Encounter

– from the Indian side –

He stept from the plane,
tall as a crane,
his ebbing gray hair
ruffled by the air.
A local film magnate
who minted money by the second
for a while did stagnate
with a bouquet and a rose garland
at the airport to greet him
in the covey come to meet him.
Said one:
Sure as a gun,
me you needn’t convince,
he does look like a prince.
Cried another:
Look, dear brother,
Stephen Spender!
Is he legal tender
in the realm of English verse?
His numbers are so terse,
one goes out of gear
to know his meaning clear.
Then a third: Hist!
Wasn’t he once a communist?
Ay, ay camarade,
he sang the aubade–
the poet he is, he wailed
about the God that failed.
Cut a fourth raising his fist,
he seemed a working journalist:
Who comes to roost,
who gets the boost
in the double-barrelled Encounter
born to make a treble stir?
And for a mag what a medieval name
smacking of shield and lance and knight and dame?

But walking with us we saw his majestic walk,
and on platforms we listened to his spirited talk
not fluent
as from a golden instrument,
but sedate,
deliberate,
the simple, precise word his aim,
not cliches tame.
–MANJERI S. ISVARAN

[Stephen Spender, the British poet, visited Madras in October last, in his cultural tour of the East sponsored by the International Congress for Cultural Freedom. This poem was written when he met the author and a few literary friends at the author’s place in Egmore. Mr. Spender addressed several meetings in the city. The sketch is by R Gopal.]