Poetry from the Jungle The Ceylon Press

The JungleThe Work of an Unknown Author
 Edited by Max de Silva, 2020

I secrets
 
 
Nothing yet
                    does the jungle give,
however long you wait 
or watch; 
 
it is eternal,
                    it does not age.
 
Its appearance 
is scarcely a hint
of all that is hidden - 
 
tight-lipped, 
dark green;
 
ceaselessly undisturbed, 
untouched, 
unconcerned even;
 
indifferent 
to what begins where,
or how, or why  -
 
as if it could know
that it will all
simply return.
 
Actually,
it is a great wall, 
 
limitless,
 
its ends unreported,
holding close
the smuggled secrets
                    of this day 
and tomorrow,
 
of one millennia 
to the next,
 
filtering the sun like a censor,
 
carrying forward its confidential cargos 
in low capacious vaults.
 
Listen now;
                    stop, and listen.
 
It speaks in ciphers
that have no key,
yet picks out imperfections
betraying them
like a spy to an enemy,
 
dipping, dipping 
into nameless valleys
 
and up the steep sides 
of unforgetting hills.
 

 
II island
 
The songs that have endured
are merely words,
the tunes themselves long lost;
 
the texts are somewhat incomplete,
 
but what survives
is that perfect island,
                    presented in the way 
a child might dream of an island
                    set in a great sea,
 
                                        rising up from forested beaches 
                                        to a centre of mighty mountains
                                        that disappear into clouds.  
 
Immense rivers
tumble back down.
 
In the villages
the old dances are still young;
                    
                    new babies
                    are fed on milk
                    dipped in gold
                    before their horoscopes are taken.
 
Numbers rule the universe.
 
Boys touch the feet of elders;
 
households
prepare their daughters
to come of age
washed in water with herbs, 
                    the girl concealed
                    until she is presented 
                    with her own reflection
                    swimming in a silver bowl
beneath her face.
 
The gems later looted from their antique tombs
were not even from the island -
                    diamonds, emeralds,
even amber, to mix
with their own stones,
 
                    pink sapphires and rubies, 
garnets, topaz, aquamarines;
rose quartz 
fine enough to see through.
 
Carpenters inlaid furniture 
with ivory and rare woods; 
crafted secret chambers, 
hidden drawers.
 
Fish sang off long sandy beaches.
 
And along the rivers 
stretched parks,
warehouses, jetties, mansions.
 
III bounty
 
 
Later,
they measured that happiness,
when happiness was a choice,
                    recalling a time of bounty,
 
an embarrassment of great cities,
of shipping lanes that converged 
on southern ports.
 
The safe shallow waters of the Lagoon 
welcomed visitors.
 
Kings ruled,
                    father to son,
brother to brother,
daring to do all they thought,
 
There were brindleberries and fenugreek; 
lemongrass, mangos;
                    the coconuts fruited;
 
                                        frangipani bloomed, ylang ylang, ,
even kadupul flowers, 
queens of the night.
 
High wooden watchtowers rose protectively
over wide courtyards,
                    and gardens grew cardamom, 
cinnamon, cloves, vanilla.
 
Waters rippled in great tanks 
built by kings like inland seas
to flow to fields and homes.
 
Kitchens prepared milk rice
and new dishes
with ginger and kitel, 
turmeric, tamarind.
 
In the shade of palace buildings
frescos were painted, statues carved,

The JungleThe Work of an Unknown Author

Edited by Max de Silva 2020
  
A Dedication
Whether or not the original text of The Jungle included a dedication 
can, sadly, only be a matter of random speculation given 
the passage of so many  hundreds of years, but for my own part 
I would like to dedicate my contribution in its publication, the Preface and 
Notes, to two who have been an inspiration throughout the long and 
sometime complex process of editing.  They know who they are. 
 MM and Fion Cati.
 
 
Contents A Preface to the Work and an Explanation of its Finding
The Jungle
An Index of Associations

 
The Jungle  A Preface to the Work and an Explanation of its Finding
 
 
Introduction
The Jungle is a curious work, and its provenance something of a mystery that I hope this edition will go some way towards illuminating.
 
Many scholars, not least some of my own colleagues at the Department of English Literature at Marischial College, have commented that it is not a poem at all.  Or even a reliable history.
 
Fortunately, as an academic specialising in old English dialects and English colonial lexicons, and not poetry (or even Literature or Colonial Studies), it is not my place to enter into such debates.
 
But why, you might most reasonably ask, is someone like me involved in this work at all?   And what exactly is this work?  The two questions are deeply intertwined.
 
The Jungle (and that is not its real title, as you will learn) is not an complete piece of writing.  It is missing parts – how many exactly we cannot really know.
 
But I am getting ahead of myself.  
 
I will begin at the beginning, relatively speaking.
 
 
The Buchanan-Smith Archive
 
The manuscript was discovered amongst the paper of Lady Margie Buchanan-Smith, a Scottish landowner from Balerno, south of Edinburgh, who died in 1901.  
 
Buchanan-Smith was well known in her time for her crossbreed shorthorn cattle, which later went on to produce the beef for which Scotland is now so famous.  But she was also a collector of antiquarian papers, and left her considerable, albeit largely uncatalogued, library to the Montrose Library.  
 
There it sat, still in its original boxes until 1932 when T. Jerome Mockett (later Professor Mockett) discovered the trove of documents and set about cataloguing them for the library.  
 
 
The Mockett Catalogue
 
Many interesting first-hand accounts were revealed by Mockett’s careful cataloguing, the Diaries of Captain Graham Laurie, being probably the most famous, written as there were over the period of the later Napoleonic wars.
 
The Diaries capture in vivid detail what life was like for a merchant ship ferrying trade from the East and West Indies through seas swarming with French frigates.  As we know, Laurie’s Diaries later went onto inspire the Hornblower novels written by C. S. Forester.  Laurie would later go on to create a not inconsiderable scandal by his marriage to Coco zur Wager, the natural daughter of the French pretender, Bianca, Duchesse de Orleans-Bourbon.  Scandal, it seems ran in that family for Laurie’s son, Dominic became a notable London buck and partner-in-arms of George Bryan "Beau" Brummell. 
 
The Jungle (and I will call it that for the sake of convenience) was one of the many manuscripts for which Professor Mockett could find few details.  
 
A Bill of Sale, still attached to the manuscript, showed that it had been bought by Buchanan-Smith from Desmond Truscott, an antiquarian bookseller then based in Edinburgh’s Lawnmarket in 1884.  
 
 
The Rutland Family
 
From that small ticket, it is possible to trace a likely provenance to the Rutland family, who had for several generations been tenants of the Langold-Gillows, the eminent eighteenth-century furniture makers who later built Leyton Park near Slackhead in the Lake District .  
 
The Rutland’s were tenant farmers of the Leyton Park Estate.  
 
The last of the line, Katarina K

I live in you, you live in me;We are two gardens haunted by each other.Sometimes I cannot find you there,There is only the swing creaking, that you have just left,Or your favourite book beside the sundial.
The Ceylon Press currently produces three podcast shows.1. The Jungle Diaries (www.theceylonpress.com/thejunglediariespodcast)2. The History of Sri Lanka (www.theceylonpress.com/thehistoryofsrilankapodcast)3. Poetry from the Jungle

To climb these stairs again, bearing a tray,Might be to find you pillowed with your books,Your inventories listing gowns and frocksAs if preparing for a holiday.Or, turning from the landing, I might findMy presence watched through your kaleidoscope,A symmetry of husbands, each redesignedIn lovely forms of foresight, prayer and hope.I climb these stairs a dozen times a dayAnd, by the open door, wait, looking inAt where you died. My hands become a trayOffering me, my flesh, my soul, my skin.Grief wrongs us so. I stand, and wait, and cryFor the absurd forgiveness, not knowing why.
The Ceylon Press currently produces three podcast shows.1. The Jungle Diaries (www.theceylonpress.com/thejunglediariespodcast)2. The History of Sri Lanka (www.theceylonpress.com/thehistoryofsrilankapodcast)3. Poetry from the Jungle

The nicest child I ever knewWas Charles Augustus Fortescue.He never lost his cap, or toreHis stockings or his pinafore:   In eating Bread he made no Crumbs,   He was extremely fond of sums,To which, however, he preferredThe Parsing of a Latin Word—He sought, when it was within his power,For information twice an hour,And as for finding Mutton-FatUnappatising, far from that!He often, at his Father’s Board,Would beg them, of his own accord,To give him, if they did not mind,The Greasiest Morsels they could find—His Later Years did not belieThe Promise of his Infancy.   In Public Life he always tried   To take a judgement Broad and Wide;In Private, none was more than heRenowned for quiet courtesy.He rose at once in his Career,And long before his Fortieth YearHad wedded Fifi, Only ChildOf Bunyan, First Lord Aberfylde.He thus became immensely Rich,And built the Splendid Mansion whichIs called The Cedars, Muswell Hill,Where he resides in affluence still,To show what everybody mightBecome by SIMPLY DOING RIGHT.
The Ceylon Press currently produces three podcast shows.1. The Jungle Diaries (www.theceylonpress.com/thejunglediariespodcast)2. The History of Sri Lanka (www.theceylonpress.com/thehistoryofsrilankapodcast)3. Poetry from the Jungle (www.theceylonpress.com/poetryfromthejunglepodcast)

Matilda told such Dreadful Lies,It made one Gasp and Stretch one's Eyes;Her Aunt, who, from her Earliest Youth,Had kept a Strict Regard for Truth,Attempted to Believe Matilda:The effort very nearly killed her,And would have done so, had not SheDiscovered this Infirmity.For once, towards the Close of Day,Matilda, growing tired of play,And finding she was left alone,Went tiptoe to the TelephoneAnd summoned the Immediate AidOf London's Noble Fire-Brigade.Within an hour the Gallant BandWere pouring in on every hand,From Putney, Hackney Downs, and Bow.With Courage high and Hearts a-glow,They galloped, roaring through the Town,'Matilda's House is Burning Down! 'Inspired by British Cheers and LoudProceeding from the Frenzied Crowd,They ran their ladders through a scoreOf windows on the Ball Room Floor;And took Peculiar Pains to SouseThe Pictures up and down the House,Until Matilda's Aunt succeededIn showing them they were not needed;And even then she had to payTo get the Men to go away,It happened that a few Weeks laterHer Aunt was off to the TheatreTo see that Interesting PlayThe Second Mrs. Tanqueray.She had refused to take her NieceTo hear this Entertaining Piece:A Deprivation Just and WiseTo Punish her for Telling Lies.That Night a Fire did break out-You should have heard Matilda Shout!You should have heard her Scream and Bawl,And throw the window up and callTo People passing in the Street-(The rapidly increasing HeatEncouraging her to obtainTheir confidence) - but all in vain!For every time she shouted 'Fire! 'They only answered 'Little Liar! 'And therefore when her Aunt returned,Matilda, and the House, were Burned.
The Ceylon Press currently produces three podcast shows.1. The Jungle Diaries (www.theceylonpress.com/thejunglediariespodcast)2. The History of Sri Lanka (www.theceylonpress.com/thehistoryofsrilankapodcast)3. Poetry from the Jungle (www.theceylonpress.com/poetryfromthejunglepodcast)