Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a plastic panel opened for our batteries;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted halls,
The muttering enthralls
Of restless nights in the attic closet
And ancient shelves with abandoned toys:
Halls that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming playtime ...
Oh, do not ask, “Where is it?”
Let them come and make their visit.
In the room the children come and go
Talking of Mr Mario.
The pallid fingers that rub their forms upon the instruction booklet,
The sticky thumbs that rub their pad-prints on the instruction booklet,
Dropped their blocks into the corners of an grid space,
Lingered upon the colours that stand on shafts,
Let fall upon its back the sparks that fall from plug sockets,
Slipped by the toy shelf, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a darling school night,
Curled once into the bed, and fell asleep.
And indeed there will be time
For the pallid finger that slide along the power button,
Rubbing its tips upon the instruction booklet;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a smile to meet the smiles that you meet;
There will be time to dismantle and create,
And time for all the games and plays of hands
That lift and drops the gyro upon your shaft;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred Gyromite revisions,
Before the dropping of switches and batteries.
In the room the children come and go
Talking of Mr Mario.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Watch them turn back and descend the stair,
Wondering why they go and where,
(They will say: “How this toy is wearing thin!”)
My whirring eyes, my rotors mounting firmly from my chin,
My power socket small and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —
(They will say: “But how its plugs and wires are thin!”)
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In our playtime there is time
For creations and insinuations which our playtime will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my time with laboratory rooms;
I know the voices crying with a crying call
Beneath the music from another game.
So how should I proclaim?
And I have known the hands already, known them all—
The hands that fix you in an adventurous game,
And when I am put together, sparking from a pin,
When I am put upon a shelf next to the wall,
Then how should I begin
To watch them forget our plays and games?
And how should I proclaim?
And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are rotorised and red and bare
(But in the laboratory, downed with a maddened glare!)
Is it dusting from a shelf
That makes me mourn my health?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shaft.
And should I then proclaim?
And how should I begin?
Shall I say, I have trundled at dusk through ancient aisles
And watched the smoke that rises from the bombs
Of lonely 'bots in arm rotors, leaning out of airships? ...
I should have been a pair of spinning arms
Scuttling across the stacks of falling blocks.
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by pallid fingers,
Asleep ... switched off ... or it malingers,
Left on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after blocks and games and Icies,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and stacked, wept and played,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly stained) fixed firm upon a column,
I am no player — and here’s our great roster;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Director hold my arms, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the blocks, the adventures, the games,
Among the plastic, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have greeted in the children with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a block
To roll it towards some overwhelming battle,
To say: “I am the Ancient Minister, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall let you watch”—
If one, sketching a moveset in his head
Should say: “That is quite what I meant and all;
That is quite it, and all.”
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the toy shelves and the gyro stacks and the ancient aisles,
After the games, after the adventures, after the hands that ramble along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a Golden Hammer threw the fighters in patterns against the screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, sketching a moveset or writing so a game,
And turning toward the screen, should say:
“That is quite it and all,
That is quite what I meant, and all.”
No! I am not Mario, nor was meant to be;
Am an unlockable character, one that will do
To swell a battle, start a fight or two,
Oversee the story; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of silent sadness, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.
I grow faint ... I grow faint ...
I shall watch the newcomers, swell and quaint.
Shall I fire my jets behind? Do I dare to dream of my crimes?
I shall paint my casing red, and listen to such endless rhymes.
I have seen the heroes fighting, signs to signs.
I do not think that they will fight for me.
I have seen them flying airborne through the skies,
Combing the blue crests of the skies blown back
When the hands engage the fighters, no gyros to stack.
We have lingered on the toy shelves of our dreams
By a Director wreathed with musings great and sound
Till human players pick us, and we drowned.
