Chopin in London

Poor Fritz, poor Fritzchen, Frédéric Chopin, I

Man my resources to play all the night through,

Flex my wrist as a singer might draw in breath

Pausing before her first irresolute note –

For whom shall I sing but you, old cimbalom,

Simpleton of my wanderings, confidante

Like me played out by circumstance? – slender frame

More or less sound, a few strings snapped inside

Waiting for some Pleyel to refashion them.

Play to yourself, for yourself, while the gay throng

Murmur together, impatient for the end –

It will come, it will come – yellow, shrivelled, cold,

Three layers of flannel under my clothes, still

No bigger than a boy, shrunk over the keys,

Nothing left but my longer-than-ever nose

And a third finger desperately out of play.

Dowagers, dowried debutantes, dowdy belles,

They’ve got their grip on me – I can't shake them off –

Introduce me all over – who knows to whom? –

Chatter while I perform and then play themselves

Soulful and inaccurate, watching their hands –

Lank dried-up green-and-yellow countesses,

Scottish ladies who whistle to the guitar,

Mrs Grote, grotesque, with her baritone voice

Asking me up three flights of steps to her box,

We chatted like the goose and the sucking pig

For I could speak no English and she no French –

The continuous round of dinners, concerts, balls,

Surrounded by people, feeling so alone,

More bored than ever, bored, incredibly bored.

If London were not so black, its people dull,

Or if it could lose its smell of soot and fog,

I might even now dare to open my mouth

In this, your so-dear city. But I get up

Coughing myself to death, take soup in my room,

Get Daniel to dress me, gasp all day, not fit

For anything until dinner. Then to stop

At table with these cattle, watching them talk,

Listening to them drink – oh, good kind souls,

So ugly and so alarming, let me breathe,

Understand what is said to me, live to greet

One or two friendly faces – those that are left.

PHILIP HOBSBAUM

In Chopin's Garden

I remember the scarlet setts

Of the little-frequented highway

From Warsaw to the West

And Chopin's house, one Sunday.