Britten (Hmv 1) Poem by johannes lewinsky

Away from tidal waves
Away from storms
The dream leads on
Towards a childish death

Or else
Towards paradox

On the shores of the lagoon
A graveyard
Where huge birds guard
In serried rows
The tombs
As though transfixed
By their own insomnia

Ah serenissima
Ah the beauty
Of this wilderness straining
into the night

How seductively it calls us
To duty or to delight

Henceforth

I reject the word and embrace
The outcast soul the friendless fate
And I turn away from

The stagnant mind
The obvious truth
Which flows so glibly
As into a green glass darkly

And I invite the world
Its emissaries & minions
To be my guide

Amidst these winds, these skies
That reflect so faithfully
The waves' shuddering pride
For it is here
In the shadowlands beyond
That I shall linger


Where no words come
And thought no longer can
Drop down naked roots

And where your voice
Amidst the waves
Amidst the pain
Shall be

A constant reminder



Benjamin Britten single-handedly revived British opera which had been moribund since Purcell. As a homosexual in a world where homosexuality was still taboo his works often focussed around the lonely destiny of the social outcast - both male & female. He made his home on the East Coast of Suffolk within striking distance of the North Sea in which bleak & barren landscape he felt at home. He was a romantic whose work spoke directly to a post-war world (Grimes was premiered in 1945) .



The axis of this poem is the space between Britten's first and last operas Peter Grimes and ‘Death in Venice' with their wildly divergent landscapes as background to remarkably similar monodramas.