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

D

outside the window, summer world. / /

Daffodils on this side of the stream, / / the other side a strip of r

the Queen and royal child / / expected

daily . / / Always, other years, / / the King and the male court alon

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

not pretending / / to stay us like our

daily bread. / / She’s the wild gleam of heaven’s sending. / / Summe

Dance of the Seasons

tains, / / unbelievable ranges / / of

daily changing colours. / / Someone had stuck to the hired window /

[Fall rainbows the forest-acred mountains]

Makherás / Yellow

daisies in sheets over the green grass, / / yellow cowslip-balls of f

/ / Like other things this year (may,

daisies , roses) / / late coming but, now come, here in profusion. /

o lift or droop / / over the fields of

daisy and buttercup, / / freshness, clearness of spring not quite gon

Sixtieth Summer

/ / washed with yellow and white, / /

daisy and buttercup. / / Love the revolving years / / knowing they w

Two Summer Songs

er in a Wood / Five terraced meres / /

dammed from a slow small stream. / / Black still water images / / ev

Water in a Wood

ole time, can’t keep away from it— / /

damn her, don’t let anyone saddle me with that. / / With a wife like

elt, / / creeps up across the pattern,

damps / / then blots the sword, the studded belt, / / Betelgeuse and

but dance, dance on the jutting stump,

dance ? / /

Sur le Pont d’Avignon

break, youth / / break to its natural

dance . / /

Winter Recalled

ere, / / the beauty’s there. A kind of

dance . / /

Heron and Gulls

But dance, dance on the jutting stump,

dance . / / Along the paved and parapeted track / / forgetful of the

Sur le Pont d’Avignon

rch is down, what should we do / / but

dance , dance on the jutting stump, dance? / /

Sur le Pont d’Avignon

oined banks are sundered anew. / / But

dance , dance on the jutting stump, dance. / / Along the paved and par

Sur le Pont d’Avignon

now. Rejoice with us then, who / / but

dance , dance on the jutting stump, dance.” / / Prince of Lies, no. Th

Sur le Pont d’Avignon

now in its turn forgotten, few / / but

dance , dance on the jutting stump, dance. / / “Why do you paint the p

Sur le Pont d’Avignon

movement is pain. / / Can the natural

dance / / ever break out again? / / Wait. If you like, pray. / / Th

Winter Recalled

/ / moved again upwards in the endless

dance , / / he struck out and soon reached the other side. / / He had

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Dream under a Carob-tree / They

dance in rings, dancing, a ring of women, / / a ring of men dancing o

Dream under a Carob-tree

into this dark, / / and in the glance,

dance of / / the beams they throw / / crystals glisten in answer /

Music is Landscape

Dance of the Seasons / Spring and Summer / Autumn and Winter / The sea

Dance of the Seasons

down, what should we do / / but dance,

dance on the jutting stump, dance? / /

Sur le Pont d’Avignon

anks are sundered anew. / / But dance,

dance on the jutting stump, dance. / / Along the paved and parapeted

Sur le Pont d’Avignon

joice with us then, who / / but dance,

dance on the jutting stump, dance.” / / Prince of Lies, no. The dark

Sur le Pont d’Avignon

its turn forgotten, few / / but dance,

dance on the jutting stump, dance. / / “Why do you paint the past so

Sur le Pont d’Avignon

but dance, dance on the jutting stump,

dance .” / / Prince of Lies, no. The dark aspect is true, / / yet we

Sur le Pont d’Avignon

/ in summer?” / / “I sang.” / / “Then

dance the winter through.” / / The courtiers of King Sun enjoyed the

La Fontaine et le Déluge

My thoughts / / lift from the stream,

dance upon / / the secret motions of the air, / / there and here, up

How not to listen to music

but dance, dance on the jutting stump,

dance . / / “Why do you paint the past so rosy? Wrack / / and doom al

Sur le Pont d’Avignon

/ / disaster closed, like madness on a

dancer . / /

ething of two faces in her face, / / a

dancer and a child, / / long ago, long apart, / / each out of time a

rass / / while the grass-skirted poppy-

dancer / / dips to the wind her brilliant head / / by time’s rough g

Dance of the Seasons

l. / / To what joys will it lead? / /

Dancers on the green / / have followed the fairies under hill. / /

ace I was in love with long ago, / / a

dancer’s face. / / Why do you eye me so? / / All loves in love have

Vision Between Waking and Sleep

French exclusively; / / Margot Fonteyn

dances at Sadler’s Wells / / and Sally Gilmour at the Mercury. / / G

him at work or at play. Man labours and

dances , / / images himself at labour and at play. / / Man creates hi

Dream under a Carob-tree

such magic fancies. / / Any leaf which

dances / / off its tree for me may reach the ground. / / I have foun

[Golden, red, brown]

/ / on the high wire! / / Death-wish

dances / / with Life-enhancement / / cheek to cheek. / /

der a Carob-tree / They dance in rings,

dancing , a ring of women, / / a ring of men dancing on the marble cir

Dream under a Carob-tree

ng, a ring of women, / / a ring of men

dancing on the marble circle / / where they had laboured with heavy f

Dream under a Carob-tree

Lady into Fox / Sally Gilmour

dancing / The lady of the house / / shrinks from a shrilling horn. /

a spell / / and lay awake long on the

dancing thought / / ‘The princess, my princess, is coming here.’ / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

parsley and may, / / sun-streaked with

dandelion and buttercup. / / Light air lifts the silted vapours away

Another Summer / / / A

dandelion examined / / is unsubtle, unkempt; / / distant, streaks a

he buttercup’s purer gold / / puts the

dandelion out, / / Children undress to bathe. / / My crooked heart g

uperfluous hair / / or a good crop has

dandruff in. / / You name it, we’ve the lot. / / Yet there are those

ble stranger / / would hold her out of

danger / / against a happier day) / / must now be coming on / / her

Pelopia and Thyestes

ough cliffs above, / / shared toil and

danger made part of their dream. / / Then the hills parted, and the r

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

oubled flesh peace with dishonour, / /

dangerous appeasement, till the mind grew weary. / / I passed by each

or from the hill looked down / / over

dank green dissolving into grey, / / dreamed of a dragon or a robber-

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

lands of my language / / and Homer and

Dante joined him as peers. / / But now the net’s cast in other waters

Virgil’s Farewell to

Dante / Of eternity in Hell / / I had passed thirteen hundred years.

Virgil’s Farewell to Dante

hole. / / Valiant centripetality / / (

Dante’s and Aristotle’s love) / / briefly clusters these specks which

Two Glimpses from

Dante’s Hell / Accidie / Brunetto Latini under the Fire-Rain / “Joy we

Two Glimpses from Dante’s Hell

to divine and follow reason / / yet to

dare at a moment / / to follow something other / / which guides us a

f so much more to bless me than I could

dare / / hope, it would be / / curmudgeonly / / to lament / / more

[The track up the wild stream]

to which you yet may come. / / If you

dare live on, while the princess sleeps / / in timeless youth, love o

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

sting. / / You are unhappy because you

dare not free / / your self-bound life, but sit with bated breath /

The youngest, not the only son. / / He

dare not hive off on a gambler’s hope / / that chance, sown on the wi

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ew it, and there found / / a truth she

dare not meet. Trembling and cold / / she wrung the water from her bl

Pelopia and Thyestes

be spat on as we pass / / by those who

dare not recognise / / that all our houses are of glass. / /

omehow sprout / / in love. His love he

dare not venture from. / / Feeling his neck jerk on the tautened rope

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

accepted long ago. / / A better might

dare now go free, rejoice / / in a new land in a new love, a wife /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

he would give it to him still— / / how

dare she lecture him so priggishly? / / He gazed unseeing at a glowin

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

she flushed too, but angrily / / (how

dare this stuttering yokel spy on me!) / / Yet she was grateful to hi

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

known steep / / mountains, most rarely

dared by any from / / the forest, fearful of the cloven and cliffed /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

) / / —for that unwitting sinning / /

dared not approach the fête, / / crept in the scrub below / / the ho

Pelopia and Thyestes

darkening air / / hardly aware that he

dared not lie down, / / stumbled, tumbled, and then he just lay there

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

her hands from thorns and pins / / but

dared not tell her why. No hint of fear / / clouded her rosy thought

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

voices and cool hands / / were all he

dared to dream in woman. / / The statue underneath the stays / / wai

John Ruskin’s Wedding Night

bat. / / Before the hang-glider / / (

daring it earlier and much more skilfully) / / here’s one mammal that

spark / / in what / / other-dimension

she soon / / heal over, slide into the

ark, / / and with him Fear… and in the

dark / / against them, sole and shaking, Love. / / Then, almost fore

Dark Age / Frontiers break to barbary. / / Hunger burns the palace-wa

s, silence and cold. / / Cold, silent,

dark . An endless impasse. No / / answer, no possible way out to the o

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

We bring our own lights / / into this

dark , / / and in the glance, dance of / / the beams they throw / /

Music is Landscape

shelter for the night. / / The hut was

dark , and silent to his knock. / / He pushed the door and struck a li

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

e but darkened, / / light green leaves

dark , and strangely the flowers / / (the light bright white and pink)

/ retreating miserably / / before the

dark army / / pursuing me. / / Threatening shadow / / on the horizo

p, dance.” / / Prince of Lies, no. The

dark aspect is true, / / yet we must pledge our lifeblood to renew /

Sur le Pont d’Avignon

lind / / who fumbling in the paralytic

dark / / await no dawn, and those / / exiled, to whom the hostile an

y feet too were silent; / / silent and

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

c / / across the curving but uncentred

dark . / / Beyond forgets its meaning like above, / / nor any place r

cantly recovered, / / twice that small

dark bird / / breaks the surface of the secretive stream / / to make

Yeats and Water-Birds

so hard? / / —pond-leech, sucking the

dark blood out of me. / / Draw him, bird-wheel, draw him (you know wh

Spells and Love

nt blue rim, / / another range. Light,

dark brown, reds, golds, patched / / and mingled, were a revelation t

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

to sunlight from an icy stream, / / a

dark bush jewelled with flowers and butterflies / / shook him with be

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

water images / / every trunk and leaf,

dark but clear, / / a Claude, a dream. / / A sword was never tossed

Water in a Wood

we have had the past. / / “Follows the

dark but interesting future.” / / “The interest that through all shad

arking the unseen edge, / / the moon’s

dark circle / / which joins her crescent-tips. / / Then we notice /

September Cruise

der wild colours in / / sun-touched or

dark cloud. / / A rare night. Beach deep / / in snow. A ceaseless ga

the white blaze / / of light on water—

dark cloud, sweeping showers— / / or the whole ring an unflawed clari

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ird time round the upper, and / / in a

dark corner of a corridor / / a small door somehow missed led to a st

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ his own white vision burned—and the

dark flood / / engulfed it—then the triumph of the light, / / yet bl

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

t so, the river flowed against / / the

dark forest. And now he knew the love / / he’d been made captive by t

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

en. / / A spring morning, light green,

dark green, / / sun-shadows and a sparkle of dew. / / Light as the a

robably, / / to be there always in the

dark ground / / with the dead child. / / Popular name for archaeolog

trange exhausted youth / / against the

dark , had somehow been conveyed / / to strike the boy with a full for

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

aze, / / the milkiness. / / Above the

dark harbour the crescent moon, / / and just beside her bright Jupite

September Cruise

and saw the grass road straight between

dark hedges / / patchworked with green and grey / / and flecked with

, and bright / / the harbour under the

dark hills is laid.” / / But she: “our way waits.” I turned to my fat

y and abuse. / / Just now, sunk in the

dark , I could not move / / spirit or feet, now I am strong and light.

otten, our sails are gossamer… / / But

dark is unaware of the truths of day. / / Let the ship drive through

he personal smart, / / and though this

dark lies on us all, a warning / / of present trouble worse, and when

the dark, / / measuring light against

dark , / / light against prevailing dark) / / one’s own garbled, prej

ocession, led by one / / whose fierce,

dark look I knew; who never was / / weak to regret, but followed his

e one has to make / / (fumbling in the

dark , / / measuring light against dark, / / light against prevailing

nly by “a knocking at the door / / one

dark night late when they were going to bed. / / My mother—she was yo

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

What hope? His own nature. / / In the

dark of Soledad / / hopeless becomes hopelesser, / / natural goodnes

rey rocks; bushes green, many-coloured,

dark . / / Once it blazed to heaven, this hillside, though. / / Engli

nst dark, / / light against prevailing

dark ) / / one’s own garbled, prejudiced reckoning. / /

goddess, and to Hecate, / / your earth-

dark Other who has even the dogs shaking / / as she fleets by over gr

Spells and Love

rapes, glittering chandeliers / / (and

dark past draped glass, Les Misérables). / / Then, 1870. / / Sedan,

today / / meeting your face suddenly,

dark photograph / / in a blown-up snapshot of Anne Frank’s wall / /

Hermes of Olympia

/ by answering a faithless prayer? / /

Dark power / / of formula and rune, to trust / / you would be worse

water whispering by the bank, / / the

dark recesses of the sunstruck wood / / brought his forebodings back

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / I leaned out, looking down at the

dark reflection— / / bush in the smooth water, precise but darkened,

/ / that he was walking back down the

dark road / / and could no more. He dropped flat where he stood / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

s / / under Queen Anne, and North by a

dark road. / / North, and then West again by the Old Bailey / / towa

/ gull-dropping-white / / on the myth-

dark / / sea; that is yet this sea, moved by this moon. / / By moon-

ose eyes can brighten through / / your

dark sea. Waits ahead the help you need.” / / “Anabel,” I thought, an

d. / / This defeat and the inescapable

dark / / seemed the blackness of war and love misfired, / / the conc

ly, a cloud. Water—always the sea, / /

dark slate under a nearing storm, silver / / out under lighter sky be

Varangian in Mickelgard

ge / / pushing its sprays out over the

dark smooth water, / / marking my place to turn. / / I stood beside

ped, huge close-leaved trees, green and

dark . / / Something like an English parkland / / but bigger, wilder,

Los Altos Hills

sky’s breadth / / from their mother’s

dark sources / / past that laboured earth. / /

The Green Children of Woolpit

colours and bright faces, / / sinks in

dark stuffs and secret looks, and shows / / the simple to the curious

pitied Him there / / under the vaulted

dark , / / the still, stale air. / / Would not God be in His world /

The Shepherdess of Cahuzac

disturb or tear / / the silence of the

dark . / / The town is fevered; but as night wears on, / / blood cool

Country and Town

take in the adventure as it were). / /

Dark through the woods, he reached the ford with dawn, / / and when n

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

High on the precipitous promontory / /

dark trees gather, and the white monastery / / looks east over the se

September Cruise

ning my sight, / / standing within the

dark tree’s edge, and could / / see nothing first, but slowly the dim

ain. / / And there of course against a

dark trunk stood / / that boy, his gaze intent on her again— / / loi

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ght white and pink) invisible. / / The

dark unflowered bush was beautiful / / but we read omens according to

ache, / / breeds nightmares and throws

dark veils on the day. / /

nto the west / / then died. The starry

dark was utterly still. / / He dropped the sails and lashed the tille

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ht / / of the overcast day / / on the

dark water. / / Back in a quiet country / / whose understated beauty

of the mines / / on hands and knees in

dark , / / weight of the roped truck / / cutting naked loins. / / Bu

His light should dissipate the looming

dark , / / while the embodiment of his jealousy, / / the bright savio

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

he road, / / find the way lost and the

dark wood / / a fear. / / I, already old, / / successful, happy, mo

[Most of us, somewhere along the road]

upon world and sun / / turned eyes as

darkened as the dead. / / “What else?” / / Have loved and been loved

/ bush in the smooth water, precise but

darkened , / / light green leaves dark, and strangely the flowers / /

less day. / / He shuffled on under the

darkening air / / hardly aware that he dared not lie down, / / stumb

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

A Hoard / Walking in the

darkening dusk / / I saw the thinnest sliver of a new moon, / / a da

athered night / / spreads to the open,

darkening field and hill. / / To stars and window-panes withdraws the

Country and Town

ood? / / He brooded long, there on the

darkening track. / / The court went home. The seasons settled him /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ng enter, / / like any other year, the

darkening winter; / / but unlike any other year, / / at the dead sea

Winter Solstice

m now; now here / / too the sleet-wind

darkens down. / / Without you your winter shore. / / Wind is a sword

still the south cape’s silhouette, / /

darker and hard on the bright water, marked / / the end of seen and k

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

took instead.” / / The bridge shadow,

darker than a night wood, / / took three and rendered two; what I mus

y; / / houses and trees printing their

darker tone / / on the dull sky weighed on me as I moved / / and tho

their scalding flail. / / The noon was

darkness , and the terrible coast / / could not be seen. Even the clap

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ but not unravaged. / / Lights fade.

Darkness blots all, / / the ravage and the face. Faintly wells / / a

In the Audience

. A glimmer, sinking. If it fails, / /

darkness … But no, the light flamed up—of course, / / the teller of al

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

foreigners’ war in a far country. / /

Darkness . / / But Time has tricks. / / The old lady / / who in this

ry donors—loss, / / negation, new-moon

darkness —Carabosse! / / And words like cave-drips from her cold mouth

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

to lie / / always together.” From the

darkness curled / / a faint rhythm of music far up stream. / / Giles

little bead of blood.” / / Silence and

darkness . Darkness, silence and cold. / / Cold, silent, dark. An endl

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

patterns on a domed sky? / / A heavier

darkness , dull as felt, / / creeps up across the pattern, damps / /

hand across his face: / / “the second

darkness falls,” he said, “the war / / recurring like a nightmare or

spring water, winter, / / wind, death,

darkness , fear, / / fire, flowers, / / pain, angels singing. / /

a silver sliver caught on / / western

darkness , hangs the moon. / / Frosted stars are veiled / / in black.

other meeting equally good. / / In the

darkness I could not trace again / / each feature’s line, and scarcel

An hour or so later and far below / /

darkness mastered him, every muscle aching, / / where the cleeve wide

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

you sleep, or stirring / / kick in the

darkness of an imageless dream, / / trying your strength. Rapt strang

t bad enough— / / But who can know the

darkness of that house? / / A black brew of stupidity, distilled / /

e, the dear unknown princess. / / Then

darkness . / / Rest and faint warmth of the sun / / revived him to hi

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

t across the circled space. / / Slowly

darkness seeped up out of the sea / / like something palpable, veilin

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

d of blood.” / / Silence and darkness.

Darkness , silence and cold. / / Cold, silent, dark. An endless impass

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

the stone the insidious tide. / / The

darkness stirs along its lifting spine / / in slight but bitter wind.

/ / And saw begin / / out of the same

darkness strangely growing / / with warmth and light and the returnin

Winter Solstice

t spark has shown as spoiled. / / This

darkness then was visited on the child; / / until they killed her, an

planets float / / marking the charted

darkness where / / (a channel for the silver boat, / / the golden bo

irch-trunks, blue sky caught, / / hide

darkness where that fish is moving / / like an escaped thought. / /

Water in a Wood

e of his good. / / Cold, and a kind of

darkness , which did not drown / / the blaze, but seemed to drain it o

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

mise—I do know how. / / Don’t be hard,

darling . Truly I’ll stay / / out on the garden-grass, not force the d

s a belly-laugh. / / You’re all right,

darling . You’re simple and straight / / —she takes her meat off anyon

r and love? / / There must too be many

darlings of a season, / / more of recurrent moods, I’m forgetful of:

cold. / / Why should a change of / /

date in our artificial / / calendar seem so / / significant? ’84 /

re. / / The last time this intercalary

date / / joggled the calendar / / Cecil was still here, / / breathi

got better / / or bored, and took her

daughter back to town. / / The boy, under the drips which did not wet

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ing, lost. / / Fledged presently, son,

daughter , / / circle, take flight / / from ours to outer world, buil

Out from the Cliff

in the new moon’s arms, / / the little

daughter dead in the sea. / / Lays of Ancient Rome on my seventh birt

ld bones in Haworth,” said the parson’s

daughter ; / / “he is in Cambridge, talking, sleeping sound, / / O th

what she said but I can talk too. / / “

Daughter of dear Amphimedo”, I said, / / “(a fine woman she was—pity

stible / / perpetual revenge. / / His

daughter , sent away / / (the hospitable stranger / / would hold her

Pelopia and Thyestes

in the King’s stables. To their eldest

daughter / / the forester stood godfather. Their home / / was always

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

win her; but their autumn’s spring-time

daughter / / was something more, and ‘what the fairies brought her’ /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / —a sword drawn on a mother, / / a

daughter’s innocence / / perverted to a tool / / of irresistible /

Pelopia and Thyestes

eed yourself shall sow / / in your own

daughter’s womb.” / / One horror makes another / / easy, makes heart

Pelopia and Thyestes

/ Not, that’s not so good. / / Steve

Davis knocked out / / of the semi-final. You / / would have liked th

les hold / / their broken faces to the

uch the worst of it. / / Waking before

dawn always, stiff with chill, / / still tired, set off simply to sti

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ved; the stars were bright, / / before

dawn and the moon behind the hill. / / I reached the tree and paused,

ing in the paralytic dark / / await no

dawn , and those / / exiled, to whom the hostile and the kind / / are

ugh the woods, he reached the ford with

dawn , / / and when night came, deep in the mountains stopped, / / hi

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

in a rug he slept until / / the summer

dawn brightening above the water / / woke him—and woke, after the sun

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ey were not the point. / / Long before

dawn / / he’d foraged round the kitchens, wine and food / / at least

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

between the set moon and the gathering

dawn , / / I turned to Hampstead and walked slowly home. / /

I fled by night and in the grey / / of

dawn met on the lonely way / / a man I knew but could not name. / /

to Miranda: / / “I too knew the clear

dawn ; / / my bud was near to blossom. / / But the thunder-stone / /

and Melixo’s came / / to see me early,

Dawn pink in the sky, / / with lots of stories—and that Delphis is in

Spells and Love

it away, / / and looking out into the

dawn sky / / saw in the broken, brightening western cloud / / and sh

[Fall rainbows the forest-acred mountains]

ven ground. / / Like death, but in the

dawn touched by a dream / / half apprehended as he woke. He moved /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

, and gone. / / The sky was clear, the

dawn -wind light but good, / / as he moved outwards in his loaded boat

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

nightmares and throws dark veils on the

eption of a clearer air / / a brighter

The Lilies of the Field

e? At least an omen. ‘I accept.’ / / A

day , a night—two, three days and their nights / / the smooth horizon,

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

er a Japanese manner / As it rained all

day / / all night the rain is falling. / / But suppose morning / /

od— / / the only conifer he’d seen all

day / / among the beech and oak. Its thin black spire / / was sinist

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ds the hills, / / began the long drag.

Day and night and day / / (time lost) closed in fever’s bewildering s

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

the horror, fled / / … night and day,

day and night… / / came to the Delphic fane, / / burst in (uncleanse

Pelopia and Thyestes

ach / / our doubt and shame—sweet / /

day and night, / / cloud and sun, stars, / / wind on the heath. / /

Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank

inner flame / / which sears his spirit

day and night / / they mark his bondage to a dream. / /

old bright air the sun / / slants. The

day and the year are young, / / and it doesn’t matter that the world

n, / / was pawed and paddled night and

day ; and (though / / hating herself and it) yet learned the taste /

would come to me three or four times a

day / / and would even leave his precious oil-flask with me, / / but

Spells and Love

urries her coloured riches. / / Day by

day , as the leaves are loosed and shed / / and the stillness of the f

Dance of the Seasons

a dream on either side. / / And every

day at noon came the white flights / / fanning out, wheeling west, ah

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Observe, absorb her faces of night and

day / / before the more than sleep. / /

[Now of threescore and ten]

ay / / heavily travelling. And saw one

day / / beyond the ribbon a faint shadow rise / / which broke too th

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

s she hurries her coloured riches. / /

Day by day, as the leaves are loosed and shed / / and the stillness o

Dance of the Seasons

perhaps for no recording eye. / / One

day certainly / / not recurring, / / the planet dying, dead. / / Th

tched light changing on broken rock, as

day / / climbed and declined. And dreamed of the princess. / / Watch

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

r stands alone, / / and anyone may one

day come / / to see the truth itself in ghostly stuff, / / and then

That Way Madness Lies

/ The sun still mountain-hidden in high

day , / / cramped and cold he stood looking up along / / the two vall

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

rning the horror, fled / / … night and

day , day and night… / / came to the Delphic fane, / / burst in (uncl

Pelopia and Thyestes

ight, when all seemed won, yet lose the

day , / / defeated with the fairy who had blessed him. / / A third ti

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ and meet his parents on their wedding-

day . / / Down the white hill-road, high above the sea / / the six wh

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

l, sleep, / / dream, eat. / / Let the

day -dream / / have its day / / till suddenly / / clouds thin / / u

Against Anorexia: For Cathy

princess, / / the fated child of many

day -dreams’ yearning / / whom he must somehow save. The vision rose /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / and on the afternoon of the fifth

day / / he looked down a broad valley from a col / / higher than any

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ into the night of his third waterless

day . / / He shuffled on under the darkening air / / hardly aware tha

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

both to our desire. / / Till the other

day he’d no fault to find with me / / any more than I with him. But t

Spells and Love

“Thanks. Did you lose a lamb the other

day ? / / I found a dead one this side, not far from here, / / not on

was first by only as much as the other

day / / I managed to beat dear Philinus in a race.”— / / These are t

Spells and Love

om a Train / Young, I thought / / “One

day I shall walk / / these rough woods, / / those hills that climb a

hed / / when caught by night my second

day in Greece / / we lost our way about the twentieth mile / / where

/ / stretching on endlessly. Until one

day / / it curved off, merging into mud. He found / / the wide mouth

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ I could not in my orchard sleep that

day / / knowing much was not well / / between my queen and me. / /

/ But dark is unaware of the truths of

day . / / Let the ship drive through the keyhole of a star. / /

over Sunday / / and never stopped all

day . / / Monday morning early / / we found the drink was out / / —t

low but clear of cloud / / the eleven

day moon whitened in front of us. / / Over the short grass my feet to

er out of danger / / against a happier

day ) / / must now be coming on / / her ripe, her bearing age. / / S

Pelopia and Thyestes

Black / Under the light fresh

day / / my spirit moves like a black beetle. No, / / the beetle is b

/ / “Each caught leaf promises a happy

day / / next year”. / / Have you tried to catch / / these autumn fl

[Golden, red, brown]

ter to flower, the love. Now, from that

day , / / nine years went on without the boy once more / / seeing the

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ad. / / Not very. I’ve had / / a good

day ; now at evening aware / / of so much more to bless me than I coul

[The track up the wild stream]

Day / Now May is here. The wintered senses wake / / to rack the celib

e blossom is white, / / and this first

day of June / / warm air, / / soft sun / / take over. And I come /

/ / that makes an adolescent dream all

day / / of warm companionship, friendship and love, / / but when som

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ embodied light / / of the overcast

day / / on the dark water. / / Back in a quiet country / / whose un

small transparency / / “Have a Rainbow

Day ” / / One morning you couldn’t bear it any longer, / / razored it

[Fall rainbows the forest-acred mountains]

ake what may / / come—bright or broken

day / / or dull. Though unreturning / / this clear brilliance, it wi

es, / / blank stare, / / where once a

day or once perhaps in three / / hands of careful kindness count / /

e thinnest sliver of a new moon, / / a

day or two only, tilted on its back, / / low down in the quick-faded

Then / / for theirs not them. / / One

day perhaps for no recording eye. / / One day certainly / / not recu

t its fault) is making some tribesman’s

day , / / picked from the bush in which I threw it away. / / I didn’t

Two Songs of a Mercenary

mis / / to her holy grove in the feast-

day procession / / (they’d a lot of animals, even a lioness)— / / Th

Spells and Love

Day , 1986 / Reactors burn. / / Clouds of ruinous dust / / wander in

enth year / / before one summer’s long

day saw him there. / / Staring from it, not back but far ahead, / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ng it a life or breaking free. / / One

day she broke out—“But you should be gone / / away from here, my fath

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

not God be in His world / / of living

day ? / / She laid the thing in her apron, / / slipped away. / / The

The Shepherdess of Cahuzac

s; but left her little moved. / / Next

day she slept late, but late afternoon / / dry and still drew her dow

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

natures learned / / each in an earlier

day , / / something which colours them through. / / We feel such than

[Yes, you’re right]

, down the mountain through the closing

day , / / stumbling, shaking, took the familiar way, / / hungry for b

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ led us delighted through the opening

day , / / the light stretched long across the dewy land / / and you u

ed, / / saw under the three-thousandth

day / / the ships along the shore, / / the tents about the plain. /

un / / on what attends an incandescent

day . / / The star-swarms, the vast-wheeling galaxies, / / dwindle to

, he never would go back.” / / And one

day (they were sitting on the shore) / / he told her of another beach

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ur / / you, I suppose, and I the whole

day through / / probably never thought / / once one of the other. Bu

t. / / Let the day-dream / / have its

day / / till suddenly / / clouds thin / / under the sun / / and he

Against Anorexia: For Cathy

began the long drag. Day and night and

day / / (time lost) closed in fever’s bewildering storm. / / His arr

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

rcing longing to be where / / whatever

day / / wakes your heart. / / A pang that’s like the joy / / of bei

[The clouds that pressed the air]

t be deprived of moon and morning, / /

day was before it—and we have had the past. / / “Follows the dark but

lace. He lay / / under the hot, bright

day , / / watched bright, cool water flow, / / drowsing (he had not s

Pelopia and Thyestes

ur children’s, their children’s opening

day ? / / We too, we two, / / are guilty with the rest, and like the

a part / / of this cold, rare / / new

day . / / You and I are still apart, / / only the sullen grey / / gr

[The clouds that pressed the air]

ance still. / / Am I just my dream, in

daylight dissipating? / /

, / / but grudged all such delays, the

daylight’s waste— / / not that he had a real reason for haste / / bu

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

my man to me, my hard love. / / Eleven

days , and he hasn’t come to me, / / doesn’t know even if I’m alive or

Spells and Love

I went down with a high fever / / —ten

days and nights I couldn’t get out of bed. / / These are the springs

Spells and Love

accept.’ / / A day, a night—two, three

days and their nights / / the smooth horizon, the unbroken cliff / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

rs stole / / in careless, unregenerate

days , / / and we enjoyed, we hand back whole, / / improved indeed in

pulse and breath, / / getting through

days and years till one is dead. / / To see both sides is good; alway

als we know must fall, / / and not all

days are good, / / but there are perfect days. / / To what I do not

on, / / weighed anchor, set sail. Many

days are lost / / through which they dreamed their way along that str

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

rth is on the swing / / of lengthening

days . Be patient and allow / / winter its weakening onsets in retreat

e ship again / / and sail distance and

days , / / beach on an unknown shore. / / Then take an oar, turn your

d his eyes / / the river of his vision

days before. / / The other river, once his thirst was slaked, / / he

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ing pass. / / Tide out, on bright / /

days children splash / / in sea-pools at their base, / / or climb th

/ colour luminous through sun-drenched

days , / / cold dew, shelly horns, bulls walking pastures / / in king

: miles of sea-washed sand, / / miles,

days —crossed by a river hard to cross, / / and closed by cliffs. Thes

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

reached a hedge and the hours formed in

days , / / days in years, and a pattern took shape in our ways. / / C

sang, my brother, / / and watched the

days go by, / / and when death came among us / / we watched our brot

[We lived and sang, my brother]

/ but never practised much, and several

days / / he didn’t manage to bring down a bird. / / Three of his arr

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ weak to regret, but followed his few

days / / his light, until “he wrapped his colours” as / / Felicia Do

rail / / to carpet the bare wood, / /

days in any season of them all / / when you and I shall / / be with

[Golden, red, brown]

edge and the hours formed in days, / /

days in years, and a pattern took shape in our ways. / / Certain rhyt

and fuller out across a plain / / many

days more to sand-dunes and the sea. / / He knew then the two rivers

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

der spell. Our love. / / There will be

days , not enough— / / rather, not many, but so good, / / so satisfyi

[Golden, red, brown]

n spring, / / withered through the dog-

days of Macedon, / / through Rome’s opulent autumn, all but vanished

s’ meeting was a thing it knew. / / On

days of merrymaking they would strew / / flowers in the road. Who gav

Sur le Pont d’Avignon

drowsing (he had not slept / / nights,

days ) saw—in a dream?— / / a girl come to the stream / / and strip h

Pelopia and Thyestes

/ he learnt the infinite variation of

days , / / season’s return, and in the season’s hour’s, / / the same

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

flask with me, / / but now it’s eleven

days since I’ve even seen him. / / He must have another fancy, and I’

Spells and Love

ys are good, / / but there are perfect

days . / / To what I do not know, but know we should / / give praise.

s without a moon. / / Three nights and

days together / / two-score Turks I killed, / / and two-score more t

s feet. The forester had spent / / his

days trudging. The prince grew quickly sore, / / but sensibly took of

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / But no, not always. / / These two

days , / / two nights, when our / / long affection opened its cactus-

Two Poems from a New Life

/ beneath the nearer hills. Alone long

days / / walking, scrambling, he added mountain-ways / / to his wood

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

r found. Life, that should fill / / my

days with action, chokes them with excuse. / / Find me the path misse

d / / whose making and being are. / /

Days , years, man’s time-notes, are / / always perishing. Time / / (m

[Time is enough]

/ and after you have forgotten how many

days / / you will meet a man / / who says “That’s a funny kind of wi

teep valleys and down, / / until, five

days ’ hard going from the coast, / / he reached it. Just before he ma

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

fraid or sick, but sad. / / “ ‘But one

day ’ and he smiled ‘the prince will come.’ / / “I don’t know what he

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

w, / / just as though / / against the

day’s gloom / / they make their own light. / / Hearth in a dusky roo

er. He slept late, and then / / half a

day’s walking brought him to the sand— / / soft sand which rose in a

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

the same / / he found the woods of his

day’s work, as when / / ranged for delight alone. Delight he could /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

to tear deeper. Then, / / dropped in a

daze , he bled on the leaf-mould / / uncaring, when his eye lit on the

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

let / / the mirage of consistency / /

dazzle me. / / That narrow master shan’t dictate / / my answers to t

he star-pricks of the velvet dome. / /

Dazzle of sun out of the sea, loud cries / / of fierce white birds ci

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ He found the handle. The small room

dazzled him / / with shafted sunlight falling on a bed. / / She seem

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

bright sun, whole / / the world lies,

dazzling , bridal, / / incorruptible. / / All confusion lost in light

de Guérin / She hung out of her window to watch the stars. / / They h

Eugénie de Guérin

e Shepherdess of Cahuzac / from Eugénie

de Guérin’s Journal / The girl came into the church / / from changing

The Shepherdess of Cahuzac

recurrent moods, I’m forgetful of: / /

De la Mare very early, Christina, the other Emily / / —trees speciall

f Le Rouge et le Noir and La Chartreuse

d and bed / / sullen and clumsy as the

’m tired” she said. / / “I wish I were

dead .” / /

Mariana in Miniature

without trace. / / Man and his dreams

t so much the fear of dying or of being

dead / / (absolute nothingness / / is what we can’t conceive / / bu

ought, as natural as breath, / / falls

dead against the fact of death. / / “One ever near thee.” How can I /

and here; these many in this dust / /

dead . All these dead, and each, one, / / dead in pain. Think of these

Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville

many in this dust / / dead. All these

dead , and each, one, / / dead in pain. Think of these first. / / So,

Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville

ts are untrue) / / this Martin Luther,

dead and gone, / / alive saw something he must do / / and left it ve

Thoughts on the Lavatory

changed to my gaze, / / since they are

dead and I am old. / / The night is trackless, deep and cold. / /

/ let me speak with you.” / / “You’re

dead and laid into your grave / / and yet you speak and groan. / / I

Humfry Payne. / / After loved unknown

dead and loved known living / / the loved known dead. How much does m

hair / / to give her love, but he was

dead / / and never came again to her. / / She wept a little time alo

(when nobody measures time / / time is

dead , and the world / / death’s); but man in time / / (though man, a

[Time is enough]

ping / / at the sun, at the dead moon,

dead as the moon. / /

Dead at Sharpeville / This woman, this child, this man; / / and there

Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville

Tiber race, / / Mamilius and Herminius

dead —Black Auster / / gazing into his master’s face / / while the gr

d by a feud, / / sundered, bewildered,

dead , / / breathe from the tomb. / / to hover on the chill / / of f

ther / / who reads this after / / I’m

dead , but especially yours. You / / must see all I see. / /

[Released from cloud the low sun at my back]

/ / and what I do can’t help you / /

dead . But it might help them / / a little who loved you, love / / yo

time like a butterfly on a board, / /

dead . / / But passing moments do not perish, build / / memory and li

Moment and Memory

haunt as cold ghosts the memory of the

dead / / but warmly help and guide. / / Flash on our groping a recur

Prayer to Truth

/ fear or horror deny it; / / so now,

dead , can teach / / our doubt and shame—sweet / / day and night, /

Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank

always in the dark ground / / with the

dead child. / / Popular name for archaeologist / / is grave-robber.

erhaps was, / / watered, sown, / / is

dead dust and stone. / /

England, / / green land skeletal with

dead elms and beeches / / (beautiful girl with anorexia), / / the wi

/ / at last to land, he lay as good as

dead / / he didn’t know how long. He sensed the air, / / came to him

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ble fight / / finally won. The monster

dead , he lay / / wounded to death. His lady bent above, / / the hot

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ Then he remembered that his nurse was

dead . / / He picked himself up. He was cold and stiff, / / bruised,

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

loved known living / / the loved known

dead . How much does memory wane? / / figure and face and voice I thou

loughed in the new / / relation? (live—

dead ). / / In car, bus, train I / / want the journey not to end / /

/ of Athens, lies under this stone / /

dead in Gela among the white / / wheatlands; a man at need / / good

Aeschylus’ Epitaph

ad. All these dead, and each, one, / /

dead in pain. Think of these first. / / So, in pain they fell. But al

Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville

ing / / enviously / / of some at home

dead in the ice-hard ground. / /

Gunnar of Lithend

w moon’s arms, / / the little daughter

dead in the sea. / / Lays of Ancient Rome on my seventh birthday: /

he fading moment / / to hold it like a

dead leaf in the hand. / /

Moment and Memory

Moon. / / My colour faded—sallow as a

dead leaf. / / My hair fell out and my body thinned away / / to skin

Spells and Love

n he must, / / he thought, drop on the

dead -leaf silt, give up, / / give in, lie down and not get up again.

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / lends unnecessary / / noise to a

dead man / / by marks on this dumb stone. / /

on the head, / / and then I heard the

dead man / / how he groaned, and said / / “Are you a Turk? Trample m

Dead ” / May we assign a cause? / / —who cannot be content / / with a

“Gale is Dead”

ous lump gaping / / at the sun, at the

dead moon, dead as the moon. / /

/ / doesn’t know even if I’m alive or

dead , / / no knock at my door… There’s someone else. Love’s gods / /

Spells and Love

Theumaridas’ old Thracian nurse (she’s

dead now), / / who lived next door, came and kept begging me / / to

Spells and Love

/ And stayed, and in a little while was

dead . / / On marble and gilded bronze the sun is burning / / by the

Gunnar of Lithend

se a lamb the other day? / / I found a

dead one this side, not far from here, / / not one of mine, or any of

but unlike any other year, / / at the

dead season, at the silent hour, / / at the still moment of the absen

Winter Solstice

sk a Spartan mother / / concerning her

dead son. / / And found in an affirmative answer / / her grief not l

Pietà / The Mother sat, her

dead Son on her knees, / / white-glowing marble wrought / / to perfe

er of Hell fall another way. / / We’re

dead . Spare us more harrying. / / We all need mercy, so go pray. / /

Villon’s Epitaph

/ / and beauty in the air till we are

dead . / / The convent and the court have their own good, / / and its

o longed for was now his / / total and

dead . The world before him laid / / was his and nothing. Now he’d jou

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

plex / Oedipus laid the king his father

dead , / / then laid his mother in his father’s bed, / / but got no e

/ / “(a fine woman she was—pity she’s

dead ), / / there are plenty of kinds of pretty play / / young men an

/ not recurring, / / the planet dying,

dead . / / This planet, tiny speck / / circling an only little less t

ting through days and years till one is

dead . / / To see both sides is good; always to keep / / a sensitive

en to be happy / / again when wrong is

dead . / / Today we feel behind us / / the struggle of the ape. / /

can be made / / to stack and burn the

dead .)” / / We have our orders, and our keep and pay. / / A man must

Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank

despairing pain / / of these untimely

dead . / / Weep more for who remain. / /

Whom the Gods Love

sun / / turned eyes as darkened as the

dead . / / “What else?” / / Have loved and been loved, two in one, /

gh my own eyes and others too, / / the

dead who see nothing, perhaps another / / who reads this after / / I

[Released from cloud the low sun at my back]

reatness I think we lack since Yeats is

dead ; / / yet we have Eliot, for whom in Auden now / / our long debt

ny funny stuff by the defence. / / The

deadly knife-edge of his tongue and look, / / feared by so many, he c

Change Places…

Now among the smoke and stone / / the

deadly poor / / settle themselves on steps, by hunger and / / no hop

Country and Town

eak, / / now firm again, then suddenly

deadly sick. / / But still he dragged and hacked, hour after hour. /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

murk. / / The moon was clouded, I was

deadly tired. / / This defeat and the inescapable dark / / seemed th

/ / Calm shine some, in whom power and

deadweight hold / / a steady balance; some / / smoulder an age; some

he true sufferer knows: / / the lonely

deaf , the blind / / who fumbling in the paralytic dark / / await no

out of the creaking wood. / / Yet not,

deaf Time, before your doubtful ruth / / in the last instance do we l

nfully on the waiting page / / for the

deaf world to hear, / / spring light, spring water, winter, / / wind

is what / / I haven’t got.” / / “Poor

dear .” / /

Dear Adviser, can you help me to cope / / with an intransigeant heart

d but I can talk too. / / “Daughter of

dear Amphimedo”, I said, / / “(a fine woman she was—pity she’s dead),

se who call you father, mother, / / as

dear as to your own you are. / /

/ for whom that ugliness holds nothing

dear . / / I remember / / beauty just so shining from air to eye / /

“Life is sweet, brother”

And not to make too long a story of it,

dear Moon, / / we achieved it all, came both to our desire. / / Till

Spells and Love

/ / the natural world, that’s yet our

dear / / mother and love. This paradox / / (a rift in the firm-seemi

as the other day / / I managed to beat

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

Spells and Love

thoroughly done. / / A course of life,

dear self, which you / / at seventy may meditate on. / /

Thoughts on the Lavatory

/ mother and nurse and father, near and

dear , / / taken for granted. Not as yet for her / / painful passion

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ddess, and after the Cyprian thanks, my

dear , / / to you, who brought me here and out of the flame. / / I wa

Spells and Love

earer yet, / / her form, her face, the

dear unknown princess. / / Then darkness. / / Rest and faint warmth

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / The scented aura and soft ‘hullo,

dearie ’ / / offered the troubled flesh peace with dishonour, / / dan

ere came another one / / who loved her

dearly though so late. / / She liked his love. She liked him well. /

in / / whence the inconstant gods send

dearth and rain / / and playfully allot our joy and pain. / / Life b

kills, my brother, / / as certainly as

death . / /

[We lived and sang, my brother]

ng. Time / / (man’s making) is outside

death . / /

[Time is enough]

so long, so deep, / / almost a kind of

death . About the house / / shall spread and sprawl a thorny wildernes

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

afterlife, so must / / accept that in

death / / all failures, like all losses / / are irrecoverable. / /

the pulse, the natural interlocking of

death / / and life, with our unnatural “I am”. / / The extraordinary

t I can’t envisage life either / / (or

death ) as an unordered jumble of things. / / The fire, brutally quenc

but winter not yet come, / / what this

death blasted / / was her autumn. / /

ot die. / / “The prick shall bring not

death but a long sleep. / / A sleep not as you know it, from which yo

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

disguise, / / especially violent / /

death . But have I learnt / / to look it in the face, / / the disfigu

e death on the uneven ground. / / Like

death , but in the dawn touched by a dream / / half apprehended as he

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

is monochrome stillness looks / / like

death but is something else. / / Venus is burning / / big and low, y

d watched the days go by, / / and when

death came among us / / we watched our brothers die. / / But as we w

[We lived and sang, my brother]

rned—recreate / / beauty, breed out of

death , / / carpet again the heath / / where once, between rose / /

Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank

light, spring water, winter, / / wind,

death , darkness, fear, / / fire, flowers, / / pain, angels singing.

Death / Death is acceptable. I belong to earth / / not any heaven. Do

tted / / the cowardice or treachery of

death .” / / “Death is itself and asks no more,” she said; / / “not s

/ / The age of time between, life and

death , died / / into a handsgrasp for the yearning boy. / / And then

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Death / / / Does time embrace existence or existence time? / / Reve

/ / not to play blind-man’s-buff with

death . / / Each year requires another year / / to finish some new th

Law Report / This child was thrashed to

death for thieving, lying / / and filthy habits which, the father sai

and I / / hugged you. You didn’t mind.

Death / / had happened, but was / / release from work, and that was

[Time is enough] / Time is enough.

Death / / has dominion outside time / / (when nobody measures time /

[Time is enough]

he monster dead, he lay / / wounded to

death . His lady bent above, / / the hot tears running down her face,

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Death / I woke in the night and heard the rain falling / / softly. It

News of a Death

/ (and a man’s framework croaks towards

death , in bed / / above the scavenged garden). / /

Death is acceptable. I belong to earth / / not any heaven. Do I now s

cowardice or treachery of death.” / / “

Death is itself and asks no more,” she said; / / “not so life. Life i

for others. / / The image of Sydney's

death / / is mythical, someone says. / / But living he earned this /

e doesn’t come to a ragged end / / but

death knits up the ravelled sleeve. / /

or it. / / Contrariwise of course / /

death may come sooner—soon / / perhaps, for better or worse, / / as

[Now of threescore and ten]

flat where he stood / / and slept like

death on the uneven ground. / / Like death, but in the dawn touched b

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

th, / / falls dead against the fact of

death . / / “One ever near thee.” How can I / / believe the tearing o

terms—‘love’. / / I fall silent. / /

Death one would think is / / a fact one can’t disguise, / / especial

it seems too odd. / / I can’t envisage

death / / or life as acts of god. / / And yet I can’t envisage life

ut if he hurts me / / it’s the door of

Death , please Fate, he’ll be knocking at. / / I’ve bad drugs in my ch

Spells and Love

on, age; / / necessary and unnecessary

death ; / / recurring terror of the unfenced edge, / / meaningless li

ballads: / / two men riding through a

death -sown plain, / / pursued and pursuer—the talk at the watercourse

rer frontier, ranging / / life against

death ? surely a true / / discontinuity, estranging / / and yet that

rom lack of will to live, have let / /

death take him there under the thorns? Who knows? / / But the last wo

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

him by. / / Remember (remembering that

death , / / that life) how, out of the night, / / without window, wit

hate to give, / / leaves us our fee to

Death , the will to live. / /

e—in mockery / / leaves us (our fee to

Death ) the will to live. / / Condemned we snatch at every short repri

successively / / leaves us. Our fee to

Death , the will to live, / / outlasts this tarnished thing, worn to a

hands, but he / / leaves us our fee to

Death . The will to live / / (which yet loves nothing like a sedative)

it can do the same for yours. / / But

death , though it froze the guilts, the resentments, / / is easier acc

[White foam sweeps]

uch, I think, to hope. / / And yet her

death -throes give me pain. / /

cepting life entails acceptance / / of

death to balance birth, / / of depressing age as well as youth’s depr

Climacteric by the Sea

he face, or / / rather at the fact, of

death . / / What do I see? / / Chiefly the urgency / / of looking, r

[Now of threescore and ten]

as the tree dies. / / Autumn’s little

death , / / winter’s image of / / the unresponding grave, / / are ch

the couple / / on the high wire! / /

Death -wish dances / / with Life-enhancement / / cheek to cheek. / /

backs) thunders war / / with all those

deaths of others. / / And that huge violence flickers in that void /

Back Room, 1944

Now we pump back poison from our panic

deathwish , / / slip to lasting sleep in a sterile slime. / /

next. Artemis, Moon, you can move / /

Death’s adamant door, and anything else as stubborn… / / —Thestylis,

Spells and Love

e / / time is dead, and the world / /

death’s ); but man in time / / (though man, and with man his time, /

[Time is enough]

Dulce et Decorum /

Death’s paradox dissolves our clear ‘to be’: / / Their not being, hav

Dulce et Decorum

been has put / / the world, rather, in

ot, for whom in Auden now / / our long

debt to America is paid; / / both James Joyce and Virginia Woolf know

o not drift away / / to earth and slow

decay — / / cling unnaturally / / shrivelling on their ties, / / dyi

still it will be when we’re gone. / /

Decay , corruption foster life. / / Even the fossil forming in the sto

cycle of seed and growth, strength and

decay ; / / tomorrow’s natural course / / following simply out of yes

d it in the lake. / / The king was not

deceived . / / Angry? No. Hardly sad. / / Beyond sadness and anger, /

fe and more to find / / how I was self-

deceived . / / Now in humility / / I must become a child again, and p

Beethoven / Dirty old brutal bear, / /

decencies and affections hanging / / rags on his rotting age, / / ye

f mending / / lie at the root of every

decent life; / / those who sit still, and those who fall defending /

o go under. / / How strong she is. The

decimations , distortions / / we are inflicting she’ll turn to her own

/ the same God, whom both sides could

declare / / (even believe), to be a god of love. / /

/ / after-heat dusk of summer’s first

decline . / / “By such a moon we quarrelled at Arezzo / / over a came

on broken rock, as day / / climbed and

declined . And dreamed of the princess. / / Watched, heard, the water

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

eased to come, / / the sun climbed and

declined , but he lay on— / / the princess and his mother and his home

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Decorum / Death’s paradox dissolves our clear ‘to be’: / / Their not

Dulce et Decorum

thought to a deliberate choice / / of

dedication . The offering of his life / / had been made and accepted l

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

and these, if not in will, are that in

deed . / / … Fire… martyrdom… Fine words. Bend your mind back / / to

Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville

/ seeming to hide her knowledge and his

deed ; / / straightened herself, turned slowly, and still slow / / ma

Pelopia and Thyestes

The world is round, fortunes are made,

deeds done. / / The youngest son sets out with empty hands, / / harv

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / our narrow length of time eternal

at, whose story? And why, how / / this

deep acceptance of a story’s pain? / / How know the spot’s ahead ther

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

your known world, but sleep so long, so

deep , / / almost a kind of death. About the house / / shall spread a

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

pool of love standing in / / my heart

deep and clear / / turns the dull thoughts lying there / / to shinin

I am old. / / The night is trackless,

deep and cold. / /

ly the urgency / / of looking, rather,

deep / / and long, with all the warmth / / I have—look? rather, dip

[Now of threescore and ten]

the joined streams formed a rock-pool,

deep and spread. / / He shivered, but he stripped, plunged over head

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

loves) is the way / / it’s rooted in a

deep determination / / never to hurt / / the other—a thing our lovin

[Yes, you’re right]

This love was not that dredged from her

deep dream, / / but any love’s a wind-break when gales bend / / the

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ roused the prince brutally from his

deep dream. / / From the south-east the squall struck his port beam /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

e ice-puddles, / / dirty and sometimes

deep . Fountains of muddy / / water are splashing. Their mother, I’m a

[My grandchildren are stamping the ice-puddles]

-mould and slept. / / Waking, he drank

deep from his water-flask / / but would not pause to hunt or cook. Ea

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

r lifts the silted vapours away / / to

deep heaven, which like the deep ocean / / takes everything to itself

o long. Oh, do not miss your hour. / /

Deep hoarded in your heart a wealth of good / / observed, absorbed, l

princes were slow of foot and wit. / /

Deep in a curtained window, quite alone, / / the princess drank a mom

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ill / / hushed birds on boughs crouch,

deep in grass the hare. / / Twigs cracking, one dog’s bark, / / mome

Country and Town

half-worked stuff, / / ran the needle

deep in his thumb, and bled, / / red on the white. And she cried out,

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

oughs arch over the half-dry creek / /

deep in its hidden cleft. / / There is more shadow than light / / bu

[High boughs arch over the half-dry creek]

or dark cloud. / / A rare night. Beach

deep / / in snow. A ceaseless gale that / / strips it. Night for you

rmth / / I have—look? rather, dip / /

deep in the living breath / / of this warm, beautiful / / —and cold,

[Now of threescore and ten]

rd with dawn, / / and when night came,

deep in the mountains stopped, / / his water-bottle filled at a cold

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

e acacia stand / / leafless, lifeless,

deep into spring, / / and every year “This is the end. / / The sap h

me visions, / / childhood. / / From a

deep layer suddenly thrown / / up, a clear image: miles of sea-washed

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

way / / to deep heaven, which like the

deep ocean / / takes everything to itself and remains pure. / / And

/ The last, dropped more lately, took

deep root / / at Sheepstead, quiet country of water and wood / / bet

These are no ship. / / When tide flows

deep / / round weedy timbers fish / / smooth-threading pass. / / Ti

/ Still, he pushed in, and once in the

deep shade / / the overgrowth was thinner, and he made / / progress

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

as she was speaking. No / / dreams, a

deep , sweet, long slumber. When the sun / / woke him, he saw by the c

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Sur le Pont d’Avignon / Timbers driven

deep through summer-slack / / water, through mud; winter’s boisterous

Sur le Pont d’Avignon

half-child’s romantic dream: / / some

deep unknown knowledge of love, her rare / / spirit made in the cradl

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

nd on the benches stir / / against the

deepened chill the worse than poor, / / the driven and lost, / / who

ning, glow, / / ray from a red sunset,

deepening / / the colours in the hangings of memory. / / Not fear, n

What Do They Feel?

ith the joys and the pains / / of this

deeper existence we know, at whose heart / / is our love, and the lov

t was impossible. / / He gave up. / /

Deeper in the thorn, a nest / / he thought, an odd one, hung. His dul

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ then looked, and shivering left the

deeper shade, / / and tired and cold moved stiffly, vaguely on. / /

those mastered, knew the pride / / of

deeper skill. He almost lived afloat. / / Gurgle and clop and slap an

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

keep / / returned we know; but of the

deeper theme / / —spirit, whence formed or fetched here, on what wing

Dulce et Decorum

strands / / which yielded only to tear

deeper . Then, / / dropped in a daze, he bled on the leaf-mould / / u

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

defeat / / by these might sink us even

deeper . Yet, / / losing or winning, keep us from the pit / / of a co

Prayer to Truth

/ / thick gauntlets on her hands. Most

deeply aged / / he could not doubt her, though he could not see / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / I—could not help being? rather, I

deeply am. / / Yet look just now: / / water in patterns under the wi

than before. / / For her, that country

deeply called to her. / / In autumn (her own mistress, near fifteen)

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

eys. Wind from distant snow / / struck

deeply chill, but too worn-out for waking / / curled between two boul

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

journeying. A sense of loss, / / pain

deeply felt. And yet, this was a story. / / A story. What, whose stor

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ hustled him to the ford—be hanged the

deer ! / / He made the peak, and in the evening glow / / gazed on the

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ keeping down vermin, cherishing the

deer . / / His dreams shrank further into fantasy. / / The hind mates

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

h to make our ways confirm / / and not

deface its form. / /

Prayer to Truth

clouded, I was deadly tired. / / This

defeat and the inescapable dark / / seemed the blackness of war and l

power. / / War is a pit of horror; and

defeat / / by these might sink us even deeper. Yet, / / losing or wi

Prayer to Truth

et, / / fight, break nature, defy her,

defeat her. Yet / / only we, seeing her from the outside, can / / lo

/ / these gales, miles, months cannot

defeat love’s existence. / /

Two Poems from a New Life

guessed it: cannot true / / love fore-

defeat the devil’s monstrous game? / / Love’s grand illusion ‘Love ca

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

revolving years / / knowing they will

defeat us / / (one revolution’s low / / roll on without us up). / /

Two Summer Songs

d shaking, Love. / / Then, almost fore-

defeated , Love / / sensed at his shoulder something move… / / so whi

all seemed won, yet lose the day, / /

defeated with the fairy who had blessed him. / / A third time frantic

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

lling is mostly scattered, lost in / /

defeating gusts, but comes in bright bursts as if / / to remind me th

Two Poems from a New Life

/ / But brood on that is stupid, self-

defeative . / / Be content with its being and your love. / /

Two Summer Songs

pressed) / / to break its spell-rooted

defence , and pass / / in, but because the blind pain in his breast /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

t a stop / / to any funny stuff by the

defence . / / The deadly knife-edge of his tongue and look, / / feare

Change Places…

/ / was true, and his beyond this last

defence . / / Waking to water whispering by the bank, / / the dark re

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

those who sit still, and those who fall

defending / / justice, seem equally guilty of the strife / / with ga

hangings of memory. / / Not fear, not

defiance , but consciousness that night / / is coming, to drain all co

What Do They Feel?

self being God’s / / son, God Himself,

defraud Himself? Is God’s / / a share only? They thought by a trick q

rom hers to the gloved hands / / which

deftly shaved and gutted the gay shell. / / That tempted him. “What a

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

re, to upset, / / fight, break nature,

defy her, defeat her. Yet / / only we, seeing her from the outside, c

e held her close / / and called aloud,

defying Carabosse / / “We are together and each other’s own.” / / He

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

human inequality / / both in kind and

degree / / is wicked and unnecessary. / / Though not so strong / /

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

s, that honour may be done / / duly to

deity , fine steers are brought; / / and by the altar where they slash

Pelopia and Thyestes

new sun / / in the soft air. / / The

delayed year / / is moving into spring / / with leaf-bud, blossom, b

utterly done, / / but grudged all such

delays , the daylight’s waste— / / not that he had a real reason for h

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

s, less cold, less hard / / make their

deliberate bed / / than those that huddle to the bleak and harsh / /

red avatar / / guided his thought to a

deliberate choice / / of dedication. The offering of his life / / ha

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

he game, / / whetters and users of the

deliberate knife. / / Between the starving North and war’s dull flame

e starting, slow, / / hesitant, eager,

delicate approach / / of a child who barefoot down a pebble beach /

power betrayed by cowardice. / / “Your

delicate task to keep your power, neither / / thrown to the winds, no

hened green / / but on the back still,

delicately lined, / / a leaf-fan on whorled stalks, above the tang /

d shell / / are with us still / / but

delicately other than these; / / a world of life perished and vanishe

er what the sirens sang? / / “Once the

delicious sexual ache / / bursts in its paradisal pang / / you canno

his day’s work, as when / / ranged for

delight alone. Delight he could / / stumble on still (as dreamer stil

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

senses quiver / / all possibilities of

delight and pain. / / “We know this shining stream bears London’s ref

/ for nothing happier filled him with

delight . / / “Come here. Get warm. I’ve got all that you’ll need / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

s will be so / / love more this year’s

delight . / / Cows lounge among buttercups and dew / / while coolly c

Two Summer Songs

/ “But no. No. All that once has been

delight , / / even if it end, still by that miracle is”— / / and then

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

as when / / ranged for delight alone.

Delight he could / / stumble on still (as dreamer still he was) / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

there / / in the sweet air which takes

delight in the sun, / / secreted smog within. / / Now, here, / / un

Two Glimpses from Dante’s Hell

/ This restlessness robbed him of some

delight . / / Issuing to sunlight from an icy stream, / / a dark bush

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

a clear / / glade—smote him. O beauty,

delight , love, pain. / / A violent longing for the hills again / / h

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

firm and white, / / formed for a man’s

delight , / / lovely and unaware, / / he watched her kneel and bend.

Pelopia and Thyestes

traffic is one-way. / / Sex lends her

delight / / to every joy, her stress / / to all our wickedness, / /

/ from love’s well and the fountain of

delight ? / / Waters distilled, secreted, / / strained through the sa

ld) / / yet never lacked, do not lack,

delight , / / would be wholly sorry to have missed life / / on this m

Climacteric by the Sea

about our childhood’s hand / / led us

delighted through the opening day, / / the light stretched long acros

/ A word, a gust / / of wind, and our

delightful plan is dust. / / The loved, the long worked-over, the liv

ght new muscles into play / / with new

delights . He breathed the air’s brightness, / / watched light changin

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

esus, Master of everything, / / do not

deliver us to Hell’s king / / —not his our work, not ours his pay. /

Villon’s Epitaph

Delos in Spring / for Lucy / Time threw the columned temples down / /

Delos in Spring

nd day, day and night… / / came to the

Delphic fane, / / burst in (uncleansed his stain) / / crying on the

Pelopia and Thyestes

ntains. / / So to this house may I see

Delphis bolting, / / a mad thing, breaking away from sport and friend

Spells and Love

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

Delphis hurts me. And this bay now for Delphis / / I burn. The leaves

Spells and Love

Delphis hurts me. And this bay now for

Delphis / / I burn. The leaves crackle as the heat takes them, / / f

Spells and Love

sky, / / with lots of stories—and that

Delphis is in love. / / She wasn't sure, she said, whether it was a w

Spells and Love

ar Lycon’s, who should pass us / / but

Delphis , strolling along with Eudamippos. / / Their beards curled yel

Spells and Love

r. She went, and brought him back, / /

Delphis (such a smooth skin) back to my house… / / The moment I heard

Spells and Love

e, goddess) / / may this Myndian, this

Delphis waste with love, / / and as I whirl Aphrodite’s brazen hummer

Spells and Love

-sill / / and as you do, whisper “It’s

Delphis’s bones I’m kneading”. / / Draw him, bird-wheel, draw him (yo

Spells and Love

/ / Strew them on, and say “These are

Delphis’s bones I’m strewing”. / / Draw him, bird-wheel, draw him (yo

Spells and Love

who) to my house. / / This fringe from

Delphis’s cloak he lost, and I / / now shred it and toss the shreds o

Spells and Love

enly and not even ash is left. / / May

Delphis’s flesh waste so in consuming fire. / / Draw him, bird-wheel,

Spells and Love

La Fontaine et le

Déluge / “Some food, for pity.” / / “Why? What did you do / / in sum

La Fontaine et le Déluge

e / / as we received it. / / That’s a

delusion . / / While we dream we’re conserving, / / all the time our

one— / / but once upon a time, in some

demesne , / / there lived, in service to a King and Queen, / / a poor

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

nst Anorexia: For Cathy / / / / This

demon that has come / / between you and your plate / / let her go ho

Against Anorexia: For Cathy

ian poor / / climb, for love no doubt,

demonstrably / / for another purpose. / / Marvellous marble hidden,

Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening

to Latini under the Fire-Rain / “Joy we

denied ,” / / they mutter in the mud, “out there / / in the sweet air

Two Glimpses from Dante’s Hell

on. It can be destroyed, / / vilified,

denied , treated as not being there, / / but it was, so is. Even that

“Tell Lady Byron…”

/ the field of his last fight. But the

dense floor / / kept all its secrets hidden. He descended, / / footh

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ living, never let / / fear or horror

deny it; / / so now, dead, can teach / / our doubt and shame—sweet /

Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank

her than nature made us / / yet not to

deny nature; / / to divine and follow reason / / yet to dare at a mo

ilosophy / / conspires with science to

deny / / the existence of a me. / / Yet I believe it constantly. /

Shadow and Substance

d us still / / to help and guide, only

departing should / / the heart reject us, if it can and will.” / / “

/ / of death to balance birth, / / of

depressing age as well as youth’s depressions. / / Sorrow I have know

Climacteric by the Sea

/ of depressing age as well as youth’s

depressions . / / Sorrow I have known, / / unhappiness, / / fear, an

Climacteric by the Sea

I am partly free / / from the slothful

depressive mud that slowed / / my way, I owe it you; and more than th

ing to a last, / / though the night be

deprived of moon and morning, / / day was before it—and we have had t

distance spun / / out of the chasm of

depth and past— / / but surely no less truthfully / / age-traced pat

orget the pencil. / / (And out of what

depth , fingered on a steamed-up pane, / / can that loud trumpeter cha

/ but even awake I seem / / from the

depth of a dream / / to know that hollow field. / /

Words from a Dream

s were theirs alone. / / Its temperate

depth sustains / / the coelacanth unchanged / / from years ere light

ry of Anne Frank / Orders / Röslein auf

der Heiden / “Soldiers, advance against the enemy. / / Shoot when you

Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank

. / / We climbed from there, and shall

descend / / in a few minutes there again, / / knowing quite well tha

[Seen from the hill the hazy plain]

or / / kept all its secrets hidden. He

descended , / / foothills. And evening suddenly showed his eyes / / t

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

lling away, told him to follow it, / /

descending to climb further in the end. / / An hour or so later and f

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

the tautened rope / / he turned again.

Descending , to dree out / / his weird at home, walked through the bla

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ht or left, / / of wrong or right. The

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

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Desert Island? / Loved England, / / green land skeletal with dead elm

/ / brine-girt by circumstance, / / a

desert island then. / / … Yes, there is still love. / / Loving, bein

te / “After they caught me behind their

desert lines / / I was in gaol, a women’s prison it had been / / und

War-time Anecdote

runs thin / / thin as grass. / / The

desert shows through flaking green. / / Mars might have been, / / pe

n ocean / / —harmless? Look—circles of

desert spread: / / seas and rivers, all water, sap, blood, / / all s

makes beautiful / / all the brick-grey

desert , the swirling banner / / we bear of smoke, smoke of factories,

“Life is sweet, brother”

Deserts are somewhere else. / / Sahara, Arizona, Gobi, / / back of A

for better, to this age, / / how do I

deserve / / this total, this untroubled love? / /

[I have you always in my mind]

. / / How like a man. Martha of course

deserved / / better than such a knife-twist in the heart. / / Rapt M

/ / a pair of ear-rings, gold, simple

design ; / / a bronze mirror, its shine a roughened green / / but on

ose tilted axis / / and epicycles were

designed to illustrate / / principles of pre-Copernican astronomy… /

emory’s sudden force: / / chastity and

desire , / / acts of childhood, parents, affection, age; / / necessar

/ / lifted her head and was his nurse.

Desire / / for nothing happier filled him with delight. / / “Come he

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

he moonlight.” / / “Lovely—an exile to

desire ,” I said. / / “So stands the moon over Vathý, and bright / /

/ we achieved it all, came both to our

desire . / / Till the other day he’d no fault to find with me / / any

Spells and Love

s own; and though not blind / / to her

desire , was shocked by it. He sought / / the pox at Mistress Overdone

cross his face / / —perhaps now at his

desk doing the same? / / I thought, and turned my head. In the same p

mankind, / / featureless in a swarming

desolation / / as light falls on the blind. / / Paris loves Helen in

this beauty of scattered skeleton, / /

desolation of shining stone. / / No past throws up against the sense

Delos in Spring

ill / / by my own jealousies and near-

despair . / /

ear / / self-pitying now our anger and

despair , / / and like the nephews of a poisoned Pope / / relinquish

was true. / / Passion and loneliness,

despair and pride / / peopled my moor and heart—that world I knew.” /

n earth, as though / / herself were in

despair / / at man’s failure to care, / / his obsessive, his mad dri

ne, and presently / / found—not indeed

Despair / / but, huge and grim enough, / / the Black Knight of the Q

gnity to fight, / / and Pride, against

Despair ; / / but Pride and Dignity / / had touched so little at Love

,” I said, / / “with memory that no

despair can blast / / and beauty in the air till we are dead. / / Th

en / / intensify the shuttered heart’s

despair . / / From London’s prison now you turn again / / to Dorset,

thick tide / / we learn / / all about

despair .” / / He ran like those who race for the cloth-of-green / /

Two Glimpses from Dante’s Hell

hich Blake’s love / / builds in Hell’s

despair , / / hope in despairing hell / / breathed by these good and

Die Weisse Rose

bloom / / offering cups of light. / /

Despair / / is judged by some / / the lowest sin. And they are right

of terror / / at hope out of complete

despair reborn. / / The image of the christening rose once more / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ame / / finds in its broken sleep / /

despair so wearisome / / that it is forced to hope. / /

[Why do I dream this pause]

s, as the moon broke through cloud / /

despair thinned on my heart. The moonlight fell / / on her pale face

builds in Hell’s despair, / / hope in

despairing hell / / breathed by these good and brave, / / Kurt Huber

Die Weisse Rose

for that trust betrayed, / / for brief

despairing pain / / of these untimely dead. / / Weep more for who re

Whom the Gods Love

like a sedative) / / traps us in self-

despising misery, / / Age takes everything we hate to give: / / know

ontinually. / / Odd chills are chance.

Destined the steady glow / / our loving knows. / /

[Wind is chilly on shoulders]

own the same old way, / / hell-bent to

destroy / / himself and her. / / If I could plummet down a radial li

us (or else / / ruining nature we may

destroy ourselves). / / But I am still / / thankful to know this bea

hting wind and fire can absolutely / /

destroy themselves and all. / / Sparks? A martyr’s blood falls as see

Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville

urnal—yet in the end / / admit that he

destroyed it as Byron’s friend: / / my loss, not Byron’s, I can’t for

[I find it difficult to forgive Tom Moore]

ably / / a special relation. It can be

destroyed , / / vilified, denied, treated as not being there, / / but

“Tell Lady Byron…”

upidity is powerful, and ill will. / /

Destroying each other we may quite probably / / wipe out nature with

l height I looked down / / and watched

detached my weary body go / / with Emily on towards Camden Town. / /

e ribbon, merging past unravelling / /

detail of trees and harbour, city and beach, / / against the rising,

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

) is the way / / it’s rooted in a deep

determination / / never to hurt / / the other—a thing our loving nat

[Yes, you’re right]

unravel muddle, / / adapt chance, / /

determine beauty, / / explore truth… / / Sheared nerves mutter / /

King’s hunting-season not / / strictly

determined by the season’s need. / / Then, four years after the princ

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Deterrents / We must, if we would have our children live, / / do more

Against Deterrents

our compact with the devil. / / Let us

detest aggression, pity pain, / / but recognise vengeance for a cardi

Prayer to Truth

and dinosaur) / / it is some built-in

device , / / some failsafe mechanism, / / that hurries us down to dro

What goes up must come down

glory of Paradise Lost) / / The White

Devil and the Duchess of Malfi, / / Byron’s Juan and Marlowe’s Faustu

an angels be with devils? / / Was he a

devil because he worked for devils? / / And what should we have been?

side is evil / / our compact with the

devil . / / Let us detest aggression, pity pain, / / but recognise ve

Prayer to Truth

/ Was he a devil because he worked for

devils ? / / And what should we have been? / / What, under that unrec

/ Was she an angel? Can angels be with

devils ? / / Was he a devil because he worked for devils? / / And wha

: cannot true / / love fore-defeat the

devil’s monstrous game? / / Love’s grand illusion ‘Love can master Fa

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ison now you turn again / / to Dorset,

Devon , Berkshire, Greece, and quite / / forget the misery of exile wh

them) and meant / / well. She grew up

dévote / / but kind and wise, with the wisdom of innocence, / / tota

Eugénie de Guérin

ng sweat / / stood on my forehead like

dew and trickled down. / / I couldn’t utter, no more than a baby can

Spells and Love

reen, / / sun-shadows and a sparkle of

dew . / / Light as the air our hair our feed. / / Love will be there

med hope, as the new morning finds / /

dew on the grass. / /

that falls now caught / / in the wide

dew -pond of Mount Palomar, / / leapt from some galaxy, far / / past

us through sun-drenched days, / / cold

dew , shelly horns, bulls walking pastures / / in kingly-flashing coat

. / / Cows lounge among buttercups and

dew / / while coolly counterpointed by the cuckoo / / lark song stri

Two Summer Songs

/ “Put up your bright swords, for the

dew will rust them.” / /

Against Deterrents

/ the light stretched long across the

dewy land / / and you unheeded, to whom now we pray; / / Time, whose

And on his right hand hung the face of

Diaghilev , / / and on his left hand hung the face of God, / / and pl

the centre / / hung God Nijinsky, and

Diaghilev not. / /

Dialogue / Miranda to Ophelia / / in pity and surprise: / / “What ar

snow, / / to the blinding blue of sky;

diamond air / / edge to knife-edge with the naked rock / / breaking

colour-spangled. / / And clear, still,

diamond -lit / / by washed stars is now the night. / / Again night’s

They soar to Lucy in the sky / / with

diamonds and a new song. / / I think the Sirens do not die. / /

ecting circles / / with the spades and

diamonds and clubs and hearts / / night-black and bloody, spinning, a

dolphin curving clear, / / scattering

diamonds . Man was born to hope). / /

of Belsen from the atmosphere. / / The

diapason closing full in man / / breaks down in discord. God must sta

Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank

e not?) / / are constipated or cursing

diarrhoea , / / bad breath, bad teeth, bad skin, / / falling or super

light drowns at last, / / an ultimate

diaspora . / /

the wine goes round / / with rattle of

dice and song, and some are thinking / / enviously / / of some at ho

Gunnar of Lithend

zzle me. / / That narrow master shan’t

dictate / / my answers to the mystery. / / Good unbelieved-in God, w

/ She had to spoil herself, and spoiled

“Gale is Dead”

ew song. / / I think the Sirens do not

ed, kempt / / would be to die before I

ality / / and that most of us will not

die / / before at least our better side / / has long been longing to

Whom the Gods Love

rdered, rounded, kempt / / would be to

die before I die. / /

e among us / / we watched our brothers

die . / / But as we watched, our singing / / died too upon our breath

[We lived and sang, my brother]

reen?” / / Words found him—“The leaves

die but the tree lives / / to leaf again. Trees fall but not the wood

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / to rest torture, having no wish to

die . / / Home howled for him behind. But he was pressed / / forward

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

nd and tongue break beneath it / / and

die in doggerel” / / Miranda to Ophelia: / / “How can I understand?

the jackpot question: / / Will Caesar

die in God or God in Caesar? / /

st. / / An extra twist that she should

die / / in high summer, this autumn lost. / / Her own summer already

all these heavenly qualities / / shall

die into a little bead of blood.” / / Silence and darkness. Darkness,

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ier if not so wide. / / Those who must

die , let not the spectres of / / the lost and missed torment, nor tho

Prayer to Truth

l have / / your own haunter, nailed to

die / / on the dry tree, failed love. / /

Stray Thoughts at a Wedding

/ If more of you can kill your man than

die , / / ours is the victory.” / / We have our orders, and our keep

Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank

Interrogation / “

Die should you now, what have you done?” / / Have loved. Say that, an

pierce her youth, and yet she shall not

die . / / “The prick shall bring not death but a long sleep. / / A sl

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

me to the church / / and the girl must

die . / / They set a stake in the square / / for her soul’s good, /

The Shepherdess of Cahuzac

ot speak. / / It seemed that they must

die , / / unable to eat / / anything put before them, / / till someo

The Green Children of Woolpit

Die Weisse Rose / Munich, 1942–3 / Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl, / / Al

Die Weisse Rose

not get up again. / / No, he would not

die yet. And to turn back / / was meaningless. He must go on. And the

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

hem, but old granny had a fall / / and

died , and grandpa came to live at our / / house here”—it was a long t

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ou so little done? / / at thirty-two I

died , at thirty she, / / Humfry Payne thirty-four—two years to run /

n age—‘When that old forester, / / who

died before my birth, was weeping sent / / away, when he as I perhaps

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

We all need mercy, so go pray. / / We

died by law, but do not sneer / / at the name of brother from us. Thi

Villon’s Epitaph

side / / has long been longing to have

died , / / do not be too sad / / for those whose flame was blown out

Whom the Gods Love

forester whom a wheel had crushed / /

died . Eighty years, they said, and more he’d been / / about the place

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

sh won and brought me home. I lived and

died / / in the wide air, behind a bolted door. / / From my lone way

he age of time between, life and death,

died / / into a handsgrasp for the yearning boy. / / And then a patc

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

e / / that would not leave him till he

died , nor then. / / Awake she took (all unaware) control / / of her

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

leaning kissed / / his dying mouth. He

died . Or did her love / / raise him to life and set him at her side?

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

gh then, but the answering / / flicker

died soon.” “What can one build on one / / spring song?” she said. “Y

evening veered into the west / / then

died . The starry dark was utterly still. / / He dropped the sails and

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

the slums, / / but stole, perhaps, and

died , they say in gaol.) / / Their Parthenon endures; and thus shall,

Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening

that heart and head, / / and lived (or

died ) too that last horrible / / reach, among naked, spiny, treachero

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ But as we watched, our singing / /

died too upon our breath, / / for dying kills, my brother, / / as ce

[We lived and sang, my brother]

ting love / / before their mother / /

died , when he was eight, she was thirteen. / / And now the loved brot

Eugénie de Guérin

lute freedom to a newborn baby, / / it

dies . / / And so, mutatis mutandis, through our lives. / / The natur

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

g on their ties, / / dying as the tree

dies . / / Autumn’s little death, / / winter’s image of / / the unre

short laugh)—anything will do / / that

dies quickly but has gleamed first (star-fall). / / I like to lay up

cend / / the dying body, till the body

dies . / / Then / / hangs in the air, an interrupted song. / / There

Five Poems for Roni

o suffer / / the flaunting symbol of a

difference ? / /

nullifying parentheses) / / is all the

difference in the world. / /

Difference / Leaves on a felled tree / / do not drift away / / to ea

/ varyingly vast and from a vast / /

difference of age and distance spun / / out of the chasm of depth and

erial / / as others are, yet there’s a

difference . / / The forester, the poor court-lady’s son / / we knew

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

qual? / / All are born different. / /

Difference , / / the good sine qua non of humanness, / / cannot be ta

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

hould be) born equal? / / All are born

different . / / Difference, / / the good sine qua non of humanness, /

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

ories, his old nurse. / / But this was

different from her other tales. / / Fairies and giants, kings and que

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

’s sending. / / Summer’s slow spell is

different from / / hers, now from that long purse spending / / black

Dance of the Seasons

was slaked, / / he’d recognised quite

different from that in / / the vision—wondered if the girl were faked

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

om inconceivable distances. / / Not so

different / / from what musician, poet, any artist / / wrests from t

re are terrorists… but terrorism’s / /

different , isn’t it? Every terrorist / / seen the other way’s a freed

sound-range, eyes which focus / / in a

different light. They whisper / / to man’s mind half-intelligible tru

lly / / the prince’s child-world was a

different one. / / A hunting-wood his father’s kingdom held / / but

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

fighter always a terrorist. / / Not so

different really. Those we hate, / / we say, hate us (no doubt they d

incess. / / The old stories, alike but

different , / / told yet again and asked for yet again, / / each phra

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

g, as they / / do, but in our own, our

different way. / /

/ / Through different worlds we take a

different way, / / but common-coloured threads were woven through /

ld of all have chosen you. / / Through

different worlds we take a different way, / / but common-coloured thr

rd. / / One land, one house, one life,

differently viewed / / is Eden, prison, path of exile, fold. / / Who

rs to outer world, build worlds in / /

differing ways their own. When we fold / / fond revisiting loves, che

Out from the Cliff

lité, Fraternité / Liberty. / / That’s

difficult already. / / All are (should be) born free? / / Give absol

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

/ / and rough growth of the steep / /

difficult slope. / / People have scrambled up. / / I try to follow,

[The track up the wild stream]

a star. / / Equality. / / That’s more

difficult still / / if not impossible / / —rather, meaningless. / /

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

icult to forgive Tom Moore] / I find it

difficult to forgive Tom Moore / / for burning Byron’s journal—yet in

[I find it difficult to forgive Tom Moore]

difficult to forgive Tom Moore] / I find it difficult to forgive Tom M

[I find it difficult to forgive Tom Moore]

/ beauty is not enough, / / truth too

difficult , / / too many questions begged, / / undefined terms—‘love’

r good, but thought ‘I’ll make / / the

difficult traverse to that bourne and back, / / bring back some token

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

shows himself a friend. / / Larks with

difficulty into the wild wind / / wing, singing against it as they li

Two Poems from a New Life

ng in the morning he perceived / / the

difficulty was not really there. / / Just what he sought he did not k

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

The Two Ways / Jesus,

digesting the meal Martha served, / / pronounced that Mary’s was the

de, against Despair; / / but Pride and

Dignity / / had touched so little at Love’s hand / / they did not ca

he bewildering night / / Love summoned

Dignity to fight, / / and Pride, against Despair; / / but Pride and

nd—but was such ground a gain? / / The

dim light dimmed further, and soon he must, / / he thought, drop on t

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / see nothing first, but slowly the

dim light / / shaped me the shadows among which I stood. / / She sat

ads she wove in love and hope / / grow

dim to her and lose their power, / / but on his arm still burning bri

orth, and he / / turned the bow south.

Dim to the starboard lay / / a thin blue ribbon, merging past unravel

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ed ocean, spark / / in what / / other-

dimension dark? / /

yet that mortal moment too / / escapes

dimension , time and space: / / not interval but interface. / /

Dimension / ‘Time is the fourth dimension’? Isn’t it more / / a mediu

really / / a section through an other-

dimension world, / / all seeming happenings here a chance effect / /

e can hypothetize / / existence in two

dimensions or in four / / or many, but can’t imaginatively believe, /

Dimension / ‘Time is the fourth

dimension ’? Isn’t it more / / a medium? peculiar means by which alone

lost centre: seeming to press back / /

dimension’s imperceptible boundaries, / / lose one another in the wid

such ground a gain? / / The dim light

dimmed further, and soon he must, / / he thought, drop on the dead-le

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ck was lost / / in general clamour and

din . But he was sure / / though he put all his weight and strength an

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Dinner / A plateful, nice / / and plentiful. / / I need not measure

t in that case as in this / / (man and

dinosaur ) / / it is some built-in device, / / some failsafe mechanis

What goes up must come down

mistake / / it was that wiped out the

dinosaurs and their like / / after lording it so long / / (far longe

What goes up must come down

ds. / / I’d have brought the apples of

Dionysus with me / / and worn a wreath of the white poplar, the holy

Spells and Love

ll the warmth / / I have—look? rather,

dip / / deep in the living breath / / of this warm, beautiful / / —

[Now of threescore and ten]

ide grass / / melts to a skyline, / /

dips to a stream. / / Landscape is music: / / the heart’s dream / /

Music is Landscape

ile the grass-skirted poppy-dancer / /

dips to the wind her brilliant head / / by time’s rough gusts soon to

Dance of the Seasons

er again. The noon / / was hidden. His

direction was maintained / / by the thorn-bastion only, which stretch

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ywhere I went wrong. / / Then, all the

dirt out, / / admit me to the furnace. / / After that, nothing. / /

A Hot Bath at Bedtime

dren are stamping the ice-puddles, / /

dirty and sometimes deep. Fountains of muddy / / water are splashing.

[My grandchildren are stamping the ice-puddles]

/ Would even you make a joke of me now,

dirty creature? / / Strew them on, and say “These are Delphis’s bones

Spells and Love

Dirty old brutal bear, / / decencies and affections hanging / / rags

at the sleeper on the other seat. / /

Dirty old men dream young and sweet. / /

meless nothing’s enough. / / I feel so

dirty though, / / I should like to believe God / / will have me on t

A Hot Bath at Bedtime

Disability / “Play it by ear.” / / “But ear is what / / I haven’t go

the years— / / a tower whose far base

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

ounding its gong of boom and slump / /

disaster closed, like madness on a dancer. / /

e other at its core) / / pollute love,

discolour grief. / / But from my old long love now and its grief / /

[Feelings of guilt]

life against death? surely a true / /

discontinuity , estranging / / and yet that mortal moment too / / esc

closing full in man / / breaks down in

discord . God must start again. / / Larch, gorse, rough grass, / / he

Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank

rce of truth, / / through time and two

discursive tongues relayed. / / Much of the rest was vague. He knew t

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

t / / to look it in the face, / / the

disfigured face? / /

/ / preventable slaughter, and on the

disgrace / / of wide preventable want, though such things are / / go

ne would think is / / a fact one can’t

disguise , / / especially violent / / death. But have I learnt / / t

ing images, / / is less a truth than a

disguise . / / Life makes our life, for all we said; / / and looking

we snatch at every short reprieve, / /

disguising from ourselves how ruthlessly / / Age takes everything we

can there be / / the makings here of a

disharmony ? / /

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

/ offered the troubled flesh peace with

dishonour , / / dangerous appeasement, till the mind grew weary. / /

e away / / admiring perhaps, certainly

disliking . / / But today / / meeting your face suddenly, dark photog

Hermes of Olympia

/ / sometimes horrible, / / all to be

dismissed / / when we’re right awake. / / Normally, that is. / / Si

Against Anorexia: For Cathy

s now, and leave / / life as it’s been—

disorderly , / / half-finished, half-begun, hoped, dreamt, / / tomorr

t in the breast, the unnamed wrong / /

dispelled , happiness spreads like a bright spring / / unsummoned, unr

ness / / by bird-notes pierced but not

dispersed / / while easy coolness / / lay aloft against my skin. /

g / / comes bright, washed things will

display / / new beauty, a world singing. / / Morning did come bright

et / / what best and loveliest / / is

disposed of with the waste. / /

is / / a God, and one who’s well / /

disposed to our helplessness. / / All of which may be so, / / but th

Living and Dying

o ring / / but join two points as Time

disposes . / / The lines recur, the poem closes. / /

Man’s Seasons

d may distrain on all, / / the holding

dissipate like sea-spray to thin air. / /

The West of Ireland

can master Fate’. / / His light should

dissipate the looming dark, / / while the embodiment of his jealousy,

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

dwill, / / hardly to be / / before it

dissipates . / / Oh, humanity! / /

l. / / Am I just my dream, in daylight

dissipating ? / /

o breathe your soul into the wind, / /

dissolve and rest.” She smiled: “did I not say / / Anabel sent me? Do

is scissor-fingers picking through / /

dissolve ? Shall all spells be unpicked, or / / all spells but this? M

End of Fairy-Story

ll of joys that last, / / dreams which

dissolve Time’s tyrannous / / one-way of future, present, past. / /

struck blankly on, / / obliterated and

dissolved , / / autumn and evening form again. / /

y, not two selves but a pair, / / half

dissolved in each other, a oneness, aware / / of a mystery—life is no

burst, / / but if the strong straining

dissolves in weakness / / and the walls stay, distilled knowledge gro

Dulce et Decorum / Death’s paradox

dissolves our clear ‘to be’: / / Their not being, having been; yet, h

Dulce et Decorum

. Do you not see / / whiteness pocked,

dissolving in / / commonness, muddy? / / shimmering light lost again

e hill looked down / / over dank green

dissolving into grey, / / dreamed of a dragon or a robber-knight / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ain. Yes, take ship again / / and sail

distance and days, / / beach on an unknown shore. / / Then take an o

remind me that your voice from the far

distance / / is calling me always, and that mine can call / / (burst

Two Poems from a New Life

g by one another, / / but one was at a

distance , / / separately made. / / Before I even saw it / / I trod

from a vast / / difference of age and

distance spun / / out of the chasm of depth and past— / / but surely

Two Poems from a New Life / Time /

Distance / ‘The enemy’ / / people say, / / meaning Time. / / Enemy

Two Poems from a New Life

ong… and blue sea… and on the blue / /

distance , Tiberius’s isle. / / Blood spurts, dries soon… but hot bloo

d, / / he glimpsed remote between blue-

distanced downs / / a faint flat blue, and knew it for the sea— / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

lligible truths / / from inconceivable

distances . / / Not so different / / from what musician, poet, any ar

pping it together, being penned / / in

distant corners of the wide / / acreage that is ours. Surely we / /

[The grass in the next field]

hands, / / harvests a mint of luck in

distant lands, / / returns… The youngest, not the only son. / / He d

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ible way out to the old / / infinitely

distant lost warm hum and glow. / / The long-drawn moment, intolerabl

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ad forests half-ringed by hills, / / a

distant , lovely, rough and empty land. / / Learning from rangers, los

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

n of / / two larger valleys. Wind from

distant snow / / struck deeply chill, but too worn-out for waking /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

xamined / / is unsubtle, unkempt; / /

distant , streaks a field / / with clear puddles of gold. / / Two tru

or her / / painful passion obsessively

distilled . / / Child, happy; princess too. The boy was only, / / at

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

es in weakness / / and the walls stay,

distilled knowledge grows black, / / an unbalance, an ache, / / bree

nd the fountain of delight? / / Waters

distilled , secreted, / / strained through the sand and rich soil of o

house? / / A black brew of stupidity,

distilled / / through stunted generations; yet moving in it / / a bl

/ except where islands lie / / hardly

distinguishable through / / the bluish haze, / / the milkiness. / /

September Cruise

/ from total withering. / / But this

distortion of / / self spoils too much / / —twist induced by the ach

/ How strong she is. The decimations,

distortions / / we are inflicting she’ll turn to her own ends / / an

the teeth of any pain / / which might

distract him. So with naked hands / / he tore at the barbed tightly-w

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

nure? / / where the harsh landlord may

distrain on all, / / the holding dissipate like sea-spray to thin air

The West of Ireland

— / / put out for dragons—in some wild

distress . / / And always at the fatal hour, the bold / / prince to c

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ distressed only by the knowledge of

distress , / / disturbed but not stirred by the prick of shame, / / I

f unrest) / / not so much fear… rather

distress / / knowing so much is done / / badly or left undone, / /

/ / and the consequent / / stress and

distress , / / miseries, misery. / / This being so / / have I the ri

Climacteric by the Sea

arving North and war’s dull flame, / /

distressed only by the knowledge of distress, / / disturbed but not s

og’s bark, / / momently pierce but not

disturb or tear / / the silence of the dark. / / The town is fevered

Country and Town

only by the knowledge of distress, / /

disturbed but not stirred by the prick of shame, / / I watch the worl

g blindly fall / / sometimes into some

ditch one and all. / / Let us at least be kind to our own kind. / /

black unglimpsed / / as some thoughts

dive out of the light. / / Ripples are quickly still. Again seen / /

Water in a Wood

not annulled. Must that long night / /

divide the princess from her womanhood?… / / The story and the vision

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

nioned only / / by the long sharp line

dividing (dun green from black) / / rough immemorial pasture from new

us / / yet not to deny nature; / / to

divine and follow reason / / yet to dare at a moment / / to follow s

ncreased / / by love to one, burn half-

divine . / / Behind the gold and frankincense / / comes myrrh for our

into the night, but not to extend / /

divine order spun from the thoughts of men. / / The dry moon hangs, s

at Arezzo / / over a camera, where all

divine / / Piero’s great frescoes stand.” “Your Italy,” / / I said,

Divinity / Lightly blows / / the hedge-rose, / / sways, clings, / /

) and / / crawled out again, heavy and

dizzy , sank / / down on the beach. / / Later, killed, cooked and ate

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ (He turned them on the raper in the

dock / / of course, but only when she was not there.) / / And kind h

Change Places…

, / / each month for work or less work

docketed , / / only in the King’s hunting-season not / / strictly det

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Responsibility / The

doctor , after the examination, / / before pronouncing the fatal word,

it seemed, had not been well. / / The

doctors talked of country peace—she ought, / / they said, to rest in

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

, to Berlin. / / Sentries, patrol with

dog and tommy-gun / / where crave in their cat’s-cradle of barbed wir

Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank

el snapped clean in two. / / A Turkish

dog came riding, / / his scimitar he drew, / / he swung it high to s

r own spring, / / withered through the

dog -days of Macedon, / / through Rome’s opulent autumn, all but vanis

o primrose, / / bluebell to buttercup,

dog -rose. / / Flower-seasons return / / but not the season’s flowers

he seasons come, the seasons pass. / /

Dog -rose in the hedge is answered / / now by campion in the grass /

Dance of the Seasons

Dog -shit in London; / / New York, chewed gum. / / To each culture-su

tongue break beneath it / / and die in

doggerel ” / / Miranda to Ophelia: / / “How can I understand? / / Li

ack, I saw a little ahead / / a single

dogrose bush by the river’s edge / / pushing its sprays out over the

clear, even out of this skein, / / now

dogrose bushes star the hedges again? / /

dogrose bushes star the hedges again. / / My year passing must change

ross spirit with a steady rein / / now

dogrose bushes star the hedges. Again / / my year passing must change

stubborn… / / —Thestylis, listen! The

dogs in the town are howling. / / Hecate’s come to the cross-roads! C

Spells and Love

your earth-dark Other who has even the

dogs shaking / / as she fleets by over graveyards, over black blood.

Spells and Love

rass the hare. / / Twigs cracking, one

dog’s bark, / / momently pierce but not disturb or tear / / the sile

Country and Town

y, rather a cleverly remade / / pretty

doll . / / Bright bleached hair curves in a cunning fall / / round ma

I lay there, my living body stiff as a

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

Spells and Love

ace of that remained); / / two jointed

dolls of clay; / / likewise of fired clay, half a dozen crocks, / /

till of a shapely / / innocent form, a

dolphin curving clear, / / scattering diamonds. Man was born to hope)

on / / past (they the same) / / eel,

dolphin , weed, / / coral, as when all seas were theirs alone. / / It

we made than what we’re made, / / less

dome and terrace than a tree. / /

Cosmology / The sky is a firm

dome bounding earth’s plain / / whence the inconstant gods send deart

/ and to the star-pricks of the velvet

dome . / / Dazzle of sun out of the sea, loud cries / / of fierce whi

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

e, / / but flight and court and hollow

dome / / melt in each other, melt away, / / Behind the images we com

d. / / Above his feet is spread / / a

dome studded with unfamiliar / / configurations, star by alien star.

ruthfully / / age-traced patterns on a

domed sky? / / A heavier darkness, dull as felt, / / creeps up acros

s, by it another / / of rainbow-varied

domes which, he saw now, / / her knife had shaved. She raised her hea

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

down cry / / lost in the cheers of the

domestic mass / / as they drew still, and out the welcomed pair / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

s look probable / / that the drive to

dominance / / is linked by more than chance / / with a lemming count

What goes up must come down

Hymn / for the wedding of

Dominick and Jo / Through untimed fields of childhood the shadows and

at in this city / / do we share? Best,

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

Winter Recalled / for

Dominick / Wrist locked over wrist, / / wrung hands between knees, /

Winter Recalled

nough] / Time is enough. Death / / has

dominion outside time / / (when nobody measures time / / time is dea

[Time is enough]

, under that unrecording eye, / / have

ust do / / and left it very thoroughly

done . / / A course of life, dear self, which you / / at seventy may

Thoughts on the Lavatory

had reached the ends of the earth, / /

done all in order as the witch had said, / / and now, sitting over th

/ aimlessly certain feet, as you have

done / / always from that first party till we parted / / —your pleas

irm-seeming rocks) / / rives all we’ve

done and all we could / / do, as the car-road rives the wood. / /

no error— / / naked image of what gets

done . / / And yet those silent weavings in the air / / are beautiful

Heron and Gulls

or worse, / / as indeed it might have

done / / at any time before. / / Anyhow, with threescore / / liftin

[Now of threescore and ten]

/ / worshipping us, have you so little

done ? / / at thirty-two I died, at thirty she, / / Humfry Payne thir

rather distress / / knowing so much is

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

/ / Some afternoons he slept, utterly

done , / / but grudged all such delays, the daylight’s waste— / / not

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

of siren autumn?—which listened to, I’m

done , / / caught in the cycle again of seasonal longing, / / winter’

Sixtieth Summer

/ But at such fêtes, that honour may be

done / / duly to deity, fine steers are brought; / / and by the alta

Pelopia and Thyestes

h roses. / / The years of the rose are

done . / / Each year the flowering briar / / has touched this reach o

on / “Die should you now, what have you

done ?” / / Have loved. Say that, and all is said. / / “Not all. What

naked blade came free… / / but he had

done his business and was gone. / / She sat a long time on the stony

Pelopia and Thyestes

/ when mind and hand hold so much to be

done ?” / / I drank his voice and did not think to answer / / but loo

many things (most if not all / / true)

done or left undone to set us wrong. / / The truths we think are not

/ and thought about my life and little

done / / —sensibility dumb and strength unproved, / / the treacherou

ince cried, laughed “Are / / all tasks

done ?”, spells are taken off / / and happy now lives ever after. / /

End of Fairy-Story

End of Fairy-Story / All tasks

done , spells are taken off / / and happy now lives ever after. / / B

End of Fairy-Story

of Time’s warning cough / / all tasks

done , spells are taken off / / this shimmering crest which knows no t

End of Fairy-Story

nd hear just what / / the things we’ve

done , the things we’ve not / / are in an absolute cold light / / to

orld is round, fortunes are made, deeds

done . / / The youngest son sets out with empty hands, / / harvests a

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ are some as cold: all their mutations

done , / / their spectral light’s a lesson to the sun / / on what att

or left undone, / / and if something’s

done well, not knowing at all / / if that can help the scalepan fall.

t so long / / (far longer than man has

done ). / / Whatever it was it was irreparable. / / Also inevitable?

What goes up must come down

l with your hundredth year your life is

done , / / you shall be born the prince for whom time keeps / / the k

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

drop the roses, / / and now before my

donkey -nose is / / nostalgic autumn beckoning / / —the lines recur,

Man’s Seasons

uden, Ransom, Hopkins, the rest / / of

Donne , a little Langland, a lot of Chaucer, / / other Milton (flawed

sman, / / Milton (L’Allegro), Marvell,

Donne / / (Go and catch a falling star), Border Ballads, / / Campion

opped, / / as stood against the starry

donors —loss, / / negation, new-moon darkness—Carabosse! / / And word

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

paint the past so rosy? Wrack / / and

doom along that same roadway would blow. / / Wheatfields fired, a ple

Sur le Pont d’Avignon

really does that; and if, for her, the

doom / / wished on her in the cradle’s overcome— / / the threat whic

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ilderness of snow / / looking in at my

door : / / a face I was in love with long ago, / / a dancer’s face. /

Vision Between Waking and Sleep

Moon, you can move / / Death’s adamant

door , and anything else as stubborn… / / —Thestylis, listen! The dogs

Spells and Love

od and fought his heart / / within the

door , and mastering it in part / / moved, hesitated, afraid to break

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

silent to his knock. / / He pushed the

door and struck a light. No one. / / Empty the single room. On a roug

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ight or nine) / / “went and opened the

door . And there, she said, / / stood a young forester. Utterly worn o

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

hear. / / I stooped, hand on the open

door , but drew / / back as another voice said: “Mama, no; / / there

One, heart in hand, stands at another’s

door , / / but she is busy with her hair. / / One at a sill sighs, bu

e. / / Mind knows Time has closed that

door . / / But still the untaught heart / / would, half believes, /

e (she’s dead now), / / who lived next

door , came and kept begging me / / to come to the show with her, and

Spells and Love

is so pleasant? / / I thought, and the

door closed as I stepped in. / /

r / / so may he turn and turn about my

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

Spells and Love

ar, / / or bored, slip in and slam the

door , / / for we may hate the tower of loneliness / / but still clea

d / / in the wide air, behind a bolted

door . / / From my lone way I could not turn aside, / / yet wrote of

d have gone to sleep happy. But if your

door had been barred / / be sure I’d have come again with torch and a

Spells and Love

d / / his fingers groping felt another

door . / / He found the handle. The small room dazzled him / / with s

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ved by candlelight / / behind a locked

door , hitting / / recalcitrant marble, whittling / / the brute block

s, / / but sensibility locked behind a

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

d him. But if he hurts me / / it’s the

door of Death, please Fate, he’ll be knocking at. / / I’ve bad drugs

Spells and Love

ted / / suddenly by “a knocking at the

door / / one dark night late when they were going to bed. / / My mot

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

’s still night, and knead them into his

door -sill / / and as you do, whisper “It’s Delphis’s bones I’m kneadi

Spells and Love

dark corner of a corridor / / a small

door somehow missed led to a stair, / / low, narrow, black, and twist

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

I’m alive or dead, / / no knock at my

door … There’s someone else. Love’s gods / / have drawn his wandering

Spells and Love

oment I heard his light step through my

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

Spells and Love

/ “Au revoir.” “Au revoir.” I shut the

door . / / They went as might in fairy-story go / / some magic castle

/ But that is far away. / / On our own

doorstep / / (sink that searching gaze) / / stinking jetsam lies. /

out on the garden-grass, not force the

doorway / / —just try. But as for that sister of yours, / / someone

he wrapped his colours” as / / Felicia

Dorothea Hemans says / / “round his breast on a blood-red field of Sp

ing its way. I seem to see a sharp / /

dorsal fin already cutting the air, / / betraying a shark / / (yet d

don’s prison now you turn again / / to

Dorset , Devon, Berkshire, Greece, and quite / / forget the misery of

rve ended at the steep / / rock. There

dossed down, at first uneasily / / but later in a long untroubled sle

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

waves almost, the sanded children / /

dot like sea-birds, sea-shells, the beach, that empty / / accepts the

d by the view, / / the beauteous youth

doth cruelly enjoy. / / Stepped and corridored the town / / white to

September Cruise

the steward / / (a clever thought) as

double -crossing Caesar? / / No. The steward’s master is God, not Caes

at sea, one-tracked, one-sided / / or

double -crossing once, twice and, again; / / but still by personal int

began to understand / / the necessary

double face of fate, / / the two in one, the one and other half / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

he joy / / of being together, / / its

double , its true counterpart. / /

[The clouds that pressed the air]

der and the windy plain. / / We hold a

double talisman—are free, / / first of as many worlds as books, and t

seen through our shifting mood, / / a

double wall of smoke, / / to know fully, judge fairly another heart /

feeling heart, and one / / thing which

doubles those, / / the gift which makes them known, / / felt. But th

“Gale is Dead”

; / / so now, dead, can teach / / our

doubt and shame—sweet / / day and night, / / cloud and sun, stars, /

Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank

not so wide—but born a prince. / / No

doubt compounded of the same material / / as others are, yet there’s

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

, Athenian poor / / climb, for love no

doubt , demonstrably / / for another purpose. / / Marvellous marble h

Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening

/ the beetle is black by nature, and no

doubt / / enjoys life much of the time in its own way. / / My spirit

yearning boy. / / And then a patch of

doubt formed suddenly / / ‘How will the young price know that he is I

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

nds. Most deeply aged / / he could not

doubt her, though he could not see / / anything of her but her sombre

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ht). And somehow I believe / / without

doubt in the absolute being of / / good, beauty, love, / / and that

it says, he never smiled again. / / I

doubt it, though; / / or were it so / / that fixed face was not moul

shall be he’— / / or might be he… The

doubt spread to eclipse / / the joy. But no. The fairy’s word was bon

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ut / / or no way. For he knew beyond a

doubt / / that somewhere in that labyrinth lay his goal. / / Not for

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Those we hate, / / we say, hate us (no

doubt they do) so we / / hate them. And that hatred’s not without rea

d. / / Yet not, deaf Time, before your

doubtful ruth / / in the last instance do we lay our plea: / / our j

great. / / “For happiness a still more

doubtful season: / / we are at war, and as the stage is set / / smal

k’ll / / offend you to see. / / Never

doubting that you do love me / / and long for me as I do / / long fo

[Age’s bony knuckle]

tang / / which held it in the handle,

doubtless of wood / / (no trace of that remained); / / two jointed d

d under it / / a pink sleep, while the

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

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

glimpsed remote between blue-distanced

downs / / a faint flat blue, and knew it for the sea— / / and longed

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

woods, on the wind-shaved sweep / / of

downs , walking, sitting, now listening, / / looking, hours where the

ntact with, the child. / / Looked into

Down’s / / Syndrome features. / / A happening. / / Why ask what it

Ten Seconds on a Tube Platform

ours.” / / “You’re lucky.” “What about

dowries ? Call that luck?” / / “Everything’s arse-up, blast it. Blast

ay; / / likewise of fired clay, half a

dozen crocks, / / five of them black, prettily formed but plain, / /

soft the blue horizon / / from which a

dozen greens melt towards gold. / / Summer and I are neither young no

beleaguered him, and offered him / / a

dozen or a hundred paths to take. / / He’d crossed the stream, he cou

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ Lived happy ever after?… Children?…

Dozens / / of questions where a story finishes / / follow of course.

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Dr Faustus / Things aren’t what they were. / / Man, having mastered e

towards the hills, / / began the long

drag . Day and night and day / / (time lost) closed in fever’s bewilde

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

k just. Quite / / spent, he could only

drag his feebleness / / to a known woodman’s hut there by the stream

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

suddenly deadly sick. / / But still he

dragged and hacked, hour after hour. / / Forced by exhaustion to a mo

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

re was lit. / / He staggered, crawled,

dragged himself to the fire. / / A hunched black figure crouching in

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / The rains of summer’s draggled end

dragged on / / washing the autumn out of leaves and grass / / till a

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

see. / / Hour after hour, hacking and

dragging clear, / / breathing hard, head swimming, while sweat and bl

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

years away. / / The rains of summer’s

draggled end dragged on / / washing the autumn out of leaves and gras

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ot less magic. / / Blue thin brilliant

dragon -flies, / / swallows’ acrobatic flawless flight. / / A fish ju

Water in a Wood

dissolving into grey, / / dreamed of a

dragon or a robber-knight / / against her, of his long and terrible f

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

he toils of sorcerers— / / put out for

dragons —in some wild distress. / / And always at the fatal hour, the

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ike the shifting mist. / / Robbers and

dragons make an easy dream. / / How can a hero find a way to fight /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

as soon / / as entered, gone; / / yet

drags his feet / / down grey boredoms, the grim wait; / / always his

Two Poems from a New Life

/ / that the tired nag / / stumbles,

drags / / rambling feet, / / won’t, can’t / / keep the pace you wan

Against Anorexia: For Cathy

ciousness that night / / is coming, to

drain all colour from a cold world. / /

What Do They Feel?

not drown / / the blaze, but seemed to

drain it of all power. / / A stiff, a frozen silence settled down /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ from railway, gasworks, factory and

drain / / past wordy Westminster to the mined sea, / / who know Scam

/ And images of violent vividness / /

drained his life to themselves: a river, wet, / / shining against a f

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / Form of the sacrificial Man, / /

drained of urgency and pain, / / timeworn image, will not fix / / th

Stray Thoughts at a Wedding

window, quite alone, / / the princess

drank a moment’s peace from it. / / Half the courtyard was moonlit, h

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

st in the heart. / / Rapt Mary sat and

drank all he could give. / / Martha was tired and cross and so to bla

/ / dropped in the shallows—kneeling,

drank and drank / / (the fresh river thrusting the ebb-tide) and / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

s spread. / / He did not wait his host—

drank and fell to / / on the hard victuals (they were far from new /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

e leaf-mould and slept. / / Waking, he

drank deep from his water-flask / / but would not pause to hunt or co

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

d hand hold so much to be done?” / / I

drank his voice and did not think to answer / / but looked and looked

ped in the shallows—kneeling, drank and

drank / / (the fresh river thrusting the ebb-tide) and / / crawled o

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ttering chandeliers / / (and dark past

draped glass, Les Misérables). / / Then, 1870. / / Sedan, Paris besi

le wrought / / to perfect intricacy of

draperies , / / perfection of sorrow in the flower-face. / / The youn

let-le-Duc, Dumas fils, / / red velvet

drapes , glittering chandeliers / / (and dark past draped glass, Les M

ping gay unheeded time / / to guide in

draughts and grease (rooms over shops) / / rude Master Tom’s and prim

La Fontaine et le Déluge

poor / / the princes lolled about the

draughty hall / / shouting for more wood on the fire, for light / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

spring new flowers in the garden, / /

draw green afresh out of the creaking wood. / / Yet not, deaf Time, b

no wife and now no maiden either. / /

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

Spells and Love

s or Medea’s or blonde Perimede’s. / /

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

Spells and Love

flesh waste so in consuming fire. / /

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

Spells and Love

are Delphis’s bones I’m strewing”. / /

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

Spells and Love

sucking the dark blood out of me. / /

Draw him, bird-wheel, draw him (you know who) to my house. / / I’ll p

Spells and Love

t’s Delphis’s bones I’m kneading”. / /

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

Spells and Love

ross-roads! Clash the brass quick! / /

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

Spells and Love

eaking away from sport and friend. / /

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

Spells and Love

forgot Ariadne for all her beauty. / /

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

Spells and Love

ay he turn and turn about my door. / /

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

Spells and Love

iden either. / / Draw him, bird-wheel,

draw him (you know who) to my house. / / As the flame melts this wax

Spells and Love

Perimede’s. / / Draw him, bird-wheel,

draw him (you know who) to my house. / / Barley-grains first shrivel

Spells and Love

suming fire. / / Draw him, bird-wheel,

draw him (you know who) to my house. / / Bran goes on next. Artemis,

Spells and Love

m strewing”. / / Draw him, bird-wheel,

draw him (you know who) to my house. / / Delphis hurts me. And this b

Spells and Love

d out of me. / / Draw him, bird-wheel,

draw him (you know who) to my house. / / I’ll pound a lizard and mix

Spells and Love

m kneading”. / / Draw him, bird-wheel,

draw him (you know who) to my house. / / Now I’m alone. / / How did

Spells and Love

brass quick! / / Draw him, bird-wheel,

draw him (you know who) to my house. / / The sea is quiet now, the wi

Spells and Love

and friend. / / Draw him, bird-wheel,

draw him (you know who) to my house. / / This fringe from Delphis’s c

Spells and Love

her beauty. / / Draw him, bird-wheel,

draw him (you know who) to my house. / / This maresbane grows in Arca

Spells and Love

out my door. / / Draw him, bird-wheel,

draw him (you know who) to my house. / / Three libations to you, lady

Spells and Love

h Summer / Still the spiralling seasons

draw me on. / / But since the shears must snap and my time stop / /

Sixtieth Summer

angles, light at last upon a clue, / /

draw one strand clear, even out of this skein, / / now dogrose bushes

ddenly whiten. / / In memory’s chest a

drawer full of certain treasures. / /

hers) a masterpiece / / of shaping and

drawing . / / These were lifted from a girl’s grave, / / put there by

Nijinsky / / / The cordon

drawn / / about the isolated brain grows tight. / / Roads closed, wi

down on the collarbone, hangs / / the

drawn body of a young / / girl. / / I see Anne Frank / / on the cro

Stray Thoughts at a Wedding

es, / / I saw a tall girl, and not yet

drawn close / / knew Molly and stood still. “But this once more is /

e’s someone else. Love’s gods / / have

drawn his wandering fancy away from me. / / I’ll go tomorrow to Timag

Spells and Love

t lost warm hum and glow. / / The long-

drawn moment, intolerably taut, / / suddenly loosens to a blessed lig

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

oving from loving hands / / inexorably

drawn / / moves mastered by an inner law, / / a narrow supple vixen

orror-blunt, horror-blind / / —a sword

drawn on a mother, / / a daughter’s innocence / / perverted to a too

Pelopia and Thyestes

. / / The boy went shivering, his belt

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

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

r crushed out of the casual world, / /

drawn to the river but from it still withheld, / / take by its side t

, Wyatt. A little later on / / Lycidas

draws ahead of L’Allegro / / as The Ancient Mariner of Kubla Khan. /

in the plain Napoleon or Pericles / /

draws to the drill-ground the flower of life and land. / / The shephe

life. Afraid, afraid went back, / / a

dreadful journey, sick and almost mad, / / across the dreadful mounta

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

y, sick and almost mad, / / across the

dreadful mountains to his home / / and found the worst. Returned on t

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ling, calling him, / / and turned—with

dreadful pain, for what he loved / / lay on, away from her, and yet w

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

s acts and sufferings seem / / equally

dreadful , yet / / I love man and his dream. / /

I have spoiled my world / / for a bad

dream . / /

dry-eyed to the puzzling presence of a

dream . / /

from the flame? / / New wings for its

dream . / /

d night / / they mark his bondage to a

dream . / /

y dreadful, yet / / I love man and his

dream . / /

/ restored in me… Innocence through a

dream ? / /

[Restoration of innocence in a dream]

d not slept / / nights, days) saw—in a

dream ?— / / a girl come to the stream / / and strip herself. He leap

Pelopia and Thyestes

ed battlements recalling / / story and

dream … A sadness in your silence / / recalls me to mounded sand. A wi

leaf, dark but clear, / / a Claude, a

dream . / / A sword was never tossed in here, / / and if it were / /

Water in a Wood

e municipal building stood square in my

dream : / / a white stone façade of Edwardian baroque. / / In letters

[The municipal building stood square in my dream]

hat is it / / that makes an adolescent

dream all day / / of warm companionship, friendship and love, / / bu

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

d his home, / / his occupation and his

dream , all gone. / / Would he, from lack of will to live, have let /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

s of trouble, good / / years, years of

dream / / and doing, thought and love, / / all sheared by a fall /

Die Weisse Rose

/ all his long age the scene—clear as a

dream / / and, like a dream, framed in obscurity. / / Out of the pos

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

h. All dreams. But even / / moments of

dream are moments passing—time / / moves to our meeting with the star

e next four years lent him less time to

dream / / being apprenticed to a tough old man, / / huntsman and woo

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

love was not that dredged from her deep

dream , / / but any love’s a wind-break when gales bend / / the unsea

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

gend and life, by sail / / or steam or

dream driven, / / criss-cross the seas. / / The sea remains / / ind

dream, keep / / the stall, sleep, / /

dream , eat. / / Let the day-dream / / have its day / / till suddenl

Against Anorexia: For Cathy

Words from a Dream / Words from a

dream ‘For ever / / the field is hollow now’. / / What is a hollow f

Words from a Dream

scene—clear as a dream / / and, like a

dream , framed in obscurity. / / Out of the positive blackness of the

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

street gone from the fresh earth like a

dream ; / / freshness and silence of the country night. / / I spoke:

oused the prince brutally from his deep

dream . / / From the south-east the squall struck his port beam / / a

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

dies lightly touching. Waking, / / the

dream gone you shall keep the sweetness. / /

ike death, but in the dawn touched by a

dream / / half apprehended as he woke. He moved / / through the moun

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

leep, / / dream, eat. / / Let the day-

dream / / have its day / / till suddenly / / clouds thin / / under

Against Anorexia: For Cathy

The prince’s bride’… That was a fevered

dream . / / He looked down at the flasks, the bow, the quiver / / and

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ Sick with the knowledge of a hopeless

dream / / he looked the other way, towards the sea, / / and once aga

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

re to do / / than any life has time to

dream ,” he said. / / “Many, many the things I meant, and few / / I m

slight and lovely form / / was all his

dream . He stood and fought his heart / / within the door, and masteri

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

. / / Robbers and dragons make an easy

dream . / / How can a hero find a way to fight / / needle or thorn? T

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

red, jet-lagged, half dreaming. Is it a

dream ? / / I turned and saw a little way off a bench, / / a man and

dream] / Restoration of innocence in a

dream … / / I woke happy, and though / / a backwash of regret / / (a

[Restoration of innocence in a dream]

/ waste, humanity gone / / and all our

dream . / / If, considering this, / / we can suppose it is / / a sta

lf a substance still. / / Am I just my

dream , in daylight dissipating? / /

nd cool hands / / were all he dared to

dream in woman. / / The statue underneath the stays / / waited in ma

John Ruskin’s Wedding Night

hough / / a backwash of regret / / (a

dream is a dream, no / / more) remains, yet / / the dream pervades t

[Restoration of innocence in a dream]

Shelved / That dream, like many another

dream , / / is now no longer a what-might-still- / / be (though you k

the quiver / / and the cold ash. All a

dream it was not. / / These and the message had been given him. / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

seemed to have lain down, dropped into

dream , / / just now. Her face was from him, but the head / / bright

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

m amble home / / in his own time; / /

dream , keep / / the stall, sleep, / / dream, eat. / / Let the day-d

Against Anorexia: For Cathy

is not, / / not quite, the image of my

dream .” / / Lifetimes later, / / visions half-realised littering his

dream , like many another dream, / / is now no longer a what-might-sti

/ / and the established tyranny of his

dream , / / more solid and more hopeless than before. / / For her, th

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

omething move… / / so whisper-faint… a

dream ? / / No—if intangible, / / still a warm presence at his side /

a backwash of regret / / (a dream is a

dream , no / / more) remains, yet / / the dream pervades today. / /

[Restoration of innocence in a dream]

/ / drew quickly near. / / That was a

dream of contraries. / / Our goal’s before us, and / / —yet “Who wou

Through the Looking-Glass

he unbroken cliff / / held him as in a

dream on either side. / / And every day at noon came the white flight

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / —childhood, innocence, love, / /

dream ; passing, perishing / / —passing, perishing all / / from us, r

[What words are there for Spring?]

am, no / / more) remains, yet / / the

dream pervades today. / / In some way / / something does seem / / r

[Restoration of innocence in a dream]

… But what for them? A sleep without a

dream ? / / Rather, without a dreamer. They do not sleep. / / Body, b

Dulce et Decorum

[Restoration of innocence in a

dream ] / Restoration of innocence in a dream… / / I woke happy, and t

[Restoration of innocence in a dream]

/ on love—not the half-child’s romantic

dream : / / some deep unknown knowledge of love, her rare / / spirit

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Dream / Something withheld him from lifting the spade to strike / / t

e air, / / betraying a shark / / (yet

dream still of a shapely / / innocent form, a dolphin curving clear,

/ Laurence,” he said. No more than in a

dream / / surprised, I listened to the faint guitar. / / Down to the

ffs, and thoughts and dreams. / / More

dream than thought, inconsequently ranging / / from lunch to love, fr

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

unreal scheme, / / no more live by the

dream , / / the light that lies and blinds. / / Open your eyes, and y

— / / she simply had no footing in his

dream . / / The little one perhaps was prettier, / / certainly sharpe

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

e municipal building stood square in my

dream ] / The municipal building stood square in my dream: / / a white

[The municipal building stood square in my dream]

/ / where now an otherworld of art or

dream / / (the spirit’s two alembics) lies / / built out of frost an

/ / his weariness, and slept without a

dream . / / The way was harsh but he was viable. / / Wind-bitter nigh

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ared toil and danger made part of their

dream . / / Then the hills parted, and the river came / / broader and

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

flight / / across the flat fenland. No

dream — / / this is today and I am I. / / No swan, though, is just a

[Why do I dream this pause] / Why do I

dream this pause / / more likely than another / / to be the end? Bec

[Why do I dream this pause]

dream this pause] / Why do I dream this pause / / more likely than an

[Why do I dream this pause]

n awake I seem / / from the depth of a

dream / / to know that hollow field. / /

Words from a Dream

scents, colours, notes, the whole / /

dream -treasury of the soul. / /

/ kick in the darkness of an imageless

dream , / / trying your strength. Rapt stranger / / what is your sex,

Dream under a Carob-tree / They dance in rings, dancing, a ring of wom

Dream under a Carob-tree

e something not known to be remembered (

dream , / / unremarked word) / / suddenly significantly recovered, /

Yeats and Water-Birds

/ To each a tower: fanatics have their

dream / / —Utopia or the martyr’s palm— / / The chatterers have thei

e sun change on the wave, / / and in a

dream was home again, and boasted / / to the princess bending intent

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

—can only dress our longing thought in

dream , / / weak tissue woven / / of past and hope, of echo left on e

/ Landscape is music: / / the heart’s

dream / / weaves with what we see / / and beguiles us. / / Nature i

Music is Landscape

wide horizon round it: / / action and

dream were centred on the sea. / / His nurse would carry him along th

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

. / / That’s a delusion. / / While we

dream we’re conserving, / / all the time our own / / feet and hands,

now’. / / What is a hollow field? / /

Dream -words do not allow / / analysis, or yield / / meaning to the c

Words from a Dream

Dream / Words from a dream ‘For ever / / the field is hollow now’. /

Words from a Dream

r on the other seat. / / Dirty old men

dream young and sweet. / /

te for passion, for all perfection / /

dreamed and unwon: the only ivory tower / / to build for middle age.

uddenly that vision of the sea / / and

dreamed escape sprang back to him. Still less / / now than before he

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

el / / blind, obedient conformity, the

dreamed ideal / / hardened into a stony tyranny? / / Just such a vil

so eternal, so unknown / / behind all

dreamed impossible precisions) / / to the other penny-face of the sam

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

meant, and few / / I made; and much I

dreamed is mine and lost, / / but some waits others, and of those are

r dank green dissolving into grey, / /

dreamed of a dragon or a robber-knight / / against her, of his long a

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ing / / curled between two boulders he

dreamed of love. / / The sun still mountain-hidden in high day, / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

gasping, sat there in the sun / / and

dreamed of the princess, and watched the root / / of a green tree gra

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

, as day / / climbed and declined. And

dreamed of the princess. / / Watched, heard, the water churning round

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

t with its otherness. / / But while he

dreamed senses and limbs were learning. / / The other way the rare-pa

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

y days are lost / / through which they

dreamed their way along that stream, / / learning to know each other

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ight he could / / stumble on still (as

dreamer still he was) / / but must do more than watch the seasons pas

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

without a dream? / / Rather, without a

dreamer . They do not sleep. / / Body, borrowed from matter, to matter

Dulce et Decorum

everal more / / follow her skill. One,

dreaming after these, / / treads in the slippery mess, skids to her k

Pelopia and Thyestes

ming island / / shrinks and hazes, and

dreaming ghosts of islands / / rise half perceptibly. / / World is n

September Cruise

ry?” / / I was tired, jet-lagged, half

dreaming . Is it a dream? / / I turned and saw a little way off a benc

. / / East we fare, and the rock-bound

dreaming island / / shrinks and hazes, and dreaming ghosts of islands

September Cruise

/ against the glare, he drowsed, half

dreaming yet / / guiding the tiller—whence he had embarked / / withd

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ell asleep as she was speaking. No / /

dreams , a deep, sweet, long slumber. When the sun / / woke him, he sa

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

e Pangbourne on the middle Thames) / /

dreams across the valley to Sulham woods; / / the second at Saunton—w

humbs / / absorbed the book of his own

dreams . / / And, once met, one or both may yet in fear, / / or bored

eye, / / on ear, on parted flesh. All

dreams . But even / / moments of dream are moments passing—time / / m

ares no cypress. / / Misty willow / /

dreams by the river, / / drops a soft shadow. / / You, in your other

Five Poems for Roni

to their end; / / who here not even in

dreams can reach the fields / / of peace and hope, / / when up from

/ to walk in with his world of hidden

dreams — / / cold, though, and hungry. These bad seasons thinned / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

to sink without trace. / / Man and his

dreams dead. / /

ll, and its ruts are less true than our

dreams . / / In the business of living, its failures and gains, / / l

/ / whose heat can forge a world from

dreams : / / love—love of God, since God is love; / / and love of man

/ those kindly features now in her bad

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

Change Places…

ing changeless cliffs, and thoughts and

dreams . / / More dream than thought, inconsequently ranging / / from

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Cassandra’s Song / Beauty and

dreams of beauty flourish. / / Earth leans and the leaves turn / / a

Cassandra’s Song

Dreams of good / / drown in angry blood. / / Romeo and Juliet, / /

n vermin, cherishing the deer. / / His

dreams shrank further into fantasy. / / The hind mates only with the

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Dreams / That ghosts come home… Things I don’t believe / / I still li

hunting. / / He walked drowned in his

dreams . Then a red flame / / smote him—light on the leaves across a c

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

know the spell of joys that last, / /

dreams which dissolve Time’s tyrannous / / one-way of future, present

y child, / / timid, he walked his long

dreams with a friend / / who’d share his joy and pain, who’d lead, or

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ncess, / / the fated child of many day-

dreams ’ yearning / / whom he must somehow save. The vision rose / /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / half-finished, half-begun, hoped,

dreamt , / / tomorrow there behind today. / / To get it ordered, roun

ak moor. / / We followed on across the

dreary circus, / / pit where the sordid alleys of the poor / / march

ley / / towards High Holborn, tired, a

dreary road. / / But moonlit on the bridge the statues were / / like

gratitude. / / This love was not that

dredged from her deep dream, / / but any love’s a wind-break when gal

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

calling / / another to see some trove

dredged from the water, / / unaware as waves almost, the sanded child

pe / / he turned again. Descending, to

dree out / / his weird at home, walked through the black night home.

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

metus, / / colour luminous through sun-

drenched days, / / cold dew, shelly horns, bulls walking pastures /

since we burned the maid at Rouen) / /

drenched the brush with petrol round the mountain hide-out / / of Gre

oks no mist. / / Where are streams and

drenched woods? Where is the rain? / /

Varangian in Mickelgard

/ —I went colder than snow all over. A

drenching sweat / / stood on my forehead like dew and trickled down.

Spells and Love

/ / did go, wearing my best long linen

dress / / and Cleurista’s wrap borrowed to set it off. / / These are

Spells and Love

, skids to her knees, / / gets up, her

dress and hands dripping with gore. / / Red smears down her white ski

Pelopia and Thyestes

from the aching place, / / put the wet

dress back on. She hid the sword, / / seeming to hide her knowledge a

Pelopia and Thyestes

bowed woman, busily engaged. / / Black

dress , black scarf over her bent head, black / / thick gauntlets on h

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

n / / shining sequins on a white gauze

dress ? / / I do not know— / / old, old, infinitely old and long ago.

l have. But they shall be no use.” / /

Dress it how you may; / / in plain words, what no one gave / / this

“Gale is Dead”

et again? We do not know / / —can only

dress our longing thought in dream, / / weak tissue woven / / of pas

wrung the water from her blood-cleared

dress , / / sluiced her own dried blood from the aching place, / / pu

Pelopia and Thyestes

n the foam below / / like sequins on a

dress —where have I seen / / shining sequins on a white gauze dress? /

of a green tree grappling the rock. And

dressed / / and clambered nimbly up the cliff and on. / / High on th

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ropped the sails and lashed the tiller.

Dressed / / and wrapped up in a rug he slept until / / the summer da

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

sun moves the innocent band / / white-

dressed , green garlanded, under the blue / / bright sky, keeping thei

Pelopia and Thyestes

tall beautiful girls / / both in white

dresses / / walking in the dusk / / under wide trees / / of a well-

a / / shot from beneath the bridge and

drew along. / / A bright-haired girl laughing jumped out: “good-bye,

/ I stooped, hand on the open door, but

drew / / back as another voice said: “Mama, no; / / there isn’t room

nd knifed it from the stone. The pricks

drew blood, / / and this time too he thought of the princess / / but

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / with coarse grass—pricked him and

drew blood. He smiled / / thinking of her who now was safe at home. /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

h dog came riding, / / his scimitar he

drew , / / he swung it high to strike me / / —I caught and held it hi

, but late afternoon / / dry and still

drew her down a forest-track. / / The trunks rose black out of the le

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

unt or cook. Eating / / could wait. He

drew his knife, and carefully / / began to cut his way. He forced the

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

here leaned a man against the light and

drew . / / I looked across his arm, and having set / / eyes on the wo

reast now, nearly, of the cape / / and

drew in closer. Huge cliffs black and red, / / footed in shifting foa

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

t last she turned her back, and so / /

drew quickly near. / / That was a dream of contraries. / / Our goal’

Through the Looking-Glass

heers of the domestic mass / / as they

drew still, and out the welcomed pair / / stepped in their beauty dow

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

n the image of her old / / face as she

drew the memory up, he saw / / the beach, the river, with those other

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ight, and sound on waking / / of water

dribbling , drifting mists, sharp heather / / black through the snow—t

ot blood still / / reliquifies the sun-

dried blood. / /

ood-cleared dress, / / sluiced her own

dried blood from the aching place, / / put the wet dress back on. She

Pelopia and Thyestes

wept a bit, / / then, feeling better,

dried her eyes—as well / / she did—“The Queen—Long live the King—The

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ broke to a torrent summer had not yet

dried . / / On hard bare feet she hurried down the hill. / / The madd

Pelopia and Thyestes

ood, / / all springs of earth and life

dried soon, / / leaving a dusty cavernous lump gaping / / at the sun

ce, Tiberius’s isle. / / Blood spurts,

dries soon… but hot blood still / / reliquifies the sun-dried blood.

e / Leaves on a felled tree / / do not

drift away / / to earth and slow decay— / / cling unnaturally / / s

a view of history: / / public affairs

drift by with public men, / / self-seeking or at sea, one-tracked, on

ndings may / / sometimes (we’re human)

drift our way / / but surely we shall never let them build / / into

[Yes, you’re right]

te— / / seagulls he shot and cooked on

drift .” The harsh- / / screaming seagulls were all the life he’d seen

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

reeze, and on a quiet sea / / the boat

drifted from the last impulse on… / / So. This way too… Suppose the w

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

e lost your way; / / their course your

drifting —and that brings no true / / peace, but slow fretting which i

chance / / or captained by a fool / /

drifting drove on this shore. / / These are no ship. / / When tide f

ound on waking / / of water dribbling,

drifting mists, sharp heather / / black through the snow—the frozen w

/ / whiteness loosening, falling, / /

drifting on partial wind / / petal from white petal: / / image of ev

[What words are there for Spring?]

g low / (for L) / Far down past melting

drifts of cloud / / remote and faint lies mother earth. / / Above th

to serve that violent lust, / / crack.

Drifts over sky, / / drops over all at last, / / contaminated dust.

seams uncaulked, thin sails torn, / /

drifts shuddering in the gloom / / of the increasing storm. / / Must

his breakfast, roasted / / on old dry

driftwood from the high-tide mark. / / He ate, and watched the sun ch

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Napoleon or Pericles / / draws to the

drill -ground the flower of life and land. / / The shepherds of Parnes

my bus. / / Comforting glow, warmth of

drink , food / / begin to fade. / / Lovers close, held together, feud

[Wind is chilly on shoulders]

/ / I’ll pound a lizard and mix an ill

drink for him / / tomorrow. But now, Thestylis, take the ashes / / w

Spells and Love

say. / / I bring him food, I bring him

drink —he pushes them away. / / I spread him blankets, pillows—“Sit up

Greek Folk Song

is laid on us: worse / / than women or

drink / / is laughter, is sobbing. / / Who killed Cock Robin? / / C

own-ups lounge out / / from the pub to

drink on the wall / / or sit on the beach or walk, / / young and mid

Climacteric by the Sea

on my heart / / are quite away. / / I

drink the brilliance, am a part / / of this cold, rare / / new day.

[The clouds that pressed the air]

he blood. / / When he had let Tiresias

drink / / the old ambivalent spirit spoke: / / “You shall win home /

Monday morning early / / we found the

drink was out / / —the Captain had to pick on me / / to fetch anothe

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

/ from the Greek / That time we started

drinking / / early on Saturday / / and went on over Sunday / / and

it is my bread, / / and even when I’m

drinking my spear is ready. / / My shield (not its fault) is making s

Two Songs of a Mercenary

er / / —always rain, rough in a storm,

dripping / / gently, a cloud. Water—always the sea, / / dark slate u

Varangian in Mickelgard

nees, / / gets up, her dress and hands

dripping with gore. / / Red smears down her white skirt, the red of s

Pelopia and Thyestes

ess—Carabosse! / / And words like cave-

drips from her cold mouth dropped: / / “All remembered but I? And all

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

w than light / / but broken brilliance

drips through / / touching the shade to life / / as suddenly a refle

[High boughs arch over the half-dry creek]

r back to town. / / The boy, under the

drips which did not wet her, / / wandered the woods, or from the hill

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

dling always closer, must perforce / /

drive on the rocks at last, and that be all. / / The boat staggered u

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

of the truths of day. / / Let the ship

drive through the keyhole of a star. / /

/ it does look probable / / that the

drive to dominance / / is linked by more than chance / / with a lemm

What goes up must come down

re to care, / / his obsessive, his mad

drive to go / / on down the same old way, / / hell-bent to destroy /

ned chill the worse than poor, / / the

driven and lost, / / who cast or crushed out of the casual world, /

nd life, by sail / / or steam or dream

driven , / / criss-cross the seas. / / The sea remains / / indiffere

Sur le Pont d’Avignon / Timbers

driven deep through summer-slack / / water, through mud; winter’s boi

Sur le Pont d’Avignon

fret. / / The empty-bellied, the still

driven poor, / / who yearly add to what they would forget, / / feel

/ / The horses swerved as the skilled

driver swung / / the heeling coach home through a needle’s eye / / i

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

abits which, the father said, / / were

driving him and her mother nearly mad. / / The neighbours say: We kne

but under a wave. / / The lifted water

driving over him / / he fought the tiller’s will. At last it gave /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

the rose light in the hedges to lift or

droop / / over the fields of daisy and buttercup, / / freshness, cle

Sixtieth Summer

rs with torn edges / / and honeysuckle

drooping antlered sprays / / pink, gold and white, sweetening the lig

race / / in mind or eye. / / Glowing,

drooping in spirit and in face / / momently like a flower / / they t

The Lilies of the Field

/ / compassed the cosmos once, now let

drop / / is seemingly simply not. / /

gather / / you, form and soul, in this

drop , mingled straight / / from love’s well and the fountain of delig

her, and soon he must, / / he thought,

drop on the dead-leaf silt, give up, / / give in, lie down and not ge

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

er settles in. / / Now from the hedges

drop the roses, / / and now before my donkey-nose is / / nostalgic a

Man’s Seasons

/ colourless dull words again. / / But

drop them in your heart, see / / how brilliant they appear. / /

oy’s / / heart leapt—‘She loves…’—then

dropped again: a love / / for here, not him. The hind could only scor

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

rds like cave-drips from her cold mouth

dropped : / / “All remembered but I? And all so quick / / to bless? A

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ked company, / / sailed on. The Sirens

dropped and drowned, / / the story says. But not for long. / / They

r from new / / did cross his mind) and

dropped flat on the bed. / / Next morning, fit and fresh, the mystery

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

he dark road / / and could no more. He

dropped flat where he stood / / and slept like death on the uneven gr

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

laces. / / Two such buds swelled, / /

Dropped from my child-heart, grow / / there where they were buried lo

zen gaze frighted him long ago? / / He

dropped his eyes from hers to the gloved hands / / which deftly shave

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ thin rough grass of a valley-alp he

dropped / / his weariness, and slept without a dream. / / The way wa

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

yielded only to tear deeper. Then, / /

dropped in a daze, he bled on the leaf-mould / / uncaring, when his e

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

d in where the water met the sand, / /

dropped in the shallows—kneeling, drank and drank / / (the fresh rive

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

him, / / spreading (circles from stone

dropped in water) / / pain; and worse (last / / worst twist and wast

bed. / / She seemed to have lain down,

dropped into dream, / / just now. Her face was from him, but the head

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

f an East-coast estuary. / / The last,

dropped more lately, took deep root / / at Sheepstead, quiet country

circle. Oh fool, fool. / / Worn out he

dropped on the leaf-mould and slept. / / Waking, he drank deep from h

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

gher. / / Sparks, wind-scattered wide,

dropped on what’s thin / / and dry, blaze against the wind again. /

Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville

as lost in a gull’s cry, / / repeated,

dropped , picked up, interminably / / tormenting as he moved along the

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

words the bleak fact of his loss, / /

dropped sharp as new, contorted him with pain, / / its black authorit

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

aw her eyes and knew his error / / and

dropped the knife and backed against the thorn / / his heart contract

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

starry dark was utterly still. / / He

dropped the sails and lashed the tiller. Dressed / / and wrapped up i

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ite. And she cried out, upset, / / and

dropped the shell, which broke. It was enough, / / she broke into a f

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ing, when his eye lit on the shell / /

dropped there unharmed. Vaguely he touched it—leapt / / suddenly, kno

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

the end of seen and known. His eyelids

dropping / / against the glare, he drowsed, half dreaming yet / / gu

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

beside it. Wrinkling fading petals / /

dropping from old flowers, only a few new ones / / coming in their pl

ing, / / dustily, gently flaking, / /

dropping to pieces round her. / / She could not lift a finger / / wi

Mariana in Miniature

/ / gull-tenanted, and soon / / gull-

dropping -white / / on the myth-dark / / sea; that is yet this sea, m

y willow / / dreams by the river, / /

drops a soft shadow. / / You, in your other / / land, tread another

Five Poems for Roni

lust, / / crack. Drifts over sky, / /

drops over all at last, / / contaminated dust. / /

s gulls’ feathers, wrinkles water, / /

drops , still. Break from above into this silence / / out of the outer

the Muses; Evening / The quarried rock

drops to the slums, / / like looking from a train into backyards / /

Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening

the stable-seeming spinning globe / / —

drought -blistered, cyclone-hit, / / quake-riven earth, as though / /

Drought / Deserts are somewhere else. / / Sahara, Arizona, Gobi, / /

he thought, a hedgehog. Curiosity / /

drove him against repulsion. At her side / / a heap of the spined lum

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

cause the blind pain in his breast / /

drove him into the teeth of any pain / / which might distract him. So

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ or captained by a fool / / drifting

drove on this shore. / / These are no ship. / / When tide flows deep

ey cling, this water / / in which they

drown . / /

What Hope? / Dreams of good / /

drown in angry blood. / / Romeo and Juliet, / / Leila and Majnun, /

mechanism, / / that hurries us down to

drown offshore. / /

What goes up must come down

, and a kind of darkness, which did not

drown / / the blaze, but seemed to drain it of all power. / / A stif

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / before another woke her; and knew

drowned / / his brave thought in the pain of powerless love, / / and

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

for the King’s hunting. / / He walked

drowned in his dreams. Then a red flame / / smote him—light on the le

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ hardly beckoned; and he’d been nearly

drowned / / lately, crossing a river he knew well. / / He turned alo

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

h / Cambridge / The North / They burned

drowned Shelley / / on the beach. We on your beach / / raised you a

/ / sailed on. The Sirens dropped and

drowned , / / the story says. But not for long. / / They soar to Lucy

e more the still-miraculous spring / /

drowns as green summer settles in. / / Now from the hedges drop the r

Man’s Seasons

re fleeing / / from spaces where light

drowns at last, / / an ultimate diaspora. / /

/ In widening intervals the wind / /

drowns scattered voices. / / By star and compass these as one / / ke

the wall, / / sets your houses awash,

drowns your creatures, / / your friend, sib, spouse, child, you and y

ids dropping / / against the glare, he

drowsed , half dreaming yet / / guiding the tiller—whence he had embar

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

oler, quieted the pulse’s roar, / / it

drowses . Now among the smoke and stone / / the deadly poor / / settl

Country and Town

s were all the life he’d seen. / / So,

drowsing at the tiller, the boy recalled / / the nurse’s story told h

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ watched bright, cool water flow, / /

drowsing (he had not slept / / nights, days) saw—in a dream?— / / a

Pelopia and Thyestes

/ / A bird sang from a bough / / and

drowsing I began / / to lose my thoughts, and then / / “You fool” fl

te, he’ll be knocking at. / / I’ve bad

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

Spells and Love

f water. / / His chattering fountain’s

The Last Oracle

she slept late, but late afternoon / /

dry and still drew her down a forest-track. / / The trunks rose black

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

ll this slowed him, and his flasks were

dry / / before he reached the river. Feverish / / with thirst and we

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

d wide, dropped on what’s thin / / and

dry , blaze against the wind again. / / Mind shakes to see / / how fi

Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville

creek] / High boughs arch over the half-

dry creek / / deep in its hidden cleft. / / There is more shadow tha

[High boughs arch over the half-dry creek]

[High boughs arch over the half-

dry creek] / High boughs arch over the half-dry creek / / deep in its

[High boughs arch over the half-dry creek]

for his breakfast, roasted / / on old

dry driftwood from the high-tide mark. / / He ate, and watched the su

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

own tears. / / I woke from tears / /

dry -eyed to the puzzling presence of a dream. / /

r body. Touch me, though your hands are

dry . / / Hands seek flowers in April, hands seek coolth in May, / /

Greek Folk Song

pick them out to send to you / / they

dry in the papery air / / colourless dull words again. / / But drop

/ / forward by more than the immediate

dry / / lust for the river. Far beyond it lay / / the fairy-promised

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

spun from the thoughts of men. / / The

dry moon hangs, skull to a Magdalen, / / a mirror to the earth of bea

own haunter, nailed to die / / on the

dry tree, failed love. / /

Stray Thoughts at a Wedding

down a stocking, like flame / / along

dry wood. But flame is beautiful / / —more like the ladder in the sto

Back Room, 1944

n we are pegged here / / for the sun’s

drying and blackening. / / Crows, pies have picked our eye-holes clea

Villon’s Epitaph

nn von Hoffmanswaldau, / / Baudelaire,

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

ounod, Offenbach, Guys, / / Viollet-le-

Duc , Dumas fils, / / red velvet drapes, glittering chandeliers / / (

dise Lost) / / The White Devil and the

Duchess of Malfi, / / Byron’s Juan and Marlowe’s Faustus. / / And gr

sealed in the amber past. / / The ugly

duckling flowered into a swan; / / and if this child’s beauty, epheme

kor Wat, Avila, / / Eiffel Tower, Pont

due Gard… / / … Remove the camera / / and the eyes behind / / are,

Bat / Honour’s

due to the bat. / / Before the hang-glider / / (daring it earlier an

Beyond Measure / Uxorious the

Duke . While Angelo / / nevermore touched poor Mariana’s skin, / / nu

Dulce et Decorum / Death’s paradox dissolves our clear ‘to be’: / / T

Dulce et Decorum

n a domed sky? / / A heavier darkness,

dull as felt, / / creeps up across the pattern, damps / / then blots

/ Between the starving North and war’s

dull flame, / / distressed only by the knowledge of distress, / / di

te most likely, no resources / / but a

dull hope. / / Once each month / / peeling a sodden rag from her bod

War-time Anecdote

/ / he thought, an odd one, hung. His

dull mind played / / with its likeness to a sea-urchin shell. / / Tr

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

t I be content to sink, / / letting it

dull my ears against the song / / of siren autumn?—which listened to,

Sixtieth Summer

printing their darker tone / / on the

dull sky weighed on me as I moved / / and thought about my life and l

dy thought; / / the slow, the shy, the

dull , the worse than dull, / / whose laughter like a leper’s bell /

/ / come—bright or broken day / / or

dull . Though unreturning / / this clear brilliance, it will live unlo

my heart deep and clear / / turns the

dull thoughts lying there / / to shining jewels. But when / / I pick

slow, the shy, the dull, the worse than

dull , / / whose laughter like a leper’s bell / / falls in its own si

y dry in the papery air / / colourless

dull words again. / / But drop them in your heart, see / / how brill

ted, all / / become conventional, / /

dull . Yet Spring is still / / an undimmed miracle, / / season of blo

[What words are there for Spring?]

d life / / of someone there. He stared

dully . Then, late, / / smarted into himself. Before him stood / / an

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

uch fêtes, that honour may be done / /

duly to deity, fine steers are brought; / / and by the altar where th

Pelopia and Thyestes

, Offenbach, Guys, / / Viollet-le-Duc,

Dumas fils, / / red velvet drapes, glittering chandeliers / / (and d

life and little done / / —sensibility

dumb and strength unproved, / / the treacherous laziness of hand and

parted, bird in cage, / / shakes with

dumb power, / / blots a blank page. / /

Love’s Eyes and Hands

ise to a dead man / / by marks on this

dumb stone. / /

the heart sits pinioned, strengthless,

dumb / / the natural angel now. / /

in nature are / / blind to her beauty,

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

y / / by the long sharp line dividing (

dun green from black) / / rough immemorial pasture from new plough, /

turned inland, thrusting through stiff

dune -grass / / which speared him till he bled. Beyond, below / / the

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

oss a plain / / many days more to sand-

dunes and the sea. / / He knew then the two rivers were the same— /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

where a valley- / / stream turned the

dunes , his state was radically / / better than when he’d reached the

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

spread of softer-sanded, spear-grassed

dunes / / miles away to the rivers of Barnstaple. / / Later one lodg

orld was truly won. / / Northwards the

dunes ran straight between the sea / / and broadening plain. To south

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

on glow-worms. Years earlier still, at

dusk , / / fireflies flickered beside the Ionian Sea. / / In that sam

A Hoard / Walking in the darkening

dusk / / I saw the thinnest sliver of a new moon, / / a day or two o

ce resting in the clear / / after-heat

dusk of summer’s first decline. / / “By such a moon we quarrelled at

d eyes, moving like a mouse / / in the

dusk of walls, craved scraps of food and love / / —a sweet little gir

ghed through the wood / / filling with

dusk . She shivered and turned back / / home, but smiled as she turned

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

th in white dresses / / walking in the

dusk / / under wide trees / / of a well-ordered park. / / Like a po

in this story was not, or not yet. / /

Dusk was already filling up the wood / / when an awareness seeped to

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ we met there sometimes—we?— / / at

dusk , would linger… we?… they?… / / later, each separately, / / foun

make their own light. / / Hearth in a

dusky room. / /

ops over all at last, / / contaminated

s was, / / watered, sown, / / is dead

dust and stone. / /

led / / beside whatever carcase in the

dust . / / As first, think of these last: / / this man, this woman, t

Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville

and there; and here; these many in this

dust / / dead. All these dead, and each, one, / / dead in pain. Thin

Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville

/ of wind, and our delightful plan is

dust . / / The loved, the long worked-over, the lived through, / / th

/ Reactors burn. / / Clouds of ruinous

dust / / wander in the random winds. / / We know the father’s sins /

old / / slowly, quietly rotting, / /

dustily , gently flaking, / / dropping to pieces round her. / / She c

Mariana in Miniature

y jump. / / But the gay twenties got a

dusty answer: / / with fear sounding its gong of boom and slump / /

rth and life dried soon, / / leaving a

dusty cavernous lump gaping / / at the sun, at the dead moon, dead as

ier must obey. / / “You to gas-chamber

duty at Auschwitz. You / / to herd the beasts in Belsen. Stamp out th

Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank

ir return. Too old, / / their thoughts

dwell in a vanished world. / / But clear, how clear / / its beauty i

[Some exiles know]

/ / having flatness enough for a small

dwelling , / / hundreds of small dwellings. / / Here, they say, / /

Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening

small dwelling, / / hundreds of small

dwellings . / / Here, they say, / / the poor of Attica, herded in /

Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening

warms, the vast-wheeling galaxies, / /

dwindle to pin-points in speed-gathering flight / / from a lost centr

ds I took turned into lanes, / / lanes

dwindled into paths, / / and where should the path bring me to / / b

n, scattering wide over the water, / /

dwindling , lost. / / Fledged presently, son, daughter, / / circle, t

Out from the Cliff

the boat / / westward, ahead, bright,

dwindling . Were they not / / a guide? At least an omen. ‘I accept.’ /

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

nd so to blame. / / (I speak as a fast-

dyed contemplative, / / but one not quite without a sense of shame.)

ly / / shrivelling on their ties, / /

dying as the tree dies. / / Autumn’s little death, / / winter’s imag

body, has bravery to transcend / / the

dying body, till the body dies. / / Then / / hangs in the air, an in

Five Poems for Roni

e times the rigour / / of exile had me

dying , but the poor / / flesh won and brought me home. I lived and di

t the Jew, / / man, woman, child. (The

dying can be made / / to stack and burn the dead.)” / / We have our

Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank

nly / / not recurring, / / the planet

dying , dead. / / This planet, tiny speck / / circling an only little

tiful and happy, and as the bud / / is

dying into the flower, she shall prick / / her thumb, and all these h

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

/ / died too upon our breath, / / for

dying kills, my brother, / / as certainly as death. / /

[We lived and sang, my brother]

had tossed it in the lake. / / But the

dying king knew better / / and sent him back to the lake. / / He tur

, my love’, and leaning kissed / / his

dying mouth. He died. Or did her love / / raise him to life and set h

The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince

Balance Sheet / Not so much the fear of

dying or of being dead / / (absolute nothingness / / is what we can’

he neighbours say: We knew that she was

dying — / / skin, bone and scared eyes, moving like a mouse / / in th

t was his master’s, / / his master was

dying , the bright circle was broken, / / withdrawn all brightness to

his hands. / / The king his master was

dying , this was his sword, / / the sword was beautiful and it was his

ty, / / truth), most, like Sydney / /

dying , to care for others. / / The image of Sydney's death / / is my

ide. Home, in the garden found / / you

dying . Today, / / bitter beautiful winter / / cycling, past the hosp

speck whirling about a spark / / that

dying traces aimlessly an arc / / across the curving but uncentred da

Dying / We all go under earth / / but not, God help us, before / / i

Living and Dying

d’Avignon / Timbers driven deep through summer-slack / / water, throu

Sur le Pont d’Avignon