The Two Analysis

You are the town and we are the clock.
We are the guardians of the gate in the rock.
The Two.
On your left and on your right
In the day and in the night,
We are watching you.

Wiser not to ask just what has occurred
To them who disobeyed our word;
To those
We were the whirlpool, we were the reef,
We were the formal nightmare, grief
And the unlucky rose.

Climb up the crane, learn the sailor's words
When the ships from the islands laden with birds
Come in.
Tell your stories of fishing and other men's wives:
The expansive moments of constricted lives
In the lighted inn.

But do not imagine we do not know
Nor that what you hide with such care won't show
At a glance.
Nothing is done, nothing is said,
But don't make the mistake of believing us dead:
I shouldn't dance.

We're afraid in that case you'll have a fall.
We've been watching you over the garden wall
For hours.
The sky is darkening like a stain,
Something is going to fall like rain
And it won't be flowers.

When the green field comes off like a lid
Revealing what was much better hid:
Unpleasant.
And look, behind you without a sound
The woods have come up and are standing round
In deadly crescent.

The bolt is sliding in its groove,
Outside the window is the black removers' van.
And now with sudden swift emergence
Come the woman in dark glasses and humpbacked surgeons
And the scissors man.

This might happen any day
So be careful what you say
Or do.
Be clean, be tidy, oil the lock,
Trim the garden, wind the clock,
Remember the Two.


Submitted by Venus

.: :.

I stumbled upon this poem while reading "Watership Down": two of the last 3 stanzas were the little intro piece to the chapter called "The Shining Wire". I loved those two stanzas, so I tracked down the rest of this poem. Now that I've read the whole thing, I have to say, it is amazing, and it scares the hell out of me.
Who are "the two"? is the main question I'm left with after reading this. Someone you don't want to fool with. Someone evidently armed with a bolt-action rifle ("the bolt is sliding in its groove"). Someone watching our every move.
So who are the two? Are they agents of government (say, democrats + republicans, or labour + conservatives, or left + right), or are they more abstract than that?
The phrase "we are the clock" seems to say that "the two" control when things happen. They keep the schedule. That they guard the "gate in the rock" seems to be saying that they are responsible for our security. Maybe "the two" are government + military?
One line that puzzles me is "when the green field comes off like a lid." Not sure what that means. When we dig the earth? Like for a grave? Or is it talking about a different kind of green field? Like on a flag?
As for the "woman in dark glasses", the "scissor man", and the "humpbacked surgeons, I have no clue who they are. But I have a feeling the "black remover's van" is a hearse.

| Posted on 2009-05-28 | by a guest