Favourite Poems: "A Portrait in the Guards" by Laurence Whistler

Laurence Whistler is hardly a household name. He's not even primarily remembered as a poet, but a glass engraver. And yet he wrote two of my favourite poems: this, and "A Form of Epitaph".

I encountered this poem in my teens and have never forgotten it. Although the whole thing is good, it's the fourth and penultimate verse that, in my view, lifts it to the level of the sublime.

In my teens and twenties, I had the idea that great poetry expressed something that was on the verge of being inexpressible. I still think this is an important form of poetic greatness, though not the only one. "Snow" by Louis MacNeice is another example of this.

Note that Whistler uses "very" twice within the same two lines. The idea that one should always avoid such repetition (in verse or prose) seems quite misguided to me.

Aside from that incomparable verse, though, I think the poem captures something very real about drawing and painting: that you only really see something when you draw it. The hush of a drawing session in the Art class-room is a unique atmosphere, a unique state of mind.

A Portrait in the Guards

So these two faced each other there,
The artist and his model. Both
In uniform. Years back. In training.
Not combatant yet. But both aware
Of what the word meant. Not complaining,
But, inwardly, how loth.

They talked of this, perhaps. Each knew
The other, or himself, might be
Unlucky. But each knew this true
Of anyone at all. And so
There was no thrill in it. A knee
Jigged to the hit-tune of some show.

Each scrutinized the other frankly,
As only painter and sitter do:
Objectively and at leisure. Face
That must not, please, relax too blankly
Into repose. And face that threw
Glances, the brush being poised in space.

So both, it may be, had the sense
Of seeing suddenly very plain
A very obvious thing: the immense
Thereness of someone else: a man
Once only, since the world began.
Never before, and never again.

It could be, while a cigarette
Hung grey, each recognized the other
As valid utterly and brother.
It should be so. Because, of all
Who in that mess-tent shortly met,
These would be first to fall.