!DOCTYPE html> html> head lang=”en-US”> title>Flight Of Stairs by A. S. J. Tessimond/title> /div> h1 class=”pageTitle”>Flight Of Stairs/h1> div class=”entry-content clearfix”> h2 class=”author”>by A. S. J. Tessimond/h2> div id=”content”> p>Stairs fly as straight as hawks;br /> Or else in spirals, curve out of curve, pausingbr /> At a ledge to poise their wings before relaunching.br /> Stairs sway at the height of their flightbr /> Like a melody in Tristan;br /> Or swoop to the ground with glad spread of their feathersbr /> Before they close them./p> p>They curiously investigatebr /> The shells of buildings,br /> A hollow core,br /> Shell in a shell./p> p>Useless to produce their path to infinitybr /> Or turn it to a moral symbol,br /> For their flight is ambiguous, upwards or downwards as you please;br /> Their fountain is frozen,br /> Their concertina is silent./p>/div> p>br /> br> /body> /html>
Arthur Seymour John Tessimond (1902 -1962) was an English poet. He had a tumultuous childhood, ran from boarding school, went to work, somehow attended the University of Liverpool, avoided service in WWI and then discovered that he is unfit for military service after he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which in those days was known as manic depression. A.S. Tessimond is a wonderful poet though maybe somewhat underappreciated poet. He died from in 1962 from a brain haemorrhage.