could roughly make out – A Word of Worlds or something.John had paper and a newly cut quill.On the chair beside his bed were the penknife, the inkwell, the drained milk cup of the previous day.John's eyes were bright, his cheeks healthily, so it seemed, flushed.His redgold hair was uncombed."Sabrina fair, how is the Roman morning?""I saw a very pretty little crib outside a church whose name I forget, with a little chubby Jesus child choked in tinsel.The Romans are already thinking of Christmas.It is but two weeks to go now.You stayed out yesterday.You should have said you would not be home for dinner.As we have to pay for two I ate two.I was dyspeptic.Signora Angeletti gave me some bubbling fountain water.It helped.""Bubbling Severn.I am bubbling too, words are bubbling.I had this mad notion yesterday of a long poem on Rome, the history of Rome and the unchangingness of the Roman.Then I woke in the night and it was, lo, revealed unto me that such a tale must be in prose.It is not for me, then.""So what are you writing?""For the moment I am succumbing to madness and revelling in it.I am back to the notion of a river, though it is not necessarily the Severn.It might well be the Jordan.I am letting the river carry everything on his back, or hers.I see the river, though, as very male.See what I have done, and if you laugh I shall be pleased."Severn took the sheet and read:A bearded corpse, a corpse with lesser beard,Father and son, hands death-clasped, as they fearedThe river's disuniting, and, above,Swooping through clouds, the ghost of a black dove,And cleft by rocks a melon with black teeth,While an old signpost rose from underneathThe joyous waters, with outlandish scriptI could not read.Then, with their grey hides strippedAs from an ancient beating, bloated dogsSailed on their backs…"I cannot very well laugh at something I fail altogether to understand.""I do not understand it either," John said cheerfully."But it is not the poet's task to be clear, even to the poet.Hens lay eggs but can say nothing of the richness of yolk and airy blandness of albumen.Talking of eggs, I think I could -" Then he started to cough.He shrugged at it, coughing, as at a transient nuisance.Then the coughing increased and became paroxysmal.John's eyes showed fear, his nails grappled A World of Words in panic.Severn breathed fast and shallow.Scarlet gushed out and John moaned, choking.He tried madly to use his manuscript as a cup.The inky quill fell from the knee desk and wrote briefly on the coverlet.Severn was quick with the cup that had held milk.John filled it and groaned "Oh God God." There was a thick bubbling in his chest, then throat.Severn opened the casement and threw the rich red out like slops.He shut it again against the mild chill and was in time to offer the vessel for another filling of crimson.Severn looked at it fascinated and said calmly:"I must get Clark." There was no more gushing, merely a few blobs and strings of phlegmy red to lace the brimming cup.John lay back, wretched, ashamed, fearful, disappointed."I will go find him now.Or I will ask Signora Angeletti." There was no blood, though the breathing rattled, now, two cups enough, more than.John lay back very pale."You fetch him.We do not want.This is our little.Play.""I'll wait.I'll wait five minutes.""There'll be no more.Not yet.Get him
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