Colm Tóibín
Late
It is late, and there is little left to say.
Yes, I know that there is a case to be made
For the novels of Pamela Hansford Johnson
Over the novels of Elizabeth Jane Howard.
And if I were to come to earth again,
I would like to be Gerald Ford, who slipped
In and then out of office, and was soon
Overshadowed by his wife Betty and her clinic.
I prefer the Holy Ghost, who never got crucified
Or made the Sermon on the Mount, to God the Father,
Who made too much fuss. His mother would have been
Proud of him, if he ever had a mother, if he was ‘he’,
If he was a ghost at all, or even holy. I mean,
What did he do? No thunder. No miracles. Maybe
He helped out when he was needed at the conception
Of Jesus. Yes, that might have been his contribution.
I like Dirty Dick Mulcahy, James Dillon, Alan Dukes
And Michael Noonan, leaders of the Fine Gael party
Who never became Taoiseach. What about Tom O’Higgins
Who was ten thousand votes away from being President?
Or R.A. Butler who nearly became Prime Minister,
Who put through the Education Act of 1944, of course,
And died as the fashion of having just initials
Before your name died too. It could mark you out
As Anglo-Catholic in religion, classicist in literature,
And royalist in politics, like T.S. Eliot. Better to be
Called Ted, or Andrew, or Carol Ann, or Simon, the names
Of the last four poet laureates. And maybe better still,
To be the poet laureate that no one at all remembers
And no one at all reads, like Alfred Austin, who lies
In peace. It is late, and I am buried deep in C.P. Snow
And exhausted straddling the two cultures and thinking
Hard about Raymond Williams and F.R. Leavis and J.I.M.
Stewart, who had a nerve. In America, when they attacked
The Capitol, they tore pages from the books of George Rudé,
Books that would have put strange ideas into their heads.
It is too late for thoughts; there’s not much time either
For idle musings, odd associations. What is the difference
Between John Wain and John Wayne, I might have asked.
Now, what can I ask? And what would you say in reply?
‘Late’ appears in Vinegar Hill (Carcanet, 2022).
Colm Tóibín is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, journalist, critic, and poet. He. recently won the Rathbones Folio Prize for his historical novel The Magician and his debut collection of poetry is Vinegar Hill (Carcanet, 2022).