There but for the Grace - a 'Problem Poem'

There but for the Grace has been classed by some critics as one of Grayson’s ‘Problem Poems’, along with the likes of Midnight at the Convent (1972), A Gap in the Hedge and The Barn Owl has the Softest Down (both 1981).

For me however, Grace is more emblematic than problematic. The themes of individual liberty, mob morality and ‘victimless crime’ have recurred sporadically in Grayson’s work, as have issues around animal rights and rural traditions. It is well known that Grayson has, at different times in his life, been passionately in favour of, and violently opposed to, foxhunting - though generally on aesthetic rather than moral grounds. But, as Grayson himself has famously put it:

Consistency is the both the most inconsistent virtue and the most consistently misunderstood vice. The artist, who most certainly should not be consistent, too often is; while the critic, who must be consistent if he is to be anything at all, too often isn’t. (1)


Here's the poem, decide for yourself!


There but for the Grace

They had old Bert in cuffs.
Dragged through fool-thronged streets
to Shrewsbury gaol,
For the crime of loving Nature just
six inches too much.

We are all bestial. Oh
the greybeards, eyeglassed
collectors, cold scientists,
They divide up life, wallcharts,
Nets and belljars, microscopes,
Pronounce names, rule on ‘species’,
Freeze them in catalogues.

But there’s no catalogue
for love. Seed is seed, and love is love.
The horse covers the ass: the mule is no great sin.
Old Bert knew badgers, sheep, otters,
Deeper than any scientist knows their ways;
He knew their love.

At the steps of Shrewsbury gaol
old Bert caught my eye.
I know why: For there but for the Grace
go you, go I.


(C) Grayson Ellis, 1989
‘Confessions’
Reprinted with permission.



(1) Grayson Ellis Fishing for Dead Trout: Critical analysis in the Post-Thatcher World (1992). Originally published in the Times Literary Supplement 14/5/92