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Martin Robertson

Now and Then

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

E

with the starting, slow, / / hesitant,
eager , delicate approach / / of a child who barefoot down a pebble be
Separation
nce of a bond.  / / Yet, inevitably and
eagerly / / we strive towards that absolute, beyond / / our reach, F
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
/ / Alone each listens, holding to an
ear / / an empty shell which whispers of the sea.  / /
Parted
The wily hero, bound / / tight by his
ear -blocked company, / / sailed on.  The Sirens dropped and drowned, /
The Sirens
Disability / “Play it by
ear .”  / / “But ear is what / / I haven’t got.”  / / “Poor dear.”  /
Disability
isability / “Play it by ear.”  / / “But
ear is what / / I haven’t got.”  / / “Poor dear.”  / /
Disability
and hope, of echo left on eye, / / on
ear , on parted flesh.  All dreams.  But even / / moments of dream are m
Separation
were taken from a grave: / / a pair of
ear -rings, gold, simple design; / / a bronze mirror, its shine a roug
Label
arp in the eye, / / words speak in the
ear / / startlingly clear, / / sometimes beautiful, / / sometimes s
Against Anorexia:  For Cathy
ar, its footing firm, / / and tune its
ear , too negligent in peace, / / to hear the still, small voice.  / /
Prayer to Truth
Kenneth Clark, / / how many lifetimes
earlier , / / a fourteen-year-old countess from proud Spain, / / exch
Time’s Reach
Before the hang-glider / / (daring it
earlier and much more skilfully) / / here’s one mammal that / / took
Bat
loving natures learned / / each in an
earlier day, / / something which colours them through.  / / We feel s
[Yes, you’re right]
eeping perhaps to see them so / / than
earlier , / / more in keeping with how I am and feel.  / / Autumn is n
Swallows
valley / / I came on glow-worms.  Years
earlier still, at dusk, / / fireflies flickered beside the Ionian Sea
A Hoard
same seasons / / as last year and all
earlier years spun through.  / / God, if there is a god, may have his
Question
t and strong as a child’s skin) / / of
earliest summer.  This is / / life, which live things by nature / / (
Seasons
the tide, / / coaxed from his parents
early a trim boat / / and an old long-shore fisherman to teach / / t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
come / / suddenly on a briar / / its
early bloom / / offering cups of light.  / / Despair / / is judged b
Upward Turn
/ —born blind, and several months too
early .”  / / But I’d talked enough.  I laid the girl / / down among th
Love Scene
I’m forgetful of:  / / De la Mare very
early , Christina, the other Emily / / —trees specially sacred in the
Poetry
irl’s) and Melixo’s came / / to see me
early , Dawn pink in the sky, / / with lots of stories—and that Delphi
Spells and Love
flies / / shook him with beauty—or the
early night, / / stars contouring a high black mountain’s rim.  / / B
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
way.  He went peaceful to sleep.  / / Up
early , off—a letter left to warn / / his mother—hoped perhaps within
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ek / That time we started drinking / /
early on Saturday / / and went on over Sunday / / and never stopped
A Ballad
a seed / / of great and happy life.  An
early page / / closed my unfinished book; how does yours read?”  / /
The Black-out
Early Train / These fields and trees / / would, if grey clouds were e
Early Train
er stopped all day.  / / Monday morning
early / / we found the drink was out / / —the Captain had to pick on
A Ballad
hical, someone says.  / / But living he
earned this / / beautiful crown of myth, / / this parable of truth. 
Caring
ontent to sink, / / letting it dull my
ears against the song / / of siren autumn?—which listened to, I’m don
Sixtieth Summer
the colours in her hair, / / and in my
ears echoed beyond her word / / her voice, as I walked on towards Lei
The Black-out
essible joy and pain / / from eyes and
ears memorial shadows fade / / in the truth’s presence.  “There is mor
The Black-out
afe at home.  / / And then smote on his
ears the full, strange sound / / muted before—the breakers.  And the w
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
he universe…  / / Listening?  These have
ears / / tuned to another sound-range, eyes which focus / / in a dif
Two Cultures?
’s dark sources / / past that laboured
earth .  / /
The Green Children of Woolpit
there is nothing there.  / / The bodily
earth about us, loud and lit, / / touches the senses, nothing further
That Way Madness Lies
cloud / / remote and faint lies mother
earth .  / / Above the station of our birth / / we ride the sunlight,
From the Air
e missed life / / on this multifarious
earth .  / / Accepting life entails acceptance / / of death to balance
Climacteric by the Sea
uide’s look: “uncorrupted lover / / of
earth and air,” I said, “the grime that palls / / this town must chok
The Black-out
will always run.  / / A little shift in
earth and air’s / / metabolism.  Bareness, / / water runs thin / / t
Drought
water, sap, blood, / / all springs of
earth and life dried soon, / / leaving a dusty cavernous lump gaping
Stones
rocks and sea; rock and pine, / / red
earth and olive, pine and bare rock, / / broken rock climbing to a po
Greece
of the wind / / now, each resolved to
earth and our own good.  / / But search your heart—there you will find
The Black-out
igh barbs, eyed from towers, stain / /
earth and sky with their stench, sky and earth / / black with that ch
Two Poems for G
led tree / / do not drift away / / to
earth and slow decay— / / cling unnaturally / / shrivelling on their
The Difference
le, but even our sick polutions / / of
earth and water and air may be contained, / / may yield a possible fu
Desert Island?
reets and houses cover / / contours of
earth , and water runs by walls.  / / I sought my guide’s look: “uncorr
The Black-out
listered, cyclone-hit, / / quake-riven
earth , as though / / herself were in despair / / at man’s failure to
Antipodes
lot our joy and pain.  / / Life between
earth below and sky above / / is work and breeding and the spark of l
Cosmology
arth and sky with their stench, sky and
earth / / black with that chimney’s cloud.  Squalor and pain / / reek
Two Poems for G
Living and Dying / We all go under
earth / / but not, God help us, before / / inflicting so much hurt /
Living and Dying
a life’s short light / / the temporal
earth .  / / Calm shine some, in whom power and deadweight hold / / a
Lamps
of quiet is strong, / / hours when the
earth can cradle thought asleep, / / content that those we love have
Happiness
you, goddess, and to Hecate, / / your
earth -dark Other who has even the dogs shaking / / as she fleets by o
Spells and Love
ysseus / He had reached the ends of the
earth , / / done all in order as the witch had said, / / and now, sit
Odysseus
Scorched
Earth / I scorched my heart’s earth / / retreating miserably / / bef
Scorched Earth
them all, moves us, through love.  / /
Earth is a speck whirling about a spark / / that dying traces aimless
Cosmology
nd the spark of love.  / / A sphere the
earth is and the sky a sphere / / —no, many spheres; and all, the far
Cosmology
ens now; / / but that thaw showed your
earth is on the swing / / of lengthening days.  Be patient and allow /
The Black-out
uty and dreams of beauty flourish.  / /
Earth leans and the leaves turn / / and things we shall not live to c
Cassandra’s Song
use / / and street gone from the fresh
earth like a dream; / / freshness and silence of the country night.  /
The Black-out
white in the sun / / against the black
earth ; lost in / / the storm now; now here / / too the sleet-wind da
For Cecil
eath / Death is acceptable.  I belong to
earth / / not any heaven.  Do I now sometimes though / / notice mysel
Death
way / / this endlessly absorbing love,
earth .  / / Observe, absorb her faces of night and day / / before the
[Now of threescore and ten]
ull to a Magdalen, / / a mirror to the
earth of beauty’s end.  / / Among those sparklers, set like frozen spr
Macrocosm
Winter Solstice / The tilted
earth pauses, prepares to lean / / the other way.  Our year begins aga
Winter Solstice
Scorched Earth / I scorched my heart’s
earth / / retreating miserably / / before the dark army / / pursuin
Scorched Earth
fill / / you never can) / / beauty of
earth , skill / / of visionary man.  / / Man, who knows / / from natu
Beauty
at they were.  / / Man, having mastered
earth , / / starves and poisons her; / / extends his firman further: 
Dr Faustus
d your heavy stone?”  / / “It’s not the
earth that weighs on me / / nor yet my heavy stone.  / / Was there no
A Ballad
yet you speak and groan.  / / Is it the
earth that weighs on you, / / that and your heavy stone?”  / / “It’s
A Ballad
emselves) / / cuts its way into mother
earth / / till all is empty quarries, shells / / riven by a Caesaria
Mother’s Malison
company’s offered, move / / heaven and
earth to keep out of its way?  / / The young prince liked his cousins
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / the spring’s pulse in the chilled
earth wakening, / / which to returning cold rehardens now; / / but t
The Black-out
e knife.  / / Beast and bandit walk the
earth / / while the hero, careless, bored, / / hunts the gamy hills
Dark Age
/ the twisting heart.  / / See that in
earthquake now and blinding storm / / the spirit’s eye keeps clear, i
Prayer to Truth
unhindered on.  / / This veiling is our
earth’s alone, / / The cloud is climbing on my sky.  / / Star after l
Night
yet, / / and man’s an infant still in
earth’s life-span.  / / If he doesn’t burn the house and himself in it
Greenham Common
ology / The sky is a firm dome bounding
earth’s plain / / whence the inconstant gods send dearth and rain /
Cosmology
stupidity, / / beauty is ours and the
earth’s still.  / /
Beauty
remote / / from this search talked at
ease .  And presently / / they from the boat were calling me: “why not
The Black-out
ze the guilts, the resentments, / / is
easier accepted than a living trouble.  / / I don’t know how to help y
[White foam sweeps]
shield.  I shall get one no worse quite
easily .  / /
Two Songs of a Mercenary
t), but his thought acquiesced / / too
easily in Fate for her to take.  / / Her higher spirit burned rather t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e spend it piecemeal.  / / We love more
easily (mostly) than we hate / / people we know.  We hate in bulk / /
Choice
ed my guide, “you make a cross / / too
easily out of your natural load” / / and added gentler:  “Come.”  We pa
The Black-out
ly practically / / but in myself, more
easily / / than I could ever suppose / / to my empty house.  / / I m
[Living alone is lonely]
ld about us now / / West and South and
East / / all’s not for the best.  / / But that is far away.  / / On o
Causes
son whistled down; the young men, / /
East and West, brothers in blood; / / two men riding out again.  / /
Poetry
his park was the campus / / of a small
East Coast college, / / the girls young academics, / / one as it hap
Grace
ning water, grey / / shining mud of an
East -coast estuary.  / / The last, dropped more lately, took deep root
Bury My Heart
iver, silver at the full of tide.  / / “
East from the sea and Greece, west out of beech- / / woods, Berkshire
The Black-out
her, and the white monastery / / looks
east over the sea.  / / East we fare, and the rock-bound dreaming isla
September Cruise
looked back, and glimpsed, miles to the
east , / / the sea.  He suddenly felt alone and lost, / / homesick, af
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
rom his deep dream.  / / From the south-
east the squall struck his port beam / / and heeled the boat all but
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
tery / / looks east over the sea.  / /
East we fare, and the rock-bound dreaming island / / shrinks and haze
September Cruise
/ (no trees to guide his forest-sense)—
east , west, / / north, south, all points were sullenly the same.  / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Mistress, things I bought / / from an
eastern pedlar, who taught me how to use them.  / / But away, Lady, be
Spells and Love
e as it was before the fall: / / sleep
easy and eat freely, and again / / travel, and watch again Nijinsky j
The Twenties
the curious.  / / And all are here—the
easy and the bright, / / putting quick words to ready thought; / / t
The Party
es pierced but not dispersed / / while
easy coolness / / lay aloft against my skin.  / / Why are we always t
The Grass Road
mist.  / / Robbers and dragons make an
easy dream.  / / How can a hero find a way to fight / / needle or tho
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ke some life your own.”  / / He sighed. 
Easy , he thought, for her to say.  / / She does not know (he thought s
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
mb.”  / / One horror makes another / /
easy , makes heart and mind / / horror-blunt, horror-blind / / —a swo
Pelopia and Thyestes
ernity.  / / That at least (at last) is
easy .  / / Not easy to make work (we are all human) / / but easy to a
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
h fear.  / / Fled are the open sky, the
easy slumber.  / / Now in a narrowing chamber / / we pace and pace an
That Way Madness Lies
o make work (we are all human) / / but
easy to agree necessity of.  / / All are born sib.  / / Brothers and s
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
im nothing within the sea’s reach.  / /
Easy to live below the built wall, / / forget the exiled sea.  / / I
The Wave
The Wave /
Easy to live in the lands above the sea, / / claim nothing within the
The Wave
at at least (at last) is easy.  / / Not
easy to make work (we are all human) / / but easy to agree necessity
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
emed that they must die, / / unable to
eat / / anything put before them, / / till someone saw the girl / /
The Green Children of Woolpit
as before the fall: / / sleep easy and
eat freely, and again / / travel, and watch again Nijinsky jump.  / /
The Twenties
keep / / the stall, sleep, / / dream,
eat .  / / Let the day-dream / / have its day / / till suddenly / /
Against Anorexia:  For Cathy
aradisal pang / / you cannot have your
eaten cake.  / / Then take, oh take your trip with us.  / / We know th
The Sirens
/ The fairy-story hero’s cake / / was
eaten with his mother’s curse.  / / He won through from that first mis
Mother’s Malison
/ but would not pause to hunt or cook. 
Eating / / could wait.  He drew his knife, and carefully / / began to
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ank / / (the fresh river thrusting the
ebb -tide) and / / crawled out again, heavy and dizzy, sank / / down
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ng across / / all argument; and slowly
ebbed again.  / / Numb, cold and utterly worn out, he found / / that
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ His strength and purpose flowed and
ebbed —now weak, / / now firm again, then suddenly deadly sick.  / / B
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
tissue woven / / of past and hope, of
echo left on eye, / / on ear, on parted flesh.  All dreams.  But even /
Separation
lue, shadow of burning blue / / above,
echo of blues that glow / / round us (green, violet) in the sea.  / /
Delos in Spring
olours in her hair, / / and in my ears
echoed beyond her word / / her voice, as I walked on towards Leiceste
The Black-out
passed to the yard within, / / paved,
echoing , empty—on to the great hall: / / tables, stools, hangings, on
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ht, / / and long Whitehall received my
echoing paces, / / the noiseless passage of my friend and guide.  / /
The Black-out
/ or might be he…  The doubt spread to
eclipse / / the joy.  But no.  The fairy’s word was bond, / / should h
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ but helpless till pass by this long
eclipse / / the spirit waits, / / tasting in small what the true suf
Waiting
Ecology / The hawk is beautiful / / but he is built to kill.  / / A c
Ecology
s fishing-grounds.  / / Nature’s brutal
economy holds a mirror / / to human doing, / / unflattering / / com
Heron and Gulls
of Kubla Khan.  / / Soon Yeats—maestro
ed autore— / / Eliot, Auden, Ransom, Hopkins, the rest / / of Donne,
Poetry
nd hill, / / now wind-blown clear, now
eddying round again, / / the founts unquenched, the fumes of brimston
On the Border
Other World / A golden age, an
Eden / / before the growth of wrong / / has haunted human fancy / /
Other World
e, one life, differently viewed / / is
Eden , prison, path of exile, fold.  / / Who happy kiss within / / to
A Window
t, / / standing within the dark tree’s
edge , and could / / see nothing first, but slowly the dim light / /
The Black-out
s, / / grease wiped from rifles, a new
edge ground on spears / / —a stack of polished shells or polished shi
On the Border
; / / recurring terror of the unfenced
edge , / / meaningless life; and love’s affirming faith.  / /
Wedding Night
re a wild rose-bush flowers / / at the
edge of a copse.  / / Monstrance and Host in the grass / / wink at th
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
romontory.  / / And all along that flat
edge of flat land / / a young man journeying.  A sense of loss, / / p
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
f by the defence.  / / The deadly knife-
edge of his tongue and look, / / feared by so many, he concealed from
Change Places…
ything, we must be / / stupid over the
edge of idiocy.  / /
Consider
pretending rather— / / this isn’t the
edge of the school playing-field / / but a corner of a garden (before
Summers
/ a single dogrose bush by the river’s
edge / / pushing its sprays out over the dark smooth water, / / mark
Omens
hunger to out-hurry time.  / / The sea-
edge solution, salty, bloodwarm, / / lay quick with life, with love,
Full Circle
ishes / / in night, marking the unseen
edge , / / the moon’s dark circle / / which joins her crescent-tips. 
September Cruise
blinding blue of sky; diamond air / /
edge to knife-edge with the naked rock / / breaking down in a pine-to
Greece
ng / / or walk far out by the ripples’
edge , where children / / paddle and shout.  The waves rustle.  Yet sile
For Rachel
of sky; diamond air / / edge to knife-
edge with the naked rock / / breaking down in a pine-torrent of green
Greece
se cliffs, those cliffs, curb that sand-
edged plain?  / / He groped.  A glimmer, sinking.  If it fails, / / dar
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / among blackberry-flowers with torn
edges / / and honeysuckle drooping antlered sprays / / pink, gold an
The Grass Road
d beach / / through the frothing water-
edges / / that came and went, that come and go.  / / Do I make too mu
Climacteric by the Sea
lin, / / Rome and Carthage, London and
Edinburgh .  / / The world goes round and the words come round again.  /
On the Border
my dream: / / a white stone façade of
Edwardian baroque.  / / In letters of gold from an architrave block /
[The municipal building stood square in my dream]
float on / / past (they the same) / /
eel , dolphin, weed, / / coral, as when all seas were theirs alone.  /
The Sea
/ all seeming happenings here a chance
effect / / of happenings there (and so on).  / / But on the simplest
Credo
Honour this radar, this / / contrived
effective wing.  / /
Bat
time it took / / a passage of time, an
effort of conscious will, / / to heave my heaviness off my hurting kn
The Fall
ir / / Peace is won, though, from / /
effort .  This still / / place affords me room / / to think as well as
Villevieille
is that I have to make / / a conscious
effort to take / / the fact that, looking down / / on me from this b
Climacteric by the Sea
Liberté,
Égalité , Fraternité / Liberty.  / / That’s difficult already.  / / All
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
t all the chain of life within / / the
egg , the sperm, be hideously undone, / / take these bombs to Japan.” 
Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank
Parthenon, / / Angkor Wat, Avila, / /
Eiffel Tower, Pont due Gard…  / / …  Remove the camera / / and the eye
Tourist
/ (he must, he thought, then have been
eight or nine) / / “went and opened the door.  And there, she said, /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ore their mother / / died, when he was
eight , she was thirteen.  / / And now the loved brother lives in Babyl
Eugénie de Guérin
sit / / (the boy a gangling woodman of
eighteen ) / / came news again: this Christmas-time the Queen / / com
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / But now (he was, or would be soon,
eighteen ) / / restlessness played on him in many shapes.  / / Today h
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
twenty-ninth of February / / nineteen-
eighty -four / / you, I suppose, and I the whole day through / / prob
Leap Year
ter whom a wheel had crushed / / died. 
Eighty years, they said, and more he’d been / / about the place, comi
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
love (no word of love was said / / by
either ) but she felt there too that he / / took passively the fact of
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ lost thing, no wife and now no maiden
either .  / / Draw him, bird-wheel, draw him (you know who) to my house
Spells and Love
il / / to free us from the wheel…  / /
Either of these.  But these and anything / / like these lie outside /
Balance Sheet
god.  / / And yet I can’t envisage life
either / / (or death) as an unordered jumble of things.  / / The fire
Question
painful it cannot be forgotten / / by
either party.  “It wasn’t meant”’s a rotten / / excuse, doesn’t excuse
Treasure
en cliff / / held him as in a dream on
either side.  / / And every day at noon came the white flights / / fa
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
red’s not without reason / / often, on
either side.  / / But what good can hate do?  / / The stocks of hate b
Choice
“A change,” / / she laughed: “remember
Elbe’s pillared halls, / / the shimmering chandeliers of Thrushcross
The Black-out
And suddenly laid plans to go.  / / His
elder cousin was by no means plain / / or stupid, and was not averse
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
, / / a man and a woman sitting on it,
elderly , / / (my age) and the man again  “Would you like to see / /
A Hoard
trance / / with the flesh of God.  / /
Elders gather, the bells / / ring out of time.  / / What ugly villain
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
xingly.  He sensed also / / an unvoiced
elders ’ plot to pair him off / / with one of the two sisters.  ‘Little
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
om / / in the King’s stables.  To their
eldest daughter / / the forester stood godfather.  Their home / / was
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
y atoms / / of a vaster matter (as the
electron’s charge / / might hold a universe).  Or perhaps / / our tim
Credo
Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville / This woman, this child, this man;
Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville
ren…  Part of the pain, / / the sickest
element in our fear for them, / / is that shared guilt.  But our love
[Our lives are in other hands]
-swimmer’s limbs again / / in this new
element to master.  Then / / glowing picked up his bow and with sure e
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / from cells formed in the sea / / —
elementals that float on / / past (they the same) / / eel, dolphin,
The Sea
d where the two flasks lay.  / / A bow,
eleven arrows.  And the way / / home was the grim mountains…  But the w
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ich now low but clear of cloud / / the
eleven day moon whitened in front of us.  / / Over the short grass my
The Black-out
o bind my man to me, my hard love.  / /
Eleven days, and he hasn’t come to me, / / doesn’t know even if I’m a
Spells and Love
us oil-flask with me, / / but now it’s
eleven days since I’ve even seen him.  / / He must have another fancy,
Spells and Love
riding out again.  / / With Meredith at
eleven , I think, or twelve / / I fell in love—the only adequate phras
Poetry
utiful, inhuman, / / the Queen of fair
Elfland .  / / I am not for her / / nor need fear her, holding you in
Los Altos Hills
/ / Soon Yeats—maestro ed autore— / /
Eliot , Auden, Ransom, Hopkins, the rest / / of Donne, a little Langla
Poetry
k since Yeats is dead; / / yet we have
Eliot , for whom in Auden now / / our long debt to America is paid; /
The Black-out
Royal Family / Mary and
Elizabeth / / each in her palace-cell alone / / notching up which he
Royal Family
and, / / green land skeletal with dead
elms and beeches / / (beautiful girl with anorexia), / / the will to
Desert Island?
ds of Coole, / / Lir’s three children,
Elsa’s brothers, / / and the white godhead, Leda’s lover.  / / That l
Bicycle Ride
when they cannot find / / anyone / /
else , and together, / / blind with blind is better / / than going al
Blind
/ / Death’s adamant door, and anything
else as stubborn…  / / —Thestylis, listen!  The dogs in the town are ho
Spells and Love
for that sister of yours, / / someone
else can have her.  The bloom’s gone—she’s coarse— / / the charm too (
Love Scene
, to care.  / / Care for ourselves (how
else / / can we understand caring?) / / more for other things (beaut
Caring
yes as darkened as the dead.  / / “What
else ?”  / / Have loved and been loved, two in one, / / yet sometimes
Interrogation
t, and all is said.  / / “Not all.  What
else ?”  / / Have seen under the wind and sun / / the world in infinit
Interrogation
/ no knock at my door…  There’s someone
else .  Love’s gods / / have drawn his wandering fancy away from me.  /
Spells and Love
ough bright mist.  / / There is nothing
else .  / / Luckily I am / / too often too silly to / / be a wise old
For Cecil
nite beauty laid.  / / “What else?  What
else ?”  / / Nothing.  “And what have left undone?”  / / Have sometimes
Interrogation
obably / / wipe out nature with us (or
else / / ruining nature we may destroy ourselves).  / / But I am stil
Gratitude
Drought / Deserts are somewhere
else .  / / Sahara, Arizona, Gobi, / / back of Australian bush.  / / W
Drought
le?  Carabosse / / had seen to that?—or
else the other one?  / / He washed and patched and looted.  Clean and c
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ck, until he fled to them / / again—or
else took refuge in a new / / and subtler one.  You’ve guessed it: can
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
looks / / like death but is something
else .  / / Venus is burning / / big and low, yellow through the / /
For Cecil
rld in infinite beauty laid.  / / “What
else ?  What else?”  / / Nothing.  “And what have left undone?”  / / Have
Interrogation
d now, piercingly, you.  / / And no-one
else will ever (I know) do.  / / And since I cannot have / / you with
[Living alone is lonely]
d, “but what you want I cannot be.  / /
Elsewhere my road.  But that I take a road / / I owe to you—if I am pa
The Black-out
hese autumn flutterers?  / / Almost all
elude your snatching / / though one may settle on you unawares.  / /
[Golden, red, brown]
The
Embankment / The river to the sea / / yields, slides up the stone the
The Embankment
re, crossed the untrafficked, wide / /
Embankment to the bridge, and saw the reach / / of river, silver at t
The Black-out
or Hampton Court and Greenwich are / /
embarked , we went, Giles leading.  Soon the song, / / lost for a while
The Black-out
t / / guiding the tiller—whence he had
embarked / / withdrawn and lost as where he would be stopping.  / / T
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
than grey.  / / Silver and white, / /
embodied light / / of the overcast day / / on the dark water.  / / B
Return
sipate the looming dark, / / while the
embodiment of his jealousy, / / the bright saviour whom he must love
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Death / / / Does time
embrace existence or existence time?  / / Revelation implies the latte
Death
rice / / should fuse them in its white
embrace .  / / The temple-veil rent from his error / / revealed the bo
John Ruskin’s Wedding Night
sea, reaching / / its firths round us,
embracing rock and field.  / / Here too sea clings round the hard land
Varangian in Mickelgard
fill, / / she thought, the centre with
embroidery .  / / She’d meant it for the young wood-ranger, if…  / / If
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
field / / is greener?  No.  / / Ours is
emerald .  / / Our grief is other: how seldom can we go / / cropping i
[The grass in the next field]
—let it pass.  / / How have I forgotten
Emily Bronte, / / so many years my constant star and love?  / / There
Poetry
hire,” answered with a light / / laugh
Emily ; “each to our own is true; / / each takes its own home by an ab
The Black-out
turning he / / touched emptiness.  What
Emily had said / / of hope seemed nothing to me now that she / / was
The Black-out
hed detached my weary body go / / with
Emily on towards Camden Town.  / / Suddenly Emily spoke: “often in win
The Black-out
d, but whole / / and me; and turned to
Emily , ready to / / move like the river to my certain goal.  / / She
The Black-out
y on towards Camden Town.  / / Suddenly
Emily spoke: “often in winter / / for weeks together I have seen the
The Black-out
looked; and then I was alone / / with
Emily .  The noble mountain stood, / / St Paul’s, in pale and shadow-mo
The Black-out
a Mare very early, Christina, the other
Emily / / —trees specially sacred in the holy grove.  / / You that I’
Poetry
/ by the laughing sea.  / / Among the
emperor’s guard the wine goes round / / with rattle of dice and song,
Gunnar of Lithend
ne over the centuries.  / / Pirates and
empires pass.  / / Life changes and goes on, / / hard among these ter
September Cruise
irmly set in time and place / / as the
Empress Eugénie?  / / High nineteenth-century / / Paris.  Rich, squali
Time’s Reach
shadow-moulded stone, / / and stilled,
emptied my mind; and then what should / / unlikely cross its stillnes
The Black-out
young, / / your beautiful / / body’s
emptiness .  / / Clothe again / / in your lovely flesh / / this poor
Against Anorexia:  For Cathy
ep them up, / / a lightless cave whose
emptiness takes all in / / and remains empty.  / / Their net of feeli
Where?
pheus felt when turning he / / touched
emptiness .  What Emily had said / / of hope seemed nothing to me now t
The Black-out
sea-birds, sea-shells, the beach, that
empty / / accepts their cries into its crystal silence.  / / You, tho
For Rachel
force us back to the precipice / / and
empty air sucks suddenly / / under our heels, / / the sharp shock is
That Way Madness Lies
house / / and found it, as he guessed,
empty —all gone / / together to the castle?  Carabosse / / had seen to
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
empty, and—the sense grew strong— / /
empty an age—‘When that old forester, / / who died before my birth, w
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
moonlit, half a pool / / of night, all
empty ; and the opposite rooms / / showed lightless windows, uninvolve
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
, everywhere he went / / furnished and
empty , and—the sense grew strong— / / empty an age—‘When that old for
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
wn, / / cried:  “Hangs the sheath still
empty , and the sword / / stands ever in the water-wandering stone?”  /
The Black-out
one the seagulls, silence.  The beach is
empty , / / and water, advancing, renews it for tomorrow.  / /
For Rachel
es up.  The empty-hearted fret.  / / The
empty -bellied, the still driven poor, / / who yearly add to what they
May Day
m a shrilling horn.  / / Slips from the
empty gown / / a vixen to the gorse.  / / Loving from loving hands /
Lady into Fox
ent in.  No one at all.  / / No one.  The
empty guard-room seemed to wait— / / bench, table, brazier, weapons o
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ne.  / / The youngest son sets out with
empty hands, / / harvests a mint of luck in distant lands, / / retur
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
happy store / / their memories up.  The
empty -hearted fret.  / / The empty-bellied, the still driven poor, /
May Day
/ than I could ever suppose / / to my
empty house.  / / I miss… not so much / / a companion as such / / bu
[Living alone is lonely]
our faces.  / / Trafalgar Square, laid
empty in the moonlight, / / and long Whitehall received my echoing pa
The Black-out
ills, / / a distant, lovely, rough and
empty land.  / / Learning from rangers, lost for lonely miles, / / he
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
of child or bird leaves the next moment
empty .  / / Look on the walls, lofty and from no empty / / moat upmou
For Rachel
/ Look on the walls, lofty and from no
empty / / moat upmounting, but straight from shining water / / brave
For Rachel
told her of another beach he knew, / /
empty —‘Much as this must have been before / / they built the city.  Fa
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
nitted into this knot, / / envy beings
empty / / of memory and thought, / / of threaded mind and heart?  /
Parenthood
o the yard within, / / paved, echoing,
empty —on to the great hall: / / tables, stools, hangings, one great c
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ent.  And at all our sides / / sits the
empty place of absent love.  / / And at all our backs / / (our comfor
Back Room, 1944
way into mother earth / / till all is
empty quarries, shells / / riven by a Caesarian birth.  / / The fairy
Mother’s Malison
sh, the mystery / / puzzled him of the
empty room, stale food / / but other thoughts took over.  Combed and c
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
parting, gathering, trailing across the
empty / / sand, in evening’s awareness of tomorrow.  / / Brief wind r
For Rachel
each listens, holding to an ear / / an
empty shell which whispers of the sea.  / /
Parted
own, and he was through.  / / Beyond an
empty space a castle-gate / / stood open.  He went in.  No one at all. 
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
w / / to mirror yesterday—images which
empty / / the moment’s brimming being.  Not us they’re calling / / bu
For Rachel
hangings, one great chair, and all / /
empty .  The play seemed waiting to begin.  / / Through all the courtyar
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e door and struck a light.  No one.  / /
Empty the single room.  On a rough block / / were cheese and bread, a
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
emptiness takes all in / / and remains
empty .  / / Their net of feeling and thought / / compassed the cosmos
Where?
perhaps was young.’  / / That floor was
empty —up the stair again, / / he found himself out on the ramparts.  D
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ encloses all in crystal.  This is an
empty / / world, where bird and child exist like water / / and today
For Rachel
t with house and lane.  / / O secret, o
enchanted space / / thus spell-cast into time and space, / / we shal
[Seen from the hill the hazy plain]
the boy.  / / So that summer for seven
enchanted weeks / / they were together in the green forest.  / / Nett
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
dom too.  / / The mountains and the sea
enclosed his world.  / / For years he’d sailed the bay and the bare re
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
shortened vision lost.  / / Their sweep
enclosed the harbour-city’s bay— / / rock rising to a mountain, to a
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
out.  The waves rustle.  Yet silence / /
encloses all in crystal.  This is an empty / / world, where bird and c
For Rachel
stone cliffs, / / long low black rocks
enclosing / / clear pools and foaming / / firths of tide, fencing /
Bury My Heart
/ / in the late radiance of / / this
encompassing untroubled love, / / I don’t see how we ever could / /
[Yes, you’re right]
voice in the common foreign tongue / /
Encore un peu, mon enfant.  Mon enfant, n’aie pas peur. / / … but the
Block 21
/ / improved indeed in many ways, / /
encrusted with the interest / / of road and parliament and school, /
Recessional
st in his hand / / and make a suddener
end .  / /
Dr Faustus
for burning Byron’s journal—yet in the
end / / admit that he destroyed it as Byron’s friend: / / my loss, n
[I find it difficult to forgive Tom Moore]
/ / a mirror to the earth of beauty’s
end .  / / Among those sparklers, set like frozen spray, / / are some
Macrocosm
/ / descending to climb further in the
end .  / / An hour or so later and far below / / darkness mastered him
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ere, fell Hecate, see me through to the
end , / / and make these spells of mine not a thought less strong / /
Spells and Love
d’s / / service—what’s Caesar’s in the
end be God’s?  / / “Only the worldly-wise can manage God’s / / affair
The Betrayal
more likely than another / / to be the
end ?  Because / / the human heart or rather the human frame / / finds
[Why do I dream this pause]
/ / “If it’s hell to be young it’s the
end being old / / so gather the roses of ripe middle age.”  / /
[The municipal building stood square in my dream]
/ / that life doesn’t come to a ragged
end / / but death knits up the ravelled sleeve.  / /
Dreams
ared peace, / / a home.  / / It had to
end / / but, lived fully, still is.  / / Time, this time, / / shows
Two Poems from a New Life
ay.  / / The rains of summer’s draggled
end dragged on / / washing the autumn out of leaves and grass / / ti
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
s, train I / / want the journey not to
end / / even when the end / / is wanted.  I didn’t, I / / suppose, w
For Cecil
ills / / a no less ineluctably certain
end / / for triumphant humankind, / / it does look probable / / th
What goes up must come down
low, narrow, black, and twisting to its
end / / his fingers groping felt another door.  / / He found the hand
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
and something there below at the fall’s
end .  / / I am (so far as I am) rather floating.  / / Nothing for foot
What am I?
nd, is it love, saying / / “The year’s
end is the year’s beginning, / / one in time—pain and joy are one in
Winter Solstice
e journey not to end / / even when the
end / / is wanted.  I didn’t, I / / suppose, want to leave the womb. 
For Cecil
odies warm together.  / / …  Yes, in the
end love, / / when we’re really put to it, / / brought to the final
Touch
s in a killing.  / / Only, it’s not the
end : / / loving and thieving, passion and blood, live on / / in song
[The bare, beautiful borders]
g-glass, / / learns a composure in the
end / / no looking-glass can lend.  / /
Blind
End of Fairy-Story / All tasks done, spells are taken off / / and hap
End of Fairy-Story
/ And suddenly I reached a board:  / / “
End of Reserve.  Private land beyond.  / / Do not trespass”.  / / The u
Los Altos Hills
rd on the bright water, marked / / the
end of seen and known.  His eyelids dropping / / against the glare, he
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
head.  / / A fifth in Ithaca, from the
end / / of the long landlocked harbour with its island, / / enjoys t
Bury My Heart
thin this same salt tide / / the other
end of time / / saw life begin.  / / Beetle and man, / / grass and c
The Sea
g—and both were love.  / / Was there an
end ?  / / Or a beginning?  Can you cut flowing / / water, or mark the
Winter Solstice
was broken and lay level from a ragged
end / / resting on the strong spread of another willow.  / / Yet fall
Five Poems for Roni
In my beginning is my
end / Ripe they hang on the bough, / / last-fruits of the primal tree
In my beginning is my end
age that is ours.  Surely we / / in the
end / / shall find ourselves made free / / to roam the pastures side
[The grass in the next field]
ust, oracle— / / flared to one hideous
end .  / / She fought the hard sinews, the horribly / / cloaked face s
Pelopia and Thyestes
once has been delight, / / even if it
end , still by that miracle is”— / / and then he thought of a pricked
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
he almost thought that it could have no
end .  / / Still through the hostile growth he pressed and thrust, / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
pring, / / and every year “This is the
end .  / / The sap has ceased to rise” we think.  / / “Lay an axe to th
Renewal
/ by him, the brave one, to some happy
end .  / / Thus was the field ploughed for the seed to fall / / of lov
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
laughed once more.  / / Her laughter’s
end was lost in a gull’s cry, / / repeated, dropped, picked up, inter
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
o quench, / / seem shrunk now to their
end ; / / who here not even in dreams can reach the fields / / of pea
The Embankment
wrecked keep.  / / At the white alley’s
end you look / / straight on sea.  / / Stepping further on, look down
September Cruise
pels love.  / / Love makes us.  / / Yet
endeavour / / to loosen the child’s tether / / and to leave soon eno
Parenthood
said why, / / to where the beach-curve
ended at the steep / / rock.  There dossed down, at first uneasily /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
may yield a possible future.  / / Open-
ended / / our future lies.  That is the future’s nature.  / / It is no
Desert Island?
his head, / / his chokes and sputters
ended , the nurse said, / / not in the tears she looked for but in lau
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
t / / small hope is offered of a happy
ending .  / / The world seems more than usually wet / / with blood and
The Black-out
the sea / / moved again upwards in the
endless dance, / / he struck out and soon reached the other side.  /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e and cold.  / / Cold, silent, dark.  An
endless impasse.  No / / answer, no possible way out to the old / / i
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e / / —but felt whatever way / / this
endlessly absorbing love, earth.  / / Observe, absorb her faces of nig
[Now of threescore and ten]
f the flatland shore / / stretching on
endlessly .  Until one day / / it curved off, merging into mud.  He foun
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e are inflicting she’ll turn to her own
ends / / and run the world’s course at her own pace / / long after w
Buttercups
sion / / and every passion, or nearly,
ends in a killing.  / / Only, it’s not the end: / / loving and thievi
[The bare, beautiful borders]
rd in / / the mindless wind / / nerve-
ends murmur / / of a lost limb… / / fingers supple / / to caress or
Lopped
Odysseus / He had reached the
ends of the earth, / / done all in order as the witch had said, / /
Odysseus
inst the shore.  / / Yet that sea shall
endure / / its round of calm and storm / / when all we see / / of l
The Sea
?  No.  His fastidiousness could not / /
endure the image of her marriage-bed / / any more than his own; and t
Beyond Measure
pany / / beyond their own, / / cannot
endure to be / / other than alone.  / / They meet to mate, then share
Woodpeckers
/ / Yet while our personal intellects
endure / / we remain masters of our worlds; the river / / reflects t
The Black-out
sad, / / crowded cuttings in the rock
endure ; / / where now, out of the slums, Athenian poor / / climb, fo
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
/ / As water at the wedding-feast / /
endured a look and glowed to wine, / / our two humanities, increased
Hymn
they say in gaol.) / / Their Parthenon
endures ; and thus shall, sad, / / crowded cuttings in the rock endure
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
e than forgive, / / more than love our
enemies .  Trust them.  / / “Put up your bright swords, for the dew will
Against Deterrents
/ people say, / / meaning Time.  / /
Enemy indeed he tends to seem: / / longed-for hours, almost as soon /
Two Poems from a New Life
e an enemy.  / / Towards that half-seen
enemy / / Love walked alone, and presently / / found—not indeed Desp
Masque
/ / with our father’s ghost, with the
Enemy Over There, / / faster to the moon, to Mars, / / to a peradven
Curvature of Space
Heiden / “Soldiers, advance against the
enemy .  / / Shoot when you see the white of a man’s eye.  / / If more
Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank
to make a stand / / against so huge an
enemy .  / / Towards that half-seen enemy / / Love walked alone, and p
Masque
rom a New Life / Time / Distance / ‘The
enemy ’ / / people say, / / meaning Time.  / / Enemy indeed he tends
Two Poems from a New Life
acked / / to a still point.  Matter and
energy / / funnelled through a point of not- / / being, are re-forme
Holes in Space
foreign tongue / / Encore un peu, mon
enfant .  Mon enfant, n’aie pas peur. / / … but the knife whips out man
Block 21
gue / / Encore un peu, mon enfant.  Mon
enfant , n’aie pas peur. / / … but the knife whips out manhood, womanh
Block 21
rock, / / an old, bowed woman, busily
engaged .  / / Black dress, black scarf over her bent head, black / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Merrie
England / Don’t smile in the street / / or someone you meet / / of t
Merrie England
England , 1981 / England’s proud barque, / / her captain mad, her crew
England, 1981
Desert Island?  / Loved
England , / / green land skeletal with dead elms and beeches / / (bea
Desert Island?
ame) / / may think you mean them.  / /
England Suspects.  / / If seized with a laugh / / conceal it in cough
Merrie England
England, 1981 /
England’s proud barque, / / her captain mad, her crew in mutiny / /
England, 1981
ed, France lost, / / exile, chilled in
English Chislehurst, / / widowhood, soon to mourn / / her killed, he
Time’s Reach
to heaven, this hillside, though.  / /
English (not, heaven help us, many years ago / / —five hundred years
Makherás
green and dark.  / / Something like an
English parkland / / but bigger, wilder, stronger, / / unearthlier. 
Los Altos Hills
ing from a train into backyards / / of
English slums, but worse (and better, / / as sun-scorched poverty is
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
e vision burned—and the dark flood / /
engulfed it—then the triumph of the light, / / yet blackness not annu
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
!  / / Death-wish dances / / with Life-
enhancement / / cheek to cheek.  / /
Sea Cliff
/ / his favourite toy / / for you to
enjoy / / a little, not keep.  / / He’ll take it back again / / but
[Time is a child]
em.  Never mind the rent and stain.  / /
Enjoy life as it was before the fall: / / sleep easy and eat freely,
The Twenties
, / / the beauteous youth doth cruelly
enjoy .  / / Stepped and corridored the town / / white to blindness cl
September Cruise
l contaminations, today is lovely.  / /
Enjoy today’s beauty and forget care.  / /
Relax
hrough.”  / / The courtiers of King Sun
enjoyed the wit.  / / What did their children’s children think of it? 
La Fontaine et le Déluge
areless, unregenerate days, / / and we
enjoyed , we hand back whole, / / improved indeed in many ways, / / e
Recessional
e is black by nature, and no doubt / /
enjoys life much of the time in its own way.  / / My spirit moves, as
Black
andlocked harbour with its island, / /
enjoys the shining broom-slopes.  Another at Iken looks / / from a low
Bury My Heart
e child’s tether / / and to leave soon
enough .  / /
Parenthood
ut has to be / / and so can be, so is,
enough .  / /
[Living alone is lonely]
ll do so.  / / The vision’s all, and is
enough .  / /
[Seen from the hill the hazy plain]
/ / would not again appear / / often
enough .  At sixty / / that’s something all of us can see.  / / For Hou
[Housman was old beyond his years]
/ and might achieve.  / / Not much, not
enough , / / but make a start with these / / breathed from the stilln
Villevieille
The young prince liked his cousins well
enough , / / but never had the sea and the far shores / / called him
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
—a sweet little girl—hanging’s not bad
enough — / / But who can know the darkness of that house?  / / A black
Law Report
[Time is enough] / Time is
enough .  Death / / has dominion outside time / / (when nobody measure
[Time is enough]
e-cut marks of man / / having flatness
enough for a small dwelling, / / hundreds of small dwellings.  / / He
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
I don’t covet.  / / Timeless nothing’s
enough .  / / I feel so dirty though, / / I should like to believe God
A Hot Bath at Bedtime
months too early.”  / / But I’d talked
enough .  I laid the girl / / down among the flowers.  A soft cloak spre
Love Scene
er.  / / The beauty of the flower, / /
enough of course in itself, / / is informed with so much more, / / t
Epoch
Housman, spring’s whitening / / —fair
enough .  / / One can’t do better for a love, / / but each of us to bl
[Housman was old beyond his years]
/ to tell you this.  It may seem little
enough / / or nothing to you now, but it’s far from / / nothing, or
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Our love.  / / There will be days, not
enough — / / rather, not many, but so good, / / so satisfying, enough
[Golden, red, brown]
(if, when he come, he’s brave and true
enough ) / / shall force a way and wake her with a kiss.  / / And it’s
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
dropped the shell, which broke.  It was
enough , / / she broke into a flood of tears and fled.  / / He half-no
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
, / / water falling, flowing.  / / Not
enough sun / / is our complaint, / / too much rain.  / / River and t
Drought
indeed Despair / / but, huge and grim
enough , / / the Black Knight of the Question-Mark, / / and with him
Masque
[Time is
enough ] / Time is enough.  Death / / has dominion outside time / / (w
[Time is enough]
try?  / / This year… / / beauty is not
enough , / / truth too difficult, / / too many questions begged, / /
Another Summer
many, but so good, / / so satisfying,
enough’s irrelevant— / / after the last leaf follows its crooked trai
[Golden, red, brown]
/ Seldom by that was the young prince
enspelled — / / but the white shore, the wide horizon round it: / / a
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
multifarious earth.  / / Accepting life
entails acceptance / / of death to balance birth, / / of depressing
Climacteric by the Sea
.  / / This year we saw a shining being
enter , / / like any other year, the darkening winter; / / but unlike
Winter Solstice
nce alone can be my ivory tower.  / / I
enter middle age.  / /
Patience
onged-for hours, almost as soon / / as
entered , gone; / / yet drags his feet / / down grey boredoms, the gr
Two Poems from a New Life
re aware / / what a small number we’re
entitled to, / / what a small proportion of those remains / / for me
Swallows
rt, / / immutability / / would be non-
entity .  / / Mourn the smooth hill, the woods / / you love, the fitte
Change
dmit, / / to time their exit and their
entrance so / / they may not meet.  / / Beautiful creatures.  / / The
Woodpeckers
ork / / turned and forbade me right of
entrance there.  / / Back up the steps I groped into the murk.  / / Th
The Black-out
/ innumerably varied and repeated, / /
entranced his hearing, as the featureless scape— / / blues and greens
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
against gold and white, / / he watched
entranced the colour-sparkling sea: / / the King, the Queen, the cour
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Entropy / The universe is not a whole.  / / Valiant centripetality /
Entropy
ce and song, and some are thinking / /
enviously / / of some at home dead in the ice-hard ground.  / /
Gunnar of Lithend
/ To me it seems too odd.  / / I can’t
envisage death / / or life as acts of god.  / / And yet I can’t envis
Question
fe as acts of god.  / / And yet I can’t
envisage life either / / (or death) as an unordered jumble of things.
Question
, but can’t imaginatively believe, / /
envisage them, because we can’t conceive / / what mediates their bein
Dimension
on to others.  / / Must we then, human,
envy / / beast and flower? netted, / / knitted into this knot, / /
Parenthood
tted, / / knitted into this knot, / /
envy beings empty / / of memory and thought, / / of threaded mind an
Parenthood
… what is it then?  / / What indeed but
envy , / / jealousy?  / /
I, Who Know My Inner Man
hedge lightly the rose / / scentless,
ephemeral and wild / / prodigal to all passing throws / / the unstab
Summer
, this untamed recurring / / of brave,
ephemeral beauty / / does bring us something / / beyond its loveline
Five Poems for Roni
: / / image of everything / / lovely,
ephemeral / / —childhood, innocence, love, / / dream; passing, peris
[What words are there for Spring?]
swan; / / and if this child’s beauty,
ephemeral , fade / / rebuke no promise, made / / and broken—there was
Joy
hing stamped its image on / / the less
ephemeral stone.  / /
Fossils
the Octopus whose tilted axis / / and
epicycles were designed to illustrate / / principles of pre-Copernica
Content
Aeschylus’
Epitaph / Aeschylus, Euphorion’s son / / of Athens, lies under this s
Aeschylus’ Epitaph
Villon’s
Epitaph / Brothers, men who breathe the air, / / who pass counting us
Villon’s Epitaph
Epithalamium / Stephen and Judith / Love you have.  May he stay / / wi
Epithalamium
Epoch / Right we should leave in June, / / the hedges lit with roses.
Epoch
ningless.  / / All are (should be) born
equal ?  / / All are born different.  / / Difference, / / the good sin
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
amed in terms of God and Caesar / / as
equal powers.  So Christians can make Caesar / / their scapegoat.  Migh
The Betrayal
us.  Think / / that not all men have an
equal share / / of sound good sense and reasoning.  / / We who are sp
Villon’s Epitaph
ur or six; is your tale like to be / /
equal to ours?—oh, feed and fan your flame.”  / / I bent and watched t
The Black-out
f humanness, / / cannot be tailored to
equality , / / except that we are equally human, and / / much human i
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
d / / our reach, Freedom, a star.  / /
Equality .  / / That’s more difficult still / / if not impossible / /
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
/ the give-and-take / / more real than
Equality .  / / This indeed is another burning star / / brightest of a
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
/ Man’s acts and sufferings seem / /
equally dreadful, yet / / I love man and his dream.  / /
Question
ine or ten / / perhaps—another meeting
equally good.  / / In the darkness I could not trace again / / each f
The Black-out
e who fall defending / / justice, seem
equally guilty of the strife / / with gangsters and with gamblers on
The Black-out
ed to equality, / / except that we are
equally human, and / / much human inequality / / both in kind and de
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
not question / / and her to tread, and
equally not question, / / her narrow barren road.  / / Loves children
Eugénie de Guérin
The Party / The light falls
equally on all; it glances / / from brilliant colours and bright face
The Party
led pallid blue / / offers all colours
equally subdued.  / / Winter beauty’s in tune / / with love parted, w
[Bare trees black]
he coelacanth unchanged / / from years
ere light, / / that falls now caught / / in the wide dew-pond of Mou
The Sea
d firth where the tides race, / / Leif
Ericsson , / / Magellan, one / / seeking a golden fleece, a white wha
The Sea
annels, from those strong / / contours
erode the softness.  Beautiful / / but not unravaged.  / / Lights fade
In the Audience
on the savage fire.  / / …O Love, harsh
Eros , why do you cling so hard? / / —pond-leech, sucking the dark blo
Spells and Love
ne alone / / just where the moon threw
Eros ’ shadow on her.  / / She, stepping suddenly where the light was t
The Black-out
/ And then he saw her eyes and knew his
error / / and dropped the knife and backed against the thorn / / his
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ comparison / / to shame us, but no
error — / / naked image of what gets done.  / / And yet those silent w
Heron and Gulls
ace.  / / The temple-veil rent from his
error / / revealed the body’s subtleties / / flushed from the warm b
John Ruskin’s Wedding Night
e, / / and that beyond the irreparable
errors , / / the irreplaceable loss, / / the truth of love, somehow,
Credo
tinking jetsam lies.  / / Here.  Now.  No
escape .  / /
Causes
u in / / a narrow walled alley with no
escape .  / / Now, outside hope, / / the late sun breaks through / /
[Most of us, somewhere along the road]
that vision of the sea / / and dreamed
escape sprang back to him.  Still less / / now than before he felt the
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
p / / in the narrow alley.  / / But he
escaped from the alley, / / pursued by police and by the shopkeeper s
A Dream
/ / (Pheidias, his arbiter of art / /
escaped the plague.  He was not of the slums, / / but stole, perhaps,
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
where that fish is moving / / like an
escaped thought.  / /
Water in a Wood
/ and yet that mortal moment too / /
escapes dimension, time and space: / / not interval but interface.  /
New Year
s “I knew it!  / / Nothing so subtle as
escapes my skill.”  / / Nature is much to wreck, but man can do it.  /
Man in Nature
is / / a fact one can’t disguise, / /
especially violent / / death.  But have I learnt / / to look it in th
Another Summer
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]
ly.  / / Often he wanted, once or twice
essayed / / its final peak; but reached his fourteenth year / / befo
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
round of beauty and chore / / and the
established tyranny of his dream, / / more solid and more hopeless th
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
s we move through miles and years, / /
establishing unchallenged supremacy, / / Shakespeare standing above a
Poetry
eath? surely a true / / discontinuity,
estranging / / and yet that mortal moment too / / escapes dimension,
New Year
grey / / shining mud of an East-coast
estuary .  / / The last, dropped more lately, took deep root / / at Sh
Bury My Heart
Dulce
et Decorum / Death’s paradox dissolves our clear ‘to be’:  / / Their n
Dulce et Decorum
La Fontaine
et le Déluge / “Some food, for pity.”  / / “Why?  What did you do / /
La Fontaine et le Déluge
with the aging author / / of Le Rouge
et le Noir and La Chartreuse de Parme.  / /
Time’s Reach
y in action, hopes, fears / / for you. 
Eternal bliss nears / / for you, for me the parallel / / of eternity
Virgil’s Farewell to Dante
knowing / / our narrow length of time
eternal deep.  / /
Happiness
others / / the silt of whose brief or
eternal loves / / now beds the wood where ours are now the leaves.  /
Becoming
future (which seems / / so full and so
eternal , so unknown / / behind all dreamed impossible precisions) /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ve and Truth / / whose jurisdiction is
eternity .  / /
Prayer to Time
e clear / / sky, from our feet laps to
eternity .  / / Alone each listens, holding to an ear / / an empty she
Parted
/ for you, for me the parallel / / of
eternity in Hell.  / /
Virgil’s Farewell to Dante
Virgil’s Farewell to Dante / Of
eternity in Hell / / I had passed thirteen hundred years.  / / Not ic
Virgil’s Farewell to Dante
light—your Lady broke the spell / / of
eternity in Hell.  / / I had passed thirteen hundred years / / of par
Virgil’s Farewell to Dante
a built-in reprieve, / / a passport to
eternity .  / / No, let me live as now, and leave / / life as it’s bee
A Prayer
/ to the Border.  Or / / from here to
eternity .  / / The train moves.  Nothing changes.  / / What in this cit
For Cecil
lds a hotter fire than Hephaestus under
Etna .”— / / These are the springs of my love.  Mark them, lady Moon.  /
Spells and Love
e begin?  / / Where shall I start?  / /
Eubulus’s girl, Anaxo, / / was picked to carry a basket for Artemis /
Spells and Love
/ / but Delphis, strolling along with
Eudamippos .  / / Their beards curled yellower than goldenrod / / and
Spells and Love
Eugénie de Guérin / She hung out of her window to watch the stars.  /
Eugénie de Guérin
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac / from
Eugénie de Guérin’s Journal / The girl came into the church / / from
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
t in time and place / / as the Empress
Eugénie ?  / / High nineteenth-century / / Paris.  Rich, squalid, whirl
Time’s Reach
Aeschylus’ Epitaph / Aeschylus,
Euphorion’s son / / of Athens, lies under this stone / / dead in Gel
Aeschylus’ Epitaph
ult / / Adam is made man in one image,
Eve / / in another woman, for love.  / / Love is the heart’s flower /
Fossils
ocession / / (they’d a lot of animals,
even a lioness)— / / These are the springs of my love.  Mark them, lad
Spells and Love
likely-seeming thing; / / you know not
even abortive love can be / / called the first cause, however sharp i
The Black-out
es them, / / flare up suddenly and not
even ash is left.  / / May Delphis’s flesh waste so in consuming fire.
Spells and Love
ld / / meaning to the clever, / / but
even awake I seem / / from the depth of a dream / / to know that hol
Words from a Dream
, when the pink bud should flower / / (
even before).  None chose to give her power / / to love.  Better, they
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
od, whom both sides could declare / / (
even believe), to be a god of love.  / /
Betrayals
some people find / / they have chosen
even better than they knew.  / / May that be true / / (indeed I think
Epithalamium
sion and labour made / / perfect, what
even chance / / left unspoiled.  / / Advance / / is good, surely (as
Progress
themselves to no / / oneness, will not
even come, / / passing, beak to beak.  / / One within, one without, /
Woodpeckers
he years, / / of the seasons, of work,
even comfort and tears / / —a predictable order, if nothing goes wron
Hymn
and defeat / / by these might sink us
even deeper.  Yet, / / losing or winning, keep us from the pit / / of
Prayer to Truth
hen the heart might seem too heavy / /
even for a heron’s wings, lifts it a little.  / / Accept the omen, hea
Omens
by a trick of light from ugliness / /
even for one / / for whom that ugliness holds nothing dear.  / / I re
“Life is sweet, brother”
o.  All that once has been delight, / /
even if it end, still by that miracle is”— / / and then he thought of
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
he hasn’t come to me, / / doesn’t know
even if I’m alive or dead, / / no knock at my door…  There’s someone e
Spells and Love
but a just war / / with final victory;
even if the best / / must fall, the hour of triumph is not far.”  / /
The Black-out
unk now to their end; / / who here not
even in dreams can reach the fields / / of peace and hope, / / when
The Embankment
hree or four times a day / / and would
even leave his precious oil-flask with me, / / but now it’s eleven da
Spells and Love
etend? (a / / pair of sets of teeth so
even …?) / / Look round.  His black is thin behind, / / her blonde is
On the Towpath
ould not be, cannot be / / rejected or
even made less perfect by / / acknowledgement of our guilt, / / appr
May Day, 1986
n ear, on parted flesh.  All dreams.  But
even / / moments of dream are moments passing—time / / moves to our
Separation
to the Manly Fun Pier’) / / where the
even motion of the Ferris wheel / / contrasts with the Octopus whose
Content
d trees / / would, if grey clouds were
even on the sky / / or if the sun were bold and high, / / an ordinar
Early Train
emporis acti?  / / No.  Bad trouble, but
even our sick polutions / / of earth and water and air may be contain
Desert Island?
pon a clue, / / draw one strand clear,
even out of this skein, / / now dogrose bushes star the hedges again?
Again
kindness with its gifts and pains, / /
even proud perhaps to suffer / / the flaunting symbol of a difference
Fairy Story
was still a fire / / whose high flame,
even remembered, warms and sings.  / / Man’s acts and sufferings seem
Question
d to the horizon.  He was come.  / / The
even roar, compact of swish and slap / / innumerably varied and repea
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ce, / / separately made.  / / Before I
even saw it / / I trod right on the head, / / and then I heard the d
A Ballad
/ but now it’s eleven days since I’ve
even seen him.  / / He must have another fancy, and I’m forgotten.  /
Spells and Love
had never heard before.  / / It didn’t
even start with ‘Once upon / / a time’ but “When my mother was a girl
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ to be ashamed of, / / frightened by,
even / / surprised at.  / / North-north-west / / we are all mad.  /
Against Anorexia:  For Cathy
ot being there, / / but it was, so is. 
Even that marriage had been / / a marriage.  / / So, as the mists cam
“Tell Lady Byron…”
terrible coast / / could not be seen. 
Even the clap and roar / / of water heaved and hurled on rock was los
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ate, / / your earth-dark Other who has
even the dogs shaking / / as she fleets by over graveyards, over blac
Spells and Love
/ Decay, corruption foster life.  / /
Even the fossil forming in the stone / / helped build a shape which w
Change
ky.  / / Everywhere a thin beauty.  / /
Even the glow / / of autumn leaves is mute, palely yellowing / / tow
[Noon.  But the sun is low]
agree.  / / In spite of the misery / /
even the happiest / / life must settle for / / sometimes, it’s good
Miscarriage
that all his mistresses loved him, / /
even the little girls she had got for him, / / loved him and understo
A Dream
hining / / in narrow yards, the yards,
even the narrow / / houses, serried and stacked.  / / Not only in the
“Life is sweet, brother”
meet / / of the opposite sex / / (or
even the same) / / may think you mean them.  / / England Suspects.  /
Merrie England
ght river?  / / Are you the other?  / /
Even the shadow / / cast by a cypress / / is cypress.  Shadow / / of
Five Poems for Roni
coloured-shining, lacquered shell; / /
even the tongue-tied struggler jealous guards / / his refuge of unspo
The Party
causing irritation to those I love / /
even though they love me.  / / You have (you tell me, what I’ve no ink
[I have (what seemingly you do not see)]
the armoured mass / / hardly in hope (
even though unexpressed) / / to break its spell-rooted defence, and p
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
lked to her, more than he ever had / /
even to her mother.  “There was something sad, / / so sad.  Just what i
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
of a heron always lifts my heart, / /
even today when the heart might seem too heavy / / even for a heron’s
Omens
, half believes, / / half persuades me
even , / / we could.  / /
From a Train
rough wine, as it is my bread, / / and
even when I’m drinking my spear is ready.  / / My shield (not its faul
Two Songs of a Mercenary
I / / want the journey not to end / /
even when the end / / is wanted.  I didn’t, I / / suppose, want to le
For Cecil
.  That thought caressed / / him still,
even while he limped mechanically / / into the night of his third wat
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
l, what are you thinking of?  / / Would
even you make a joke of me now, dirty creature?  / / Strew them on, an
Spells and Love
very.  I’ve had / / a good day; now at
evening aware / / of so much more to bless me than I could dare / /
[The track up the wild stream]
iterated and dissolved, / / autumn and
evening form again.  / /
For Cecil
ippery track, face smarting / / in the
evening frost / / —this monochrome stillness looks / / like death bu
For Cecil
that same far past, a Cambridge winter
evening / / gave me, amazed, the Aurora Borealis.  / / Later again, b
A Hoard
deer!  / / He made the peak, and in the
evening glow / / gazed on the marvellous bonfire, which with her / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
was a woman / / or a man, but all the
evening he kept calling / / for unmixed wine for a toast to Love, and
Spells and Love
the sail-flecked harbour.  Clear, still
evening light.  / / Stillness undisturbed by the minuscule / / Fun Pi
Content
dden.  He descended, / / foothills.  And
evening suddenly showed his eyes / / the river of his vision days bef
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Athens, Hill of the Muses;
Evening / The quarried rock drops to the slums, / / like looking from
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
e celibate and bless the pair.  / / Now
evening trysts in orchards reach their peak / / and penances in conve
May Day
he would be stopping.  / / The wind at
evening veered into the west / / then died.  The starry dark was utter
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
trailing across the empty / / sand, in
evening’s awareness of tomorrow.  / / Brief wind ruckles gulls’ feathe
For Rachel
/ the fairies, gathering for the grand
event .  / / A crowned white cradlehood, and under it / / a pink sleep
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
re staid and heavy.  / / Not that I was
ever / / a competent cartwheeler / / or steady in a handstand / / —
Climacteric by the Sea
e lad / / was taken as a forester, and
ever / / a loved friend in the household by the river / / and favour
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
are taken off / / and happy now lives
ever after.  / / All spells but this?  Must this spell too / / be loos
End of Fairy-Story
are taken off / / and happy now lives
ever after.  / / Beyond sound of Time’s warning cough / / all tasks d
End of Fairy-Story
cess like each other?…  / / Lived happy
ever after?…  Children?…  Dozens / / of questions where a story finishe
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
stand alone, shiver.  But not alone / /
ever again.  / / Apart we are, but you are with me / / continually.  /
[Wind is chilly on shoulders]
s pain.  / / Can the natural dance / /
ever break out again?  / / Wait.  If you like, pray.  / / Though you do
Winter Recalled
ntroubled love, / / I don’t see how we
ever could / / renege on such suffusing gratitude.  / /
[Yes, you’re right]
rew / / he talked to her, more than he
ever had / / even to her mother.  “There was something sad, / / so sa
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ Beyond, the ribbon stretching out for
ever / / hardly beckoned; and he’d been nearly drowned / / lately, c
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / of much, much more, than she could
ever have said.  / / He almost felt he was the forester, / / had live
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ross / Happy those who filled / / that
ever -hungry beak.  / / Hangs heavy on my neck / / Time killed.  / /
Albatross
the proud procession should wind on for
ever :  / / I have been, am ever, in your converse blest / / —masters
Poetry
rcingly, you.  / / And no-one else will
ever (I know) do.  / / And since I cannot have / / you with me in you
[Living alone is lonely]
still empty, and the sword / / stands
ever in the water-wandering stone?”  / / Her face was memory where the
The Black-out
wind on for ever:  / / I have been, am
ever , in your converse blest / / —masters of the impurest of the arts
Poetry
w can you stand apart, / / if you have
ever let the reasoning brain / / come into contact with the feeling h
The Black-out
ad against the fact of death.  / / “One
ever near thee.”  How can I / / believe the tearing of this tie?  / /
Sibling
/ / (Up to a point I know / / —have I
ever really, though, / / quite grown up?  But that’s / / another ques
Climacteric by the Sea
n, can imagine war is still / / (if it
ever really was) a viable / / way of settling anything, we must be /
Consider
e, / / and perhaps of all / / that we
ever shall.  / / We love a landscape or / / a picture or a face / /
Fair Exchange
n myself, more easily / / than I could
ever suppose / / to my empty house.  / / I miss… not so much / / a c
[Living alone is lonely]
from a Dream / Words from a dream ‘For
ever / / the field is hollow now’.  / / What is a hollow field?  / /
Words from a Dream
d another / / sharper shadow / / than
ever willow / / weaves in this country / / —olive, straight cypress,
Five Poems for Roni
ht will have been good.  / / I know, if
ever / / your image came to mind it brought / / a warmth of innocent
Leap Year
utality / / by all ages of man / / in
every age works on.  / / Vision and thought, seduced / / to serve tha
Headline
ow / / on the horizon’s rim / / —burn
every blade of grass / / that might be green for him.  / / Huge sound
Scorched Earth
as in a dream on either side.  / / And
every day at noon came the white flights / / fanning out, wheeling we
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
hope of mending / / lie at the root of
every decent life; / / those who sit still, and those who fall defend
The Black-out
Summer / From
every hedge lightly the rose / / scentless, ephemeral and wild / / p
Summer
hews of a poisoned Pope / / relinquish
every hope.  / / Oh plan no more the exact, unreal scheme, / / no mor
Scheme
tional ornament and lucky charm / / in
every house…  A sea-people…  The sea— / / oh for the sea! the sea in st
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
way.  / / Sex lends her delight / / to
every joy, her stress / / to all our wickedness, / / yet’s as much t
Fair Exchange
can stop, / / for in this game / / at
every ladder’s top / / you find a snake begin.  / /
The Game
.  / / Peace and order flake away.  / /
Every mountain, plain and bay / / breeds its princeling of the knife.
Dark Age
d far below / / darkness mastered him,
every muscle aching, / / where the cleeve widened to the junction of
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ng alike are things of passion / / and
every passion, or nearly, ends in a killing.  / / Only, it’s not the e
[The bare, beautiful borders]
ll to live.  / / Condemned we snatch at
every short reprieve, / / disguising from ourselves how ruthlessly /
Age
t terrorism’s / / different, isn’t it? 
Every terrorist / / seen the other way’s a freedom fighter.  / / And,
Choice
eam.  / / Black still water images / /
every trunk and leaf, dark but clear, / / a Claude, a dream.  / / A s
Water in a Wood
s, lifeless, deep into spring, / / and
every year “This is the end.  / / The sap has ceased to rise” we think
Renewal
atter of moments, / / grass, brambles,
everything around is white.  / /
Magic
iR / / Is the wide world, waitinG / /
Everything comes with timE / /
[A long steep road to climb]
o go pray.  / / Prince Jesus, Master of
everything , / / do not deliver us to Hell’s king / / —not his our wo
Villon’s Epitaph
of life, your shining / / feeling that
everything / / is possible, faded from you in / / a narrow walled al
[Most of us, somewhere along the road]
, palely yellowing / / towards winter. 
Everything / / is withdrawing, concentrating / / with us, in the lon
[Noon.  But the sun is low]
/ petal from white petal: / / image of
everything / / lovely, ephemeral / / —childhood, innocence, love, /
[What words are there for Spring?]
rld of his religion riven by hate, / /
everything sour and broken in his heart, / / the old man carved by ca
Pietà
ned away / / to skin and bone.  I tried
everything .  There isn’t / / a wise-woman’s house in miles I didn’t vi
Spells and Love
n, which like the deep ocean / / takes
everything to itself and remains pure.  / / And if the sea has oil-sli
Relax
ourselves how ruthlessly / / Age takes
everything we hate to give.  / / Huddled in his barbed camp we fret, w
Age
n self-despising misery, / / Age takes
everything we hate to give: / / knowledge and strength, to his impera
Age
e golden bowl of memory.  / / Age takes
everything we hate to give, / / leaves us our fee to Death, the will
Age
Age / Age takes
everything we hate to give / / not everything we have—in mockery / /
Age
kes everything we hate to give / / not
everything we have—in mockery / / leaves us (our fee to Death) the wi
Age
Fair Exchange /
Everything we love / / puts on features of / / all that we loved bef
Fair Exchange
t about dowries?  Call that luck?”  / / “
Everything’s arse-up, blast it.  Blast them!  Wars!”  / / Behind in the
On the Border
/ coldly bright in light blue sky.  / /
Everywhere a thin beauty.  / / Even the glow / / of autumn leaves is
[Noon.  But the sun is low]
/ the others of their kind.  / / Sex is
everywhere / / as Freud made us aware, / / and he was surely right /
Fair Exchange
stair, / / through bedrooms, boudoirs,
everywhere he went / / furnished and empty, and—the sense grew strong
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
he mat / / to tell Him and myself / /
everywhere I went wrong.  / / Then, all the dirt out, / / admit me to
A Hot Bath at Bedtime
rise out of the bluebell-lake, / / and
everywhere the clear green / / (soft and strong as a child’s skin) /
Seasons
d her up / / to sit beside him for her
evidence , / / spoke to her always gently, put a stop / / to any funn
Change Places…
he held half the world in fee; / / for
evil and for good, a power.  / / But nothing lasts indefinitely.  / /
Great Britain
y, / / the certainty the other side is
evil / / our compact with the devil.  / / Let us detest aggression, p
Prayer to Truth
kedness.  / / After working some really
evil twist / / against the older boys / / would rush through the cam
Vignette
n / / left unstringed.  / / Instrument
evolved , built / / with loving skill, / / not, like this, to be sile
Nadia
sh every hope.  / / Oh plan no more the
exact , unreal scheme, / / no more live by the dream, / / the light t
Scheme
/ with you all the way, / / though not
exactly as he is today / / —that would be out of reason.  / / The hou
Epithalamium
piral course through joy and grief / /
exacts and justifies it all.  / / This riven world in which we live /
Hymn
Responsibility / The doctor, after the
examination , / / before pronouncing the fatal word, / / washing his
Responsibility
Another Summer / / / A dandelion
examined / / is unsubtle, unkempt; / / distant, streaks a field / /
Another Summer
ck future?  / / What can the boy become
except / / a sunk thing, a wrecking wreck?  / / What hope?  His own na
George Jackson
/ cannot be tailored to equality, / /
except that we are equally human, and / / much human inequality / /
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
he was or where he had come from, / /
except that when he reached them he had crossed / / the southern moun
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
is gold, / / all we believed is true,
except the old / / pretence that they were gods.  We have to know / /
Against Pedestals
ardly lined off from the milky sky / /
except where islands lie / / hardly distinguishable through / / the
September Cruise
Exchange / after a Japanese manner / As it rained all day / / all nig
Exchange
Fair
Exchange / Everything we love / / puts on features of / / all that w
Fair Exchange
ear-old countess from proud Spain, / /
exchanged letters, friendship, with the aging author / / of Le Rouge
Time’s Reach
en?  Rather, the fleeting kind— / / the
exchanged smile, the small kindness (so small / / it couldn’t be reme
Treasure
met him in wild— / / reproach?  Not so—
excitement .  Messengers / / hot from the Court—the Queen and royal chi
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
tells / / one need not paint in French
exclusively ; / / Margot Fonteyn dances at Sadler’s Wells / / and Sal
The Black-out
/ / to strip your own inaction’s false
excuse .”  / / A wind shook through the tree; I raised my head / / and
The Black-out
arty.  “It wasn’t meant”’s a rotten / /
excuse , doesn’t excuse.  Spiritual blindness / / is fault not afflicti
Treasure
/ my days with action, chokes them with
excuse .  / / Find me the path missed on the clouded hill / / I set my
The Black-out
meant”’s a rotten / / excuse, doesn’t
excuse .  Spiritual blindness / / is fault not affliction.  What have I
Treasure
t green.”  / / The image of the strange
exhausted youth / / against the dark, had somehow been conveyed / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
with more care.  And though / / extreme
exhaustion and thirst-sickness did / / near-crush him when he came, s
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
hacked, hour after hour.  / / Forced by
exhaustion to a moment’s rest / / he saw the little tunnel he had mad
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ll?”  / / “Brussels, Roe Head, Law Hill—
exile and prison,” / / she said, “but sometimes on the windy hill /
The Black-out
edan, Paris besieged, France lost, / /
exile , chilled in English Chislehurst, / / widowhood, soon to mourn /
Time’s Reach
ly viewed / / is Eden, prison, path of
exile , fold.  / / Who happy kiss within / / to passers jealous, cold,
A Window
ufficed.  Three times the rigour / / of
exile had me dying, but the poor / / flesh won and brought me home.  I
The Black-out
vely in the moonlight.”  / / “Lovely—an
exile to desire,” I said.  / / “So stands the moon over Vathý, and bri
The Black-out
of Lithend / Riding down to the ship of
exile waiting / / in the firth below / / his horse threw him.  He ros
Gunnar of Lithend
ce, and quite / / forget the misery of
exile when / / Ithaca lay lovely in the moonlight.”  / / “Lovely—an e
The Black-out
heard / / from one who knew him in his
exiled age, / / but now we take a new hero—or say / / him rebegotten
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
felt no less a prisoner.  / / Of itself
exiled and imprisoned will / / the heart become, and little matters w
The Black-out
e below the built wall, / / forget the
exiled sea.  / / I am the wave that sweeps over the wall, / / sets yo
The Wave
dark / / await no dawn, and those / /
exiled , to whom the hostile and the kind / / are facets of one strang
Waiting
[Some
exiles know] / Some exiles know / / they will not, cannot be recalled
[Some exiles know]
[Some exiles know] / Some
exiles know / / they will not, cannot be recalled.  / / No overthrow
[Some exiles know]
hate / / and press towards a hope.  The
exile’s scar / / now throbs to agony.  Now kiss and play / / couched
May Day
empty / / world, where bird and child
exist like water / / and today is yesterday and is tomorrow.  / / Una
For Rachel
which ours seemed painful or hardly to
exist , / / move us in others.  Has time brought up a mist / / or blow
In the Audience
I need to think, that because one / /
existed so strongly, warmly, and is now gone, / / her existence is mo
Death
les, miles, months cannot defeat love’s
existence .  / /
Two Poems from a New Life
world?  Mentally we can hypothetize / /
existence in two dimensions or in four / / or many, but can’t imagina
Dimension
ngly, warmly, and is now gone, / / her
existence is more real still, now and here, / / than this meaningless
Death
conspires with science to deny / / the
existence of a me.  / / Yet I believe it constantly.  / /
Shadow and Substance
Death / / / Does time embrace
existence or existence time?  / / Revelation implies the latter, but c
Death
/ / / Does time embrace existence or
existence time?  / / Revelation implies the latter, but can I believe
Death
joys and the pains / / of this deeper
existence we know, at whose heart / / is our love, and the love of wh
Hymn
nship—only an inner-grown / / and self-
existent you I cannot see.”  / / “I am not all that I am capable of,”
The Black-out
ne / / nor only others, cares for self
existing / / as one with others, cares for others also.  / / In tedio
Patience
nication they admit, / / to time their
exit and their entrance so / / they may not meet.  / / Beautiful crea
Woodpeckers
The old familiar faces / / snapped in
exotic places / / —Katmandu, Campdown Races, / / the Sphinx, the Bla
Tourist
joy the love of Zeus / / should scarce
expect affection from his wife.  / /
To Hera
thought for her / / but one would not
expect him to try and communicate.  / / But what about the Guiccioli? 
“Tell Lady Byron…”
he Court—the Queen and royal child / /
expected daily.  / / Always, other years, / / the King and the male c
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
d asked for yet again, / / each phrase
expected where it always went.  / / But once (he now remembered clearl
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ke those who listen for the phone, / /
expecting nothing, listen for the post, / / when mind and hand hold s
The Black-out
te young: / / working in time tides of
experience / / alone could grave those channels, from those strong /
In the Audience
f sorts with self and others, when / /
experience and patience should know how to / / guide the cross spirit
Again
t my companion (all the years, / / the
experience , shared) / / and now, piercingly, you.  / / And no-one els
[Living alone is lonely]
apt chance, / / determine beauty, / /
explore truth…  / / Sheared nerves mutter / / in the sealed stump.  /
Lopped
h the sleek sweep of the road.  / / The
exposed trees absorb the fumes / / which seep into our smoky rooms.  /
The Rift
e movements and their sound.  / / Faces
express feelings, release words.  / / She looks away from them, down,
Nadia
es brought her’ / / serves at least to
express her rarity.  / / Next morning hooves and grinding wheels awoke
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
atues generally gave faces / / no more
expressive than their lovely bottoms).  / / Now the sun goes down.  Par
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
as well as their love: love / / of the
expressive , the living word, of / / poetry.  She made / / —of sewing,
Eugénie de Guérin
Cedar / The cedar’s sunny terraces / /
extend about a vault of shade / / —inevitable images / / forming fro
Cedar
sm / Look up into the night, but not to
extend / / divine order spun from the thoughts of men.  / / The dry m
Macrocosm
ife constrained / / him too to accept,
extend .  / / That’s not to remember him by.  / / Remember (remembering
George Jackson
/ / out through uncharted night, / /
extending being.  But in their recklessness / / stretch to snapping co
Holes in Space
rth, / / starves and poisons her; / /
extends his firman further: / / water and air / / suffer his mandate
Dr Faustus
r, the live thing / / moving with him,
extension of muscle and bone, / / lightly responding to his lean, or
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
er in his father’s bed, / / but got no
extra kick from the affair / / having no notion who these people were
No Complex
/ / the season she loved most.  / / An
extra twist that she should die / / in high summer, this autumn lost.
Death
own image.  / / That is what makes him,
extraordinarily , man.  / / But we must watch at last our self-made ima
Dream under a Carob-tree
fe, with our unnatural “I am”.  / / The
extraordinary process of becoming man / / forces us out of nature, to
The Reckoning
d water with more care.  And though / /
extreme exhaustion and thirst-sickness did / / near-crush him when he
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
t, new-fired.  Then something caught his
eye .  / / A flowered bush, studded among the flowers / / with butterf
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / beauty just so shining from air to
eye / / across brimming waters of misery, / / no less beautiful for
“Life is sweet, brother”
e hedge / / scattered prodigally, / /
eye and heart filled.  / / Poetry?  / / This year… / / beauty is not
Another Summer
.  / / A fish jumps at the corner of my
eye , / / back into black unglimpsed / / as some thoughts dive out of
Water in a Wood
or girl lying / / looked up into that
eye , eye without sight / / whose circle gathered both sides of the sc
Block 21
Through you I have, such as I have, an
eye / / for visual truth.  And we have shared a world / / wider than
The Black-out
reath, bearing no trace / / in mind or
eye .  / / Glowing, drooping in spirit and in face / / momently like a
The Lilies of the Field
been?  / / What, under that unrecording
eye , / / have done?  / /
Block 21
ening.  / / Crows, pies have picked our
eye -holes clear, / / plucked beards and brows for their nests’ lining
Villon’s Epitaph
Shoot when you see the white of a man’s
eye .  / / If more of you can kill your man than die, / / ours is the
Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank
e heeling coach home through a needle’s
eye / / into the court—but was there something wrong?  / / A bump, a
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ow and blinding storm / / the spirit’s
eye keeps clear, its footing firm, / / and tune its ear, too negligen
Prayer to Truth
the leaf-mould / / uncaring, when his
eye lit on the shell / / dropped there unharmed.  Vaguely he touched i
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
, / / a dancer’s face.  / / Why do you
eye me so?  / / All loves in love have place.  / / Come in from the co
Vision Between Waking and Sleep
rried and stacked.  / / Not only in the
eye of the beholder.  / / Beauty is more mysterious than that / / str
“Life is sweet, brother”
untains of Achaea, and through / / the
eye of the Corinth canal.  Another grows / / in the far corner of Weym
Bury My Heart
/ / of past and hope, of echo left on
eye , / / on ear, on parted flesh.  All dreams.  But even / / moments o
Separation
lock so far this way?  / / Or has he an
eye on the strength of the Twelve-Mile Post?”  / / Billowing, settling
On the Border
.  / / One day perhaps for no recording
eye .  / / One day certainly / / not recurring, / / the planet dying,
Credo
ture is nothing, / / unformed, till an
eye / / prints an image / / on a prepared brain.  / / Heart’s feelin
Music is Landscape
glowing picked up his bow and with sure
eye / / shot down a seagull for his breakfast, roasted / / on old dr
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
lacently.  / / Later a figure caught my
eye / / —the same? another? odd.  / / The mirror made a rude reply.  /
Reflection
cliffs and beaches / / scanned by the
eye , the seen one with the known.  / / But now (he was, or would be so
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ we knew before, could not with a like
eye / / view a like world.  And incidentally / / the prince’s child-w
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
irl lying / / looked up into that eye,
eye without sight / / whose circle gathered both sides of the screen:
Block 21
ep / / things appear / / sharp in the
eye , / / words speak in the ear / / startlingly clear, / / sometime
Against Anorexia:  For Cathy
irst light, spring light, a clear- / /
eyed , firm-handed geometer, / / built an intelligible world / / of s
For Cecil
d miseries / / fenced with high barbs,
eyed from towers, stain / / earth and sky with their stench, sky and
Two Poems for G
ife had shaved.  She raised her head and
eyed / / him hard.  He shivered in the sun.  What other / / such froze
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ed on him in many shapes.  / / Today he
eyed the coast between the capes / / and felt constricted, narrowly h
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
tears.  / / I woke from tears / / dry-
eyed to the puzzling presence of a dream.  / /
A Dream
ked / / the end of seen and known.  His
eyelids dropping / / against the glare, he drowsed, half dreaming yet
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
nd level light / / before our ordinary
eyes .  / /
Early Train
lankness, unrecognition, / / I feel my
eyes adjusting, / / frozen memory / / melting back to the beauty /
Return
iver / / reflects the moon between our
eyes and brain, / / and bound within our private senses quiver / / a
The Black-out
th inexpressible joy and pain / / from
eyes and ears memorial shadows fade / / in the truth’s presence.  “The
The Black-out
Love’s Eyes and Hands / Love’s
eyes and hands and all his senses flower / / in speechless speech; bu
Love’s Eyes and Hands
Love’s
Eyes and Hands / Love’s eyes and hands and all his senses flower / /
Love’s Eyes and Hands
pain in hate.  / / And then he saw her
eyes and knew his error / / and dropped the knife and backed against
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
of the screen: / / conscious terrified
eyes and numbed groin; / / white figures, busy hands, flicker of stee
Block 21
ng blue sky.  / / I look through my own
eyes and others too, / / the dead who see nothing, perhaps another /
[Released from cloud the low sun at my back]
/ / a look he didn’t know came in her
eyes , / / and then she told him, to his shocked surprise, / / a stor
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ht that lies and blinds.  / / Open your
eyes , and yet may come to pass / / your unschemed hope, as the new mo
Scheme
ometimes upon world and sun / / turned
eyes as darkened as the dead.  / / “What else?”  / / Have loved and be
Interrogation
t, / / then, feeling better, dried her
eyes —as well / / she did—“The Queen—Long live the King—The King / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
…  / / …  Remove the camera / / and the
eyes behind / / are, you’ll find, / / blind.  / /
Tourist
ut there / / a swollen belly, hollowed
eyes , / / blank stare, / / where once a day or once perhaps in three
Dinner
annot lead.  / / Not I the spirit whose
eyes can brighten through / / your dark sea.  Waits ahead the help you
The Black-out
thorn fortress”—smiled at him.  / / His
eyes closed, and he opened them alone.  / / ‘To be her prince and have
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e are now / / the coloured worlds your
eyes fed to your heart?  / /
Green World
girl in the train looks out with brown
eyes / / fixed and lost.  / / What is she looking for?  What is gone? 
Song
wers, with windows and a view.”  / / My
eyes followed the water running faster, / / fast to the sea—and sudde
The Black-out
e is looking blindly through those lost
eyes / / for her brown hair.  / /
Song
ghted him long ago?  / / He dropped his
eyes from hers to the gloved hands / / which deftly shaved and gutted
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e and struggle on.  / / Then his glazed
eyes (he might have gone a mile, / / two, fifty yards) awoke to the w
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ead, / / veiling the terrified staring
eyes .  / / Hear / / the gentle voice in the common foreign tongue /
Block 21
zing in a field.  / / Green world in my
eyes , heart.  Other summers, / / last summer, your world too.  / / Whe
Green World
s.  “But he” I said, and sought her / /
eyes , “is in Cambridge.”  “I am in the ground, / / cold bones in Hawor
The Black-out
hrough in your words, love through your
eyes , / / I’ve known before.  / / Under that free sky stand / / alle
Two Poems for G
e was dying— / / skin, bone and scared
eyes , moving like a mouse / / in the dusk of walls, craved scraps of
Law Report
e long grass, the hot sun.  / / Open my
eyes now on what afternoon?  / /
Summers
ng a stranger boy.  / / They closed his
eyes .  Now the palace was hushed.  / / Born in the purple?  Well, not qu
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
, but as he left, again / / lifted her
eyes on him and laughed once more.  / / Her laughter’s end was lost in
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ked across his arm, and having set / /
eyes on the work, the worshipped master knew.  / / Past intellectual t
The Black-out
ble way, / / and passing lend / / our
eyes perception of a clearer air / / a brighter day.  / /
The Lilies of the Field
ooked at me, the rake, then lowered his
eyes , / / sat down on the bed beside me, and began / / “I was coming
Spells and Love
masked skin.  / / Only the fixed brown
eyes seem to reveal / / someone within.  / / Self-made? self-murdered
Song
in the long grass / / sun on my face,
eyes shut, remembering / / sixty years ago I suppose it was / / lyin
Summers
uppose it was / / lying in long grass,
eyes shut, sun on face, / / imagining—no, pretending rather— / / thi
Summers
n your brow / / those rings about your
eyes ?  / / Surely life is only love / / and love is paradise.”  / / O
Dialogue
image of your face as mask, / / closed
eyes swollen.  / / Snow under grey cloud.  / / Monochrome world from C
For Cecil
the beach, the river, with those other
eyes , / / the boy’s a hundred years perhaps away / / heavily travell
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
thills.  And evening suddenly showed his
eyes / / the river of his vision days before.  / / The other river, o
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
, / / staring down at it with unseeing
eyes .  / / Then she saw it, and knew it, and there found / / a truth
Pelopia and Thyestes
/ I haven’t seen (only with the mind’s
eyes ) / / those acres of heath and wook, free and wild, / / under a
Two Poems for G
d, born blind, / / but when his kitten-
eyes unclose / / some people find / / they have chosen even better t
Epithalamium
.  / / But often mind forgot the joy of
eyes .  / / Valley, col, valley formed his zigzag way / / by star and
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ears / / tuned to another sound-range,
eyes which focus / / in a different light.  They whisper / / to man’s
Two Cultures?