The Anathemata
Sherthursdaye and Venus day (continued)
There are but children, weak:
these cannot tell what mound-war means.1
For these:
down the long history-paths in the quiet apses
where it’s very still
the fracture-sound
when
with this hand and that hand conjoined
over the poured-out confluence
he parts that,2 which—
under the sign of that creaturea —
can do more than any grain.3
All have stomach for these comfortable signs
in the lighted apses.
David Jones notes
1 Cf. C. F. Alexander, We are but Little Children Weak, and, by the same author, There is a Green Hill, verse 2,
‘. . .we cannot tell what pains he had to bear’.
2 Cf. the Mass rubric, ‘he takes the host into both hands and breaks it down the middle over the chalice’.
3 Cf. the folk-song, John Barleycorn, last verse:
‘It will do more than any grain By the turning of your hand’.
additional notes
In later printings, the first word is changed, and possibly corrected, to ‘These’.
DJ note 2: at this point, the chalice will contain the mixture (confluence) of wine and water.
DJ note 3: John Barleycorn: see here for a traditional version (with chorus, see next paragraph); for a longer verion by Burns, see here.
a that creature: that which is created, i.e. the host made from the grain by human hands.
see also
See also frangit per medium on page 69.
comments
A reference to the innocence of children leads to the breaking of the host in Mass, a sound which can be audible in a small quiet church.