The British

Submitted by Alexei (United States), Jan 23, 2021 at 15:21

As an elderly Brit born and bred, I would recommend the poem by A.S J Tessimond "The British" as typical of the British before the era of mass international travel/holidays abroad and the effects of mass immigration over several decades. It reveals a people who were mostly afraid of being embarrassed in public and standing out from the crowd, which was bizarre in a nation with more eccentrics than most.

We are a people living in shells and moving
Crablike; reticent, awkward, deeply suspicious;
Watching the world from a corner of half-closed eyelids,
Afraid less someone show that he hates or loves us,
Afraid less someone weep in the railway train.

We are coiled and clenched like a foetus clad in armour,
We hold our hearts for fear they fly like eagles.
We grasp our tongues for fear they cry like trumpets.
We listen to our own footsteps. We look both ways
Before we cross the silent empty road.

We are a people easily made uneasy,
Especially wary of praise, of passion, of scarlet
Cloaks, of gesturing hands, of the smiling stranger
In the alien hat who talks to all or the other
In the unfamiliar coat who talks to none.

We are afraid of too-cold thought or too-hot
Blood, of the opening of long-shut shafts or cupboards,
Of light in caves, of X-rays, probes, unclothing
Of emotion, intolerable revelation
Of lust in the light, of love in the palm of the hand.

We are afraid of, one day on a sunny morning,
Meeting ourselves or another without the usual
Outer sheath, the comfortable conversation,
And saying all, all, all we did not mean to,
All, all, all we did not know we meant.

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