Concordance

This concordance provides an index to every word in the poems, excluding a list of common "stopwords". It may be useful in finding a half-remembered poem, and perhaps in looking at the usage of words in the poems as a whole. It will be readable only on a large screen.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

B

ve— / / but above all others: / / the

baby brother she first was jealous of, / / but they were knitted toge

Eugénie de Guérin

. / / I couldn’t utter, no more than a

baby can / / whimpering for his mother in his sleep. / / I lay there

Spells and Love

/ / Give absolute freedom to a newborn

baby , / / it dies. / / And so, mutatis mutandis, through our lives.

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

/ / And now the loved brother lives in

Babylon , / / Paris, leagues away. And further. / / He has left the w

Eugénie de Guérin

sappears / / in cloud (like Brueghel’s

Babylon / / reversed) when first we’re launched. But soon / / spiral

ink or save us… / / Or / / to be sent

bach — / / another life, down or up the scale, / / again, again, agai

is error / / and dropped the knife and

backed against the thorn / / his heart contracting in a kind of terro

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ (the greeks gave temples fronts and

backs alike, / / just as to statues generally gave faces / / no more

Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening

ht from above: / / carriage-top, horse-

backs , backs of stooping men— / / one face: hers, lifted sleeping. So

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

above: / / carriage-top, horse-backs,

backs of stooping men— / / one face: hers, lifted sleeping. So she to

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ace of absent love. / / And at all our

backs / / (our comfortable backs) thunders war / / with all those de

Back Room, 1944

at all our backs / / (our comfortable

backs ) thunders war / / with all those deaths of others. / / And tha

Back Room, 1944

” To the slow height / / we turned our

backs , towards the Thames our faces. / / Trafalgar Square, laid empty

/ teasing the plaintive self: / / Look

backward down your life / / for the constellated roses. / /

m… / / I woke happy, and though / / a

backwash of regret / / (a dream is a dream, no / / more) remains, ye

[Restoration of innocence in a dream]

ms, / / like looking from a train into

backyards / / of English slums, but worse (and better, / / as sun-sc

Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening

ension / / of beauty and good (also of

bad and ugly, / / but those are negatives, / / shadow to light). And

constipated or cursing diarrhoea, / /

bad breath, bad teeth, bad skin, / / falling or superfluous hair / /

hat flares high on a short fuse. / / A

bad combination, one would suppose, / / a recipe for trouble. / / Ye

[I have (what seemingly you do not see)]

/ / I have spoiled my world / / for a

bad dream. / /

t / / those kindly features now in her

bad dreams / / merge with that other frightening frightened face. /

Change Places…

e Fate, he’ll be knocking at. / / I’ve

bad drugs in my chest, Mistress, things I bought / / from an eastern

Spells and Love

/ / —a sweet little girl—hanging’s not

bad enough— / / But who can know the darkness of that house? / / A b

/ a sensitive balance on the fence is

bad . / / Not yours to raise a fiery cross and sweep / / the world be

hopelesser, / / natural goodness goes

bad … / / one would think. But this man / / can create his own star.

s— / / cold, though, and hungry. These

bad seasons thinned / / the woods of game. The hunting being poor /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

diarrhoea, / / bad breath, bad teeth,

bad skin, / / falling or superfluous hair / / or a good crop has dan

or cursing diarrhoea, / / bad breath,

bad teeth, bad skin, / / falling or superfluous hair / / or a good c

role, laudator temporis acti? / / No.

Bad trouble, but even our sick polutions / / of earth and water and a

you. / / Funny and kind. / / You know

bad trouble, mind / / your troubles, mind others’ troubles more, / /

Two Poems for G

fight against the good / / fairy, the

bad was rousing all her power. / / His strength and purpose flowed an

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ight?—the parable / / forgotten of the

badger and the hind, / / and with it the sad facts. Perhaps we all /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

truth / / placed him no better than a

badger here— / / rough-handed serf in perpetuity. / / The seasons in

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

him. The hind could only scorn / / the

badger , yield some insolent stag her joys. / / It was October. Work w

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

tress / / knowing so much is done / /

badly or left undone, / / and if something’s done well, not knowing a

s, / / gripping the handle of my heavy

bag , / / my weight behind me grinding my raw knuckles / / in the rou

/ North, and then West again by the Old

Bailey / / towards High Holborn, tired, a dreary road. / / But moonl

ife entails acceptance / / of death to

balance birth, / / of depressing age as well as youth’s depressions.

Climacteric by the Sea

ales would tip one way. / / There is a

balance in things / / subtle as his, riding those narrow wings. / /

we issue from / / nature—yet wreck the

balance of things, the breath, / / the pulse, the natural interlockin

s good; always to keep / / a sensitive

balance on the fence is bad. / / Not yours to raise a fiery cross and

Balance Sheet / Not so much the fear of dying or of being dead / / (a

power and deadweight hold / / a steady

balance ; some / / smoulder an age; some flare smokily up; / / some b

that, looking down / / on me from this

balcony , / / a watcher would see me / / simply one of the old. / /

Climacteric by the Sea

hem / / naturally. / / I stand on the

balcony . / / Children run and shout / / on the beach, splash and sho

Climacteric by the Sea

princess. What is it? / / Why, a great

ball in celebration of / / her fourteenth Christmas (she was autumn-b

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

night home. / / Past two o’clock. The

ball went on and on. / / All the princes were slow of foot and wit. /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Consider / Consider this shrunk

ball / / (words circle it in seconds, you and I / / in twice the tim

Ballad / At work she smiled. Resting she made / / a bracelet braided

Ballad / from the Greek / That time we started drinking / / early on

esistibly leading / / like a path in a

ballad or a story / / leading the wandering traveller / / (the young

Los Altos Hills

/ (Go and catch a falling star), Border

Ballads , / / Campion, Wyatt. A little later on / / Lycidas draws ahe

ace. / / A little later came Kipling’s

ballads : / / two men riding through a death-sown plain, / / pursued

er the green grass, / / yellow cowslip-

balls of flowering fennel, / / yellow mimosa. Other flowers, white an

Under the spring sun moves the innocent

band / / white-dressed, green garlanded, under the blue / / bright s

Pelopia and Thyestes

princeling of the knife. / / Beast and

bandit walk the earth / / while the hero, careless, bored, / / hunts

he knew well. / / He turned along the

bank , and certainly / / knew this was not his way. Turned from the pl

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

him— / / all but swept off he made the

bank just. Quite / / spent, he could only drag his feebleness / / to

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ they walked, indeed they rode—at the

bank -side / / a trim boat, rigged, provisioned, lay at anchor. / / T

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / Waking to water whispering by the

bank , / / the dark recesses of the sunstruck wood / / brought his fo

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

s flattened back, / / and the far left

bank too; and at that spot / / there seemed a thinning in the trees.

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

se?—Ah, that. / / Off to his right the

bank was flattened back, / / and the far left bank too; and at that s

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ught, / / trapped, pinned on the rough

bank ; yet still she fought, / / biting him, scratching him, and sudde

Pelopia and Thyestes

ly the firm stance / / falters, joined

banks are sundered anew. / / But dance, dance on the jutting stump, d

Sur le Pont d’Avignon

all the brick-grey desert, the swirling

banner / / we bear of smoke, smoke of factories, / / the factories t

“Life is sweet, brother”

he kind / / are facets of one strange,

barbarian heart. / / Their bonds remain, but you shall to the vow /

much to wreck, but man can do it. / /

Barbarian or Greek, Gentile or Jew, it / / comes to the same. Free? w

Dark Age / Frontiers break to

barbary . / / Hunger burns the palace-wall, / / robs the revered grav

ng we hate to give. / / Huddled in his

barbed camp we fret, we grieve / / numbly under his rifling hands, bu

So with naked hands / / he tore at the

barbed tightly-woven strands / / which yielded only to tear deeper. T

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ where crave in their cat’s-cradle of

barbed wire / / these prisoners of war.” / / We have our orders, and

Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank

Crowded miseries / / fenced with high

barbs , eyed from towers, stain / / earth and sky with their stench, s

Two Poems for G

/ / he’d seen a green sea, which soon,

bare and black, / / she’d see again. She loved this country, so / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

[The bare, beautiful borders] / The

bare , beautiful borders, cruel borders / / where thieving and loving

[The bare, beautiful borders]

bare , beautiful borders] / The bare, beautiful borders, cruel borders

[The bare, beautiful borders]

the brown wood, but the boughs not yet

bare / / concealed the castle still. To one not knowing / / this mig

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

summer had not yet dried. / / On hard

bare feet she hurried down the hill. / / The maddened father, fed /

Pelopia and Thyestes

moss, / / wild rose on the heath / / —

bare from bony feet, / / fouled, burned—recreate / / beauty, breed o

Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank

/ / A third time frantically round the

bare / / ground-floor, a third time round the upper, and / / in a da

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ry-face. The other way, / / above this

bare hill and a pine-green hill, / / from the Acropolis, the Partheno

Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening

tinent or island, / / coasts lost down

bare horizons. / / In widening intervals the wind / / drowns scatter

/ / over all her body, the young skin

bare , / / I spilt my white force, just touching her yellow hair. / /

mmer will show the bony tree / / still

bare . Now though give thanks, be blessed / / in the reviving mystery.

/ For years he’d sailed the bay and the

bare reaches / / clear of the heads, for sailing’s sake alone, / / h

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

another though / / barefoot along the

bare / / ripple-ridged beach / / through the frothing water-edges /

Climacteric by the Sea

ine, / / red earth and olive, pine and

bare rock, / / broken rock climbing to a point of snow, / / to the b

him down on the soft bed. / / Skin to

bare skin our bodies flowered, our faces / / were on fire, and our wh

Spells and Love

te / / crimson and green-gold / / the

bare -stemmed bushes glow, / / just as though / / against the day’s g

again, to set beside the green / / and

bare the forest in its hour of fire. / / She passed him often, someti

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

cks to left and right climbed steep and

bare / / to peak on peak, and on the right spread on / / west to a r

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

n slight but bitter wind. / / Stir the

bare trees, and on the benches stir / / against the deepened chill th

[Bare trees black] /

Bare trees black against the south’s cold brightness / / where the su

[Bare trees black]

Bare trees black] / Bare trees black against the south’s cold brightne

[Bare trees black]

bare trunks of the beech-trees / / rise out of the bluebell-lake, /

gain of seasonal longing, / / winter’s

bare truths, soft, sweet strength of spring, / / till chesnut-blossom

Sixtieth Summer

/ / the southern mountains, steep and

bare , with little / / water or vegetation and less game, / / footsor

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ws its crooked trail / / to carpet the

bare wood, / / days in any season of them all / / when you and I sha

[Golden, red, brown]

ently, / / the new-formed girlhood she

bared for me; / / over all her body, the young skin bare, / / I spil

tand / / —ran like another though / /

barefoot along the bare / / ripple-ridged beach / / through the frot

Climacteric by the Sea

, delicate approach / / of a child who

barefoot down a pebble beach / / makes for the sea. / /

nsibly took off his shoes and went / /

barefoot through the surf and along the shore. / / But all this slowe

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ift in earth and air’s / / metabolism.

Bareness , / / water runs thin / / thin as grass. / / The desert sho

steward / / may have to sacrifice some

bargains . God’s / / terms, His best friends admit, are long-term—Plat

other half hollowed back almost to the

bark / / and broken through in two places near the root / / so that

Five Poems for Roni

he hare. / / Twigs cracking, one dog’s

bark , / / momently pierce but not disturb or tear / / the silence of

Country and Town

ends giggling, crowd’s rude cracks / /

barking about her, the poor child makes tracks / / out of the temenos

Pelopia and Thyestes

aw him (you know who) to my house. / /

Barley -grains first shrivel in the fire—why, Thestylis, / / strew the

Spells and Love

dunes / / miles away to the rivers of

Barnstaple . / / Later one lodged at Perachora, from the sanctuary /

/ / a white stone façade of Edwardian

baroque . / / In letters of gold from an architrave block / / PUBLIC

[The municipal building stood square in my dream]

England, 1981 / England’s proud

barque , / / her captain mad, her crew in mutiny / / but bound in no

sleep happy. But if your door had been

barred / / be sure I’d have come again with torch and axe.”— / / The

Spells and Love

… / / Suppose he made the shore… Those

barren ranges / / climbing from cape and cliff… He felt the grim / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

d equally not question, / / her narrow

barren road. / / Loves children, could have been a loving wife. / /

Eugénie de Guérin

im / / no choice, no way—a mountainous

barrier / / of thorn, lost in the woods each side. ‘Go through’ / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / The castle ruined, the great thorn-

barrier / / was breached and withered too. The track they tried / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

shall never let them build / / into a

barrier . / / We know too well how kindness may be killed / / by care

[Yes, you’re right]

er of the years— / / a tower whose far

base disappears / / in cloud (like Brueghel’s Babylon / / reversed)

ldren splash / / in sea-pools at their

base , / / or climb them, sit, / / look out to sea, / / ships slidin

uite / / as giver—throws upon / / her

basic monotone / / scents, colours, notes, the whole / / dream-treas

long-shore fisherman to teach / / the

basic skills; those mastered, knew the pride / / of deeper skill. He

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

girl, Anaxo, / / was picked to carry a

basket for Artemis / / to her holy grove in the feast-day procession

Spells and Love

ur hopes and truths, stillborn / / the

bastard misconcepts, falsehoods and fears. / / And though with age’s

” “It’s a hard life. / / Why can’t the

bastards leave each other alone? / / Ruined if I go—there’s only my p

ection was maintained / / by the thorn-

bastion only, which stretched still / / unbroken, unthinned, quite wi

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Bat / Honour’s due to the

bat . / / Before the hang-glider / / (daring it earlier and much more

Bat / Honour’s due to the bat. / / Before the hang-glider / / (darin

/ / your self-bound life, but sit with

bated breath / / —a kind of cowardice and treachery / / to all you o

Bath at Bedtime / The Necessity of Purgatory / Heaven I don’t covet. /

A Hot Bath at Bedtime

dandelion out, / / Children undress to

bathe . / / My crooked heart grows old. / /

hospital. / / Silver spoon in the / /

bathroom . My outrage is as / / yours. Some things slip though. / / C

ning water / / bravely bridged—flagged

battlements recalling / / story and dream… A sadness in your silence

eine, Hoffmann von Hoffmanswaldau, / /

Baudelaire , Du Bellay—let it pass. / / How have I forgotten Emily Bro

hat wind casts on what shore / / these

baulks to which they cling, this water / / in which they drown. / /

r’s voice / / was the voice of his old

bawd , ugly and thin, / / crying her sorrow that all his mistresses lo

s world. / / For years he’d sailed the

bay and the bare reaches / / clear of the heads, for sailing’s sake a

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

rows / / in the far corner of Weymouth

Bay , at Ringstead, / / looks out to Portland or up to Whitenothe’s /

ke away. / / Every mountain, plain and

bay / / breeds its princeling of the knife. / / Beast and bandit wal

nging over / / Croyde Bay or Ringstead

Bay . Came sharply through / / me hate to be where streets and houses

Love / (Theocritus’s second Idyll) / My

bay -leaves, where are they? Bring them here, Thestylis, / / and the s

Spells and Love

house. / / Delphis hurts me. And this

bay now for Delphis / / I burn. The leaves crackle as the heat takes

Spells and Love

, the moon; as hanging over / / Croyde

Bay or Ringstead Bay. Came sharply through / / me hate to be where st

Their sweep enclosed the harbour-city’s

bay — / / rock rising to a mountain, to a range, / / sand stretched o

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

rradiated / / us. Bonfire on the night

beach . / /

/ detail of trees and harbour, city and

beach , / / against the rising, broken range, through which / / (he s

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

but the idle spiteful soul sits on the

beach , / / blind to the bright wind and the sound of the sea, / / th

ld not have said why, / / to where the

beach -curve ended at the steep / / rock. There dossed down, at first

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

uched or dark cloud. / / A rare night.

Beach deep / / in snow. A ceaseless gale that / / strips it. Night f

Naxos / Siphnos, Kastro / Traverse the

beach , from your feet always / / a light-path on the water reaches /

September Cruise

the shore) / / he told her of another

beach he knew, / / empty—‘Much as this must have been before / / the

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

’ he threw / / his right arm out. That

beach . He’d been there first / / crossing huge mountains, wandering a

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

n. / / Gone the seagulls, silence. The

beach is empty, / / and water, advancing, renews it for tomorrow. /

heavy and dizzy, sank / / down on the

beach . / / Later, killed, cooked and ate / / and slept. He let twent

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

firths of tide, fencing / / the cowrie

beach — / / looks out to Lundy or along the long sands which reach /

/ of a child who barefoot down a pebble

beach / / makes for the sea. / /

/ Later, the boy walked on the sounding

beach / / miles, hours. He loved to swim, and learned the tide, / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

n / / and sail distance and days, / /

beach on an unknown shore. / / Then take an oar, turn your back to th

one-way of future, present, past. / /

Beach on our lotus-strand, and be / / happy.” The wily hero, bound /

to drink on the wall / / or sit on the

beach or walk, / / young and middle-aged / / and, a class of their o

Climacteric by the Sea

d Shelley / / on the beach. We on your

beach / / raised you a bonfire / / to warm us, be you, burn off / /

ore tomorrow / / will smooth back into

beach -sand; as shrill calling / / of child or bird leaves the next mo

/ / Children run and shout / / on the

beach , splash and shout / / in the sea. Grown-ups lounge out / / fro

Climacteric by the Sea

/ dot like sea-birds, sea-shells, the

beach , that empty / / accepts their cries into its crystal silence. /

she drew the memory up, he saw / / the

beach , the river, with those other eyes, / / the boy’s a hundred year

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

nt.” He came once more / / to the same

beach . Then trudged, a weary way, / / the narrow ribbon of the flatla

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

efoot along the bare / / ripple-ridged

beach / / through the frothing water-edges / / that came and went, t

Climacteric by the Sea

eft, / / of wrong or right. The desert-

beach was grim / / but was the way, one way and no mistake. / / Now,

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

They burned drowned Shelley / / on the

beach . We on your beach / / raised you a bonfire / / to warm us, be

the sea. / / Cliff, rock, sand, pebble

beach , / / yielding or hard / / throw back the wild / / inconstant

/ / and knew himself alive and safely

beached / / out of the sea. He heaved up on his hands, / / steadied

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

spot there where a small boat might be

beached ? / / Probably not. He looked along the plain. / / South from

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

his mind content to mark the cliffs and

beaches / / scanned by the eye, the seen one with the known. / / But

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

qualities / / shall die into a little

bead of blood.” / / Silence and darkness. Darkness, silence and cold.

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ird on the wire / / has a straw in its

beak / / gold-glinting / / in the new sun / / in the soft air. / /

those who filled / / that ever-hungry

beak . / / Hangs heavy on my neck / / Time killed. / /

ll not even come, / / passing, beak to

beak . / / One within, one without, / / taps on the hollow wood, / /

ness, will not even come, / / passing,

beak to beak. / / One within, one without, / / taps on the hollow wo

of the wind, / / thimble-pocked by the

beaks ’ sharp play. / / Our brotherhood is not welcoming. / / We all

Villon’s Epitaph

e south-east the squall struck his port

beam / / and heeled the boat all but under a wave. / / The lifted wa

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ced shapes. / / Now, as then, / / the

beam comes level through the air. / / What summer noon struck blankly

sky. / / Behind me the sun’s levelling

beam / / illuminates against it, white, / / brilliant, one swan high

p, recurring flashes / / of lighthouse

beam . The path is always / / there, and your own. / / Tread it… No.

September Cruise

/ and in the glance, dance of / / the

beams they throw / / crystals glisten in answer / / which could not

Music is Landscape

Beethoven / Dirty old brutal

bear , / / decencies and affections hanging / / rags on his rotting a

ll be changed but does remain, / / may

bear from wounds of spite and chance / / the scars but be itself agai

er spirit burned rather to do / / than

bear —his seemed at best a second-best. / / She liked his love (no wor

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

nbow Day” / / One morning you couldn’t

bear it any longer, / / razored it away, / / and looking out into th

[Fall rainbows the forest-acred mountains]

/ Each morning when she woke she could

bear it less / / —found scissors and cut / / the offending hand away

Eugénie de Guérin

d your team to Ocean / / now, and I’ll

bear my longing as I have borne it. / / Good-bye, Moon on your shinin

Spells and Love

Woodpeckers / They

bear no company / / beyond their own, / / cannot endure to be / / o

rey desert, the swirling banner / / we

bear of smoke, smoke of factories, / / the factories themselves, wash

“Life is sweet, brother”

ess and folly / / in others. Harder to

bear , our children’s lives / / are subject too. And sadly we know our

[Our lives are in other hands]

ood to be true, / / is nothing, and we

bear / / self-pitying now our anger and despair, / / and like the ne

Night / Between Orion and the

Bear / / the buoy-lights of the planets float / / marking the charte

icked our eye-holes clear, / / plucked

beards and brows for their nests’ lining. / / We can’t sit down for a

Villon’s Epitaph

lling along with Eudamippos. / / Their

beards curled yellower than goldenrod / / and their chests shone brig

Spells and Love

ust now be coming on / / her ripe, her

bearing age. / / Still in his cloud of rage / / he came to Sicyon. /

Pelopia and Thyestes

Field / They think as they take breath,

bearing no trace / / in mind or eye. / / Glowing, drooping in spirit

The Lilies of the Field

the ills / / that youth is heir to and

bears awkwardly; / / you, Time, who heal the wounds of violence / /

pain. / / “We know this shining stream

bears London’s refuse / / from railway, gasworks, factory and drain /

reeds its princeling of the knife. / /

Beast and bandit walk the earth / / while the hero, careless, bored,

rs. / / Must we then, human, envy / /

beast and flower? netted, / / knitted into this knot, / / envy being

duty at Auschwitz. You / / to herd the

beasts in Belsen. Stamp out the Jew, / / man, woman, child. (The dyin

Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank

much as the other day / / I managed to

beat dear Philinus in a race.”— / / These are the springs of my love.

Spells and Love

s. The wind blows against the fire / /

beating it down, and only blows it higher. / / Sparks, wind-scattered

Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville

re they had laboured with heavy flails,

beating / / the husks from the grains, heavy fans shifting / / the c

Dream under a Carob-tree

Paradise / / flowed from the smile of

Beatrice / / should fuse them in its white embrace. / / The temple-v

John Ruskin’s Wedding Night

d, ardour kindled by the view, / / the

beauteous youth doth cruelly enjoy. / / Stepped and corridored the to

September Cruise

l, / / and nature is no comfort but is

beautiful . / /

News of a Death

el. / / Autumn is near. / / Autumn is

beautiful . / / All seasons are beautiful, but now / / I find the yea

ning. / / This clear level light makes

beautiful / / all the brick-grey desert, the swirling banner / / we

“Life is sweet, brother”

in the living breath / / of this warm,

beautiful / / —and cold, and horrible / / —but felt whatever way /

[Now of threescore and ten]

should make her life. Strange, and most

beautiful , / / and frightening. Shaken by a hot tear-shower / / she

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

n! She shall be brave and wise / / and

beautiful and happy, and as the bud / / is dying into the flower, she

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

this was his sword, / / the sword was

beautiful and it was his master’s, / / his master was dying, the brig

e tree live? / / The living spirit, as

beautiful and strong / / as the living body, has bravery to transcend

Five Poems for Roni

. He rose, looked round, and said / / “

Beautiful are the cornfields, white to reaping. / / I will not go.” /

Gunnar of Lithend

/ were a ship once, / / as swift and

beautiful / / at least as all ships are, / / but caught by chance /

ll / / out again your young, / / your

beautiful / / body’s emptiness. / / Clothe again / / in your lovely

Against Anorexia: For Cathy

he bare, beautiful borders] / The bare,

beautiful borders, cruel borders / / where thieving and loving alike

[The bare, beautiful borders]

beautiful borders] / The bare, beautiful borders, cruel borders / / w

[The bare, beautiful borders]

ight, very cold. / / A hard landscape,

beautiful / / but hard. Very cold. / / Why should a change of / / d

Ecology / The hawk is

beautiful / / but he is built to kill. / / A chain of predators / /

trong / / contours erode the softness.

Beautiful / / but not unravaged. / / Lights fade. Darkness blots all

In the Audience

tumn is beautiful. / / All seasons are

beautiful , but now / / I find the year’s wheel / / move faster—more

rother one swan’s wing / / —strong and

beautiful / / but powerless and grotesque / / where a man’s arm shou

ible. / / The dark unflowered bush was

beautiful / / but we read omens according to our mood / / and mine w

ntrance so / / they may not meet. / /

Beautiful creatures. / / The pity of it. / /

ys. / / But living he earned this / /

beautiful crown of myth, / / this parable of truth. / /

brimming waters of misery, / / no less

beautiful for that, more beautiful, / / lending / / a kind of sweetn

“Life is sweet, brother”

eletal with dead elms and beeches / / (

beautiful girl with anorexia), / / the will to flourish perished in m

Grace / Two tall

beautiful girls / / both in white dresses / / walking in the dusk /

so patterns shift. / / The campus was

beautiful , / / grass and tall trees, / / grave colonial buildings. /

rious scholars, teachers / / were also

beautiful . / / I felt the presence of grace / / like Yeats at Lissad

ed border, / / thralled by a hand / /

beautiful , inhuman, / / the Queen of fair Elfland. / / I am not for

Los Altos Hills

, / / no less beautiful for that, more

beautiful , / / lending / / a kind of sweetness to an undulled pang.

“Life is sweet, brother”

flame / / along dry wood. But flame is

beautiful / / —more like the ladder in the stocking, wrecking / / th

Back Room, 1944

. / / The night, she thought, alone is

beautiful . / / Out of the black a figure moved, strained face / / ra

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ose silent weavings in the air / / are

beautiful — / / sad, an old tale, / / fable, romance… / / False? But

Heron and Gulls

/ / startlingly clear, / / sometimes

beautiful , / / sometimes silly, / / sometimes horrible, / / all to

Against Anorexia: For Cathy

e patterned twigs were black; / / more

beautiful than summer’s green tent now / / this brown carpet; yet thi

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

at she was in truth. / / The Queen was

beautiful , the King was brave— / / when they were prince and princess

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ The chatterers have their sound, the

beautiful / / their coloured-shining, lacquered shell; / / even the

ound / / you dying. Today, / / bitter

beautiful winter / / cycling, past the hospital. / / Silver spoon in

ull, / / he set out through the winter-

beautiful / / woods for the hills. And there we leave the lad. / / L

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ughts, giving them shape / / in clear,

beautiful words. / / For this they share, as well as their love: love

Eugénie de Guérin

ht, washed things will display / / new

beauty , a world singing. / / Morning did come bright. / / Iridescent

d him / / into their timeless round of

beauty and chore / / and the established tyranny of his dream, / / m

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Cassandra’s Song /

Beauty and dreams of beauty flourish. / / Earth leans and the leaves

Cassandra’s Song

ns, today is lovely. / / Enjoy today’s

beauty and forget care. / /

re. And here’s our apprehension / / of

beauty and good (also of bad and ugly, / / but those are negatives, /

/ noisomer ill, / / yet pursues / /

beauty , and is blest. / / For all our wickedness, / / our blank stup

t I am still / / thankful to know this

beauty , as well / / as for those I love and who love me. / /

feet, / / fouled, burned—recreate / /

beauty , breed out of death, / / carpet again the heath / / where onc

Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank

/ / how, when you have happiness, see

beauty , / / can you succumb to an unreasoned gloom? / / This way and

th snow. / / House-bound I watched its

beauty change—clouds frown / / or cold sun brighten over it, and thou

fection, which need not arise / / from

beauty , charm or cleverness, / / which does not sense the boundaries

a smoother prince / / had praised her

beauty , claimed to worship her, / / and made a pass; but left her lit

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

across a clear / / glade—smote him. O

beauty , delight, love, pain. / / A violent longing for the hills agai

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

amed recurring / / of brave, ephemeral

beauty / / does bring us something / / beyond its loveliness: / / a

Five Poems for Roni

the welcomed pair / / stepped in their

beauty down, stepped up the stair, / / the moment’s shadow vanished.

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / Theseus forgot Ariadne for all her

beauty . / / Draw him, bird-wheel, draw him (you know who) to my house

Spells and Love

Beauty / Drink (your fill / / you never can) / / beauty of earth, sk

things in nature are / / blind to her

beauty , dumb to sing of her. / / We, though wrecked nature ruin us in

d into a swan; / / and if this child’s

beauty , ephemeral, fade / / rebuke no promise, made / / and broken—t

light blue sky. / / Everywhere a thin

beauty . / / Even the glow / / of autumn leaves is mute, palely yello

[Noon. But the sun is low]

ddle, / / adapt chance, / / determine

beauty , / / explore truth… / / Sheared nerves mutter / / in the sea

Cassandra’s Song / Beauty and dreams of

beauty flourish. / / Earth leans and the leaves turn / / and things

Cassandra’s Song

’s green-and-white return: / / another

beauty flowers into / / the wilderness we mourn. / /

Cassandra’s Song

/ / not only for affection—for natural

beauty . / / Here it’s light colours on fields / / varying softly acr

heir place. Still, though, starred with

beauty . / / I leaned out, looking down at the dark reflection— / / b

frozen memory / / melting back to the

beauty / / I now see. / /

a quiet country / / whose understated

beauty / / I seem to have remembered / / but had, truly, forgotten,

gures marble. / / When I think of that

beauty / / I think of Richard Hughes. / / I was not young, nor was h

mory that no despair can blast / / and

beauty in the air till we are dead. / / The convent and the court hav

rld. / / But clear, how clear / / its

beauty in their memory burns, / / seeming so near / / one step will

[Some exiles know]

/ and I think / / lightly sings / / “

Beauty is. / / Accept this. / / God is not / / any other / / —not

t only in the eye of the beholder. / /

Beauty is more mysterious than that / / struck by a trick of light fr

“Life is sweet, brother”

lled. / / Poetry? / / This year… / /

beauty is not enough, / / truth too difficult, / / too many question

kedness, / / our blank stupidity, / /

beauty is ours and the earth’s still. / /

olds nothing dear. / / I remember / /

beauty just so shining from air to eye / / across brimming waters of

“Life is sweet, brother”

wind and sun / / the world in infinite

beauty laid. / / “What else? What else?” / / Nothing. “And what have

o the wood, / / feeling its foredoomed

beauty like a pain. / / And there of course against a dark trunk stoo

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ubt in the absolute being of / / good,

beauty , love, / / and that beyond the irreparable errors, / / the ir

John Ruskin’s Wedding Night / Quick to

beauty more than is common / / but reared in rigid abstinence, / / c

John Ruskin’s Wedding Night

horizon of the heart / / where natural

beauty , mutual love are free. / / Ointments you have to soothe the pe

to all passing throws / / the unstable

beauty of a child. / /

three sweet witches. / / The strongest

beauty of all when all is said. / /

Dance of the Seasons

ink (your fill / / you never can) / /

beauty of earth, skill / / of visionary man. / / Man, who knows / /

d of the living precinct made / / this

beauty of scattered skeleton, / / desolation of shining stone. / / N

Delos in Spring

/ with a singular character. / / The

beauty of the flower, / / enough of course in itself, / / is informe

ep, while the dowerers bent above. / /

Beauty one gave her; another kindness; and wit; / / charm; and a true

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ers and butterflies / / shook him with

beauty —or the early night, / / stars contouring a high black mountain

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

de / / and broken—there was none. / /

Beauty owes nothing: by having been has put / / the world, rather, in

Accept the omen, heart. / / Rejoice in

beauty , rejoice in happiness, / / accept their transience / / and ne

Beauty sleeps in the air, / / colour and music. Shine / / of sun in

nd caring?) / / more for other things (

beauty , / / truth), most, like Sydney / / dying, to care for others.

enty / / the fleeting seasons in their

beauty / / would not again appear / / often enough. At sixty / / th

[Housman was old beyond his years]

/ / Past intellectual truth or visual

beauty / / yet both intense; the cranes on Waterloo / / Bridge, angl

Magdalen, / / a mirror to the earth of

beauty’s end. / / Among those sparklers, set like frozen spray, / /

ll colours equally subdued. / / Winter

beauty’s in tune / / with love parted, which is in no way less / / i

[Bare trees black]

ween two thoughts I see / / a sleeping

beauty’s kingdom / / that was and is to be. / /

ween two thoughts I see / / a Sleeping

Beauty’s kingdom / / that was and is to be. / /

[Today we feel behind us]

Beauty’s Prince / / / / / No, not a prince. The boy we’ll come to

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

? But there’s something there, / / the

beauty’s there. A kind of dance. / /

Heron and Gulls

’d say.” / / “A month ago… That’s what

became of her. / / How’s your father?” “Old now. Your sister—what’s h

bon stretching out for ever / / hardly

beckoned ; and he’d been nearly drowned / / lately, crossing a river h

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

my donkey-nose is / / nostalgic autumn

beckoning / / —the lines recur, the poem closes. / / Once more the s

Man’s Seasons

by one / / which towered towards him,

beckoning threateningly. / / Often he wanted, once or twice essayed /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

eived. / / Now in humility / / I must

become a child again, and pray / / (if knowing no god in honesty I ma

d how not to care / / find how to care

become a failing skill: / / am seldom now made inwardly aware / / of

iled and imprisoned will / / the heart

become , and little matters where / / the body walks—loved places roun

/ / Rubbed, tongue-repeated, all / /

become conventional, / / dull. Yet Spring is still / / an undimmed m

[What words are there for Spring?]

his black future? / / What can the boy

become except / / a sunk thing, a wrecking wreck? / / What hope? His

u fool, you fool, of having / / simply

become , you fool, / / you fool, unlovable? / / Fool, fool, fool, foo

/ In the dark of Soledad / / hopeless

becomes hopelesser, / / natural goodness goes bad… / / one would thi

Becoming / Curled up you sleep, or stirring / / kick in the darkness

am”. / / The extraordinary process of

becoming man / / forces us out of nature, to upset, / / fight, break

an’s framework croaks towards death, in

bed / / above the scavenged garden). / /

t / / endure the image of her marriage-

bed / / any more than his own; and though not blind / / to her desir

ancelot’s blood must run in Guinevere’s

bed / / because he could not have her maidenhead. / /

[Lancelot’s blood must run in Guinevere’s bed]

lowered his eyes, / / sat down on the

bed beside me, and began / / “I was coming, Simaetha. Your message to

Spells and Love

/ then laid his mother in his father’s

bed , / / but got no extra kick from the affair / / having no notion

took the familiar way, / / hungry for

bed , home, mother, like a child. / / Hungry too for the sight of the

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

r me, pretty Janet, the sick man on his

bed . / / I sit by him and chatter—not a word he’ll say. / / I bring

Greek Folk Song

ancelot’s blood must run in Guinevere’s

bed ] / Lancelot’s blood must run in Guinevere’s bed / / because he co

[Lancelot’s blood must run in Guinevere’s bed]

here and for once be free… / / Supper,

bed , mother brought him home again. / / His mother, waiting up, met h

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

dark night late when they were going to

bed . / / My mother—she was your age, just about—” / / (he must, he t

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

cross his mind) and dropped flat on the

bed . / / Next morning, fit and fresh, the mystery / / puzzled him of

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

at all. / / But Hector, heaving out of

bed , / / saw under the three-thousandth day / / the ships along the

/ / with shafted sunlight falling on a

bed . / / She seemed to have lain down, dropped into dream, / / just

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

k his hand, pulled him down on the soft

bed . / / Skin to bare skin our bodies flowered, our faces / / were o

Spells and Love

e, / / yet sometimes been at board and

bed / / sullen and clumsy as the dead. / /

d, less hard / / make their deliberate

bed / / than those that huddle to the bleak and harsh / / night here

/ he thought, of a girl sleeping on a

bed , / / then changed, merged, telescoped. The point was made. / / T

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

n days and nights I couldn’t get out of

bed . / / These are the springs of my love. Mark them, lady Moon. / /

Spells and Love

and upland air, / / and so… He went to

bed under a spell / / and lay awake long on the dancing thought / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

r / / children. He scowled and went to

bed . What is it / / that makes an adolescent dream all day / / of wa

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

, / / and the bride from her husband’s

bed while it’s still warm.” / / He’d the gift of the gab. And I didn’

Spells and Love

he stars. / / They hustled her back to

bed with cries and prayers / / and nailed the window shut. / / A man

Eugénie de Guérin

stay up late—“Oh / / don’t send me to

bed yet—I want to play, to / / read, finish this… Can’t I wait up?” T

ooms, up the curled stair, / / through

bedrooms , boudoirs, everywhere he went / / furnished and empty, and—t

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

f whose brief or eternal loves / / now

beds the wood where ours are now the leaves. / /

Bedtime / The Necessity of Purgatory / Heaven I don’t covet. / / Time

A Hot Bath at Bedtime

Varangian in Mickelgard / Woods,

beech and fir. Water—always / / streams sounding hidden, suddenly lea

Varangian in Mickelgard

onifer he’d seen all day / / among the

beech and oak. Its thin black spire / / was sinister, and boded him n

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ The oak still holds its rust and the

beech its red / / but winds have washed the gold from the white birch

Dance of the Seasons

Seasons / The bare trunks of the

beech -trees / / rise out of the bluebell-lake, / / and everywhere th

st from the sea and Greece, west out of

beech - / / woods, Berkshire, childhood, Anabel, the flood / / waits

green land skeletal with dead elms and

beeches / / (beautiful girl with anorexia), / / the will to flourish

Beethoven / Dirty old brutal bear, / / decencies and affections hangi

r end of time / / saw life begin. / /

Beetle and man, / / grass and cedar, climbed to complexity / / from

moves like a black beetle. No, / / the

beetle is black by nature, and no doubt / / enjoys life much of the t

h day / / my spirit moves like a black

beetle . No, / / the beetle is black by nature, and no doubt / / enjo

odman’s hut there by the stream / / to

beg food and a shelter for the night. / / The hut was dark, and silen

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / sat down on the bed beside me, and

began / / “I was coming, Simaetha. Your message to bring me here / /

Spells and Love

el, the flood / / waits for the turn,”

began my helper. “Each / / of countless currents met in you has stood

ed the mountain-stream, / / turned and

began the climb towards the pass. / / The mountains brought new muscl

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

indly he turned towards the hills, / /

began the long drag. Day and night and day / / (time lost) closed in

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

. He drew his knife, and carefully / /

began to cut his way. He forced the task / / to be the cutting each t

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

d sang from a bough / / and drowsing I

began / / to lose my thoughts, and then / / “You fool” fluted “you f

airy’s laugh, / / felt the good smile,

began to understand / / the necessary double face of fate, / / the t

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / / / When first ghosts of our own

begetting / / force us back to the precipice / / and empty air sucks

That Way Madness Lies

too difficult, / / too many questions

begged , / / undefined terms—‘love’. / / I fall silent. / / Death on

/ / who lived next door, came and kept

begging me / / to come to the show with her, and I to my sorrow / /

Spells and Love

very ladder’s top / / you find a snake

begin . / /

/ the other end of time / / saw life

begin . / / Beetle and man, / / grass and cedar, climbed to complexit

o wreck, but man can do it. / / Now we

begin into clear space to spew it, / / this speck’s contaminated over

begins again / / —or does another year

begin ? / / Nothing can come of nothing, nothing goes / / to nothing,

Winter Solstice

n / / the good we claim to do waits to

begin ; / / or lost, an acreage to our hands is laid / / heavier if n

Prayer to Truth

t sun / / cease, be gone. / / And saw

begin / / out of the same darkness strangely growing / / with warmth

Winter Solstice

/ / empty. The play seemed waiting to

begin . / / Through all the courtyard rooms, up the curled stair, / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

orting glow, warmth of drink, food / /

begin to fade. / / Lovers close, held together, feud / / against win

[Wind is chilly on shoulders]

n] / Golden, red, brown— / / when they

begin to loosen and come down / / I hear my mother say / / “Each cau

[Golden, red, brown]

/ Now I’m alone. / / How did this love

begin ? / / Where shall I start? / / Eubulus’s girl, Anaxo, / / was

Spells and Love

love. / / Was there an end? / / Or a

beginning ? Can you cut flowing / / water, or mark the moments of the

Winter Solstice

beginning is my end / Ripe they hang on the bough, / / last-fruits of

In my beginning is my end

ying / / “The year’s end is the year’s

beginning , / / one in time—pain and joy are one in love”? / /

Winter Solstice

es to lean / / the other way. Our year

begins again / / —or does another year begin? / / Nothing can come o

Winter Solstice

sional contact. / / And now the vision

begins to mist. Hands seeking / / other outlets / / forget the penci

ogether. At last the planet’s fire / /

begins to weaken, flicker, vanishes / / in night, marking the unseen

September Cruise

m / / weaves with what we see / / and

beguiles us. / / Nature is nothing, / / unformed, till an eye / / p

Music is Landscape

en—disorderly, / / half-finished, half-

begun , hoped, dreamt, / / tomorrow there behind today. / / To get it

ther year / / to finish some new thing

begun , / / round off some ragged, trailing tail. / / But always ther

I turned to my father / / and chilled

beheld him gone; then where she led / / followed, but half my mind fo

I lived and died / / in the wide air,

behind a bolted door. / / From my lone way I could not turn aside, /

many miss, / / but sensibility locked

behind a door / / is lost—is power betrayed by cowardice. / / “Your

the old man carved by candlelight / /

behind a locked door, hitting / / recalcitrant marble, whittling / /

/ / absorbing life, considering life,

behind / / a smooth forehead, clear, utterly free / / from any mark,

like this, to be silent. / / She lives

behind a wall of glass / / which speech, touch do not pass. / / But

so full and so eternal, so unknown / /

behind all dreamed impossible precisions) / / to the other penny-face

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ … Remove the camera / / and the eyes

behind / / are, you’ll find, / / blind. / /

o wish to die. / / Home howled for him

behind . But he was pressed / / forward by more than the immediate dry

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

us marble hidden, / / the slums hidden

behind , down in their valley / / one might be far—but for the ancient

Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening

n…?) / / Look round. His black is thin

behind , / / her blonde is mousy at the root. / / The laugh too, and

e’s Faustus. / / And gradually, a peak

behind hills / / that rise or shrink as we move through miles and yea

taking it did not look back again. / /

Behind him walked his brother, and I called him: / / “Christopher”, a

woman, and soon / / to leave childhood

behind —if anyone / / really does that; and if, for her, the doom / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

e-up, blast it. Blast them! Wars!” / /

Behind in the cities words boil up to war / / —Athens and Sparta, Par

while time passed and the sun went low

behind / / levelling the light across the circled space. / / Slowly

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

withers inexplicably away / / leaving

behind love’s garden fresh and green. / / She is not here; yet here,

all find / / the common ground we left

behind / / matter-of-fact with house and lane. / / O secret, o encha

[Seen from the hill the hazy plain]

atform / Walking I heard the train / /

behind me coming in. / / So did the child, / / jumped from his seat

Ten Seconds on a Tube Platform

handle of my heavy bag, / / my weight

behind me grinding my raw knuckles / / in the rough black London grim

front a black cloud masks the sky. / /

Behind me the sun’s levelling beam / / illuminates against it, white,

ing head, saw it was night, / / a moon—

behind , the bright sea under it, / / and calm. Miles to his left stre

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

by love to one, burn half-divine. / /

Behind the gold and frankincense / / comes myrrh for our mortality, /

e bright, / / before dawn and the moon

behind the hill. / / I reached the tree and paused, straining my sigh

p of that confined world / / the house

behind the house in Prinsengracht— / / I find it in my heart / / to

Hermes of Olympia

/ melt in each other, melt away, / /

Behind the images we come / / to the unarchitected tree. / / We plan

otest ranged / / within our sense / /

behind the jewels of Andromeda. / / Andromeda, who naked / / chained

t too were silent; / / silent and dark

behind the nebulous / / city receded; crossing slope and stream / /

/ / long ago / / in sun’s light, / /

behind the night’s / / spangled tent, / / an unmoved mover, / / lov

border of the worlds / / masquerading

behind the notice. / / We walked together back under the trees. / /

Los Altos Hills

arp, unbroken, reached and reached / /

behind the piling rocks. At last appeared / / a great wall of south-f

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

end and guide. / / We turned, and left

behind the shadowy spaces / / of Parliament Square, crossed the untra

r-time Anecdote / “After they caught me

behind their desert lines / / I was in gaol, a women’s prison it had

War-time Anecdote

new / / a time he did not know it; and

behind / / those words, a wordless image, far more true, / / his own

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Freedom / The gate groans to

behind , / / thud of finality. / / Strange town at closing-time, / /

gun, hoped, dreamt, / / tomorrow there

behind today. / / To get it ordered, rounded, kempt / / would be to

when wrong is dead. / / Today we feel

behind us / / the struggle of the ape. / / The future’s cloud is gat

oday we feel behind us] / Today we feel

behind us / / the struggle of the ape; / / the future’s cloud is gat

[Today we feel behind us]

behind us] / Today we feel behind us / / the struggle of the ape; /

[Today we feel behind us]

tacked. / / Not only in the eye of the

beholder . / / Beauty is more mysterious than that / / struck by a tr

“Life is sweet, brother”

/ / knitted into this knot, / / envy

beings empty / / of memory and thought, / / of threaded mind and hea

ring of the valley-cleft / / mountains

beleaguered him, and offered him / / a dozen or a hundred paths to ta

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Prayer / I have no

belief in a personal god / / nor, if I had, could I imagine him / /

hurch is very still. / / True, I don’t

believe , / / but after all / / centuries of love / / and misery hav

r / / or many, but can’t imaginatively

believe , / / envisage them, because we can’t conceive / / what media

so dirty though, / / I should like to

believe God / / will have me on the mat / / to tell Him and myself /

A Hot Bath at Bedtime

/ That ghosts come home… Things I don’t

believe / / I still like sometimes to pretend— / / that life doesn’t

/ realized: Hyperactive. / / I don’t

believe in / / any afterlife, so must / / accept that in death / /

Uncertain / I don’t

believe in God, and yet I pray; / / still less in magic, but I practi

some words, some things remain. / / We

believe in love and truth / / though not knowing what they mean. / /

Winter Recalled

/ / the existence of a me. / / Yet I

believe it constantly. / /

Shadow and Substance

evelation implies the latter, but can I

believe it? / / (revelation being something I neither have nor covet)

ve / / we know we live, know nature. I

believe / / our game was worth her candle after all. / /

omise. And if that were so / / he must

believe she’d make a guide for him. / / He turned inland, thrusting t

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ “One ever near thee.” How can I / /

believe the tearing of this tie? / /

hom both sides could declare / / (even

believe ), to be a god of love. / /

s, / / shadow to light). And somehow I

believe / / without doubt in the absolute being of / / good, beauty,

eat his master? Were I God’s / / (if I

believed in God), were I His steward / / would He have me use tricks

ivory, their hair is gold, / / all we

believed is true, except the old / / pretence that they were gods. We

Against Pedestals

Original Sin / Child I

believed / / that in my nature I was true and kind. / / It has taken

re; / / seek it he did, because he had

believed / / the fairy’s promise. And if that were so / / he must be

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ “I must go fight again, / / who once

believed they could be fought away.” / /

ill the untaught heart / / would, half

believes , / / half persuades me even, / / we could. / /

ble. / / Yet / / neither of us really

believes that. / / Less because of our partedness (together / / only

[I have (what seemingly you do not see)]

ull, / / whose laughter like a leper’s

bell / / falls in its own silence; and silent some / / whose thought

von Hoffmanswaldau, / / Baudelaire, Du

Bellay —let it pass. / / How have I forgotten Emily Bronte, / / so ma

the sun. So what? Go back? / / A gust

bellied the sail, and then strengthened. / / He moved the tiller auto

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

The empty-hearted fret. / / The empty-

bellied , the still driven poor, / / who yearly add to what they would

e flesh of God. / / Elders gather, the

bells / / ring out of time. / / What ugly villain commits / / so lo

The Shepherdess of Cahuzac

ir side was shade. / / Sound of church-

bells / / was often in the air. / / It was a Christian country, / /

The Green Children of Woolpit

/ / I glimpse out there / / a swollen

belly , hollowed eyes, / / blank stare, / / where once a day or once

’t half / / give the nice neighbours a

belly -laugh. / / You’re all right, darling. You’re simple and straigh

But the constant consciousness that we

belong , / / our love, keeps happiness living in pain’s teeth. / / …

[My grandchildren are stamping the ice-puddles]

Death / Death is acceptable. I

belong to earth / / not any heaven. Do I now sometimes though / / no

Tombstone / “In memoriam…” / / Silence

belongs to him, / / but somebody unknown / / lends unnecessary / /

, I know, / / how they got home really

belongs to this. / / The castle ruined, the great thorn-barrier / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

r’s boy (he never knew his father) / /

beloved and loving, but a lonely child, / / timid, he walked his long

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ed perhaps, to clear / / the stench of

Belsen from the atmosphere. / / The diapason closing full in man / /

Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank

schwitz. You / / to herd the beasts in

Belsen . Stamp out the Jew, / / man, woman, child. (The dying can be m

Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank

/ / then blots the sword, the studded

belt , / / Betelgeuse and the clear lamps. / / Suns burn, worlds spin

sible. / / The boy went shivering, his

belt drawn tight. / / The next four years lent him less time to dream

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ I turned and saw a little way off a

bench , / / a man and a woman sitting on it, elderly, / / (my age) an

e empty guard-room seemed to wait— / /

bench , table, brazier, weapons on the wall, / / but no one. He passed

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

queen thereof / / sold us to separate

benches in war’s galley. / / Redeem us soon. But while you may not so

d. / / Stir the bare trees, and on the

benches stir / / against the deepened chill the worse than poor, / /

unaware, / / he watched her kneel and

bend . / / She turned her face. It all / / —horror, lust, oracle— /

Pelopia and Thyestes

but any love’s a wind-break when gales

bend / / the unseasoned heart. Sidelong she saw him wait, / / gaze p

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ed. / / … Fire… martyrdom… Fine words.

Bend your mind back / / to these whom white men shot for being black.

Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville

e how to use them. / / But away, Lady,

bend your team to Ocean / / now, and I’ll bear my longing as I have b

Spells and Love

/ Then all around gave thanks / / on

bended knee, / / blessed God for a soul rescued / / from Satan’s sie

The Shepherdess of Cahuzac

again, and boasted / / to the princess

bending intent to mark / / the toils and triumphs of her slighted sla

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

rt can tell / / —mind and tongue break

beneath it / / and die in doggerel” / / Miranda to Ophelia: / / “Ho

kissed through hair the brow turned off

beneath . / / She stirred and turned her flower-face—that face. / / H

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

, came loud. The gondola / / shot from

beneath the bridge and drew along. / / A bright-haired girl laughing

earned the fords of the broad flow / /

beneath the nearer hills. Alone long days / / walking, scrambling, he

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

s but be itself again. / / Grey boughs

beneath the perished leaf / / are lovely as spring-green, red fall. /

t / / a pink sleep, while the dowerers

bent above. / / Beauty one gave her; another kindness; and wit; / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

he lay / / wounded to death. His lady

bent above, / / the hot tears running down her face, and cried / / ‘

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

s?—oh, feed and fan your flame.” / / I

bent and watched the waters to the sea / / running, and swallowed dow

/ / Black dress, black scarf over her

bent head, black / / thick gauntlets on her hands. Most deeply aged /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ on down the same old way, / / hell-

bent to destroy / / himself and her. / / If I could plummet down a r

med his zigzag way / / by star and sun

bent truly to his goal, / / and on the afternoon of the fifth day /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Greece, west out of beech- / / woods,

Berkshire , childhood, Anabel, the flood / / waits for the turn,” bega

w you turn again / / to Dorset, Devon,

Berkshire , Greece, and quite / / forget the misery of exile when / /

if I did not know, this would seem / /

Berkshire .” “Or Yorkshire,” answered with a light / / laugh Emily; “e

war / / —Athens and Sparta, Paris and

Berlin , / / Rome and Carthage, London and Edinburgh. / / The world g

y. / / “Bombers, proceed to London, to

Berlin . / / Sentries, patrol with dog and tommy-gun / / where crave

Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank

honeysuckle. / / The bushes though are

berried —hawthorn, blackthorn / / (remnants of blackberry-flower among

[Late October hedges]

remnants of blackberry-flower among the

berries ), / / a few rose-bushes burning with red hips, / / and sudde

[Late October hedges]

arbour the crescent moon, / / and just

beside her bright Jupiter. / / We watch them move / / slowly, inevit

September Cruise

very kind. He called her up / / to sit

beside him for her evidence, / / spoke to her always gently, put a st

Change Places…

marking my place to turn. / / I stood

beside it. Wrinkling fading petals / / dropping from old flowers, onl

ered his eyes, / / sat down on the bed

beside me, and began / / “I was coming, Simaetha. Your message to bri

Spells and Love

rt in our own good other time, / / you

beside me. And for a moment I’m / / sure of your actual presence, and

[My grandchildren are stamping the ice-puddles]

and tame our forester had found it / /

beside the great-treed miles of memory. / / Seldom by that was the yo

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ar fifteen) / / she came again, to set

beside the green / / and bare the forest in its hour of fire. / / Sh

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Hell or, on another view, / / harps it

beside the highest throne / / (or both these judgements are untrue) /

Thoughts on the Lavatory

till, at dusk, / / fireflies flickered

beside the Ionian Sea. / / In that same far past, a Cambridge winter

by a shadow. / / Am I this shadow / /

beside the river? / / —grey willow, other / / than olive. Cypress /

Five Poems for Roni

nts lived out in the country, down / /

beside the river where it starts to curl / / among the fields, after

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

out of the pit, I saw the portico / /

beside us of St. Pancras’ Church, whose sane / / classical stillness

es were / / like a wood-cut; and there

beside us slowed / / with muted lights but a familiar air / / a car.

/ Life’s all one colour, spilled / /

beside whatever carcase in the dust. / / As first, think of these las

Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville

es). / / Then, 1870. / / Sedan, Paris

besieged , France lost, / / exile, chilled in English Chislehurst, /

for me (perhaps for that) the peerless

s is at least / / good, though not the

ther to do / / than bear—his seemed at

best a second-best. / / She liked his love (no word of love was said

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

et / / do not fear to regret / / what

best and loveliest / / is disposed of with the waste. / /

rimal clarity— / / and could that last

best apparition be / / here but to lay some ointment to his sore? /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

d South and East / / all’s not for the

best . / / But that is far away. / / On our own doorstep / / (sink t

/ What in this city / / do we share?

Best , Dominick / / and the children who / / had no fares but an old

ce some bargains. God’s / / terms, His

best friends admit, are long-term—Plato / / no less than Paul, Buddha

I to my sorrow / / did go, wearing my

best long linen dress / / and Cleurista’s wrap borrowed to set it off

Spells and Love

ar / / with final victory; even if the

best / / must fall, the hour of triumph is not far.” / / He to the r

/ than bear—his seemed at best a second-

best . / / She liked his love (no word of love was said / / by either

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

a, your land; / / our good love in its

best time, here, now is / / with me warmly; and in that glow I find /

[White foam sweeps]

ill not now be. / / ‘Not to be born is

best ’. / / No, I can’t agree. / / In spite of the misery / / even t

second choice in time, would be / / a

bet I’d hardly care to take, / / love as I do humanity. / /

Mother’s Malison

blots the sword, the studded belt, / /

Betelgeuse and the clear lamps. / / Suns burn, worlds spin unhindered

/ again, again, again, until / / our

beterness prevail / / to free us from the wheel… / / Either of these

/ / to legs, feet, which unaware / /

betray so much. / / These too her pencil catches, / / these and thei

hat answer to that question / / such a

betrayal of His trust as Steward? / / It was, when all is said, a che

Betrayal / “To God” He answered “those things which are God’s, / / an

Betrayals / “From each according to ability, / / to each according to

ked behind a door / / is lost—is power

betrayed by cowardice. / / “Your delicate task to keep your power, ne

infinity more. / / Weep for that trust

betrayed , / / for brief despairing pain / / of these untimely dead.

Whom the Gods Love

orsal fin already cutting the air, / /

betraying a shark / / (yet dream still of a shapely / / innocent for

the lake. / / But the dying king knew

better / / and sent him back to the lake. / / He turned the sword in

s / / of English slums, but worse (and

better , / / as sun-scorched poverty is better / / than rain-logged p

Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening

ane Higgins would have / / pleased you

better as the winner. / / Things you only just / / missed. Sophie of

/ / Let not our knowing our cause the

better be / / condition in us of complacency, / / the certainty the

Prayer to Truth

ars. She wept a bit, / / then, feeling

better , dried her eyes—as well / / she did—“The Queen—Long live the K

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ng / / —fair enough. / / One can’t do

better for a love, / / but each of us to bless him / / has, in whate

[Housman was old beyond his years]

now, / / and who can say if that’s the

better gift / / or the lost sleep among the bush and bracken?” / / S

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

secret greedily piled. / / But knowing

better ? Hardly a trace of that. / / Impossible Hyacinth, though, was

Greenham Common

self worked by womankind / / towards a

better -knowing humankind. / /

Greenham Common

/ But I think about you more / / and

better . Light and / / warmth that irradiated / / us. Bonfire on the

been made and accepted long ago. / / A

better might dare now go free, rejoice / / in a new land in a new lov

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / inflicting so much hurt / / we’d

better not have been born. / / And to ask God for help / / presuppos

Living and Dying

The weather worsened and the Queen got

better / / or bored, and took her daughter back to town. / / The boy

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

may come sooner—soon / / perhaps, for

better or worse, / / as indeed it might have done / / at any time be

[Now of threescore and ten]

ed, / / pronounced that Mary’s was the

better part. / / How like a man. Martha of course deserved / / bette

s will not die / / before at least our

better side / / has long been longing to have died, / / do not be to

Whom the Gods Love

he stag. Plain truth / / placed him no

better than a badger here— / / rough-handed serf in perpetuity. / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

and together, / / blind with blind is

better / / than going alone. / / We are all blind / / and stumbling

better, / / as sun-scorched poverty is

better / / than rain-logged poverty). The sun burns / / on the quarr

Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening

e a man. Martha of course deserved / /

better than such a knife-twist in the heart. / / Rapt Mary sat and dr

people find / / they have chosen even

better than they knew. / / May that be true / / (indeed I think it m

the dunes, his state was radically / /

better than when he’d reached the river-mouth. / / A new trouble: the

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

e chose to give her power / / to love.

Better , they thought, keep fancy free? / / Or thought, that’s in her

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ed through my life, / / for worse, for

better , to this age, / / how do I deserve / / this total, this untro

[I have you always in my mind]

uble; more, he knew / / she would feel

better with a task to do, / / a stake in the adventure as it were). /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

s) / / rude Master Tom’s and prim Miss

Betty’s hops. / /

La Fontaine et le Déluge

/ / cheated by a feud, / / sundered,

bewildered , dead, / / breathe from the tomb. / / to hover on the chi

he taste / / of pleasure, found in her

bewildered heart / / the instincts (as she judged them) of a tart, /

p, did not know the place. / / Turning

bewildered , the old well-known road / / stretched where he’d come—but

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Masque / Cornered in the

bewildering night / / Love summoned Dignity to fight, / / and Pride,

day / / (time lost) closed in fever’s

bewildering storm. / / His arrows one by one lost on missed kills, /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

d all about / / or no way. For he knew

beyond a doubt / / that somewhere in that labyrinth lay his goal. /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

join his own, and he was through. / /

Beyond an empty space a castle-gate / / stood open. He went in. No on

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ss / / which speared him till he bled.

Beyond , below / / the soft sand, he rejoined the mountain-stream, /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ard: / / “End of Reserve. Private land

beyond . / / Do not trespass”. / / The unbroken path whispered, but I

Los Altos Hills

ss the curving but uncentred dark. / /

Beyond forgets its meaning like above, / / nor any place remains for

in her hair, / / and in my ears echoed

beyond her word / / her voice, as I walked on towards Leicester Squar

[Housman was old

beyond his years] / Housman was old beyond his years / / knowing at t

[Housman was old beyond his years]

old beyond his years] / Housman was old

beyond his years / / knowing at twenty / / the fleeting seasons in t

[Housman was old beyond his years]

y wet / / with blood and tears; wrongs

beyond hope of mending / / lie at the root of every decent life; / /

am, / / blocked by a fallen tree, / /

beyond it fades and fails / / between rock-broken falls / / and roug

[The track up the wild stream]

ediate dry / / lust for the river. Far

beyond it lay / / the fairy-promised girl. That thought caressed / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

eauty / / does bring us something / /

beyond its loveliness: / / a resharpening, reshining / / of an ache

Five Poems for Roni

Beyond Measure / Uxorious the Duke. While Angelo / / nevermore touche

s. / / Love is hard, love is here, not

beyond or above, / / love in bliss, love in grief. Love is God. God i

y / / we strive towards that absolute,

beyond / / our reach, Freedom, a star. / / Equality. / / That’s mor

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

eived. / / Angry? No. Hardly sad. / /

Beyond sadness and anger, / / but still the king, his master to be ob

/ and happy now lives ever after. / /

Beyond sound of Time’s warning cough / / all tasks done, spells are t

End of Fairy-Story

n ghostly stuff, / / and then the void

beyond the cliff / / will swing him down and swallow him. / / Life n

That Way Madness Lies

torm, silver / / out under lighter sky

beyond the cloud, / / sun-struck sometimes, but slate again soon / /

Varangian in Mickelgard

/ / to take my love, but others formed

beyond / / the grave. ‘A sacrifice, my love, my youth.’ / / Among th

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / good, beauty, love, / / and that

beyond the irreparable errors, / / the irreplaceable loss, / / the t

above all appears, / / until I looked

beyond the lands of my language / / and Homer and Dante joined him as

col / / higher than any hill which lay

beyond . / / The peaks were breaking to the coastal plain. / / That n

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

eavily travelling. And saw one day / /

beyond the ribbon a faint shadow rise / / which broke too the horizon

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

mouth of a sluggish-seeming river. / /

Beyond , the ribbon stretching out for ever / / hardly beckoned; and h

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

The Green Children of Woolpit / Over

beyond the river / / the children said / / was the shine of sunlight

The Green Children of Woolpit

Woodpeckers / They bear no company / /

beyond their own, / / cannot endure to be / / other than alone. / /

d hills spread on / / till nothing lay

beyond them but the sky. / / Half their sweep, though, was blotted ou

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

by the image of / / was true, and his

beyond this last defence. / / Waking to water whispering by the bank,

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ stretched to the farther slopes; far

beyond those / / he knew the city lay, and the princess, / / the fat

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Biblical conversation / “Why hast though forsaken me?” / / “What have

Biblical conversation

Bicycle Ride / In front a black cloud masks the sky. / / Behind me th

, / / but the long hopes they hold and

bid me seize are / / not mine. My soul cries (child) to stay up late—

his first / / but still wildest, least

biddable slave, fire / / twist in his hand / / and make a suddener e

ose natural state / / was being at her

bidding . Then at most / / at moments a companion. More? Well, lonely

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ething else. / / Venus is burning / /

big and low, yellow through the / / haze which hides the rest. / / A

/ / the path wound under trees / / a

big loop, and then / / out into a space of powerful slopes, / / gras

Los Altos Hills

n / / to have Him on the horns. It was

big odds / / against His twisting free. But was it God’s / / wit gav

ring Thames and the White Horse. / / A

bigger heart that, I think, than any / / of the rest. Bury my heart a

thing like an English parkland / / but

bigger , wilder, stronger, / / unearthlier. / / The path went on and

Los Altos Hills

strength of the Twelve-Mile Post?” / /

Billowing , settling, over wood and hill, / / now wind-blown clear, no

n. / / Now with these love-spells I’ll

bind him. But if he hurts me / / it’s the door of Death, please Fate,

Spells and Love

me so. / / Now, though, fire-spells to

bind him. / / But, O Moon, / / shine out while I croon, to you, godd

Spells and Love

is arm. / / Plaited in smiling love to

bind / / his arm in whom her soul had lived, / / she gave it now to

wool round the bowl. / / I’m going to

bind my man to me, my hard love. / / Eleven days, and he hasn’t come

Spells and Love

ickening his straining / / loosens the

bindings and the close walls burst, / / but if the strong straining d

r’s tinted grey—leaf-greens, / / white

birch -trunks, blue sky caught, / / hide darkness where that fish is m

Water in a Wood

nds have washed the gold from the white

birches . / / Autumn is off where summer and spring have strayed, / /

Dance of the Seasons

tal. This is an empty / / world, where

bird and child exist like water / / and today is yesterday and is tom

y recovered, / / twice that small dark

bird / / breaks the surface of the secretive stream / / to make a gr

Yeats and Water-Birds

/ / in speechless speech; but parted,

bird in cage, / / shakes with dumb power, / / blots a blank page. /

Love’s Eyes and Hands

and; as shrill calling / / of child or

bird leaves the next moment empty. / / Look on the walls, lofty and f

f memory, of hope and fear. / / Like a

bird , like the wind / / they take their certain, incalculable way, /

The Lilies of the Field

sweetening the light stillness / / by

bird -notes pierced but not dispersed / / while easy coolness / / lay

le filled at a cold stream, / / a shot

bird roasted on a stick-fire. On / / thin rough grass of a valley-alp

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

are not the home truths though. / / A

bird sang from a bough / / and drowsing I began / / to lose my thoug

nto spring / / with leaf-bud, blossom,

bird -song, / / nest-building. / /

s / / he didn’t manage to bring down a

bird . / / Three of his arrows landed in the sea / / (though one he d

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

itself to fly, / / fly properly like a

bird . / / Twittering light-scared thing, / / blind but unfalteringly

nd now no maiden either. / / Draw him,

bird -wheel, draw him (you know who) to my house. / / As the flame mel

Spells and Love

’s or blonde Perimede’s. / / Draw him,

bird -wheel, draw him (you know who) to my house. / / Barley-grains fi

Spells and Love

te so in consuming fire. / / Draw him,

bird -wheel, draw him (you know who) to my house. / / Bran goes on nex

Spells and Love

s’s bones I’m strewing”. / / Draw him,

bird -wheel, draw him (you know who) to my house. / / Delphis hurts me

Spells and Love

he dark blood out of me. / / Draw him,

bird -wheel, draw him (you know who) to my house. / / I’ll pound a liz

Spells and Love

s’s bones I’m kneading”. / / Draw him,

bird -wheel, draw him (you know who) to my house. / / Now I’m alone. /

Spells and Love

! Clash the brass quick! / / Draw him,

bird -wheel, draw him (you know who) to my house. / / The sea is quiet

Spells and Love

y from sport and friend. / / Draw him,

bird -wheel, draw him (you know who) to my house. / / This fringe from

Spells and Love

adne for all her beauty. / / Draw him,

bird -wheel, draw him (you know who) to my house. / / This maresbane g

Spells and Love

and turn about my door. / / Draw him,

bird -wheel, draw him (you know who) to my house. / / Three libations

Spells and Love

he sea, loud cries / / of fierce white

birds circling, fish-plunging, woke him. / / He stretched and strippe

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Yeats and Water-

Birds / He chose the symbol of the swan / / and that of the grey gull

Yeats and Water-Birds

road to the mill / / with its flowers,

birds in the garden—made her journal / / a sampler that does not fade

Eugénie de Guérin

h, is just a swan. / / A loaded image:

birds of Coole, / / Lir’s three children, Elsa’s brothers, / / and t

is tomorrow. / / Unaware, at least, as

birds of the past or morrow, / / at work alone on a sand-castle, or c

. / / Hunched to the chill / / hushed

birds on boughs crouch, deep in grass the hare. / / Twigs cracking, o

Country and Town

/ / plump on the tree, / / the quiet

birds / / pipe up. Be / / the year’s spring / / yours. Fill / / ou

Against Anorexia: For Cathy

, the sanded children / / dot like sea-

birds , sea-shells, the beach, that empty / / accepts their cries into

for him—omen, yes, and guide. / / The

birds , the ruffled sea, changelessly changing, / / the changing chang

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Out from the Cliff / Out from the cliff

birds wheel wild, a white / / fan, scattering wide over the water, /

Out from the Cliff

cliff-face swept / / a flight of white

birds , wheeled over the boat / / westward, ahead, bright, dwindling.

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

e church / / from changing light, / /

birdsong and trees, to stone / / and a half-light. / / God’s body la

The Shepherdess of Cahuzac

hing, the fairy world, flowers / / and

birdsong , is again ours. / /

[Most of us, somewhere along the road]

/ covet the fountain of youth or a new

birth ? / /

/ reek under the clear sky round your

birth . / / Anne Frank lost her breath into that air / / just when yo

Two Poems for G

ils acceptance / / of death to balance

birth , / / of depressing age as well as youth’s depressions. / / Sor

Climacteric by the Sea

hills alone, / / and the tokens of his

birth / / (the cap, the sandals, and the sword) / / rot unclaimed un

rries, shells / / riven by a Caesarian

birth . / / The fairy-story hero’s cake / / was eaten with his mother

Mother’s Malison

t old forester, / / who died before my

birth , was weeping sent / / away, when he as I perhaps was young.’ /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

er earth. / / Above the station of our

birth / / we ride the sunlight, swift and proud. / / The wing-heeled

/ / Lays of Ancient Rome on my seventh

birthday : / / Horatius breasting the Tiber race, / / Mamilius and He

of my labour and love.’ / / It was her

birthday soon. The court would come. / / He’d have no part in that, b

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ against her wider fears. She wept a

bit , / / then, feeling better, dried her eyes—as well / / she did—“T

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

care. / / No, down a bit. Yes, there—a

bit to your right.” / / “Thanks. Did you lose a lamb the other day? /

if you don’t take care. / / No, down a

bit . Yes, there—a bit to your right.” / / “Thanks. Did you lose a lam

her / / my children would be like the

bitch’s litter / / —born blind, and several months too early.” / / B

rough bank; yet still she fought, / /

biting him, scratching him, and suddenly / / this was a hilt her fing

Pelopia and Thyestes

arden found / / you dying. Today, / /

bitter beautiful winter / / cycling, past the hospital. / / Silver s

/ / He retched, and felt the salt and

bitter gulf / / get him hard by the throat again. He retched / / aga

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

was harsh but he was viable. / / Wind-

bitter nights were much the worst of it. / / Waking before dawn alway

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

in glass / / rang on each other in the

bitter wind. / / A magic of the outer world, for him / / to walk in

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

d. The princess sighed / / and a small

bitter wind sighed through the wood / / filling with dusk. She shiver

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ng its lifting spine / / in slight but

bitter wind. / / Stir the bare trees, and on the benches stir / / ag

esh and spirit, longing-torn, / / grow

bitter with the burden of the years. / / Make viable our hopes and tr

and the sensualist I see / / hate most

bitterly . / / Hate… what is it then? / / What indeed but envy, / /

I, Who Know My Inner Man

one not / / thereby to malice moved or

bitterness . / / To Carabosse all things are ground for hate, / / but

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ht, alone is beautiful. / / Out of the

black a figure moved, strained face / / raised to the curtained room,

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

cranes on Waterloo / / Bridge, angled

black against the fainter sky, / / seen in their form, and seen and f

[Bare trees black] / Bare trees

black against the south’s cold brightness / / where the sun is climbi

[Bare trees black]

e walls stay, distilled knowledge grows

black , / / an unbalance, an ache, / / breeds nightmares and throws d

iamonds and clubs and hearts / / night-

black and bloody, spinning, and in the centre / / hung God Nijinsky,

pe / / and drew in closer. Huge cliffs

black and red, / / footed in shifting foam, crowned with thin jade, /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

issed led to a stair, / / low, narrow,

black , and twisting to its end / / his fingers groping felt another d

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

race, / / Mamilius and Herminius dead—

Black Auster / / gazing into his master’s face / / while the grey ho

new, contorted him with pain, / / its

black authority cutting across / / all argument; and slowly ebbed aga

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

black ] / Bare trees black against the south’s cold brightness / / whe

[Bare trees black]

t fresh day / / my spirit moves like a

black beetle. No, / / the beetle is black by nature, and no doubt /

as she fleets by over graveyards, over

black blood. / / Be there, fell Hecate, see me through to the end, /

Spells and Love

ntle, reflective, blue / / or swelling

black boiling to white, through / / its vaulted ways. Suddenly the fi

Sur le Pont d’Avignon

born to burn. / / Fire-raising autumn,

black -boughed winter, / / spring’s green-and-white return: / / anoth

Cassandra’s Song

know the darkness of that house? / / A

black brew of stupidity, distilled / / through stunted generations; y

a black beetle. No, / / the beetle is

black by nature, and no doubt / / enjoys life much of the time in its

/ came clear. Clean from my heart the

black cloud fell; / / softly the fresh wind moved; the stars were bri

Bicycle Ride / In front a

black cloud masks the sky. / / Behind me the sun’s levelling beam /

adow / / a grey steeple against a blue-

black / / cloud mounting blue sky. / / I look through my own eyes an

[Released from cloud the low sun at my back]

old, bowed woman, busily engaged. / /

Black dress, black scarf over her bent head, black / / thick gauntlet

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

horpe white in the sun / / against the

black earth; lost in / / the storm now; now here / / too the sleet-w

ged himself to the fire. / / A hunched

black figure crouching in its light / / lifted her head and was his n

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ooking for? What is gone? Why / / this

black frost / / on a spring face? She really can’t be said / / a pre

nder the Scorpion’s tail, / / Saturn’s

black frost poisoning the sun… / / Put it as you will, / / the chris

“Gale is Dead”

then cop-picked, / / what hope in his

black future? / / What can the boy become except / / a sunk thing, a

ays. / / The water whitening under the

black gale / / was scooped up, shaken, broken, shredded, thinned / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

. Before him stood / / an old woman in

black . He snatched his knife / / and rose at her with all his pain in

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

f teeth so even…?) / / Look round. His

black is thin behind, / / her blonde is mousy at the root. / / The l

/ but, huge and grim enough, / / the

Black Knight of the Question-Mark, / / and with him Fear… and in the

to these whom white men shot for being

black . / / Life’s all one colour, spilled / / beside whatever carcas

Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville

ening, till only foam / / shone in the

black ; light imperceptibly / / withdrawn from all, to those thin stre

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

nding my raw knuckles / / in the rough

black London grime. / / I’ve fallen before / / (my feet almost as cl

, / / lose one another in the widening

black . / / Look down into your life and know the night. / /

ainst the blue the patterned twigs were

black ; / / more beautiful than summer’s green tent now / / this brow

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

one to rot / / in yielding featureless

black mould below. / / For the first time Time’s inescapable stream /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

rly night, / / stars contouring a high

black mountain’s rim. / / But often mind forgot the joy of eyes. / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ his weird at home, walked through the

black night home. / / Past two o’clock. The ball went on and on. / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Black -out / London, Autumn 1939 / / / / / / / / / / / / /

wn a forest-track. / / The trunks rose

black out of the level brown; / / against the blue the patterned twig

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / / I walked down Piccadilly in the

black -out. / / The scented aura and soft ‘hullo, dearie’ / / offered

aw, / / a narrow supple vixen on quick

black pads. / /

half a dozen crocks, / / five of them

black , prettily formed but plain, / / the sixth (small like the other

on low sandstone cliffs, / / long low

black rocks enclosing / / clear pools and foaming / / firths of tide

ong sharp line dividing (dun green from

black ) / / rough immemorial pasture from new plough, / / laid face o

igure on the other side, / / rejected,

black , said / / “These she shall have. But they shall be no use.” /

“Gale is Dead”

oman, busily engaged. / / Black dress,

black scarf over her bent head, black / / thick gauntlets on her hand

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

seen a green sea, which soon, bare and

black , / / she’d see again. She loved this country, so / / at least

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

he white-faced tall shopkeeper with the

black shock-hair / / phoning the police to fetch him in the little sh

across the pearled / / water we saw a

black smudge with a gleam / / of metal at the prow. “A gondola; / /

/ / among the beech and oak. Its thin

black spire / / was sinister, and boded him no good. / / He turned o

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ dammed from a slow small stream. / /

Black still water images / / every trunk and leaf, dark but clear, /

Water in a Wood

. / / Frosted stars are veiled / / in

black . The clean air is thick / / suddenly with snow, / / blind in a

he Zodiac / / threads the constellated

black . / / These sparks, I know, are world or sun / / varyingly vast

dress, black scarf over her bent head,

black / / thick gauntlets on her hands. Most deeply aged / / he coul

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

within. / / Now, here, / / under the

black , thick tide / / we learn / / all about despair.” / / He ran l

Two Glimpses from Dante’s Hell

ing, drifting mists, sharp heather / /

black through the snow—the frozen winter breaking, / / softening, res

uddenly down / / in frost and ice. The

black twigs cased in glass / / rang on each other in the bitter wind.

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Black / Under the light fresh day / / my spirit moves like a black be

at the corner of my eye, / / back into

black unglimpsed / / as some thoughts dive out of the light. / / Rip

Water in a Wood

ind but unfalteringly / / aware of its

black way, / / out from its hide-out, in, / / giving obstacles space

y with their stench, sky and earth / /

black with that chimney’s cloud. Squalor and pain / / reek under the

Two Poems for G

—hawthorn, blackthorn / / (remnants of

blackberry -flower among the berries), / / a few rose-bushes burning w

[Late October hedges]

now from that long purse spending / /

blackberry -flowers in the bramble’s room, / / small-change for a chea

Dance of the Seasons

of large convolvulus caught / / among

blackberry -flowers with torn edges / / and honeysuckle drooping antle

Late Spring / A

blackbird on the wire / / has a straw in its beak / / gold-glinting

gged here / / for the sun’s drying and

blackening . / / Crows, pies have picked our eye-holes clear, / / plu

Villon’s Epitaph

far solstice approaches, / / clearer,

blacker against the sky are spread / / patterns of twigs, jutting fro

Dance of the Seasons

walked in silence for a while. / / At

Blackfriars ’ Bridge my guide turned up the hill / / by narrow alleys

then the triumph of the light, / / yet

blackness not annulled. Must that long night / / divide the princess

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

in obscurity. / / Out of the positive

blackness of the night / / under the bright lights, against gold and

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

nto lightless air; / / the soul in the

blackness of uncentred space, / / knowing nothing, sweats with fear.

That Way Madness Lies

nd the inescapable dark / / seemed the

blackness of war and love misfired, / / the concentration of my brood

real? / / Nature is blind / / —blank

blackness / / the sun’s light / / until kindled / / by act of sight

Music is Landscape

ated / / simply for being other (those

blacks , those Jews). / / Then there are terrorists… but terrorism’s /

The bushes though are berried—hawthorn,

blackthorn / / (remnants of blackberry-flower among the berries), /

[Late October hedges]

ifully, / / and then at last the naked

blade came free… / / but he had done his business and was gone. / /

Pelopia and Thyestes

e work was wonderful, and the much-used

blade / / marvellously fresh and keen—it was not that, / / not that

/ on the horizon’s rim / / —burn every

blade of grass / / that might be green for him. / / Huge sound tremb

irs, does remain / / —the heaven which

Blake’s love / / builds in Hell’s despair, / / hope in despairing he

Die Weisse Rose

/ Martha was tired and cross and so to

blame . / / (I speak as a fast-dyed contemplative, / / but one not qu

within. / / Self-made? self-murdered?

blank as a solitary / / prisoner / / she is looking blindly through

hat is real? / / Nature is blind / / —

blank blackness / / the sun’s light / / until kindled / / by act of

Music is Landscape

ly a rain-puddle; / / and worst a hard

blank grey sky over all / / (no trees to guide his forest-sense)—east

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

and misery have sought / / here in the

blank of loss / / ways to live with it, / / a path towards peace. /

/ shakes with dumb power, / / blots a

blank page. / /

Love’s Eyes and Hands

/ a swollen belly, hollowed eyes, / /

blank stare, / / where once a day or once perhaps in three / / hands

. / / For all our wickedness, / / our

blank stupidity, / / beauty is ours and the earth’s still. / /

—he pushes them away. / / I spread him

blankets , pillows—“Sit up, your poor old wreck. / / There. Lie down a

Greek Folk Song

h the air. / / What summer noon struck

blankly on, / / obliterated and dissolved, / / autumn and evening fo

tten, / / after initial numbness, / /

blankness , unrecognition, / / I feel my eyes adjusting, / / frozen m

u, Campdown Races, / / the Sphinx, the

Blarney Stone. / / Or the places alone / / —Taj Mahal, Parthenon, /

/ / “with memory that no despair can

blast / / and beauty in the air till we are dead. / / The convent an

that luck?” / / “Everything’s arse-up,

blast it. Blast them! Wars!” / / Behind in the cities words boil up t

knew? Who fought? / / A sudden violent

blast / / roused the prince brutally from his deep dream. / / From t

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

” / / “Everything’s arse-up, blast it.

Blast them! Wars!” / / Behind in the cities words boil up to war / /

nter not yet come, / / what this death

blasted / / was her autumn. / /

e, dropped on what’s thin / / and dry,

blaze against the wind again. / / Mind shakes to see / / how fightin

Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville

darkness, which did not drown / / the

blaze , but seemed to drain it of all power. / / A stiff, a frozen sil

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ind with blown spray, or with the white

blaze / / of light on water—dark cloud, sweeping showers— / / or the

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ I laughed, and suddenly in cloud and

blaze / / rolled back across my heart the gain and loss. / / I swall

reen, many-coloured, dark. / / Once it

blazed to heaven, this hillside, though. / / English (not, heaven hel

ly remade / / pretty doll. / / Bright

bleached hair curves in a cunning fall / / round masked skin. / / On

bed / / than those that huddle to the

bleak and harsh / / night here; whose lives, which life has tried to

, my youth.’ / / Among these words the

bleak fact of his loss, / / dropped sharp as new, contorted him with

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ry go / / some magic castle, leaving a

bleak moor. / / We followed on across the dreary circus, / / pit whe

Shatteringly / / clatters back in the

bleak wind / / an ill-latched shutter of the mind. / / I glimpse out

ne-grass / / which speared him till he

bled . Beyond, below / / the soft sand, he rejoined the mountain-strea

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

eeper. Then, / / dropped in a daze, he

bled on the leaf-mould / / uncaring, when his eye lit on the shell /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ ran the needle deep in his thumb, and

bled , / / red on the white. And she cried out, upset, / / and droppe

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

from stubbornness. / / Next time with

bleeding hands he harvested / / nine, cleaned up three unbroken, plac

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

embered but I? And all so quick / / to

bless ? Amen! She shall be brave and wise / / and beautiful and happy,

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

tter for a love, / / but each of us to

bless him / / has, in whatever season, / / a flower-love that seems

[Housman was old beyond his years]

make for me / / your special power to

bless : / / laughter and tenderness. / / I haven’t seen (only with th

Two Poems for G

t evening aware / / of so much more to

bless me than I could dare / / hope, it would be / / curmudgeonly /

[The track up the wild stream]

nses wake / / to rack the celibate and

bless the pair. / / Now evening trysts in orchards reach their peak /

clean of those. / / A further bliss to

bless you for. / /

[Feelings of guilt]

/ / springs—and oh, mountains! what a

blessed change / / from the flat ribbon stretching on and on. / / Th

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

d gave thanks / / on bended knee, / /

blessed God for a soul rescued / / from Satan’s siege. / / But the g

The Shepherdess of Cahuzac

y, / / defeated with the fairy who had

blessed him. / / A third time frantically round the bare / / ground-

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

still bare. Now though give thanks, be

blessed / / in the reviving mystery. / /

erably taut, / / suddenly loosens to a

blessed light: / / a figure by the cradle, white by white— / / one m

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

, not understanding, / / wept—and love

blessed sang—and both were love. / / Was there an end? / / Or a begi

Winter Solstice

willing, / / that we may share in His

blessing , / / thunder of Hell fall another way. / / We’re dead. Spar

Villon’s Epitaph

, is absolute, is ours, / / a grace, a

blessing we can never lose. / /

[Our lives are in other hands]

rliament and school, / / the priceless

blessings of the West / / to make your future viable, / / your order

s to an atheist? / / single him out as

blest / / by answering a faithless prayer? / / Dark power / / of fo

l, / / yet pursues / / beauty, and is

blest . / / For all our wickedness, / / our blank stupidity, / / bea

o call it, for being thus unforehopedly

blest / / in the late radiance of / / this encompassing untroubled l

[Yes, you’re right]

I have been, am ever, in your converse

blest / / —masters of the impurest of the arts / / which is for me (

t’s the comfort there?” she asked. “The

blight / / is just that flat fact that what is must cease.” / / “But

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

eyes behind / / are, you’ll find, / /

blind . / /

eart and mind / / horror-blunt, horror-

blind / / —a sword drawn on a mother, / / a daughter’s innocence /

Pelopia and Thyestes

d be like the bitch’s litter / / —born

blind , and several months too early.” / / But I’d talked enough. I la

/ / than going alone. / / We are all

blind / / and stumbling blindly fall / / sometimes into some ditch o

lity. / / What is real? / / Nature is

blind / / —blank blackness / / the sun’s light / / until kindled /

Music is Landscape

Blind / Blind leads the blind / / when they cannot find / / anyone /

/ Twittering light-scared thing, / /

blind but unfalteringly / / aware of its black way, / / out from its

I suppose, / / as some have said, born

blind , / / but when his kitten-eyes unclose / / some people find /

blind girl’s face, which never was / / composed before a looking-glas

d took the track he could have followed

blind . / / His head was clear, his heart strangely at peace. / / ‘I

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

is thick / / suddenly with snow, / /

blind in a whirl of shadow / / whose white glints can build no world.

/ else, and together, / / blind with

blind is better / / than going alone. / / We are all blind / / and

Blind leads the blind / / when they cannot find / / anyone / / else

my unbelieving prayer: / / not to play

blind -man’s-buff with death. / / Each year requires another year / /

ps, torture (body, mind) to compel / /

blind , obedient conformity, the dreamed ideal / / hardened into a sto

ilderness. Man fumbles through it, / /

blind Oedipus constrained to rape and kill. / / Nature is much to wre

ence, and pass / / in, but because the

blind pain in his breast / / drove him into the teeth of any pain /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

g desolation / / as light falls on the

blind . / / Paris loves Helen in all tongues of the world, / / Gorgia

Blind / The blind girl’s face, which never was / / composed before a

passers jealous, cold, / / cast on the

blind the silhouette of sin. / /

her. Natural things in nature are / /

blind to her beauty, dumb to sing of her. / / We, though wrecked natu

/ any more than his own; and though not

blind / / to her desire, was shocked by it. He sought / / the pox at

e spiteful soul sits on the beach, / /

blind to the bright wind and the sound of the sea, / / throwing stone

Blind / Blind leads the

blind / / when they cannot find / / anyone / / else, and together,

fferer knows: / / the lonely deaf, the

blind / / who fumbling in the paralytic dark / / await no dawn, and

/ anyone / / else, and together, / /

blind with blind is better / / than going alone. / / We are all blin

rength against the buffeting. / / Half

blind with blown spray, or with the white blaze / / of light on water

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

r kindness / / —but sometimes I’m half

blinded / / as by a new revelation: / / how, having muddled through

[I have you always in my mind]

e, / / and all help, all hope far / /

blindfold and mock the visionary heart, / / fetter the lifting feet.

limbing to a point of snow, / / to the

blinding blue of sky; diamond air / / edge to knife-edge with the nak

olive-pearly plain, / / straight to a

blinding or a peacock sea. / / And here and there like stalks of asph

rt. / / See that in earthquake now and

blinding storm / / the spirit’s eye keeps clear, its footing firm, /

Prayer to Truth

/ We are all blind / / and stumbling

blindly fall / / sometimes into some ditch one and all. / / Let us a

ing pain burned up his arm. / / Almost

blindly he turned towards the hills, / / began the long drag. Day and

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

itary / / prisoner / / she is looking

blindly through those lost eyes / / for her brown hair. / /

d and corridored the town / / white to

blindness clothes its steep / / hill under the wrecked keep. / / At

September Cruise

/ / excuse, doesn’t excuse. Spiritual

blindness / / is fault not affliction. What have I laid up? Where? /

, “made me lighter-hearted / / —orange

blinds , fountains, chestnuts flowering, / / red mullet and tomato sau

the dream, / / the light that lies and

blinds . / / Open your eyes, and yet may come to pass / / your unsche

ed generations; yet moving in it / / a

blindworm urge to love makes for a minute / / contact, perhaps; lost

ottom of the pit / / hand in hand / /

blinking upwards, / / they did not speak. / / It seemed that they mu

The Green Children of Woolpit

here, not beyond or above, / / love in

bliss , love in grief. Love is God. God is Love / /

ion, hopes, fears / / for you. Eternal

bliss nears / / for you, for me the parallel / / of eternity in Hell

Virgil’s Farewell to Dante

ows / / clean of those. / / A further

bliss to bless you for. / /

[Feelings of guilt]

le-seeming spinning globe / / —drought-

blistered , cyclone-hit, / / quake-riven earth, as though / / herself

Fairy Story / Her

blistered fingers stumbling at their task / / as time ran short / /

itrant marble, whittling / / the brute

block back towards the palpable vision. / / The guttering candle flar

r concealed companion setting too. / /

Block half freed from the quarry. God hardly half freed, / / adumbrat

September Cruise

rdly half freed, / / adumbrated in the

block . He does not heed / / precise feature, upright stance. He is he

September Cruise

ture, upright stance. He is here in the

block , / / itself still rooted in the quarry rock, / / the marble mo

September Cruise

/ In letters of gold from an architrave

block / / PUBLIC LIBRARY winked with a welcoming gleam. / / Within,

[The municipal building stood square in my dream]

fingers, / / knowing the vision in the

block , / / stood back from the perfected statue, thought / / “Still,

Block 21 / The huge reflector of the hanging light / / repeated the r

ce / / they chiselled back to free the

block . This is his place. / / Squatting on waterskis, a golden boy /

September Cruise

/ / Empty the single room. On a rough

block / / were cheese and bread, a jug of water. Down / / in one cor

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

m] / The track up the wild stream, / /

blocked by a fallen tree, / / beyond it fades and fails / / between

[The track up the wild stream]

wily hero, bound / / tight by his ear-

blocked company, / / sailed on. The Sirens dropped and drowned, / /

und. His black is thin behind, / / her

blonde is mousy at the root. / / The laugh too, and the voice, are fa

ng / / than were Circe’s or Medea’s or

blonde Perimede’s. / / Draw him, bird-wheel, draw him (you know who)

Spells and Love

od still / / reliquifies the sun-dried

blood . / /

: / / seas and rivers, all water, sap,

blood , / / all springs of earth and life dried soon, / / leaving a d

n for a Convent / Here must the longing

blood allay its heat, / / flesh cast its bloom and shapely hands grow

Inscription for a Convent

a reek of crowd and sacrifice / / with

blood and smoke, movement and noise. / / The moment’s timeless flame

Delos in Spring

d seems more than usually wet / / with

blood and tears; wrongs beyond hope of mending / / lie at the root of

ifed it from the stone. The pricks drew

blood , / / and this time too he thought of the princess / / but in c

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

e fleets by over graveyards, over black

blood . / / Be there, fell Hecate, see me through to the end, / / and

Spells and Love

cold / / she wrung the water from her

blood -cleared dress, / / sluiced her own dried blood from the aching

Pelopia and Thyestes

m him in the thorns, and wept. / / The

blood clotted and the tears ceased to come, / / the sun climbed and d

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

is fevered; but as night wears on, / /

blood cooler, quieted the pulse’s roar, / / it drowses. Now among the

Country and Town

selves and all. / / Sparks? A martyr’s

blood falls as seed, / / and these, if not in will, are that in deed.

Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville

ad said, / / and now, sitting over the

blood -filled trench, / / the hero peered into the opening shadows /

eared dress, / / sluiced her own dried

blood from the aching place, / / put the wet dress back on. She hid t

Pelopia and Thyestes

Naples / St. Januarius’s

blood / / froths cold in its gold-mounted phial. / / In canyons of t

with coarse grass—pricked him and drew

blood . He smiled / / thinking of her who now was safe at home. / / A

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / Hardly seen, / / all in a mist of

blood is hid. / / Not upon us our fathers’ sin / / but on your child

’re a Jew, / / but if you’re of my own

blood / / let me speak with you.” / / “You’re dead and laid into you

: / / loving and thieving, passion and

blood , live on / / in song. / / And there’s a further border. The wo

[The bare, beautiful borders]

st run in Guinevere’s bed] / Lancelot’s

blood must run in Guinevere’s bed / / because he could not have her m

[Lancelot’s blood must run in Guinevere’s bed]

blood must run in Guinevere’s bed] / Lancelot’s blood must run in Guin

[Lancelot’s blood must run in Guinevere’s bed]

ard? / / —pond-leech, sucking the dark

blood out of me. / / Draw him, bird-wheel, draw him (you know who) to

Spells and Love

ng hard, head swimming, while sweat and

blood / / ran down his face, he fought a mounting fear. / / He knew

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Hemans says / / “round his breast on a

blood -red field of Spain;” / / who saw his way among all possible way

t they would forget, / / feel in stale

blood renewed a prick of hate / / and press towards a hope. The exile

e? / Dreams of good / / drown in angry

blood . / / Romeo and Juliet, / / Leila and Majnun, / / loving child

Miscarriage / / /

Blood seeps from a womb / / yesterday. Today / / that sickly stream

es / / shall die into a little bead of

blood .” / / Silence and darkness. Darkness, silence and cold. / / Co

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ue / / distance, Tiberius’s isle. / /

Blood spurts, dries soon… but hot blood still / / reliquifies the sun

/ / Blood spurts, dries soon… but hot

blood still / / reliquifies the sun-dried blood. / /

ltar where they slashed the throat / /

blood stood in puddles, slopped on grass and stone. / / The leader sk

Pelopia and Thyestes

ave to learn) to make it up; / / learn

blood (thicker than water) / / is not for spilling; / / learn mutual

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

ng men, / / East and West, brothers in

blood ; / / two men riding out again. / / With Meredith at eleven, I

sounder, and he husbanded / / the life-

blood water with more care. And though / / extreme exhaustion and thi

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

against the shades crowding / / to the

blood . / / When he had let Tiresias drink / / the old ambivalent spi

slanting steel, / / gone in a burst of

blood . / / Yet, against lost years / / gone with the white rose / /

Die Weisse Rose

/ the channels of our thought as of our

blood , / / yet raise each spring new flowers in the garden, / / draw

ime. / / The sea-edge solution, salty,

bloodwarm , / / lay quick with life, with love, with mansoul. / / Now

sed and thrust, / / clothes torn, skin

bloody , but he could not stop. / / He gained much ground—but was such

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

d clubs and hearts / / night-black and

bloody , spinning, and in the centre / / hung God Nijinsky, and Diaghi

s subtleties / / flushed from the warm

blood’s quickening. / / The yielding and the stiffening, / / the woo

John Ruskin’s Wedding Night

ood allay its heat, / / flesh cast its

bloom and shapely hands grow sharp. / / Here be content only to form

Inscription for a Convent

/ / suddenly on a briar / / its early

bloom / / offering cups of light. / / Despair / / is judged by some

/ the gorse on the brown moor is out of

bloom / / that still pricks to the bone. / /

rs, / / someone else can have her. The

bloom’s gone—she’s coarse— / / the charm too (she had it)—now she’s o

Blossom and greening. / / Recurring wonder. / / For me this year not

moving into spring / / with leaf-bud,

blossom , bird-song, / / nest-building. / /

the clear dawn; / / my bud was near to

blossom . / / But the thunder-stone / / struck my world and left me /

mmer with no change. Yet / / the brave

blossom is white, / / and this first day of June / / warm air, / /

t strength of spring, / / till chesnut-

blossom scattering heralds again / / the hedge-rose and the solstice’

Sixtieth Summer

/ an undimmed miracle, / / season of

blossoming , / / season of blossom’s fall. / / A white tree at the fu

[What words are there for Spring?]

/ season of blossoming, / / season of

blossom’s fall. / / A white tree at the full; / / whiteness loosenin

[What words are there for Spring?]

forget. / / But must not let that / /

blot out what were surely our / / successes, our happiness. / / Too

cage, / / shakes with dumb power, / /

blots a blank page. / /

Love’s Eyes and Hands

t unravaged. / / Lights fade. Darkness

blots all, / / the ravage and the face. Faintly wells / / a pale ret

In the Audience

up across the pattern, damps / / then

blots the sword, the studded belt, / / Betelgeuse and the clear lamps

d loss. / / I swallowed, but the tears

blotted my gaze. / / “You know,” remarked my guide, “you make a cross

sky. / / Half their sweep, though, was

blotted out by one / / which towered towards him, beckoning threateni

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

must somehow save. The vision rose / /

blotting the world out with its otherness. / / But while he dreamed s

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

flare smokily up; / / some by a chance

blow are untimely over; / / on others / / presses too hard the splen

/ The boat staggered under a gathered

blow / / reeling and cracking, and the tiller’s kick / / hurled him

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ree and strong? we must subdue it / / “

Blow this way, that way, cool or warm. Be still.” / / Nature is much

and doom along that same roadway would

blow . / / Wheatfields fired, a pleasant city’s sack / / —these in th

Sur le Pont d’Avignon

lay on the home-ridge. The leaves were

blowing / / from the brown wood, but the boughs not yet bare / / con

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ling, over wood and hill, / / now wind-

blown clear, now eddying round again, / / the founts unquenched, the

too sad / / for those whose flame was

blown out while they had / / unflawed happiness of the hour, / / unq

Whom the Gods Love

nst the buffeting. / / Half blind with

blown spray, or with the white blaze / / of light on water—dark cloud

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ers. Has time brought up a mist / / or

blown the cloud-cap from a point of truth? / /

In the Audience

ace suddenly, dark photograph / / in a

blown -up snapshot of Anne Frank’s wall / / —her pin-ups, marking her

Hermes of Olympia

But also as fall / / sparks. The wind

blows against the fire / / beating it down, and only blows it higher.

Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville

, and from the north / / a steady wind

blows cold and colourlessly. / / A child’s children play by the shift

[White foam sweeps]

reins his galloping horse towards here,

blows / / his trumpet over her head. The cock crows / / triumphant i

initely old and long ago. / / The wind

blows in my face and shouts “Love”, / / the wild fresh wind; the rest

the fire / / beating it down, and only

blows it higher. / / Sparks, wind-scattered wide, dropped on what’s t

Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville

Divinity / Lightly

blows / / the hedge-rose, / / sways, clings, / / white, pink, / /

free, / / and blue, shadow of burning

blue / / above, echo of blues that glow / / round us (green, violet)

Delos in Spring

blue-distanced downs / / a faint flat

blue , and knew it for the sea— / / and longed to lose for once the wo

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

er-meadow / / a grey steeple against a

blue -black / / cloud mounting blue sky. / / I look through my own ey

[Released from cloud the low sun at my back]

bly. / / World is numberless shades of

blue , breaking / / to greys, to silver, white. A light wind makes /

September Cruise

ite-dressed, green garlanded, under the

blue / / bright sky, keeping their rhythm fairly true, / / snaking i

Pelopia and Thyestes

owers, white and red, / / pink, mauve,

blue , but most yellow. The plain / / is streaked with yellow flame /

od. / / Song… and blue sea… and on the

blue / / distance, Tiberius’s isle. / / Blood spurts, dries soon… bu

ahead, / / he glimpsed remote between

blue -distanced downs / / a faint flat blue, and knew it for the sea—

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

on the rocky promontory / / looks over

blue gulf-water to the blue / / mountains of Achaea, and through / /

tree. / / Today the sea is milk, milky

blue / / hardly lined off from the milky sky / / except where island

September Cruise

Revisited / The sun is soft, soft the

blue horizon / / from which a dozen greens melt towards gold. / / Su

/ / looks over blue gulf-water to the

blue / / mountains of Achaea, and through / / the eye of the Corinth

o a point of snow, / / to the blinding

blue of sky; diamond air / / edge to knife-edge with the naked rock /

/ under the high-cloud-mottled pallid

blue / / offers all colours equally subdued. / / Winter beauty’s in

[Bare trees black]

/ And so it went, gentle, reflective,

blue / / or swelling black boiling to white, through / / its vaulted

Sur le Pont d’Avignon

lark song strikes out of the sun-paled

blue . / / Pass from the green brilliance of the meadow / / into grav

Two Summer Songs

/ and longer cape, almost sunk in the

blue , / / reached out from a remoter range, which curled / / back to

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

h. Dim to the starboard lay / / a thin

blue ribbon, merging past unravelling / / detail of trees and harbour

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

hed / / almost past sight—only a faint

blue rim, / / another range. Light, dark brown, reds, golds, patched

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

for them to share. / / He gazed to the

blue rim. Then turned his back. / / Sick with the knowledge of a hope

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ell themselves for food. / / Song… and

blue sea… and on the blue / / distance, Tiberius’s isle. / / Blood s

olet, scarlet, scattered free, / / and

blue , shadow of burning blue / / above, echo of blues that glow / /

Delos in Spring

y—leaf-greens, / / white birch-trunks,

blue sky caught, / / hide darkness where that fish is moving / / lik

Water in a Wood

sun is low, / / coldly bright in light

blue sky. / / Everywhere a thin beauty. / / Even the glow / / of au

[Noon. But the sun is low]

gainst a blue-black / / cloud mounting

blue sky. / / I look through my own eyes and others too, / / the dea

[Released from cloud the low sun at my back]

e / / from grey-green sea under a grey-

blue sky, / / Low bright sun in the south, and from the north / / a

[White foam sweeps]

ut of the level brown; / / against the

blue the patterned twigs were black; / / more beautiful than summer’s

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ ploughs with his rump a furrow in the

blue . / / The Sea-god, ardour kindled by the view, / / the beauteous

September Cruise

ut legend / / but not less magic. / /

Blue thin brilliant dragon-flies, / / swallows’ acrobatic flawless fl

Water in a Wood

of the beech-trees / / rise out of the

bluebell -lake, / / and everywhere the clear green / / (soft and stro

e wood’s shadow / / sky-chinked above,

bluebell -pooled below. / / This is my country I do not want to leave.

Two Summer Songs

snowdrop, give place to primrose, / /

bluebell to buttercup, dog-rose. / / Flower-seasons return / / but n

hearing, as the featureless scape— / /

blues and greens melting in each other, fretted / / with winking, wri

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

dow of burning blue / / above, echo of

blues that glow / / round us (green, violet) in the sea. / /

Delos in Spring

hardly distinguishable through / / the

bluish haze, / / the milkiness. / / Above the dark harbour the cresc

September Cruise

easy, makes heart and mind / / horror-

blunt , horror-blind / / —a sword drawn on a mother, / / a daughter’s

Pelopia and Thyestes

ay. / / Then, blushing, stammering, he

blurted out / / “You looked sad as you walked. If I could do…” / / H

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

curtain and the moon, / / felt herself

blush , laughed ‘Oh how nice’—half child / / still, if already half wo

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ppy summer I shall not forget.” / / He

blushed . The thousand things he had to say / / went from his mind, wa

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ky is green. Hymettus / / miraculously

blushes , soon / / is grey again. / /

Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening

ed the princess turned away. / / Then,

blushing , stammering, he blurted out / / “You looked sad as you walke

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

two in one, / / yet sometimes been at

board and bed / / sullen and clumsy as the dead. / /

/ pinned on time like a butterfly on a

board , / / dead. / / But passing moments do not perish, build / / m

Moment and Memory

ed me on. / / And suddenly I reached a

board : / / “End of Reserve. Private land beyond. / / Do not trespass

Los Altos Hills

/ / and in a dream was home again, and

boasted / / to the princess bending intent to mark / / the toils and

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

truck his port beam / / and heeled the

boat all but under a wave. / / The lifted water driving over him / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

at Manly, / / looking across the small-

boat anchorage / / to the sail-flecked harbour. Clear, still evening

/ coaxed from his parents early a trim

boat / / and an old long-shore fisherman to teach / / the basic skil

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

the breeze, and on a quiet sea / / the

boat drifted from the last impulse on… / / So. This way too… Suppose

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

e sea. / / No spot there where a small

boat might be beached? / / Probably not. He looked along the plain. /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / as he moved outwards in his loaded

boat . / / Most of the morning he stood out to sea / / against the su

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

he most of the recovered wind. / / The

boat moved rippling forward on the sea, / / purposeful. Suddenly from

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

d me; I shook my head: “meet soon.” The

boat / / passed down with the already turning tide. / / The wind was

they rode—at the bank-side / / a trim

boat , rigged, provisioned, lay at anchor. / / They had no notion wher

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

t last it gave / / and set the righted

boat running before / / the wind, aslant towards the stretching cliff

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ocks at last, and that be all. / / The

boat staggered under a gathered blow / / reeling and cracking, and th

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ss where / / (a channel for the silver

boat , / / the golden boat) the Zodiac / / threads the constellated b

el for the silver boat, / / the golden

boat ) the Zodiac / / threads the constellated black. / / These spark

ease. And presently / / they from the

boat were calling me: “why not / / come with us too? Come with us.” B

flight of white birds, wheeled over the

boat / / westward, ahead, bright, dwindling. Were they not / / a gui

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ther changes / / what hope for a small

boat , what hope for him, / / between the wild wind and that wall of r

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

thin black spire / / was sinister, and

boded him no good. / / He turned on to the unencumbered ground / / b

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

he soft bed. / / Skin to bare skin our

bodies flowered, our faces / / were on fire, and our whispers were as

Spells and Love

e there and not need making, / / light

bodies lightly touching. Waking, / / the dream gone you shall keep th

/ for arms around one another, / / two

bodies warm together. / / … Yes, in the end love, / / when we’re rea

es and there is nothing there. / / The

bodily earth about us, loud and lit, / / touches the senses, nothing

That Way Madness Lies

re, and your own. / / Tread it… No. No

bodily pathway / / this glittering skein the light-source casts you /

September Cruise

hout a dreamer. They do not sleep. / /

Body , borrowed from matter, to matter’s keep / / returned we know; bu

Dulce et Decorum

transcend / / the dying body, till the

body dies. / / Then / / hangs in the air, an interrupted song. / /

Five Poems for Roni

down / / and watched detached my weary

body go / / with Emily on towards Camden Town. / / Suddenly Emily sp

beautiful and strong / / as the living

body , has bravery to transcend / / the dying body, till the body dies

Five Poems for Roni

eep, rough, hard / / for this old / /

body . I yield, / / a little sad. / / Not very. I’ve had / / a good

[The track up the wild stream]

d and plunged to cool / / his sweating

body —knew the fiery shock / / of snow-water, colder than he had thoug

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

stone / / and a half-light. / / God’s

body lay on the altar. / / She pitied Him there / / under the vaulte

The Shepherdess of Cahuzac

ins?” So why / / slave-camps, torture (

body , mind) to compel / / blind, obedient conformity, the dreamed ide

on the collarbone, hangs / / the drawn

body of a young / / girl. / / I see Anne Frank / / on the cross, of

Stray Thoughts at a Wedding

onth / / peeling a sodden rag from her

body she’d / / wipe it down the wall, marking the snail-course / / o

War-time Anecdote

his sleep. / / I lay there, my living

body stiff as a doll. / / These are the springs of my love. Mark them

Spells and Love

ow, the winds are quiet, / / but in my

body the anguish is never quiet, / / burning as I am all over for thi

Spells and Love

ood she bared for me; / / over all her

body , the young skin bare, / / I spilt my white force, just touching

dead leaf. / / My hair fell out and my

body thinned away / / to skin and bone. I tried everything. There isn

Spells and Love

Body / ‘This clumsy creature conceals, / / traduces the true me’ / /

, star by alien star. / / Meanwhile my

body , through my feet / / while I look up, points home, / / clean th

has bravery to transcend / / the dying

body , till the body dies. / / Then / / hangs in the air, an interrup

Five Poems for Roni

Here’s my hair, my neck, / / my silver

body . Touch me, though your hands are dry. / / Hands seek flowers in

Greek Folk Song

come, and little matters where / / the

body walks—loved places round us then / / intensify the shuttered hea

sand steely rays / / which whipped his

body with their scalding flail. / / The noon was darkness, and the te

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

at man from Myndus has got me, soul and

body . / / You go and watch by Timategus’s place / / (that’s where he

Spells and Love

in your young, / / your beautiful / /

body’s emptiness. / / Clothe again / / in your lovely flesh / / thi

Against Anorexia: For Cathy

l rent from his error / / revealed the

body’s subtleties / / flushed from the warm blood’s quickening. / /

John Ruskin’s Wedding Night

his soul’s health (fearing / / for his

body’s too, mortally sick) yet sharing / / still with warm loving pri

Eugénie de Guérin

quag) / / the path across the quaking

he West of Ireland / Gorse and rock and

bog lap the wall / / and wind hurls the sea in the home’s face. / /

The West of Ireland

Lost / The path across the quaking

bog / / lies not quite where the others said. / / (The seaman casts

tread: / / the path across the quaking

bog / / lies not quite where the others said. / / Watery mud-holes s

Wars!” / / Behind in the cities words

boil up to war / / —Athens and Sparta, Paris and Berlin, / / Rome an

reflective, blue / / or swelling black

boiling to white, through / / its vaulted ways. Suddenly the firm sta

Sur le Pont d’Avignon

slack / / water, through mud; winter’s

boisterous flow / / broken by stone piers, its attack / / turned, it

Sur le Pont d’Avignon

Holes in Space / Galaxies, galleon-

bold adventurers, pass / / out through uncharted night, / / extendin

even on the sky / / or if the sun were

bold and high, / / an ordinary landscape seem; / / where now an othe

/ / And always at the fatal hour, the

bold / / prince to confront the monsters in their lairs, / / outwit

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

think. / / “Lay an axe to that brittle

bole .” / / Then, one morning, at last, again / / faithless we find a

and died / / in the wide air, behind a

bolted door. / / From my lone way I could not turn aside, / / yet wr

/ / So to this house may I see Delphis

bolting , / / a mad thing, breaking away from sport and friend. / / D

Spells and Love

e to cruelty. / / I see / / the final

bomb fall wide in open ocean / / —harmless? Look—circles of desert sp

n must live. A soldier must obey. / / “

Bombers , proceed to London, to Berlin. / / Sentries, patrol with dog

Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank

m, be hideously undone, / / take these

bombs to Japan.” / / We have our orders, and our keep and pay. / / A

Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank

/ the joy. But no. The fairy’s word was

bond , / / should he love out his life. Yet what, in truth, / / had s

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ comes to the same. Free? we are all

bond still / / and, part of what we ruin, we shall rue it. / / He cr

(he thought she did not know) / / the

bond that holds me without hope. To lose / / my prison and my peace b

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ learn mutual love. / / This is the

bond / / which limits Liberty, / / the give-and-take / / more real

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

only be itself / / by acceptance of a

bond . / / Yet, inevitably and eagerly / / we strive towards that abs

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

spirit day and night / / they mark his

bondage to a dream. / /

retting which is bound to fray / / the

bonds of love; but in your own strength now / / they will be stronger

ne strange, barbarian heart. / / Their

bonds remain, but you shall to the vow / / and the fulfilment come, /

of bloom / / that still pricks to the

We knew that she was dying— / / skin,

bone and scared eyes, moving like a mouse / / in the dusk of walls, c

d my body thinned away / / to skin and

bone . I tried everything. There isn’t / / a wise-woman’s house in mil

Spells and Love

oving with him, extension of muscle and

bone , / / lightly responding to his lean, or thrown / / his whole we

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

my heart, / / both imaged back in this

bone , this flesh, / / this hour and place. / / I look across through

/ and that of the grey gull. Nearer the

bone / / was the moorhen. / / Like something not known to be remembe

Yeats and Water-Birds

ags, and the bones within / / (we, the

bones ) fritter away. / / Never laugh at our suffering. / / We all ne

Villon’s Epitaph

bridge.” “I am in the ground, / / cold

bones in Haworth,” said the parson’s daughter; / / “he is in Cambridg

and as you do, whisper “It’s Delphis’s

bones I’m kneading”. / / Draw him, bird-wheel, draw him (you know who

Spells and Love

w them on, and say “These are Delphis’s

bones I’m strewing”. / / Draw him, bird-wheel, draw him (you know who

Spells and Love

in. The chill / / wind seemed among my

bones . Molly was gone. / / The sky was clouded over; my feet were hea

Renewal / Racked

bones of the acacia stand / / leafless, lifeless, deep into spring, /

ur skin / / —it hangs in rags, and the

bones within / / (we, the bones) fritter away. / / Never laugh at ou

Villon’s Epitaph

nd / / warmth that irradiated / / us.

Bonfire on the night beach. / /

ach. We on your beach / / raised you a

bonfire / / to warm us, be you, burn off / / the chill crematorium.

ening glow / / gazed on the marvellous

bonfire , which with her / / he’d seen a green sea, which soon, bare a

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

and my fathom gun? / / A likely lad, a

bonny fighter / / by nights without a moon. / / Three nights and day

wild rose on the heath / / —bare from

bony feet, / / fouled, burned—recreate / / beauty, breed out of deat

Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank

bony knuckle] / Age’s bony knuckle / / (mean fighter) takes me in the

[Age’s bony knuckle]

[Age’s bony knuckle] / Age’s

bony knuckle / / (mean fighter) takes me in the mouth, / / and as I

[Age’s bony knuckle]

s power past, / / summer will show the

bony tree / / still bare. Now though give thanks, be blessed / / in

An early page / / closed my unfinished

book ; how does yours read?” / / I laughed: “a hard time to be great o

ed with a welcoming gleam. / / Within,

book in hand, I looked down at a page / / which sang to me likewise i

[The municipal building stood square in my dream]

but the inmate thumbs / / absorbed the

book of his own dreams. / / And, once met, one or both may yet in fea

e free, / / first of as many worlds as

books , and then / / have learnt from them a view of history: / / pub

the throne. / / Peaky brother at your

books , / / cough yourself to paradise. / / Father, spin your choking

er: / / with fear sounding its gong of

boom and slump / / disaster closed, like madness on a dancer. / /

, swift and proud. / / The wing-heeled

boots , the crooked knife / / lent us to hunt a monster with, / / mis

nne / / (Go and catch a falling star),

Border Ballads, / / Campion, Wyatt. A little later on / / Lycidas dr

wondering / / if this perhaps were the

border of the worlds / / masquerading behind the notice. / / We walk

Los Altos Hills

chrome world from Cambridge / / to the

Border . Or / / from here to eternity. / / The train moves. Nothing c

killing, / / into the song. / / This

border , that border, these kingdoms live on. / /

[The bare, beautiful borders]

/ in song. / / And there’s a further

border . The world of faery / / is on the other side of the short gras

[The bare, beautiful borders]

/ into the song. / / This border, that

border , these kingdoms live on. / /

[The bare, beautiful borders]

/ at last suddenly across an unmarked

border , / / thralled by a hand / / beautiful, inhuman, / / the Quee

Los Altos Hills

Border / “You! Hi! You over there! / / One of your goats is caught in

eautiful borders] / The bare, beautiful

borders , cruel borders / / where thieving and loving alike are things

[The bare, beautiful borders]

[The bare, beautiful

borders ] / The bare, beautiful borders, cruel borders / / where thiev

[The bare, beautiful borders]

s] / The bare, beautiful borders, cruel

borders / / where thieving and loving alike are things of passion /

[The bare, beautiful borders]

he was the old / / woman. As though it

bore itself the spell / / he flung it from him in the thorns, and wep

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

usly / / but not allowing them to be a

bore . / / These make for me / / your special power to bless: / / la

Two Poems for G

vening / / gave me, amazed, the Aurora

Borealis . / / Later again, but still a long time ago, / / walking ho

rsened and the Queen got better / / or

bored , and took her daughter back to town. / / The boy, under the dri

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

he earth / / while the hero, careless,

bored , / / hunts the gamy hills alone, / / and the tokens of his bir

t, one or both may yet in fear, / / or

bored , slip in and slam the door, / / for we may hate the tower of lo

/ / yet drags his feet / / down grey

boredoms , the grim wait; / / always his mocking game / / stacked aga

Two Poems from a New Life

/ with one of the two sisters. ‘Little

bores ’ / / he thought. And suddenly laid plans to go. / / His elder

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

rial— / / our stage is not so wide—but

born a prince. / / No doubt compounded of the same material / / as o

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

tle for / / sometimes, it’s good to be

born . / / All the same, unborn / / is untroubled, at peace. / / Pri

uch hurt / / we’d better not have been

born . / / And to ask God for help / / presupposes that there is / /

Living and Dying

ce. The boy we’ll come to know / / was

born at court but not to royalty. / / Where? When? Oh, far away and l

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ or simply smiled. “Well, you’ve been

born before, / / young man,” she’d say. He crowed again and grinned.

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

would be like the bitch’s litter / / —

born blind, and several months too early.” / / But I’d talked enough.

be, I suppose, / / as some have said,

born blind, / / but when his kitten-eyes unclose / / some people fin

re (should be) born equal? / / All are

born different. / / Difference, / / the good sine qua non of humanne

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

, meaningless. / / All are (should be)

born equal? / / All are born different. / / Difference, / / the goo

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

icult already. / / All are (should be)

born free? / / Give absolute freedom to a newborn baby, / / it dies.

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

s eyes. Now the palace was hushed. / /

Born in the purple? Well, not quite imperial— / / our stage is not so

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ who will not now be. / / ‘Not to be

born is best’. / / No, I can’t agree. / / In spite of the misery /

asy to agree necessity of. / / All are

born sib. / / Brothers and sisters quarrel / / but learn (have to le

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

ar your life is done, / / you shall be

born the prince for whom time keeps / / the keys of this thorn fortre

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

all not live to cherish / / others are

born to burn. / / Fire-raising autumn, black-boughed winter, / / spr

Cassandra’s Song

lear, / / scattering diamonds. Man was

born to hope). / /

er fourteenth Christmas (she was autumn-

born ). / / Why here? The princess wants it so. The boy’s / / heart l

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

now, and I’ll bear my longing as I have

borne it. / / Good-bye, Moon on your shining throne. Good-bye / / yo

Spells and Love

dreamer. They do not sleep. / / Body,

borrowed from matter, to matter’s keep / / returned we know; but of t

Dulce et Decorum

g linen dress / / and Cleurista’s wrap

borrowed to set it off. / / These are the springs of my love. Mark th

Spells and Love

adrift. / / Told and retold the story,

botched , refined, / / was with him all his childhood. He never knew /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

n the mountains stopped, / / his water-

bottle filled at a cold stream, / / a shot bird roasted on a stick-fi

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

by the cold ashes spread / / two water-

bottles and a woodman’s bow / / and full quiver. But he was quite alo

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

d a little way upstream to get / / his

bottles full of the near-brackish marsh- / / water—the mountain-water

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

. / / When they were found / / at the

bottom of the pit / / hand in hand / / blinking upwards, / / they d

The Green Children of Woolpit

square one, or some square in / / the

bottom row. / / Another throw, / / but what you throw is all the sam

/ no more expressive than their lovely

bottoms ). / / Now the sun goes down. Parthenon glows / / above the s

Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening

he curled stair, / / through bedrooms,

boudoirs , everywhere he went / / furnished and empty, and—the sense g

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

truths though. / / A bird sang from a

bough / / and drowsing I began / / to lose my thoughts, and then /

ch I stood. / / She sat there on a low

bough , her legs hanging, / / swinging a wide hat, not as in the wood

nning is my end / Ripe they hang on the

bough , / / last-fruits of the primal tree / / matured ineluctably /

In my beginning is my end

her willow. / / Yet fallen and soaring

bough were rich in leaf / / as the solid trunks flanking this along t

Five Poems for Roni

o burn. / / Fire-raising autumn, black-

boughed winter, / / spring’s green-and-white return: / / another bea

Cassandra’s Song

umn… Man proposes… / / winter’s carved

boughs … and hark, how sing… / / Man’s seasons, though, link in no rin

Man’s Seasons

hs arch over the half-dry creek] / High

boughs arch over the half-dry creek / / deep in its hidden cleft. /

[High boughs arch over the half-dry creek]

boughs arch over the half-dry creek] / High boughs arch over the half-

[High boughs arch over the half-dry creek]

he scars but be itself again. / / Grey

boughs beneath the perished leaf / / are lovely as spring-green, red

nched to the chill / / hushed birds on

boughs crouch, deep in grass the hare. / / Twigs cracking, one dog’s

Country and Town

owing / / from the brown wood, but the

boughs not yet bare / / concealed the castle still. To one not knowin

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

d drugs in my chest, Mistress, things I

bought / / from an eastern pedlar, who taught me how to use them. /

Spells and Love

/ had no fares but an old hat / / he

bought , wore to a première. / / Clear, bright, very cold. / / A hard

-out for waking / / curled between two

boulders he dreamed of love. / / The sun still mountain-hidden in hig

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

he sea. / / East we fare, and the rock-

bound dreaming island / / shrinks and hazes, and dreaming ghosts of i

September Cruise

white and smooth with snow. / / House-

bound I watched its beauty change—clouds frown / / or cold sun bright

aptain mad, her crew in mutiny / / but

bound in no purpose or unity, / / planks rotten, seams uncaulked, thi

ecause you dare not free / / your self-

bound life, but sit with bated breath / / —a kind of cowardice and tr

are not sea) / / a gull jerks its oil-

bound strength about, / / that way, this way, no way out of its troub

ears formed but scarcely fell. / / She

bound the bracelet on his arm. / / Plaited in smiling love to bind /

and, and be / / happy.” The wily hero,

bound / / tight by his ear-blocked company, / / sailed on. The Siren

/ / peace, but slow fretting which is

bound to fray / / the bonds of love; but in your own strength now /

on between our eyes and brain, / / and

bound within our private senses quiver / / all possibilities of delig

ess back / / dimension’s imperceptible

boundaries , / / lose one another in the widening black. / / Look dow

everness, / / which does not sense the

boundaries / / of sex or age-group, class or race— / / the single gr

opes, / / grass long and burnt silver,

bounded / / by clumped, huge close-leaved trees, green and dark. / /

Los Altos Hills

Cosmology / The sky is a firm dome

bounding earth’s plain / / whence the inconstant gods send dearth and

t (this he less saw than reckoned) / /

bounding the plain, and the small kingdom too. / / The mountains and

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ake / / the difficult traverse to that

bourne and back, / / bring back some token of my labour and love.’ /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Moon, / / fresh-oiled from a round of

bouts in the wrestling-school. / / These are the springs of my love.

Spells and Love

could stand and move. / / He took the

bow . A gull perched on the cliff. / / He aimed and loosed, but the sh

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / two water-bottles and a woodman’s

bow / / and full quiver. But he was quite alone. / / Then he remembe

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

master. Then / / glowing picked up his

bow and with sure eye / / shot down a seagull for his breakfast, roas

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

He had been taught to hunt and use the

bow / / but never practised much, and several days / / he didn’t man

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

looked where the two flasks lay. / / A

bow , eleven arrows. And the way / / home was the grim mountains… But

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ed and looted. Clean and clad, / / his

bow restrung, his quiver once more full, / / he set out through the w

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

into the north, and he / / turned the

bow south. Dim to the starboard lay / / a thin blue ribbon, merging p

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / He looked down at the flasks, the

bow , the quiver / / and the cold ash. All a dream it was not. / / Th

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

e to’ / / came reason—and this time he

bowed to her. / / Work along for a gap. Left of the way / / bushes a

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

d ceased against the rock, / / an old,

bowed woman, busily engaged. / / Black dress, black scarf over her be

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ot love) / / I think too much about my

bowels . / / But Luther broke the world in half. / / And whether, as

Thoughts on the Lavatory

e wantonly crazes the maiden out of her

bower , / / and the bride from her husband’s bed while it’s still warm

Spells and Love

for spells. Wind scarlet wool round the

bowl . / / I’m going to bind my man to me, my hard love. / / Eleven d

Spells and Love

, worn to a sieve, / / once the golden

bowl of memory. / / Age takes everything we hate to give, / / leaves

of careful kindness count / / into the

bowl the grains of rice. / / Far away, far… / / But look across / /

rs after the princess’s visit / / (the

boy a gangling woodman of eighteen) / / came news again: this Christm

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / into a handsgrasp for the yearning

boy . / / And then a patch of doubt formed suddenly / / ‘How will the

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

in his black future? / / What can the

boy become except / / a sunk thing, a wrecking wreck? / / What hope?

trolley, trundled in / / with girl or

boy . Boy or girl lying / / looked up into that eye, eye without sight

/ the boy less than the girl. / / The

boy did not live, / / went down where they came from / / through the

The Green Children of Woolpit

widow with an only son. / / A mother’s

boy (he never knew his father) / / beloved and loving, but a lonely c

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

se against a dark trunk stood / / that

boy , his gaze intent on her again— / / loitering, spying on her high

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

at Cap Martin / / with a clever little

boy , Kenneth Clark, / / how many lifetimes earlier, / / a fourteen-y

ildness, / / learned to talk— / / the

boy less than the girl. / / The boy did not live, / / went down wher

The Green Children of Woolpit

r two ago— / / how’s she?” “Just had a

boy .” “Long life to him.” / / Thanks. They’ve taken her man for the a

and understood. / / ‘He loves me. That

boy loves me’ and she smiled / / alone between the curtain and the mo

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

nds so many wishful stories, / / where

boy meets girl again, and what has been / / wrong withers inexplicabl

ay, / / nine years went on without the

boy once more / / seeing the girl. Preferment’s chancy flow / / at c

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ley, trundled in / / with girl or boy.

Boy or girl lying / / looked up into that eye, eye without sight / /

. / / Squatting on waterskis, a golden

boy / / ploughs with his rump a furrow in the blue. / / The Sea-god,

September Cruise

n. / / So, drowsing at the tiller, the

boy recalled / / the nurse’s story told him long ago. / / But sharpe

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

e her guide (oh, well-spent years!) the

boy . / / So that summer for seven enchanted weeks / / they were toge

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

my pregnant wife—” / / “I hope it’s a

boy .” “Thanks. How can she keep the flock?” / / “My two unmarried sis

/ / about the place, coming a stranger

boy . / / They closed his eyes. Now the palace was hushed. / / Born i

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ook her daughter back to town. / / The

boy , under the drips which did not wet her, / / wandered the woods, o

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ed for but in laughter. / / Later, the

boy walked on the sounding beach / / miles, hours. He loved to swim,

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

d. / / Child, happy; princess too. The

boy was only, / / at first, a servant—one whose natural state / / wa

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

low, replenishment impossible. / / The

boy went shivering, his belt drawn tight. / / The next four years len

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

nce / / / / / No, not a prince. The

boy we’ll come to know / / was born at court but not to royalty. / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

omehow been conveyed / / to strike the

boy with a full force of truth, / / through time and two discursive t

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

down at the gifted bud. / / The little

boy , wrapped to a kind of heaven, / / loves the whole lot. So long as

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

? / / Why her? / / The whores and the

boys of course were nothing / / —and Caroline, he may have had a thou

“Tell Lady Byron…”

her children / / were common girls and

boys / / or brought shimmering shadows / / to the griefs and joys /

The Green Children of Woolpit

eally evil twist / / against the older

boys / / would rush through the camp-site, flat / / out, crying out

river, with those other eyes, / / the

boy’s a hundred years perhaps away / / heavily travelling. And saw on

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Why here? The princess wants it so. The

boy’s / / heart leapt—‘She loves…’—then dropped again: a love / / fo

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ork she smiled. Resting she made / / a

bracelet braided from her hair / / to give her love, but he was dead

d but scarcely fell. / / She bound the

bracelet on his arm. / / Plaited in smiling love to bind / / his arm

arch, gorse, rough grass, / / heather,

bracken , moss, / / wild rose on the heath / / —bare from bony feet,

Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank

/ or the lost sleep among the bush and

bracken ?” / / Silent the throng watched the white sisters go, / / ea

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

o get / / his bottles full of the near-

brackish marsh- / / water—the mountain-water, sweet and clean, / / w

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

miled. Resting she made / / a bracelet

braided from her hair / / to give her love, but he was dead / / and

’s own to give / / as though it were a

braided lock. / / The scissors left a little gap / / filled long ago

reflects the moon between our eyes and

brain , / / and bound within our private senses quiver / / all possib

/ / but leave their scar, who work on

brain and heart / / to fuse our sensibility and sense / / into one w

/ the treacherous laziness of hand and

brain , / / and love making no contact with the loved. / / We had tur

/ / if you have ever let the reasoning

brain / / come into contact with the feeling heart? / / Knowing men

he cordon drawn / / about the isolated

brain grows tight. / / Roads closed, wires cut, / / he sees no more

/ / prints an image / / on a prepared

brain . / / Heart’s feeling / / transfigures again / / that transpos

Music is Landscape

/ but he feared Carabosse in the thorny

brakes / / and coaxed her to the ford; soon from the crest / / gazed

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

…then, a matter of moments, / / grass,

brambles , everything around is white. / /

er in the green forest. / / Nettles or

brambles , she plunged gaily in / / but he feared Carabosse in the tho

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

spending / / blackberry-flowers in the

bramble’s room, / / small-change for a cheapened purchase. / / The s

Dance of the Seasons

aw him (you know who) to my house. / /

Bran goes on next. Artemis, Moon, you can move / / Death’s adamant do

Spells and Love

of worn wood / / held up the tree. One

branch from the main fork / / was broken and lay level from a ragged

Five Poems for Roni

tterns of twigs, jutting from narrowing

branches , / / from stout, straight trunks—the armature where they lai

Dance of the Seasons

Buttercups / Low to the grass—tall,

branching —massed together, / / a wash of gold across the water-meadow

te’s come to the cross-roads! Clash the

brass quick! / / Draw him, bird-wheel, draw him (you know who) to my

Spells and Love

fated love / / (if, when he come, he’s

brave and true enough) / / shall force a way and wake her with a kiss

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

quick / / to bless? Amen! She shall be

brave and wise / / and beautiful and happy, and as the bud / / is dy

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

nto summer with no change. Yet / / the

brave blossom is white, / / and this first day of June / / warm air,

/ Yet, this untamed recurring / / of

brave , ephemeral beauty / / does bring us something / / beyond its l

Five Poems for Roni

ng hell / / breathed by these good and

brave , / / Kurt Huber and his children: / / Willi Graf, Christl Prob

Die Weisse Rose

h the threatening wild / / by him, the

brave one, to some happy end. / / Thus was the field ploughed for the

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

he gave. / / Alas, honest and warm and

brave / / she lost them both by one mistake. / / Oneself is not one’

s we said. / / Yes, but how bright and

brave / / the flag at the mast head / / goes last under the wave. /

Five Poems for Roni

her woke her; and knew drowned / / his

brave thought in the pain of powerless love, / / and was silent and s

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ The Queen was beautiful, the King was

brave — / / when they were prince and princess in their youth / / she

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

a wide hat, not as in the wood / / she

braved the thorns, but later, nine or ten / / perhaps—another meeting

od, not Caesar. / / From the good city

bravely back old Plato / / framed laws for shadow-men. Does He (like

g, but straight from shining water / /

bravely bridged—flagged battlements recalling / / story and dream… A

nce for a cardinal sin; / / honour all

bravery , but not pretend / / that war is grand. / / Make us remember

Prayer to Truth

and strong / / as the living body, has

bravery to transcend / / the dying body, till the body dies. / / The

Five Poems for Roni

h love, / / and as I whirl Aphrodite’s

brazen hummer / / so may he turn and turn about my door. / / Draw hi

Spells and Love

room seemed to wait— / / bench, table,

brazier , weapons on the wall, / / but no one. He passed to the yard w

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

reachery / / to all you ought to be, a

breach of faith.” / / Hurt home I struck back: “I have not committed

uined, the great thorn-barrier / / was

breached and withered too. The track they tried / / led to the river

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

. On a rough block / / were cheese and

bread , a jug of water. Down / / in one corner he saw a few hides spre

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

The spear is my rough wine, as it is my

bread , / / and even when I’m drinking my spear is ready. / / My shie

Two Songs of a Mercenary

etending / / to stay us like our daily

bread . / / She’s the wild gleam of heaven’s sending. / / Summer’s sl

Dance of the Seasons

in the flat fields / / under the sky’s

breadth / / from their mother’s dark sources / / past that laboured

The Green Children of Woolpit

he heart can tell / / —mind and tongue

break beneath it / / and die in doggerel” / / Miranda to Ophelia: /

n and knife— / / a few men killed. The

break failed. / / Jackson was down too, killed. / / He’d been in jai

ers, wrinkles water, / / drops, still.

Break from above into this silence / / out of the outer world loud vo

hope (even though unexpressed) / / to

break its spell-rooted defence, and pass / / in, but because the blin

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

eorge Jackson / George Jackson tried to

break jail / / —a few friends (brothers)—gun and knife— / / a few me

us out of nature, to upset, / / fight,

break nature, defy her, defeat her. Yet / / only we, seeing her from

ted courses / / to lose themselves, or

break on sand, / / rock, shingle—continent or island, / / coasts los

n. / / Can the natural dance / / ever

break out again? / / Wait. If you like, pray. / / Though you do not

Winter Recalled

n part / / moved, hesitated, afraid to

break the charm. / / Pausing to quell his heart again, to breathe, /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Dark Age / Frontiers

break to barbary. / / Hunger burns the palace-wall, / / robs the rev

) / / the frost will break, youth / /

break to its natural dance. / /

Winter Recalled

deep dream, / / but any love’s a wind-

break when gales bend / / the unseasoned heart. Sidelong she saw him

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

a chance (chance?) / / the frost will

break , youth / / break to its natural dance. / /

Winter Recalled

ll, strange sound / / muted before—the

breakers . And the wild / / sea stretched to the horizon. He was come.

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

re eye / / shot down a seagull for his

breakfast , roasted / / on old dry driftwood from the high-tide mark.

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

w than before he felt the power of / /

breaking away for good, but thought ‘I’ll make / / the difficult trav

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

see Delphis bolting, / / a mad thing,

breaking away from sport and friend. / / Draw him, bird-wheel, draw h

Spells and Love

to knife-edge with the naked rock / /

breaking down in a pine-torrent of green / / or rock straight to an o

ve, instead / / of making it a life or

breaking free. / / One day she broke out—“But you should be gone / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

etween two steps, between two thoughts,

breaking / / like sunlight in the breast, the unnamed wrong / / disp

lack through the snow—the frozen winter

breaking , / / softening, resolving round me, vanishing; / / but some

/ World is numberless shades of blue,

breaking / / to greys, to silver, white. A light wind makes / / the

September Cruise

l which lay beyond. / / The peaks were

breaking to the coastal plain. / / That night was warmer. He slept la

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ort you through Hell.” / / As the moon

breaks , as the moon broke through cloud / / despair thinned on my hea

rld loud voices calling. / / Authority

breaks , calling, the world of children. / / Gone the seagulls, silenc

/ The diapason closing full in man / /

breaks down in discord. God must start again. / / Larch, gorse, rough

Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank

/ settles down, the cuckoo’s / / voice

breaks ) hedge-reborn, the rose. / /

[Housman was old beyond his years]

d, / / twice that small dark bird / /

breaks the surface of the secretive stream / / to make a great poem.

Yeats and Water-Birds

/ Now, outside hope, / / the late sun

breaks through / / and round us, me and you / / touching, the fairy

[Most of us, somewhere along the road]

/ in, but because the blind pain in his

breast / / drove him into the teeth of any pain / / which might dist

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ia Dorothea Hemans says / / “round his

breast on a blood-red field of Spain;” / / who saw his way among all

how to kill / / and breeds in his own

breast , / / sows incontinently, / / noisomer ill, / / yet pursues /

hts, breaking / / like sunlight in the

breast , the unnamed wrong / / dispelled, happiness spreads like a bri

e on my seventh birthday: / / Horatius

breasting the Tiber race, / / Mamilius and Herminius dead—Black Auste

fawn soon ceased to flee. / / Over her

breasts my hands moved gently, / / the new-formed girlhood she bared

n May, / / hands seek a pair of little

breasts , two lemons on a tree.” / /

Greek Folk Song

our self-bound life, but sit with bated

breath / / —a kind of cowardice and treachery / / to all you ought t

em immune from all, / / whose skin and

breath alike sing of the rose. / / Petals we know must fall, / / and

s, / / heard in the stillness her soft

breath , and took / / heart, kissed through hair the brow turned off b

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

stipated or cursing diarrhoea, / / bad

breath , bad teeth, bad skin, / / falling or superfluous hair / / or

of the Field / They think as they take

breath , bearing no trace / / in mind or eye. / / Glowing, drooping i

The Lilies of the Field

though… / / The thought, as natural as

breath , / / falls dead against the fact of death. / / “One ever near

hed, our singing / / died too upon our

breath , / / for dying kills, my brother, / / as certainly as death.

[We lived and sang, my brother]

ot so life. Life is more than pulse and

breath , / / getting through days and years till one is dead. / / To

nd your birth. / / Anne Frank lost her

breath into that air / / just when your innocent steps were starting

Two Poems for G

ok? rather, dip / / deep in the living

breath / / of this warm, beautiful / / —and cold, and horrible / /

[Now of threescore and ten]

ing grave, / / are changed in spring’s

breath . / / Stripped trees put green on. / / Not the felled one. /

re—yet wreck the balance of things, the

breath , / / the pulse, the natural interlocking of death / / and lif

, / / sundered, bewildered, dead, / /

breathe from the tomb. / / to hover on the chill / / of fury and hat

Villon’s Epitaph / Brothers, men who

breathe the air, / / who pass counting us where we swing, / / do not

Villon’s Epitaph

/ Pausing to quell his heart again, to

breathe , / / trembling he stood at last by his princess, / / heard i

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

s you into my fray? / / You thought to

breathe your soul into the wind, / / dissolve and rest.” She smiled:

pair, / / hope in despairing hell / /

breathed by these good and brave, / / Kurt Huber and his children: /

Die Weisse Rose

, / / but make a start with these / /

breathed from the stillness of / / this vaulted space. / /

total faith in an ordered universe / /

breathed from the will of God / / which set the peasant to labour and

Eugénie de Guérin

es into play / / with new delights. He

breathed the air’s brightness, / / watched light changing on broken r

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ing. / / We can’t sit down for a brief

breathing , / / ceaselessly pushed by the varying / / this way, that

Villon’s Epitaph

hour, hacking and dragging clear, / /

breathing hard, head swimming, while sweat and blood / / ran down his

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

alendar / / Cecil was still here, / /

breathing the air, / / looking across the light, / / planning, doing

ls the sea in the home’s face. / / Who

bred here could suppose himself to possess / / of his cramped acres m

The West of Ireland

s loneliness and the wind’s vigour / /

bred me secret and strong. The wind, the moor / / and my own heart su

been in jail half his life. / / Ghetto-

bred , then cop-picked, / / what hope in his black future? / / What c

and landscape change. / / What we were

bred to seems / / immutably the same, / / a timeless heritage / / f

w the forester’s ignorance / / (inland

bred ), waited for the turning tide / / and just at the still moment,

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ fouled, burned—recreate / / beauty,

breed out of death, / / carpet again the heath / / where once, betwe

Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank

th below and sky above / / is work and

breeding and the spark of love. / / A sphere the earth is and the sky

s / / from nature how to kill / / and

breeds in his own breast, / / sows incontinently, / / noisomer ill,

/ / Every mountain, plain and bay / /

breeds its princeling of the knife. / / Beast and bandit walk the ear

black, / / an unbalance, an ache, / /

breeds nightmares and throws dark veils on the day. / /

hospitable. In the lee / / he lost the

breeze , and on a quiet sea / / the boat drifted from the last impulse

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

loved star vanishes, / / and these no

breeze shall by and by / / uncurtain unchanged to my gaze, / / since

fter the sun was high, / / a faint sea-

breeze , which shifted presently / / and settled steady in the old goo

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

he darkness of that house? / / A black

brew of stupidity, distilled / / through stunted generations; yet mov

are done. / / Each year the flowering

briar / / has touched this reach of life / / with a singular charact

ake over. And I come / / suddenly on a

briar / / its early bloom / / offering cups of light. / / Despair /

/ bushes and scrub were knotted to the

briar . / / Right was a space, where a tall pine-tree stood— / / the

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

evel light makes beautiful / / all the

brick -grey desert, the swirling banner / / we bear of smoke, smoke of

“Life is sweet, brother”

n, whole / / the world lies, dazzling,

bridal , / / incorruptible. / / All confusion lost in light / / it i

the sleeper’s side, / / the initiated

bride / / cycle of seed and growth, strength and decay; / / tomorrow

e maiden out of her bower, / / and the

bride from her husband’s bed while it’s still warm.” / / He’d the gif

Spells and Love

/ “The fairy’s promise is the prince’s

bride .” / / He fell asleep as she was speaking. No / / dreams, a dee

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ve / / and raise a prince to rouse the

bride . The knell / / ‘a hundred years’ turned to a voice. She said /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

een a loving wife. / / Would have been

bride , with greater love, of Christ, / / but stays with her father /

Eugénie de Guérin

/ ‘To be her prince and have her for my

bride ’ / / his heart was flooded with unreasoning joy. / / The age o

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

n more than thought… / / ‘The prince’s

bride ’… That was a fevered dream. / / He looked down at the flasks, t

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

The gondola / / shot from beneath the

bridge and drew along. / / A bright-haired girl laughing jumped out:

trafficked, wide / / Embankment to the

bridge , and saw the reach / / of river, silver at the full of tide. /

th intense; the cranes on Waterloo / /

Bridge , angled black against the fainter sky, / / seen in their form,

lence for a while. / / At Blackfriars’

Bridge my guide turned up the hill / / by narrow alleys where the hou

ood the way you took instead.” / / The

bridge shadow, darker than a night wood, / / took three and rendered

a dreary road. / / But moonlit on the

bridge the statues were / / like a wood-cut; and there beside us slow

/ / Down to the quay below Westminster

Bridge , / / where trips for Hampton Court and Greenwich are / / emba

traight from shining water / / bravely

bridged —flagged battlements recalling / / story and dream… A sadness

/ and shared with me / / the faintest

brief arc of a real rainbow. / /

[Fall rainbows the forest-acred mountains]

s’ lining. / / We can’t sit down for a

brief breathing, / / ceaselessly pushed by the varying / / this way,

Villon’s Epitaph

Weep for that trust betrayed, / / for

brief despairing pain / / of these untimely dead. / / Weep more for

Whom the Gods Love

lives of others / / the silt of whose

brief or eternal loves / / now beds the wood where ours are now the l

n evening’s awareness of tomorrow. / /

Brief wind ruckles gulls’ feathers, wrinkles water, / / drops, still.

lusters these specks which we / / have

briefer occupation of, / / but gains no wide or long control / / aga

/ (Dante’s and Aristotle’s love) / /

briefly clusters these specks which we / / have briefer occupation of

h and wook, free and wild, / / under a

bright , a grey, always a wide sky, / / your riding country, where you

Two Poems for G

Spring Morning / Across a cold

bright air the sun / / slants. The day and the year are young, / / a

te, the loss we said. / / Yes, but how

bright and brave / / the flag at the mast head / / goes last under t

Five Poems for Roni

ower, / / but on his arm still burning

bright / / as though lit by the inner flame / / which sears his spir

ly the fresh wind moved; the stars were

bright , / / before dawn and the moon behind the hill. / / I reached

cleverly remade / / pretty doll. / /

Bright bleached hair curves in a cunning fall / / round masked skin.

t in / / defeating gusts, but comes in

bright bursts as if / / to remind me that your voice from the far dis

Two Poems from a New Life

hand came up and caught it, swung it, a

bright circle / / in the last light, before it sank in the lake. / /

aster’s, / / his master was dying, the

bright circle was broken, / / withdrawn all brightness to this bright

/ you were in, not ’85. / / Children (

bright -coloured / / mufflings against a white snow / / slope) tobogg

under the hot, bright day, / / watched

bright , cool water flow, / / drowsing (he had not slept / / nights,

Pelopia and Thyestes

holy place. He lay / / under the hot,

bright day, / / watched bright, cool water flow, / / drowsing (he ha

Pelopia and Thyestes

mooth-threading pass. / / Tide out, on

bright / / days children splash / / in sea-pools at their base, / /

led over the boat / / westward, ahead,

bright , dwindling. Were they not / / a guide? At least an omen. ‘I ac

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

glances / / from brilliant colours and

bright faces, / / sinks in dark stuffs and secret looks, and shows /

harder. It was a shell, / / its shaven

bright fragility intact. / / How could it be? here? Here it was, a fa

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

neath the bridge and drew along. / / A

bright -haired girl laughing jumped out: “good-bye, / / thanks,” and f

/ Noon. But the sun is low, / / coldly

bright in light blue sky. / / Everywhere a thin beauty. / / Even the

[Noon. But the sun is low]

er face was from him, but the head / /

bright in the sun. Her slight and lovely form / / was all his dream.

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

a world singing. / / Morning did come

bright . / / Iridescent the cleaned world, / / gem-colour-spangled. /

crescent moon, / / and just beside her

bright Jupiter. / / We watch them move / / slowly, inevitably, stead

September Cruise

e blackness of the night / / under the

bright lights, against gold and white, / / he watched entranced the c

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

s the snow / / towards the sun through

bright mist. / / There is nothing else. / / Luckily I am / / too of

oftly. It seemed like weeping. / / The

bright morning glistens on the night’s tears. / / Time heals and does

News of a Death

n or afternoon. Take what may / / come—

bright or broken day / / or dull. Though unreturning / / this clear

/ / And all are here—the easy and the

bright , / / putting quick words to ready thought; / / the slow, the

he embodiment of his jealousy, / / the

bright saviour whom he must love and hate, / / would sail perforce up

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Altos Hills / On the high hill, in sun-

bright scrub, / / the path wound under trees / / a big loop, and the

Los Altos Hills

w it was night, / / a moon—behind, the

bright sea under it, / / and calm. Miles to his left stretched the co

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

d, green garlanded, under the blue / /

bright sky, keeping their rhythm fairly true, / / snaking in line or

Pelopia and Thyestes

e, if you felt it, never shown, / / no

bright spark in your love that might have started / / an answering fl

/ dispelled, happiness spreads like a

bright spring / / unsummoned, unreasoned, secreted long / / from hou

een sea under a grey-blue sky, / / Low

bright sun in the south, and from the north / / a steady wind blows c

[White foam sweeps]

e glints can build no world. / / Under

bright sun, whole / / the world lies, dazzling, bridal, / / incorrup

the lake / / and stood and turned the

bright sword in his hands / / then tossed it flashing towards the mid

enemies. Trust them. / / “Put up your

bright swords, for the dew will rust them.” / /

Against Deterrents

/ “So stands the moon over Vathý, and

bright / / the harbour under the dark hills is laid.” / / But she: “

Parted / Together, love spreads

bright under the clear / / sky, from our feet laps to eternity. / /

bought, wore to a première. / / Clear,

bright , very cold. / / A hard landscape, beautiful / / but hard. Ver

ng. / / But suppose morning / / comes

bright , washed things will display / / new beauty, a world singing. /

silhouette, / / darker and hard on the

bright water, marked / / the end of seen and known. His eyelids dropp

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

d strangely the flowers / / (the light

bright white and pink) invisible. / / The dark unflowered bush was be

ul sits on the beach, / / blind to the

bright wind and the sound of the sea, / / throwing stones at a stone.

ty change—clouds frown / / or cold sun

brighten over it, and though / / my heart warms to the first of winte

d. / / Not I the spirit whose eyes can

brighten through / / your dark sea. Waits ahead the help you need.” /

rug he slept until / / the summer dawn

brightening above the water / / woke him—and woke, after the sun was

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

to the dawn sky / / saw in the broken,

brightening western cloud / / and shared with me / / the faintest br

[Fall rainbows the forest-acred mountains]

from cloud the low sun at my back / /

brightens suddenly / / across the greenness of the water-meadow / /

[Released from cloud the low sun at my back]

eyes perception of a clearer air / / a

brighter day. / /

The Lilies of the Field

n goldenrod / / and their chests shone

brighter than you are shining, Moon, / / fresh-oiled from a round of

Spells and Love

his indeed is another burning star / /

brightest of all, but a nearer flame too: / / fire on the hearth, /

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

is quite a long time now.” / / “At its

brightest this month” he said, and showed me how / / working up from

, / / withdrawn all brightness to this

brightness of a sword / / He laid it among the reeds again, went slow

t circle was broken, / / withdrawn all

brightness to this brightness of a sword / / He laid it among the ree

ith new delights. He breathed the air’s

brightness , / / watched light changing on broken rock, as day / / cl

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

re trees black against the south’s cold

brightness / / where the sun is climbing from cloud to its low noon.

[Bare trees black]

t / / are quite away. / / I drink the

brilliance , am a part / / of this cold, rare / / new day. / / You a

[The clouds that pressed the air]

more shadow than light / / but broken

brilliance drips through / / touching the shade to life / / as sudde

[High boughs arch over the half-dry creek]

ull. Though unreturning / / this clear

brilliance , it will live unlost / / sealed in the amber past. / / Th

un-paled blue. / / Pass from the green

brilliance of the meadow / / into graver green of the wood’s shadow /

Two Summer Songs

ls equally on all; it glances / / from

brilliant colours and bright faces, / / sinks in dark stuffs and secr

/ / but not less magic. / / Blue thin

brilliant dragon-flies, / / swallows’ acrobatic flawless flight. / /

Water in a Wood

poppy-dancer / / dips to the wind her

brilliant head / / by time’s rough gusts soon to be tonsured. / / Sp

Dance of the Seasons

/ illuminates against it, white, / /

brilliant , one swan high in flight / / across the flat fenland. No dr

t drop them in your heart, see / / how

brilliant they appear. / /

ay—images which empty / / the moment’s

brimming being. Not us they’re calling / / but others within the crys

so shining from air to eye / / across

brimming waters of misery, / / no less beautiful for that, more beaut

“Life is sweet, brother”

/ the founts unquenched, the fumes of

brimstone spill / / from the cities of the plain. / /

‘No man / / is an island’ or, if / /

brine -girt by circumstance, / / a desert island then. / / … Yes, the

again, and brought up more of the foul

brine . / / He groaned and retched and vomited again, / / and knew hi

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ht the water / / and spooned a pint of

brine over his head, / / his chokes and sputters ended, the nurse sai

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

traverse to that bourne and back, / /

bring back some token of my labour and love.’ / / It was her birthday

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ng Him, our serving Caesar / / may yet

bring Caesar back with us to God’s / / service—what’s Caesar’s in the

d several days / / he didn’t manage to

bring down a bird. / / Three of his arrows landed in the sea / / (th

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ord he’ll say. / / I bring him food, I

bring him drink—he pushes them away. / / I spread him blankets, pillo

Greek Folk Song

nd chatter—not a word he’ll say. / / I

bring him food, I bring him drink—he pushes them away. / / I spread h

Greek Folk Song

/ / then say ‘Simaetha’s waiting’, and

bring him here.” / / That’s what I told her. She went, and brought hi

Spells and Love

I was coming, Simaetha. Your message to

bring me here / / was first by only as much as the other day / / I m

Spells and Love

o paths, / / and where should the path

bring me to / / but a church in a churchyard? / / A little church, w

he shall not die. / / “The prick shall

bring not death but a long sleep. / / A sleep not as you know it, fro

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ence / / without feeling mind. / / We

bring our own lights / / into this dark, / / and in the glance, danc

Music is Landscape

Idyll) / My bay-leaves, where are they?

Bring them here, Thestylis, / / and the stuff for spells. Wind scarle

Spells and Love

/ of brave, ephemeral beauty / / does

bring us something / / beyond its loveliness: / / a resharpening, re

Five Poems for Roni

e lives have kindled your life / / and

bring your torch out of the ivory tower.” / / She ceased, and I turne

e whirls through wolf-wild passes, / /

brings fear to the Tuscan market-place. / / A little later came Kipli

/ their course your drifting—and that

brings no true / / peace, but slow fretting which is bound to fray /

eeth. / / … But only the real presence

brings us that peace. / /

[My grandchildren are stamping the ice-puddles]

woven through / / our minds. But what

brings you into my fray? / / You thought to breathe your soul into th

setting sun. / / Crossing the thistle-

bristling rock / / one stumbles in the square-cut marks of man / / h

Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening

Britain / Once she held half the world in fee; / / for evil and for g

ise” we think. / / “Lay an axe to that

brittle bole.” / / Then, one morning, at last, again / / faithless w

/ / Later he learned the fords of the

broad flow / / beneath the nearer hills. Alone long days / / walking

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

of the fifth day / / he looked down a

broad valley from a col / / higher than any hill which lay beyond. /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

s ran straight between the sea / / and

broadening plain. To south, hill crowded hill / / against the shore,

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

e hills parted, and the river came / /

broader and fuller out across a plain / / many days more to sand-dune

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ting foam, crowned with thin jade, / /

broke down to island-rocks. One took the shape, / / he thought, of a

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

g in the hills. / / But then the sword

broke in my hand, / / the steel snapped clean in two. / / A Turkish

from my own pursuing voices / / which

broke in my own tears. / / I woke from tears / / dry-eyed to the puz

l, which broke. It was enough, / / she

broke into a flood of tears and fled. / / He half-noticed the room wa

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

pset, / / and dropped the shell, which

broke . It was enough, / / she broke into a flood of tears and fled. /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

life or breaking free. / / One day she

broke out—“But you should be gone / / away from here, my father’s woo

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

hrew the columned temples down / / and

broke the features of the god / / and of the living precinct made /

Delos in Spring

ic of the spheres, / / light—your Lady

broke the spell / / of eternity in Hell. / / I had passed thirteen h

Virgil’s Farewell to Dante

o much about my bowels. / / But Luther

broke the world in half. / / And whether, as some think, he howls /

Thoughts on the Lavatory

ngless. He must go on. And then / / he

broke through bushes out on to a track… / / But thorn-crossed like th

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

.” / / As the moon breaks, as the moon

broke through cloud / / despair thinned on my heart. The moonlight fe

thickly-bushed steep mountain-side / /

broke to a torrent summer had not yet dried. / / On hard bare feet sh

Pelopia and Thyestes

out the twentieth mile / / where hills

broke to the sea, and ‘this is Greece’ / / I thought.” We walked in s

e ribbon a faint shadow rise / / which

broke too the horizon of the sea / / and grew at length into a cliff-

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

e / / struck my world and left me / /

broken and alone.” / / Miranda to Ophelia: / / “Then you would forge

One branch from the main fork / / was

broken and lay level from a ragged end / / resting on the strong spre

Five Poems for Roni

g out into the dawn sky / / saw in the

broken , brightening western cloud / / and shared with me / / the fai

[Fall rainbows the forest-acred mountains]

here is more shadow than light / / but

broken brilliance drips through / / touching the shade to life / / a

[High boughs arch over the half-dry creek]

e like stalks of asphodel, / / few and

broken but straight, gold in the sun, / / the cities of Greece: which

ough mud; winter’s boisterous flow / /

broken by stone piers, its attack / / turned, its wild movement maste

Sur le Pont d’Avignon

noon. Take what may / / come—bright or

broken day / / or dull. Though unreturning / / this clear brilliance

ining still the temples hold / / their

broken faces to the dawn. / /

nd it fades and fails / / between rock-

broken falls / / and rough growth of the steep / / difficult slope.

[The track up the wild stream]

nd / / walked out together through the

broken gate. / / And how did they get home? And were his mother / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

riven by hate, / / everything sour and

broken in his heart, / / the old man carved by candlelight / / behin

ue / / kneels with her pitcher and her

broken nose / / between the men’s and women’s lavatories, / / I saw

d cleaned / / he threw out two shells (

broken ) of the three, / / wrapped up the last in red leaves from the

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ngled in the womb, / / whose nails are

broken picking at the knot / / of Gordian anguish in the heart; / /

ity and beach, / / against the rising,

broken range, through which / / (he smiled) his cousins were already

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ghtness, / / watched light changing on

broken rock, as day / / climbed and declined. And dreamed of the prin

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

rth and olive, pine and bare rock, / /

broken rock climbing to a point of snow, / / to the blinding blue of

black gale / / was scooped up, shaken,

broken , shredded, thinned / / into a thousand thousand steely rays /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ather the human frame / / finds in its

broken sleep / / despair so wearisome / / that it is forced to hope.

[Why do I dream this pause]

e / / rebuke no promise, made / / and

broken —there was none. / / Beauty owes nothing: by having been has pu

llowed back almost to the bark / / and

broken through in two places near the root / / so that only three str

Five Poems for Roni

monument / / which time has tanned and

broken to harmony). / / The sky is green. Hymettus / / miraculously

Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening

master was dying, the bright circle was

broken , / / withdrawn all brightness to this brightness of a sword /

t pass. / / How have I forgotten Emily

Bronte , / / so many years my constant star and love? / / There must

ear-rings, gold, simple design; / / a

bronze mirror, its shine a roughened green / / but on the back still,

ile was dead. / / On marble and gilded

bronze the sun is burning / / by the laughing sea. / / Among the emp

Gunnar of Lithend

ountry I do not want to leave. / / But

brood on that is stupid, self-defeative. / / Be content with its bein

Two Summer Songs

one love and not be understood? / / He

brooded long, there on the darkening track. / / The court went home.

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

misfired, / / the concentration of my

brooded wrong. / / No buses passed me and one taxi, hired. / / A win

s trees. / / The sun, the hard master,

brooks no mist. / / Where are streams and drenched woods? Where is th

Varangian in Mickelgard

/ / through remote air / / —pile the

brooks with muck / / lest he find them clear. / / Charred field, /

ith its island, / / enjoys the shining

broom -slopes. Another at Iken looks / / from a low cliff, like Saunto

back again. / / Behind him walked his

brother , and I called him: / / “Christopher”, and he stepped out of a

e greatest human good, / / sign of our

brother -and-sisterhood. / /

ng, my brother] / We lived and sang, my

brother , / / and watched the days go by, / / and when death came amo

[We lived and sang, my brother]

on our breath, / / for dying kills, my

brother , / / as certainly as death. / /

[We lived and sang, my brother]

can once ascend the throne. / / Peaky

brother at your books, / / cough yourself to paradise. / / Father, s

w, but do not sneer / / at the name of

brother from us. Think / / that not all men have an equal share / /

Villon’s Epitaph

he was thirteen. / / And now the loved

brother lives in Babylon, / / Paris, leagues away. And further. / /

Eugénie de Guérin

ot his our work, not ours his pay. / /

Brother men, mockery here’s nothing. / / We all need mercy, so go pra

Villon’s Epitaph

from the waiting water / / and saw my

brother moving towards our / / stance his long steps. “But he” I said

welfth shirt, / / leaving her youngest

brother one swan’s wing / / —strong and beautiful / / but powerless

/ but above all others: / / the baby

brother she first was jealous of, / / but they were knitted together

Eugénie de Guérin

too in their ways / / but not with the

brother / / she loves above all the world, though not above / / God—

Eugénie de Guérin

e loves too; stays / / with sister and

brother she loves too in their ways / / but not with the brother / /

Eugénie de Guérin

[We lived and sang, my

brother ] / We lived and sang, my brother, / / and watched the days go

[We lived and sang, my brother]

“Life is sweet,

brother ” / Winter morning. / / This clear level light makes beautiful

“Life is sweet, brother”

cked by the beaks’ sharp play. / / Our

brotherhood is not welcoming. / / We all need mercy, so go pray. / /

Villon’s Epitaph

graves / / lying close together / / —

brothers and cousins, I suppose, / / sticking by one another, / / bu

cessity of. / / All are born sib. / /

Brothers and sisters quarrel / / but learn (have to learn) to make it

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

oole, / / Lir’s three children, Elsa’s

brothers , / / and the white godhead, Leda’s lover. / / That long-str

death came among us / / we watched our

brothers die. / / But as we watched, our singing / / died too upon o

[We lived and sang, my brother]

ried to break jail / / —a few friends (

brothers )—gun and knife— / / a few men killed. The break failed. / /

own; the young men, / / East and West,

brothers in blood; / / two men riding out again. / / With Meredith a

Villon’s Epitaph /

Brothers , men who breathe the air, / / who pass counting us where we

Villon’s Epitaph

her man for the army though.” / / “My

brother’s been called and I’ll be going soon / / —have to put off get

he maddened father, fed / / by his own

brother’s hate / / his own children for meat, / / learning the horro

Pelopia and Thyestes

if ever / / your image came to mind it

brought / / a warmth of innocent pleasure, / / as mine surely to you

one / / duly to deity, fine steers are

brought ; / / and by the altar where they slashed the throat / / bloo

Pelopia and Thyestes

s something more, and ‘what the fairies

brought her’ / / serves at least to express her rarity. / / Next mor

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ That’s what I told her. She went, and

brought him back, / / Delphis (such a smooth skin) back to my house…

Spells and Love

once be free… / / Supper, bed, mother

brought him home again. / / His mother, waiting up, met him in wild—

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ate, and then / / half a day’s walking

brought him to the sand— / / soft sand which rose in a long rampart,

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ark recesses of the sunstruck wood / /

brought his forebodings back in force. And yet / / he had so much, so

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

, she’ll waken: / / love is the gift I

brought . I give it now, / / and who can say if that’s the better gift

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

prian thanks, my dear, / / to you, who

brought me here and out of the flame. / / I was almost burnt up alrea

Spells and Love

dying, but the poor / / flesh won and

brought me home. I lived and died / / in the wide air, behind a bolte

mb towards the pass. / / The mountains

brought new muscles into play / / with new delights. He breathed the

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / were common girls and boys / / or

brought shimmering shadows / / to the griefs and joys / / of life in

The Green Children of Woolpit

ith two or three friends. / / I’d have

brought the apples of Dionysus with me / / and worn a wreath of the w

Spells and Love

Pericles, whose statesmanship / / had

brought them there, had raised the Parthenon. / / (Pheidias, his arbi

Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening

/ / when we’re really put to it, / /

brought to the final crunch, / / is the one thing that counts. / / B

exist, / / move us in others. Has time

brought up a mist / / or blown the cloud-cap from a point of truth? /

In the Audience

hroat again. He retched / / again, and

brought up more of the foul brine. / / He groaned and retched and vom

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

le which will not crack apart; / / you

brought us to the promised land of love / / (garden more sweet than c

/ Life was a still morning / / cool on

brow and hand / / till flesh and soul flowered / / in those of Ferdi

/ She turned towards the sea her quiet

brow . / / Down the steps from the sloping road above us / / a form,

: / / “What are those wrinkles on your

brow / / those rings about your eyes? / / Surely life is only love /

ook / / heart, kissed through hair the

brow turned off beneath. / / She stirred and turned her flower-face—t

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

The trunks rose black out of the level

brown ; / / against the blue the patterned twigs were black; / / more

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

than summer’s green tent now / / this

brown carpet; yet this brown carpet’s not / / that summer four years

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

nt now / / this brown carpet; yet this

brown carpet’s not / / that summer four years gone—that’s gone to rot

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ The girl in the train looks out with

brown eyes / / fixed and lost. / / What is she looking for? What is

round masked skin. / / Only the fixed

brown eyes seem to reveal / / someone within. / / Self-made? self-mu

brown ] / Golden, red, brown— / / when they begin to loosen and come d

[Golden, red, brown]

ly through those lost eyes / / for her

brown hair. / /

/ / for weeks together I have seen the

brown / / hills about Haworth white and smooth with snow. / / House-

er a winter gloom / / the gorse on the

brown moor is out of bloom / / that still pricks to the bone. / /

ue rim, / / another range. Light, dark

brown , reds, golds, patched / / and mingled, were a revelation to him

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

eps] / White foam sweeps along the grey-

brown shore / / from grey-green sea under a grey-blue sky, / / Low b

[White foam sweeps]

cell-walls were streaked / / with red-

brown smears. Jesus, what people!” / / Unhappy women / / caught from

War-time Anecdote

[Golden, red, brown] / Golden, red,

brown — / / when they begin to loosen and come down / / I hear my mot

[Golden, red, brown]

/ Under the grey cold / / redder than

brown , white / / crimson and green-gold / / the bare-stemmed bushes

. The leaves were blowing / / from the

brown wood, but the boughs not yet bare / / concealed the castle stil

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ye-holes clear, / / plucked beards and

brows for their nests’ lining. / / We can’t sit down for a brief brea

Villon’s Epitaph

far base disappears / / in cloud (like

Brueghel’s Babylon / / reversed) when first we’re launched. But soon

himself up. He was cold and stiff, / /

bruised , hungry—but at least could stand and move. / / He took the bo

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

claimed him. / / But in the whittled,

bruised stone he left caught / / that straight flame. / /

Glimpses from Dante’s Hell / Accidie /

Brunetto Latini under the Fire-Rain / “Joy we denied,” / / they mutte

Two Glimpses from Dante’s Hell

ed the maid at Rouen) / / drenched the

brush with petrol round the mountain hide-out / / of Gregory Afxendió

ed two; what I must yet / / feel,

brushed me then. / / To left the plane-trees stood / / part lit; to

er Roe Head and Law Hill, / / remember

Brussels . Can you find it strange / / there should be times this city

be times this city sits me ill?” / / “

Brussels , Roe Head, Law Hill—exile and prison,” / / she said, “but so

Beethoven / Dirty old

brutal bear, / / decencies and affections hanging / / rags on his ro

from its fishing-grounds. / / Nature’s

brutal economy holds a mirror / / to human doing, / / unflattering /

Heron and Gulls

r, / / forefailed / / through odds of

brutal , hopeless circumstance. / / But pangs of conscious conscience?

k. / / Lift it again. / / Naked under

brutal lamps, / / fine Jewish features suffering-sunk / / down on th

Stray Thoughts at a Wedding

/ Troopers shot the fawn, / / Wanton

brutality / / by all ages of man / / in every age works on. / / Vis

en violent blast / / roused the prince

brutally from his deep dream. / / From the south-east the squall stru

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

rdered jumble of things. / / The fire,

brutally quenched, was still a fire / / whose high flame, even rememb

recalcitrant marble, whittling / / the

brute block back towards the palpable vision. / / The guttering candl

A windy morrow / / shakes the crystal

bubble about the children. / / Light slopes, lengthens the shadows of

/ is moving into spring / / with leaf-

bud , blossom, bird-song, / / nest-building. / /

/ and beautiful and happy, and as the

bud / / is dying into the flower, she shall prick / / her thumb, and

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

t… But the heart’s not one. / / Hearts

bud off from it, plant themselves / / in loved places. / / Two such

, / / love felt for her, when the pink

bud should flower / / (even before). None chose to give her power /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

stand round and look down at the gifted

bud . / / The little boy, wrapped to a kind of heaven, / / loves the

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ “I too knew the clear dawn; / / my

bud was near to blossom. / / But the thunder-stone / / struck my wor

long-term—Plato / / no less than Paul,

Buddha no less than Plato. / / I am no follower of Paul or Plato, /

m no follower of Paul or Plato, / / of

Buddha or Mahomet, God or gods. / / Paul’s song of charity I love, in

do. Let the grass / / green up again,

buds / / plump on the tree, / / the quiet birds / / pipe up. Be /

Against Anorexia: For Cathy

ves / / in loved places. / / Two such

buds swelled, / / Dropped from my child-heart, grow / / there where

ng prayer: / / not to play blind-man’s-

buff with death. / / Each year requires another year / / to finish s

his whole weight’s strength against the

buffeting . / / Half blind with blown spray, or with the white blaze /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

und, / / build the world where we must

build . / /

give / / a form on which to mould and

build . / /

fossil forming in the stone / / helped

build a shape which was not there before. / / Though change offend an

in the ground, / / mark out a temenos,

build an altar, sacrifice / / there to Him of the sea. / / He will a

and unwon: the only ivory tower / / to

build for middle age. / / Being no fortress, neither is it a prison.

/ / but surely we shall never let them

build / / into a barrier. / / We know too well how kindness may be k

[Yes, you’re right]

/ / But passing moments do not perish,

build / / memory and life; the artist’s captured moment / / lives li

Moment and Memory

l of shadow / / whose white glints can

build no world. / / Under bright sun, whole / / the world lies, dazz

/ / flicker died soon.” “What can one

build on one / / spring song?” she said. “You never offered me / / r

/ / in changing unchanging round, / /

build the world where we must build. / /

od can hate do? / / The stocks of hate

build up / / (and stocks of armaments / / build up). Is our real wea

d up / / (and stocks of armaments / /

build up). Is our real wealth, / / the small-change of our love / /

e flight / / from ours to outer world,

build worlds in / / differing ways their own. When we fold / / fond

Out from the Cliff

leaf-bud, blossom, bird-song, / / nest-

building . / /

/ like some cathedral, centuries / / a-

building . But that image, as / / the other melting images, / / is le

has fallen flat: / / turn to a firmer

building now.” “I will” / / I answered, sad; then heard: “our way lie

ood square in my dream] / The municipal

building stood square in my dream: / / a white stone façade of Edward

[The municipal building stood square in my dream]

building stood square in my dream] / The municipal building stood squa

[The municipal building stood square in my dream]

/ / (industrious as cancer-cells / /

building their busy colony / / which kills their host and so themselv

Mother’s Malison

mall way from the water / / a child is

building , wrapped in private silence, / / small crystal world within

ass and tall trees, / / grave colonial

buildings . / / These serious scholars, teachers / / were also beauti

most burnt up already. Surely Love / /

builds a hotter fire than Hephaestus under Etna.”— / / These are the

Spells and Love

/ —the heaven which Blake’s love / /

builds in Hell’s despair, / / hope in despairing hell / / breathed b

Die Weisse Rose

- / / eyed, firm-handed geometer, / /

built an intelligible world / / of surfaced shapes. / / Now, as then

not be so. / / The handsome plinths we

built for them were all / / plaster painted for marble. These gave wa

Against Pedestals

/ / (man and dinosaur) / / it is some

built -in device, / / some failsafe mechanism, / / that hurries us do

What goes up must come down

llowed could never fail / / to carry a

built -in reprieve, / / a passport to eternity. / / No, let me live a

/ (the spirit’s two alembics) lies / /

built out of frost and mist and level light / / before our ordinary e

as this must have been before / / they

built the city. Far away—’ he threw / / his right arm out. That beach

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ The hawk is beautiful / / but he is

built to kill. / / A chain of predators / / looks like the primal cu

ea’s reach. / / Easy to live below the

built wall, / / forget the exiled sea. / / I am the wave that sweeps

ft unstringed. / / Instrument evolved,

built / / with loving skill, / / not, like this, to be silent. / /

we hate / / people we know. We hate in

bulk / / —Communism, Islam (those Ayatollahs, / / those reds. Once i

ched days, / / cold dew, shelly horns,

bulls walking pastures / / in kingly-flashing coats under burning ray

t—but was there something wrong? / / A

bump , a flurry, and a choked-down cry / / lost in the cheers of the d

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

t / Between Orion and the Bear / / the

buoy -lights of the planets float / / marking the charted darkness whe

longing-torn, / / grow bitter with the

burden of the years. / / Make viable our hopes and truths, stillborn

radle’s overcome— / / the threat which

burdens all but her alone. / / They hoped to keep her hands from thor

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

-heart, grow / / there where they were

buried long ago: / / one from the garden at Jesmond Hill / / (not, a

re slowly / / and in the general hurly-

burly / / the solid truth no longer stands alone, / / and anyone may

That Way Madness Lies

om logical pursuit. / / Let the moment

May Day, 1986 / Reactors

burn . / / Clouds of ruinous dust / / wander in the random winds. /

shadow / / on the horizon’s rim / / —

burn every blade of grass / / that might be green for him. / / Huge

live to cherish / / others are born to

burn . / / Fire-raising autumn, black-boughed winter, / / spring’s gr

Cassandra’s Song

anities, increased / / by love to one,

burn half-divine. / / Behind the gold and frankincense / / comes myr

you a bonfire / / to warm us, be you,

burn off / / the chill crematorium. / / To one each turns, as / / t

The dying can be made / / to stack and

burn the dead.)” / / We have our orders, and our keep and pay. / / A

Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank

n earth’s life-span. / / If he doesn’t

burn the house and himself in it / / might he mature into a wiser man

Greenham Common

me. And this bay now for Delphis / / I

burn . The leaves crackle as the heat takes them, / / flare up suddenl

Spells and Love

, / / and watched the Spartan soldiers

burn their fields, / / and learnt to steal. Here the plague / / stru

Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening

telgeuse and the clear lamps. / / Suns

burn , worlds spin unhindered on. / / This veiling is our earth’s alon

ar more true, / / his own white vision

burned —and the dark flood / / engulfed it—then the triumph of the lig

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ldeburgh / Cambridge / The North / They

burned drowned Shelley / / on the beach. We on your beach / / raised

siege. / / But the girl of flesh they

burned / / for her sacrilege. / /

The Shepherdess of Cahuzac

and tomato sauce, and sun; / / my love

burned high then, but the answering / / flicker died soon.” “What can

ou’ve guessed. / / His lust, once lit,

burned on. So, did they find / / relief? No. His fastidiousness could

ant, Catholic, turn and turn about / /

burned one another in the name of / / the same God, whom both sides c

for her to take. / / Her higher spirit

burned rather to do / / than bear—his seemed at best a second-best. /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / —bare from bony feet, / / fouled,

burned —recreate / / beauty, breed out of death, / / carpet again the

Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank

ndred years and more gone / / since we

burned the maid at Rouen) / / drenched the brush with petrol round th

shore. / / His fingers’ festering pain

burned up his arm. / / Almost blindly he turned towards the hills, /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

y body the anguish is never quiet, / /

burning as I am all over for this man who’s made me, / / lost thing,

Spells and Love

th but is something else. / / Venus is

burning / / big and low, yellow through the / / haze which hides the

cattered free, / / and blue, shadow of

burning blue / / above, echo of blues that glow / / round us (green,

Delos in Spring

their power, / / but on his arm still

burning bright / / as though lit by the inner flame / / which sears

On marble and gilded bronze the sun is

burning / / by the laughing sea. / / Among the emperor’s guard the w

Gunnar of Lithend

difficult to forgive Tom Moore / / for

burning Byron’s journal—yet in the end / / admit that he destroyed it

[I find it difficult to forgive Tom Moore]

nation’s competence. / / Marble in sun

burning like snow. / / Green, violet, scarlet, scattered free, / / a

Delos in Spring

res / / in kingly-flashing coats under

burning rays. / / By now the tide was running: Keats, Housman, / / M

n Equality. / / This indeed is another

burning star / / brightest of all, but a nearer flame too: / / fire

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

ng the berries), / / a few rose-bushes

burning with red hips, / / and suddenly among those / / a white rose

[Late October hedges]

trong / / a light as Freedom, this too

burns among / / our guiding stars. / / Fraternity. / / That at leas

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

from the Acropolis, the Parthenon / /

burns back stilly at the setting sun. / / Crossing the thistle-bristl

Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening

/ / than rain-logged poverty). The sun

burns / / on the quarry-face. The other way, / / above this bare hil

Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening

a star their mould, but in an hour / /

burns out. / /

w clear / / its beauty in their memory

burns , / / seeming so near / / one step will set / / them home in i

[Some exiles know]

Frontiers break to barbary. / / Hunger

burns the palace-wall, / / robs the revered graves. We see / / the s

of powerful slopes, / / grass long and

burnt silver, bounded / / by clumped, huge close-leaved trees, green

Los Altos Hills

and out of the flame. / / I was almost

burnt up already. Surely Love / / builds a hotter fire than Hephaestu

Spells and Love

oosens the bindings and the close walls

burst , / / but if the strong straining dissolves in weakness / / and

ht… / / came to the Delphic fane, / /

burst in (uncleansed his stain) / / crying on the Lord of Light / /

Pelopia and Thyestes

/ / of slanting steel, / / gone in a

burst of blood. / / Yet, against lost years / / gone with the white

Die Weisse Rose

/ defeating gusts, but comes in bright

bursts as if / / to remind me that your voice from the far distance /

Two Poems from a New Life

rks without number spin, / / suns. One

bursts in huge radiance. The wreck / / falls back on itself, contract

/ “Once the delicious sexual ache / /

bursts in its paradisal pang / / you cannot have your eaten cake. /

me always, and that mine can call / / (

bursts of song) back to you, and that all / / these gales, miles, mon

Two Poems from a New Life

at, I think, than any / / of the rest.

Bury my heart at Sheepstead, then. / /

Bury My Heart / Bury my heart… But the heart’s not one. / / Hearts bu

Bury My Heart /

Bury my heart… But the heart’s not one. / / Hearts bud off from it, p

n shoulders. Buses pass / / but not my

bus . / / Comforting glow, warmth of drink, food / / begin to fade. /

[Wind is chilly on shoulders]

/ relation? (live—dead). / / In car,

bus , train I / / want the journey not to end / / even when the end /

oulders] / Wind is chilly on shoulders.

Buses pass / / but not my bus. / / Comforting glow, warmth of drink,

[Wind is chilly on shoulders]

centration of my brooded wrong. / / No

buses passed me and one taxi, hired. / / A wind touched me, and a voi

r gift / / or the lost sleep among the

bush and bracken?” / / Silent the throng watched the white sisters go

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

aw a little ahead / / a single dogrose

bush by the river’s edge / / pushing its sprays out over the dark smo

! / / One of your goats is caught in a

bush , caught tight. / / You’ll leave her there for good if you don’t

/ finally stops / / where a wild rose-

bush flowers / / at the edge of a copse. / / Monstrance and Host in

The Shepherdess of Cahuzac

oking down at the dark reflection— / /

bush in the smooth water, precise but darkened, / / light green leave

e tribesman’s day, / / picked from the

bush in which I threw it away. / / I didn’t want to, but I saved my s

Two Songs of a Mercenary

unlight from an icy stream, / / a dark

bush jewelled with flowers and butterflies / / shook him with beauty—

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

mething caught his eye. / / A flowered

bush , studded among the flowers / / with butterflies in scores, which

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

nk) invisible. / / The dark unflowered

bush was beautiful / / but we read omens according to our mood / / a

Arizona, Gobi, / / back of Australian

bush . / / We are growth, greenness, / / water falling, flowing. / /

da-shrill / / stillness, where thickly-

bushed steep mountain-side / / broke to a torrent summer had not yet

Pelopia and Thyestes

k along for a gap. Left of the way / /

bushes and scrub were knotted to the briar. / / Right was a space, wh

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

wer among the berries), / / a few rose-

bushes burning with red hips, / / and suddenly among those / / a whi

[Late October hedges]

on and green-gold / / the bare-stemmed

bushes glow, / / just as though / / against the day’s gloom / / the

ose the illusory fire— / / grey rocks;

bushes green, many-coloured, dark. / / Once it blazed to heaven, this

t go on. And then / / he broke through

bushes out on to a track… / / But thorn-crossed like the last. He loo

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ven out of this skein, / / now dogrose

bushes star the hedges again? / /

Again / Now dogrose

bushes star the hedges again. / / My year passing must change but can

rit with a steady rein / / now dogrose

bushes star the hedges. Again / / my year passing must change but can

rs, / / a single honeysuckle. / / The

bushes though are berried—hawthorn, blackthorn / / (remnants of black

[Late October hedges]

nst the rock, / / an old, bowed woman,

busily engaged. / / Black dress, black scarf over her bent head, blac

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

? / / Cromwell, I think. / / Victoria

busily / / stamped the grave Wesley / / and others had filled; / /

ade came free… / / but he had done his

business and was gone. / / She sat a long time on the stony ground, /

Pelopia and Thyestes

less true than our dreams. / / In the

business of living, its failures and gains, / / let us never lose tou

ous as cancer-cells / / building their

busy colony / / which kills their host and so themselves) / / cuts i

Mother’s Malison

s and numbed groin; / / white figures,

busy hands, flicker of steel / / at the roots of life, a scarlet floo

ands at another’s door, / / but she is

busy with her hair. / / One at a sill sighs, but the inmate thumbs /

Time is a child] / Time is a child / /

busy with his own play, / / glancing occasionally / / towards the gr

[Time is a child]

ive place to primrose, / / bluebell to

buttercup , dog-rose. / / Flower-seasons return / / but not the seaso

droop / / over the fields of daisy and

buttercup , / / freshness, clearness of spring not quite gone / / in

Sixtieth Summer

y, / / sun-streaked with dandelion and

buttercup . / / Light air lifts the silted vapours away / / to deep h

d with yellow and white, / / daisy and

buttercup . / / Love the revolving years / / knowing they will defeat

Two Summer Songs

year’s delight. / / Cows lounge among

buttercups and dew / / while coolly counterpointed by the cuckoo / /

Two Summer Songs

Buttercups / Low to the grass—tall, branching—massed together, / / a

from hawthorn-conquering may. / / The

buttercup’s purer gold / / puts the dandelion out, / / Children undr

it, which said / / ‘I am your way’ (if

butterflies can speak, / / why not mountains?). And from that moment

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

sh, studded among the flowers / / with

butterflies in scores, which suddenly moved, / / wheeled in the air,

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ a dark bush jewelled with flowers and

butterflies / / shook him with beauty—or the early night, / / stars

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

moment stays / / pinned on time like a

butterfly on a board, / / dead. / / But passing moments do not peris

Moment and Memory

“May I…?” She laughed (gull’s cry) “To

buy and sell / / love-presents is unlucky” (that laugh again). / / “

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ses hand to hand, / / powerless to out-

buy that power of hatred? / /

me to Sicyon. / / He heard the hum and

buzz , / / the shrilling and the twang, / / snatches of what they san

Pelopia and Thyestes

/ How does it feel when they say good-

bye for good? / / No, I see no tears, / / but a sharpening of the se

What Do They Feel?

n across two thousand years. / / “Good-

bye .” “Good luck.” “But you can’t trust them. He may / / have stolen

y longing as I have borne it. / / Good-

bye , Moon on your shining throne. Good-bye / / you other stars that r

Spells and Love

-haired girl laughing jumped out: “good-

bye , / / thanks,” and fled. Waited at the back the strong / / oarsma

dn’t want to, but I saved my skin. Good-

bye / / that shield. I shall get one no worse quite easily. / /

Two Songs of a Mercenary

-bye, Moon on your shining throne. Good-

bye / / you other stars that ride with the quiet night. / /

Spells and Love

/ that very fiery particle, it was Lady

Byron / / he wanted told… what? / /

“Tell Lady Byron…”

Byron …” / What did he want her told? Why indeed / / want to tell her

“Tell Lady Byron…”

end / / admit that he destroyed it as

Byron’s friend: / / my loss, not Byron’s, I can’t forgive him for. /

[I find it difficult to forgive Tom Moore]

it as Byron’s friend: / / my loss, not

Byron’s , I can’t forgive him for. / /

[I find it difficult to forgive Tom Moore]

t to forgive Tom Moore / / for burning

Byron’s journal—yet in the end / / admit that he destroyed it as Byro

[I find it difficult to forgive Tom Moore]

te Devil and the Duchess of Malfi, / /

Byron’s Juan and Marlowe’s Faustus. / / And gradually, a peak behind

nished / / in the long white winter of

Byzantium . / /