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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

F

beautiful— / / sad, an old tale, / /
fable , romance…  / / False?  But there’s something there, / / the beau
Heron and Gulls
square in my dream: / / a white stone
façade of Edwardian baroque.  / / In letters of gold from an architrav
[The municipal building stood square in my dream]
with that other frightening frightened
face .  / /
Change Places…
ook it in the face, / / the disfigured
face ?  / /
Another Summer
ild, / / something of two faces in her
face , / / a dancer and a child, / / long ago, long apart, / / each
Meeting
ve, / / the hot tears running down her
face , and cried / / ‘My knight, my prince, my love’, and leaning kiss
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / in one.  She raised her face to his
face and / / kissed his mouth.  Then “This” faltering “is yours if…”  /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
and long ago.  / / The wind blows in my
face and shouts “Love”, / / the wild fresh wind; the rest / / is lif
Wind
rt.  The moonlight fell / / on her pale
face and tall, slight, angular figure.  / / “And you?”  I said; and she
The Black-out
much does memory wane? / / figure and
face and voice I thought I had, / / but now with inexpressible joy an
The Black-out
/ Always returns the / / image of your
face as mask, / / closed eyes swollen.  / / Snow under grey cloud.  /
For Cecil
sharper than the image of her old / /
face as she drew the memory up, he saw / / the beach, the river, with
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
lace.  / / I look across through my old
face / / at the sleeper on the other seat.  / / Dirty old men dream y
Meeting
lying in the long grass / / sun on my
face , eyes shut, remembering / / sixty years ago I suppose it was /
Summers
ness blots all, / / the ravage and the
face .  Faintly wells / / a pale returning light whose kindness veils /
In the Audience
skirt, the red of shame / / hot in her
face , friends giggling, crowd’s rude cracks / / barking about her, th
Pelopia and Thyestes
faked / / too, wholly real as form and
face had been.  / / But here, just so, the river flowed against / / t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
while sweat and blood / / ran down his
face , he fought a mounting fear.  / / He knew in this last fight again
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
stirred and turned her flower-face—that
face .  / / He kissed her on the mouth and she awoke.  / / “You?…” a fa
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
-backs, backs of stooping men— / / one
face : hers, lifted sleeping.  So she took him / / once more a child as
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
snow / / looking in at my door: / / a
face I was in love with long ago, / / a dancer’s face.  / / Why do yo
Vision Between Waking and Sleep
lying in long grass, eyes shut, sun on
face , / / imagining—no, pretending rather— / / this isn’t the edge o
Summers
her kneel and bend.  / / She turned her
face .  It all / / —horror, lust, oracle— / / flared to one hideous en
Pelopia and Thyestes
/ a monstrous hill of thorn before his
face / / just where a sudden thinning of the wood / / should mark hi
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / Glowing, drooping in spirit and in
face / / momently like a flower / / they touch the absolute value of
The Lilies of the Field
.  The cock crows / / triumphant in her
face .  / / Not seeing only.  Her untaught child-hand / / impossibly ca
Nadia
et.  / / And on his right hand hung the
face of Diaghilev, / / and on his left hand hung the face of God, /
Nijinsky
to understand / / the necessary double
face of fate, / / the two in one, the one and other half / / which m
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
lev, / / and on his left hand hung the
face of God, / / and played at war between them with the soul of Niji
Nijinsky
ble precisions) / / to the other penny-
face of the same visions, / / childhood.  / / From a deep layer sudde
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
rial pasture from new plough, / / laid
face on arm he wept—sobbing waves / / of hot tears washing the weight
A Dream
moment to take a cool / / look in the
face , or / / rather at the fact, of death.  / / What do I see?  / / C
[Now of threescore and ten]
/ my father pulling his hand across his
face / / —perhaps now at his desk doing the same?  / / I thought, and
The Black-out
love a landscape or / / a picture or a
face / / —person, thing and place, / / though we may love it for /
Fair Exchange
t of the black a figure moved, strained
face / / raised to the curtained room, white in the moon— / / that y
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
hard sinews, the horribly / / cloaked
face she could not glimpse; but she was caught, / / trapped, pinned o
Pelopia and Thyestes
/ / this black frost / / on a spring
face ?  She really can’t be said / / a pretty girl / / precisely, rath
Song
lking on the white / / slippery track,
face smarting / / in the evening frost / / —this monochrome stillnes
For Cecil
iking.  / / But today / / meeting your
face suddenly, dark photograph / / in a blown-up snapshot of Anne Fra
Hermes of Olympia
/ purposeful.  Suddenly from the cliff-
face swept / / a flight of white birds, wheeled over the boat / / we
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / She stirred and turned her flower-
face —that face.  / / He kissed her on the mouth and she awoke.  / / “Y
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
.  Then, clearer yet, / / her form, her
face , the dear unknown princess.  / / Then darkness.  / / Rest and fai
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ut have I learnt / / to look it in the
face , / / the disfigured face?  / /
Another Summer
/ fences about the truth, veils on her
face .  / / The heaviness you father on the war, / / preventable slaug
The Black-out
erty).  The sun burns / / on the quarry-
face .  The other way, / / above this bare hill and a pine-green hill,
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
e leaned and pulled his hand across his
face : / / “the second darkness falls,” he said, “the war / / recurri
The Black-out
/ / perfection of sorrow in the flower-
face .  / / The young man, knowing the power in his fingers, / / knowi
Pietà
the marble mountain.  He lies below the
face / / they chiselled back to free the block.  This is his place.  /
September Cruise
d her wounds / / in front.  She went to
face things.  / / What though I wonder, / / what would she now think
Wounds
r smile—two / / in one.  She raised her
face to his face and / / kissed his mouth.  Then “This” faltering “is
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
the wood.  / / Shriven, she raised her
face / / to the sweet air / / and a voice came out of the wind / /
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
dropped into dream, / / just now.  Her
face was from him, but the head / / bright in the sun.  Her slight and
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
in the water-wandering stone?”  / / Her
face was memory where the cold light poured / / and memory the colour
The Black-out
ugh; / / or were it so / / that fixed
face was not moulded on his heart / / but on his will.  / / Can any m
And Then
shame.  / / I pulled my hand across my
face , weary, / / and through my limbs like wine through water came /
The Black-out
Blind / The blind girl’s
face , which never was / / composed before a looking-glass, / / learn
Blind
ck Auster / / gazing into his master’s
face / / while the grey horse whirls through wolf-wild passes, / / b
Poetry
/ and wind hurls the sea in the home’s
face .  / / Who bred here could suppose himself to possess / / of his
The West of Ireland
in love with long ago, / / a dancer’s
face .  / / Why do you eye me so?  / / All loves in love have place.  /
Vision Between Waking and Sleep
the Audience / Still young that unknown
face ; yet not quite young: / / working in time tides of experience /
In the Audience
/ till where’s the mask and where’s the
face ?  / / Yet, turning to ourselves again, / / is there so huge an o
H.A.R.P.
ea / / and grew at length into a cliff-
faced range— / / mountains!  The river-water was nearly gone / / and
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ting the spade to strike / / the white-
faced tall shopkeeper with the black shock-hair / / phoning the polic
A Dream
t twenty-four hours pass / / before he
faced the question how to cross, / / regaining strength and learning
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
hes the movements and their sound.  / /
Faces express feelings, release words.  / / She looks away from them,
Nadia
or three streets.  Know / / featureless
faces ground by gross / / poverty, in common loss / / unsingular.  /
Dinner
woman and child, / / something of two
faces in her face, / / a dancer and a child, / / long ago, long apar
Meeting
wers, / / radio telescopes with lifted
faces / / listening / / to secrets of the universe…  / / Listening? 
Two Cultures?
/ / just as to statues generally gave
faces / / no more expressive than their lovely bottoms).  / / Now the
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
g love, earth.  / / Observe, absorb her
faces of night and day / / before the more than sleep.  / /
[Now of threescore and ten]
/ / from brilliant colours and bright
faces , / / sinks in dark stuffs and secret looks, and shows / / the
The Party
Tourist / The old familiar
faces / / snapped in exotic places / / —Katmandu, Campdown Races, /
Tourist
till the temples hold / / their broken
faces to the dawn.  / /
Acropolis
urned our backs, towards the Thames our
faces .  / / Trafalgar Square, laid empty in the moonlight, / / and lo
The Black-out
n to bare skin our bodies flowered, our
faces / / were on fire, and our whispers were as sweet as honey.  / /
Spells and Love
eces like a pack of cards; / / and the
faces whirled in intersecting circles / / with the spades and diamond
Nijinsky
whom the hostile and the kind / / are
facets of one strange, barbarian heart.  / / Their bonds remain, but y
Waiting
ast appeared / / a great wall of south-
facing cliff, which stretched / / west, west to the horizon, straight
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ How could it be? here?  Here it was, a
fact , / / a sea-gift wished him in this forest-hell.  / / He found hi
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
as breath, / / falls dead against the
fact of death.  / / “One ever near thee.”  How can I / / believe the t
Sibling
look in the face, or / / rather at the
fact , of death.  / / What do I see?  / / Chiefly the urgency / / of l
[Now of threescore and ten]
outh.’  / / Among these words the bleak
fact of his loss, / / dropped sharp as new, contorted him with pain,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ere too that he / / took passively the
fact of love, instead / / of making it a life or breaking free.  / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
t.  / / Death one would think is / / a
fact one can’t disguise, / / especially violent / / death.  But have
Another Summer
/ a conscious effort to take / / the
fact that, looking down / / on me from this balcony, / / a watcher w
Climacteric by the Sea
ked.  “The blight / / is just that flat
fact that what is must cease.”  / / “But no.  No.  All that once has bee
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
on ground we left behind / / matter-of-
fact with house and lane.  / / O secret, o enchanted space / / thus s
[Seen from the hill the hazy plain]
way to fight / / needle or thorn?  The
fact would come to him / / and put his painted fantasies to flight /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
banner / / we bear of smoke, smoke of
factories , / / the factories themselves, washing shining / / in narr
“Life is sweet, brother”
of smoke, smoke of factories, / / the
factories themselves, washing shining / / in narrow yards, the yards,
“Life is sweet, brother”
n’s refuse / / from railway, gasworks,
factory and drain / / past wordy Westminster to the mined sea, / / w
The Black-out
and the hind, / / and with it the sad
facts .  Perhaps we all / / are schizophrenes in posse.  He for one / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
er journal / / a sampler that does not
fade .  / /
Eugénie de Guérin
ful / / but not unravaged.  / / Lights
fade .  Darkness blots all, / / the ravage and the face.  Faintly wells
In the Audience
/ from eyes and ears memorial shadows
fade / / in the truth’s presence.  “There is more to do / / than any
The Black-out
ow, warmth of drink, food / / begin to
fade .  / / Lovers close, held together, feud / / against wind.  / / I
[Wind is chilly on shoulders]
her own place.  Let / / her cruel spell
fade , / / peak away, as / / she would have had / / you do.  Let the
Against Anorexia:  For Cathy
and if this child’s beauty, ephemeral,
fade / / rebuke no promise, made / / and broken—there was none.  / /
Joy
eling that everything / / is possible,
faded from you in / / a narrow walled alley with no escape.  / / Now,
[Most of us, somewhere along the road]
teps left no sound.  / / The light wind
faded out as he came near.  / / “Oh what a moon,” he said.  “By such a
The Black-out
e.  Mark them, lady Moon.  / / My colour
faded —sallow as a dead leaf.  / / My hair fell out and my body thinned
Spells and Love
on its back, / / low down in the quick-
faded southern sunset / / over the ocean rim.  I looked at the moon, /
A Hoard
en / / the memory / / of that country
faded / / the story does not say, / / nor whether her children / /
The Green Children of Woolpit
locked by a fallen tree, / / beyond it
fades and fails / / between rock-broken falls / / and rough growth o
[The track up the wild stream]
ife, / / not like the camera catch the
fading moment / / to hold it like a dead leaf in the hand.  / /
Moment and Memory
turn.  / / I stood beside it.  Wrinkling
fading petals / / dropping from old flowers, only a few new ones / /
Omens
there’s a further border.  The world of
faery / / is on the other side of the short grass on the hill, / / r
[The bare, beautiful borders]
kindness…  Grind the axe, / / heap the
faggots .  Notch it up.  / /
Royal Family
her soul’s good, / / and first of the
faggots they laid / / the rose from the wood.  / / Shriven, she raise
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
he could not think her good / / would
fail him—but the fairy’s curse?—Ah, that.  / / Off to his right the ba
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
one / / —that plea allowed could never
fail / / to carry a built-in reprieve, / / a passport to eternity.  /
A Prayer
as / / I failed you, so can only / /
fail to take your place.  / / Yes, but must still be something / / mo
For Cecil
ork.  The powers / / he trusted had not
failed him but had proved / / themselves to him, as he to them was, t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
knife— / / a few men killed.  The break
failed .  / / Jackson was down too, killed.  / / He’d been in jail half
George Jackson
er, nailed to die / / on the dry tree,
failed love.  / /
Stray Thoughts at a Wedding
sent me?  Do not fear the wind / / has
failed me of my peace, or her the wood.  / / She is of the wood and I
The Black-out
y wife / / does understand me.”  / / I
failed you living / / and what I do can’t help you / / dead.  But it
For Cecil
ief.  We made plans.  / / You felt I had
failed you / / profoundly.  I don’t forget.  / / But must not let that
For Cecil
t courage.  / / I am old, and as / / I
failed you, so can only / / fail to take your place.  / / Yes, but mu
For Cecil
, / / but he loved only himself… voice
failing in tears.  / / And now, alone on the fells, companioned only /
A Dream
to care / / find how to care become a
failing skill: / / am seldom now made inwardly aware / / of the atro
Teach Us…
a fallen tree, / / beyond it fades and
fails / / between rock-broken falls / / and rough growth of the stee
[The track up the wild stream]
/ He groped.  A glimmer, sinking.  If it
fails , / / darkness…  But no, the light flamed up—of course, / / the
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ut nothing lasts indefinitely.  / / She
fails now in her fated hour, / / hanging herself in her own rope.  /
Great Britain
ngs here, for which one guesses / / or
fails to guess a meaning, be the mere slicing / / across our world, w
Dimension
/ it is some built-in device, / / some
failsafe mechanism, / / that hurries us down to drown offshore.  / /
What goes up must come down
/ our follies and our wickednesses, our
failure ; / / not least, for our own sake, / / what we are doing to n
Buttercups
uccessful, happy, mourned / / a hollow
failure of the heart.  / / Your joy of life, your shining / / feeling
[Most of us, somewhere along the road]
/ herself were in despair / / at man’s
failure to care, / / his obsessive, his mad drive to go / / on down
Antipodes
ms.  / / In the business of living, its
failures and gains, / / let us never lose touch with the joys and the
Hymn
must / / accept that in death / / all
failures , like all losses / / are irrecoverable.  / / On the radio /
For Cecil
houlder something move… / / so whisper-
faint … a dream?  / / No—if intangible, / / still a warm presence at h
Masque
stretched / / almost past sight—only a
faint blue rim, / / another range.  Light, dark brown, reds, golds, pa
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ote between blue-distanced downs / / a
faint flat blue, and knew it for the sea— / / and longed to lose for
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
dream / / surprised, I listened to the
faint guitar.  / / Down to the quay below Westminster Bridge, / / whe
The Black-out
melting drifts of cloud / / remote and
faint lies mother earth.  / / Above the station of our birth / / we r
From the Air
apt from some galaxy, far / / past the
faint nebula / / remotest ranged / / within our sense / / behind th
The Sea
Wind / The stars are
faint on the pale sky above, / / the phosphorus sparkles in the foam
Wind
ether.”  From the darkness curled / / a
faint rhythm of music far up stream.  / / Giles turned intent, and soo
The Black-out
nd woke, after the sun was high, / / a
faint sea-breeze, which shifted presently / / and settled steady in t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
nd saw one day / / beyond the ribbon a
faint shadow rise / / which broke too the horizon of the sea / / and
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ee; I raised my head / / and saw a few
faint stars across the loose / / network of twigs, and knew that all
The Black-out
the mouth and she awoke.  / / “You?…” a
faint trouble in a moment gone, / / lost in a smile as warm as sunlig
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
cess.  / / Then darkness.  / / Rest and
faint warmth of the sun / / revived him to his pain.  He lay awhile, /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
o / / Bridge, angled black against the
fainter sky, / / seen in their form, and seen and formed anew.  / / “
The Black-out
cloud / / and shared with me / / the
faintest brief arc of a real rainbow.  / /
[Fall rainbows the forest-acred mountains]
ed her with his gaze / / troubling her
faintly …  Now, suddenly known / / her guide of four years back—and und
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
in this instance advisedly, / / hoping
faintly that mankind’s temperament / / might now find itself worked b
Greenham Common
lots all, / / the ravage and the face. 
Faintly wells / / a pale returning light whose kindness veils / / ju
In the Audience
/ beautiful, inhuman, / / the Queen of
fair Elfland.  / / I am not for her / / nor need fear her, holding yo
Los Altos Hills
/ For Housman, spring’s whitening / / —
fair enough.  / / One can’t do better for a love, / / but each of us
[Housman was old beyond his years]
Fair Exchange / Everything we love / / puts on features of / / all t
Fair Exchange
as different from her other tales.  / /
Fairies and giants, kings and queens of old, / / princesses in the to
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / was something more, and ‘what the
fairies brought her’ / / serves at least to express her rarity.  / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
real, sharp as frost or flame: / / the
fairies , gathering for the grand event.  / / A crowned white cradlehoo
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ers on the green / / have followed the
fairies under hill.  / /
Freedom
all of smoke, / / to know fully, judge
fairly another heart / / is more than hard.  / / One land, one house,
A Window
e / / bright sky, keeping their rhythm
fairly true, / / snaking in line or circle, hand in hand / / between
Pelopia and Thyestes
white by white— / / one more forgotten
fairy , but this one not / / thereby to malice moved or bitterness.  /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
o much, so very much, to thank / / the
fairy for, he could not think her good / / would fail him—but the fai
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
my princess, is coming here.’  / / The
fairy gifts had worked—if what they gave / / in truth had made her wh
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
r the river.  Far beyond it lay / / the
fairy -promised girl.  That thought caressed / / him still, even while
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e / / down the right fork.  He felt the
fairy smile.  / / Over the miles, under the leafy light, / / at fork
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
End of
Fairy -Story / All tasks done, spells are taken off / / and happy now
End of Fairy-Story
ut the door.  / / They went as might in
fairy -story go / / some magic castle, leaving a bleak moor.  / / We f
The Black-out
Fairy Story / Her blistered fingers stumbling at their task / / as ti
Fairy Story
/ riven by a Caesarian birth.  / / The
fairy -story hero’s cake / / was eaten with his mother’s curse.  / / H
Mother’s Malison
n this last fight against the good / /
fairy , the bad was rousing all her power.  / / His strength and purpos
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
et lose the day, / / defeated with the
fairy who had blessed him.  / / A third time frantically round the bar
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
round us, me and you / / touching, the
fairy world, flowers / / and birdsong, is again ours.  / /
[Most of us, somewhere along the road]
hazy plain / / filled up with light is
fairyland .  / / We climbed from there, and shall descend / / in a few
[Seen from the hill the hazy plain]
r too, but he was still alone…  / / The
fairy’s curse—a shocking fear possessed him / / that after the hard v
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
nk her good / / would fail him—but the
fairy’s curse?—Ah, that.  / / Off to his right the bank was flattened
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
d hope again.  / / “He had to fight the
fairy’s curse to win / / the fairy’s promise—that was what he said.  /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
oints were sullenly the same.  / / ’The
fairy’s curse’—he knew he fought a spell…  / / Who knew?  Who fought?  /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
” / / He heard, they heard, the wicked
fairy’s laugh, / / felt the good smile, began to understand / / the
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e did, because he had believed / / the
fairy’s promise.  And if that were so / / he must believe she’d make a
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
r, his head laid on her knee.  / / “The
fairy’s promise is the prince’s bride.”  / / He fell asleep as she was
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
fight the fairy’s curse to win / / the
fairy’s promise—that was what he said.  / / I don’t know what he meant
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ied / / led to the river straight.  The
fairy’s rancour / / was stilled for now, and in the other’s care / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ntains and the coast, / / trusting the
fairy’s truth, he led her on, / / weighed anchor, set sail.  Many days
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
hero—or say / / him rebegotten by the
fairy’s word?  / / A prince—the same or not?  Well, turn the page / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ad to eclipse / / the joy.  But no.  The
fairy’s word was bond, / / should he love out his life.  Yet what, in
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
meaningless life; and love’s affirming
faith .  / /
Wedding Night
, sleeping sound, / / O thou of little
faith ; but we are here.”  / / I listened, and his footsteps left no so
The Black-out
A Prayer / God, in whom I have no
faith , / / hear my unbelieving prayer: / / not to play blind-man’s-b
A Prayer
/ to all you ought to be, a breach of
faith .”  / / Hurt home I struck back:  “I have not committed / / the c
The Black-out
ith the wisdom of innocence, / / total
faith in an ordered universe / / breathed from the will of God / / w
Eugénie de Guérin
th / You who are manifest in reason and
faith , / / mathematical symbol, artist’s vision—Truth, / / compel th
Prayer to Truth
hey mean.  / / If our love can keep its
faith / / there is a chance (chance?) / / the frost will break, yout
Winter Recalled
.  / / He has left the walled garden of
Faith , walks / / anywhere wilful thought may lead.  She looks / / out
Eugénie de Guérin
on’t you clearly see / / this lump the
faithful image of your soul?  / / Is it a prison?  / / Remember then,
Body
le him out as blest / / by answering a
faithless prayer?  / / Dark power / / of formula and rune, to trust /
Uncertain
Then, one morning, at last, again / /
faithless we find a miracle, / / tender on the high twigs the green. 
Renewal
/ / The laugh too, and the voice, are
faked …  / / So what?—The image with the cracked / / torso, tilted on
On the Towpath
/ the vision—wondered if the girl were
faked / / too, wholly real as form and face had been.  / / But here,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / and gold and ivory shatter in the
fall .  / /
Against Pedestals
of blossoming, / / season of blossom’s
fall .  / / A white tree at the full; / / whiteness loosening, falling
[What words are there for Spring?]
/ / to see them, but old granny had a
fall / / and died, and grandpa came to live at our / / house here”—i
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ge / Cassandra screamed that Troy would
fall / / and no one noticed her at all.  / / But Hector, heaving out
Presage
g of the rose.  / / Petals we know must
fall , / / and not all days are good, / / but there are perfect days.
Gratitude
e in His blessing, / / thunder of Hell
fall another way.  / / We’re dead.  Spare us more harrying.  / / We all
Villon’s Epitaph
l tree / / matured ineluctably / / to
fall any time now.  / /
In my beginning is my end
he tree lives / / to leaf again.  Trees
fall but not the wood.  / / And though the forest perish, it has been.
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / those who sit still, and those who
fall defending / / justice, seem equally guilty of the strife / / wi
The Black-out
ies quickly but has gleamed first (star-
fall ).  / / I like to lay up my harvest in the wind.  / / Smug, you fo
Treasure
The
Fall / I tripped and fell, heavy on knees and knuckles, / / gripping
The Fall
lone / / notching up which heads shall
fall / / if she can once ascend the throne.  / / Peaky brother at you
Royal Family
gainst Pedestals / for Jody / Our idols
fall .  Not that their feet are clay / / —their feet are ivory, their h
Against Pedestals
was the field ploughed for the seed to
fall / / of love, that was his life and is our theme.  / / It fell in
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
thought and love, / / all sheared by a
fall / / of slanting steel, / / gone in a burst of blood.  / / Yet,
Die Weisse Rose
s.  We see / / the singer silent at the
fall / / of the King, the old life.  / / Peace and order flake away. 
Dark Age
[
Fall rainbows the forest-acred mountains] / Fall rainbows the forest-a
[Fall rainbows the forest-acred mountains]
rainbows the forest-acred mountains] /
Fall rainbows the forest-acred mountains, / / unbelievable ranges /
[Fall rainbows the forest-acred mountains]
right bleached hair curves in a cunning
fall / / round masked skin.  / / Only the fixed brown eyes seem to re
Song
lecting pool, / / somewhere a tinkling
fall / / show that the stream is living too.  / /
[High boughs arch over the half-dry creek]
ed, / / undefined terms—‘love’.  / / I
fall silent.  / / Death one would think is / / a fact one can’t disgu
Another Summer
n.  / / Enjoy life as it was before the
fall : / / sleep easy and eat freely, and again / / travel, and watch
The Twenties
re all blind / / and stumbling blindly
fall / / sometimes into some ditch one and all.  / / Let us at least
Blind
/ / So, in pain they fell.  But also as
fall / / sparks.  The wind blows against the fire / / beating it down
Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville
wn nor knows the seen.  / / Follows the
fall : / / strong in the streets the legions of the fiend / / the fru
Nijinsky
nal victory; even if the best / / must
fall , the hour of triumph is not far.”  / / He to the ranks; and I too
The Black-out
af / / are lovely as spring-green, red
fall .  / / Time’s spiral course through joy and grief / / exacts and
Hymn
all / / if that can help the scalepan
fall .  / / To stand before a judgement-seat / / and hear just what /
Balance Sheet
/ free from the steep, white in a long
fall .  Water / / —always rain, rough in a storm, dripping / / gently,
Varangian in Mickelgard
e, though wrecked nature ruin us in the
fall / / we forced, have had our vision.  While we live / / we know w
The Reckoning
cruelty.  / / I see / / the final bomb
fall wide in open ocean / / —harmless?  Look—circles of desert spread:
Stones
rong spread of another willow.  / / Yet
fallen and soaring bough were rich in leaf / / as the solid trunks fl
Five Poems for Roni
the rough black London grime.  / / I’ve
fallen before / / (my feet almost as clumsy as my fingers) / / but a
The Fall
till.  / / A careful house of cards has
fallen flat: / / turn to a firmer building now.”  “I will” / / I answ
The Black-out
/ into a world where all the winds are
fallen / / for want of anything to keep them up, / / a lightless cav
Where?
suddenly kindles / / stars, firefruits
fallen / / from the sun’s high tree.  / / Today the sea is milk, milk
September Cruise
/ Tell the King: the intricate fane is
fallen .  / / His primitive hut, his laurel of prophecy / / are lost t
The Last Oracle
k up the wild stream, / / blocked by a
fallen tree, / / beyond it fades and fails / / between rock-broken f
[The track up the wild stream]
bing now.  A steep glen at his feet / /
falling away, told him to follow it, / / descending to climb further
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ined all day / / all night the rain is
falling .  / / But suppose morning / / comes bright, washed things wil
Exchange
at the full; / / whiteness loosening,
falling , / / drifting on partial wind / / petal from white petal:  /
[What words are there for Spring?]
rom which to start again?  / / I am not
falling .  Falling implies gravity / / and something there below at the
What am I?
/ We are growth, greenness, / / water
falling , flowing.  / / Not enough sun / / is our complaint, / / too
Drought
to start again?  / / I am not falling. 
Falling implies gravity / / and something there below at the fall’s e
What am I?
terns under the wind’s touch, / / fast
falling of waves regathering slow / / —so much joy to be seen; / / b
Tristi Fummo
dazzled him / / with shafted sunlight
falling on a bed.  / / She seemed to have lain down, dropped into drea
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ bad breath, bad teeth, bad skin, / /
falling or superfluous hair / / or a good crop has dandruff in.  / /
Gratitude
I woke in the night and heard the rain
falling / / softly.  It seemed like weeping.  / / The bright morning g
News of a Death
o), Marvell, Donne / / (Go and catch a
falling star), Border Ballads, / / Campion, Wyatt.  A little later on
Poetry
the water churning round a rock / / or
falling whitely in a widening pool / / from the next cliff.  He stripp
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ades and fails / / between rock-broken
falls / / and rough growth of the steep / / difficult slope.  / / Pe
[The track up the wild stream]
and all.  / / Sparks?  A martyr’s blood
falls as seed, / / and these, if not in will, are that in deed.  / /
Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville
bursts in huge radiance.  The wreck / /
falls back on itself, contracting back, / / down, in, / / irreversib
Holes in Space
The thought, as natural as breath, / /
falls dead against the fact of death.  / / “One ever near thee.”  How c
Sibling
The Party / The light
falls equally on all; it glances / / from brilliant colours and brigh
The Party
oss his face: / / “the second darkness
falls ,” he said, “the war / / recurring like a nightmare or a fever. 
The Black-out
whose laughter like a leper’s bell / /
falls in its own silence; and silent some / / whose thought seems str
The Party
ed / / from years ere light, / / that
falls now caught / / in the wide dew-pond of Mount Palomar, / / leap
The Sea
in a swarming desolation / / as light
falls on the blind.  / / Paris loves Helen in all tongues of the world
Fossils
is…  Can’t I wait up?”  The question / /
falls .  Plato, Paul, ask the (for me) wrong question, / / find me no a
The Betrayal
y / / and something there below at the
fall’s end.  / / I am (so far as I am) rather floating.  / / Nothing f
What am I?
?  / / Just such fatal polarities, / /
false as this, his life constrained / / him too to accept, extend.  /
George Jackson
an old tale, / / fable, romance…  / /
False ?  But there’s something there, / / the beauty’s there.  A kind of
Heron and Gulls
this: / / to strip your own inaction’s
false excuse.”  / / A wind shook through the tree; I raised my head /
The Black-out
mwell (and Charles / / the foolish and
false ) / / they it was killed.  / /
Merrie England
stillborn / / the bastard misconcepts,
falsehoods and fears.  / / And though with age’s oncoming you harden /
Prayer to Time
and / / kissed his mouth.  Then “This”
faltering “is yours if…”  / / She pressed into his hand a handkerchief
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ail / / the moment after.  / / Hamlet,
faltering / / on a split hair, / / hears the laugh / / of the grave
Catharsis
ted ways.  Suddenly the firm stance / /
falters , joined banks are sundered anew.  / / But dance, dance on the
Sur le Pont d’Avignon
turbed by the minuscule / / Fun Pier (‘
Famed for fun since 31’, / / ‘Happiness is a visit to the Manly Fun P
Content
us slowed / / with muted lights but a
familiar air / / a car.  “Hullo; get in.”  Familiar too / / the friend
The Black-out
Tourist / The old
familiar faces / / snapped in exotic places / / —Katmandu, Campdown
Tourist
ng not / / very tunefully / / a tune,
familiar …  Then I / / realized:  Hyperactive.  / / I don’t believe in /
For Cecil
miliar air / / a car.  “Hullo; get in.” 
Familiar too / / the friendly voice, and I was glad to hear.  / / I s
The Black-out
arately, / / found the night-slow / /
familiar way / / home to the lit farmsteads…  Who?  / /
From the Air
day, / / stumbling, shaking, took the
familiar way, / / hungry for bed, home, mother, like a child.  / / Hu
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ps, working at / / home, “We’d start a
family ”.  / / After grassed acres, / / here you chose stone to raise
For Cecil
Royal
Family / Mary and Elizabeth / / each in her palace-cell alone / / no
Royal Family
ck still, delicately lined, / / a leaf-
fan on whorled stalks, above the tang / / which held it in the handle
Label
says “That’s a funny kind of winnowing-
fan .”  / / Plant the oar in the ground, / / mark out a temenos, build
Odysseus
he cliff birds wheel wild, a white / /
fan , scattering wide over the water, / / dwindling, lost.  / / Fledge
Out from the Cliff
to be / / equal to ours?—oh, feed and
fan your flame.”  / / I bent and watched the waters to the sea / / ru
The Black-out
lence sounds the roar / / of a remote,
fanatic fire.  / / To each a tower: fanatics have their dream / / —Ut
The Party
te, fanatic fire.  / / To each a tower: 
fanatics have their dream / / —Utopia or the martyr’s palm— / / The
The Party
/ / our hills, wiped from the world my
fancied spring.  / / “You felt the crusted snow melt from your winter,
The Black-out
.  / / Now I don’t need / / such magic
fancies .  / / Any leaf which dances / / off its tree for me may reach
[Golden, red, brown]
utrace the winds, since those are their
fancies .  Me, / / I’ll sit under this rock singing, my arms about you,
Shepherd’s Song
ven seen him.  / / He must have another
fancy , and I’m forgotten.  / / Now with these love-spells I’ll bind hi
Spells and Love
ve’s gods / / have drawn his wandering
fancy away from me.  / / I’ll go tomorrow to Timagetus’s club / / and
Spells and Love
/ to love.  Better, they thought, keep
fancy free?  / / Or thought, that’s in her and need not be given?  / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
growth of wrong / / has haunted human
fancy / / indissolubly long / / and cast its mirror-image / / again
Other World
started, / / but the child’s straying
fancy was alerted / / suddenly by “a knocking at the door / / one da
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
; / / but need not in a longer view, I
fancy , / / worry that we have hurt her.  / /
Buttercups
day and night… / / came to the Delphic
fane , / / burst in (uncleansed his stain) / / crying on the Lord of
Pelopia and Thyestes
t Oracle / Tell the King: the intricate
fane is fallen.  / / His primitive hut, his laurel of prophecy / / ar
The Last Oracle
day at noon came the white flights / /
fanning out, wheeling west, ahead, as if / / meant for him, sent for
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
g / / the husks from the grains, heavy
fans shifting / / the chaff from the freed grains.  One time, one way.
Dream under a Carob-tree
ld come to him / / and put his painted
fantasies to flight / / leaving him sick, until he fled to them / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
er.  / / His dreams shrank further into
fantasy .  / / The hind mates only with the stag.  Plain truth / / plac
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ looks east over the sea.  / / East we
fare , and the rock-bound dreaming island / / shrinks and hazes, and d
September Cruise
Voyage / We’ve
fared so long on the aimless ordered way, / / our planks are rotten,
Voyage
k / / and the children who / / had no
fares but an old hat / / he bought, wore to a première.  / / Clear, b
For Cecil
Virgil’s
Farewell to Dante / Of eternity in Hell / / I had passed thirteen hun
Virgil’s Farewell to Dante
/ / Past Camden Town we took the Chalk
Farm Road, / / turned with the tramlines along Ferdinand Street, / /
The Black-out
/ / familiar way / / home to the lit
farmsteads …  Who?  / /
From the Air
ars may carry more carcase-ladings / /
farther , faster, in their frantic, red-queen, / / heartblank hunger t
Full Circle
orest-plain below / / stretched to the
farther slopes; far beyond those / / he knew the city lay, and the pr
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
?  When?  Oh, far away and long ago— / /
farther than swallows in the autumn fly, / / I cannot count the gener
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
oss and so to blame.  / / (I speak as a
fast -dyed contemplative, / / but one not quite without a sense of sha
The Two Ways
n patterns under the wind’s touch, / /
fast falling of waves regathering slow / / —so much joy to be seen; /
Tristi Fummo
followed the water running faster, / /
fast to the sea—and sudden I saw new, / / as out of cloud, the moon;
The Black-out
/ like currents traced in foam / / on
fast water.  / / My thoughts / / lift from the stream, dance upon /
How not to listen to music
ddenly / / this was a hilt her fingers
fastened on.  / / Twisted, no purchase, she tugged pitifully, / / and
Pelopia and Thyestes
Curvature of Space / “Faster,
faster ” cries the manic queen “faster” / / to obedient Alice.  / / Th
Curvature of Space
/ / My eyes followed the water running
faster , / / fast to the sea—and sudden I saw new, / / as out of clou
The Black-out
Curvature of Space / “
Faster , faster” cries the manic queen “faster” / / to obedient Alice.
Curvature of Space
Mars, / / to a peradventure satellite (
faster , faster) / / of Alpha Centauri (faster), of some guessed star
Curvature of Space
.  / / The goal still flies ahead.  / /
Faster , faster, to keep up with the Joneses, / / with our father’s gh
Curvature of Space
arry more carcase-ladings / / farther,
faster , in their frantic, red-queen, / / heartblank hunger to out-hur
Full Circle
/ / I find the year’s wheel / / move
faster —more than sixty turns / / completed, am more aware / / what a
Swallows
/ to a peradventure satellite (faster,
faster ) / / of Alpha Centauri (faster), of some guessed star / / in
Curvature of Space
faster, faster) / / of Alpha Centauri (
faster ), of some guessed star / / in Andromeda’s nebula.  / / The goa
Curvature of Space
he goal still flies ahead.  / / Faster,
faster , to keep up with the Joneses, / / with our father’s ghost, wit
Curvature of Space
“Faster, faster” cries the manic queen “
faster ” / / to obedient Alice.  / / The goal still flies ahead.  / /
Curvature of Space
ghost, with the Enemy Over There, / /
faster to the moon, to Mars, / / to a peradventure satellite (faster,
Curvature of Space
So, did they find / / relief?  No.  His
fastidiousness could not / / endure the image of her marriage-bed /
Beyond Measure
e wild distress.  / / And always at the
fatal hour, the bold / / prince to confront the monsters in their lai
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
, killer?… martyr-saint?  / / Just such
fatal polarities, / / false as this, his life constrained / / him to
George Jackson
xamination, / / before pronouncing the
fatal word, / / washing his hands remembers Pilate.  / / Could anythi
Responsibility
s thought acquiesced / / too easily in
Fate for her to take.  / / Her higher spirit burned rather to do / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
me / / it’s the door of Death, please
Fate , he’ll be knocking at.  / / I’ve bad drugs in my chest, Mistress,
Spells and Love
r / / we are giving each other / / or
fate is giving us, which is at any rate / / (whomever we thank for it
[Late October hedges]
/ each to other and to / / chance or
fate or God or what we choose / / to call it, for being thus unforeho
[Yes, you’re right]
/ but I can half uncurse it.  Needling
fate / / shall pierce her youth, and yet she shall not die.  / / “The
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ are too stiff for life’s path, where
fate / / takes like cloud unpredictable shapes.  / /
Uncertain
stand / / the necessary double face of
fate , / / the two in one, the one and other half / / which made a wh
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
he city lay, and the princess, / / the
fated child of many day-dreams’ yearning / / whom he must somehow sav
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
indefinitely.  / / She fails now in her
fated hour, / / hanging herself in her own rope.  / / We shall not se
Great Britain
erness / / one hundred years—until her
fated love / / (if, when he come, he’s brave and true enough) / / sh
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
perforce upon some other mark— / / her
fated prince, a hundred years away.  / / The rains of summer’s draggle
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Love’s grand illusion ‘Love can master
Fate ’.  / / His light should dissipate the looming dark, / / while th
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ut she: “our way waits.”  I turned to my
father / / and chilled beheld him gone; then where she led / / follo
The Black-out
/ / A mother’s boy (he never knew his
father ) / / beloved and loving, but a lonely child, / / timid, he wa
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
No Complex / Oedipus laid the king his
father dead, / / then laid his mother in his father’s bed, / / but g
No Complex
urried down the hill.  / / The maddened
father , fed / / by his own brother’s hate / / his own children for m
Pelopia and Thyestes
get home?  And were his mother / / and
father fond of her at once?  His cousins, / / how did they and the pri
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ou presently / / to those who call you
father , mother, / / as dear as to your own you are.  / /
Epithalamium
happy child: / / mother and nurse and
father , near and dear, / / taken for granted.  Not as yet for her / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
God is not / / any other / / —not the
Father / / of Christian thought, / / not the slain Son, / / God in
Divinity
t’s what became of her.  / / How’s your
father ?”  “Old now.  Your sister—what’s her name?— / / kept the flock s
On the Border
ils on her face.  / / The heaviness you
father on the war, / / preventable slaughter, and on the disgrace /
The Black-out
s when the self grows thin / / I am my
father or my son.  / / A mechanist philosophy / / conspires with scie
Shadow and Substance
bs like wine through water came / / my
father pulling his hand across his face / / —perhaps now at his desk
The Black-out
lying / / and filthy habits which, the
father said, / / were driving him and her mother nearly mad.  / / The
Law Report
, / / cough yourself to paradise.  / /
Father , spin your choking web / / —you will rot there with the flies.
Royal Family
ng and cub go free / / of the uncaring
father , / / the season-sloughing mother.  / / Child of man and woman,
Parenthood
ove, of Christ, / / but stays with her
father / / who needs her, loves her, whom she loves too; stays / / w
Eugénie de Guérin
Recessional / Your freedom, which our
fathers stole / / in careless, unregenerate days, / / and we enjoyed
Recessional
t of blood is hid.  / / Not upon us our
fathers ’ sin / / but on your children visited.  / /
Recessional
dead, / / then laid his mother in his
father’s bed, / / but got no extra kick from the affair / / having n
No Complex
keep up with the Joneses, / / with our
father’s ghost, with the Enemy Over There, / / faster to the moon, to
Curvature of Space
different one.  / / A hunting-wood his
father’s kingdom held / / but poor and tame our forester had found it
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
r in the random winds.  / / We know the
father’s sins / / visited always on the children.  Must / / the final
May Day, 1986
should be gone / / away from here, my
father’s woods, your mother” / / she almost said ‘and me’ but slipped
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Hadn’t I my ten-palm sword / / and my
fathom gun?  / / A likely lad, a bonny fighter / / by nights without
A Ballad
spear is ready.  / / My shield (not its
fault ) is making some tribesman’s day, / / picked from the bush in wh
Two Songs of a Mercenary
n’t excuse.  Spiritual blindness / / is
fault not affliction.  What have I laid up?  Where?  / /
Treasure
desire.  / / Till the other day he’d no
fault to find with me / / any more than I with him.  But today Philist
Spells and Love
more because / / we feel our chords so
faultlessly in tune / / how can there be / / the makings here of a d
[I have (what seemingly you do not see)]
Malfi, / / Byron’s Juan and Marlowe’s
Faustus .  / / And gradually, a peak behind hills / / that rise or shr
Poetry
Dr
Faustus / Things aren’t what they were.  / / Man, having mastered eart
Dr Faustus
nd lay / / gently in your lap / / his
favourite toy / / for you to enjoy / / a little, not keep.  / / He’l
[Time is a child]
in the household by the river / / and
favourite uncle to the child who had / / first opened to him.  But he
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
er neck, I comforted / / her fear.  The
fawn soon ceased to flee.  / / Over her breasts my hands moved gently,
Love Scene
en stone a swan.  / / Troopers shot the
fawn , / / Wanton brutality / / by all ages of man / / in every age
Headline
/ / clear air / / gooseflesh me with
fear .  / /
Antipodes
trew / / flowers in the road.  Who gave
fear a glance?  / / All this now in its turn forgotten, few / / but d
Sur le Pont d’Avignon
out to sea.  / / He fought it, and knew
fear and hope again.  / / “He had to fight the fairy’s curse to win /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
of the Question-Mark, / / and with him
Fear … and in the dark / / against them, sole and shaking, Love.  / /
Masque
ing goes wrong, / / to protect us from
fear and to guide us along.  / / Yet we stand here today, not two selv
Hymn
ow I have known, / / unhappiness, / /
fear , anxiety / / and worse corrosions of the soul, / / but never hu
Climacteric by the Sea
but dared not tell her why.  No hint of
fear / / clouded her rosy thought of being loved— / / a new thought
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
er, winter, / / wind, death, darkness,
fear , / / fire, flowers, / / pain, angels singing.  / /
Beethoven
pace, / / knowing nothing, sweats with
fear .  / / Fled are the open sky, the easy slumber.  / / Now in a narr
That Way Madness Lies
d in that truth, her heart cried out in
fear / / for some firm rock, rose circling and alit / / on love—not
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e pain, / / the sickest element in our
fear for them, / / is that shared guilt.  But our love stands free.  /
[Our lives are in other hands]
ran down his face, he fought a mounting
fear .  / / He knew in this last fight against the good / / fairy, the
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
hought of the princess / / but in cold
fear .  He sat down on the sand, / / tried to clean out the shell but c
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
nd.  / / I am not for her / / nor need
fear her, holding you in my heart, / / your presence at my side in th
Los Altos Hills
d the way lost and the dark wood / / a
fear .  / / I, already old, / / successful, happy, mourned / / a holl
[Most of us, somewhere along the road]
e / / the veils of memory, of hope and
fear .  / / Like a bird, like the wind / / they take their certain, in
The Lilies of the Field
urs in the hangings of memory.  / / Not
fear , not defiance, but consciousness that night / / is coming, to dr
What Do They Feel?
Balance Sheet / Not so much the
fear of dying or of being dead / / (absolute nothingness / / is what
Balance Sheet
/ And, once met, one or both may yet in
fear , / / or bored, slip in and slam the door, / / for we may hate t
The Party
not forget / / living, never let / /
fear or horror deny it; / / so now, dead, can teach / / our doubt an
Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank
lone…  / / The fairy’s curse—a shocking
fear possessed him / / that after the hard victories of the way / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
an absence of unrest) / / not so much
fear … rather distress / / knowing so much is done / / badly or left
Balance Sheet
twenties got a dusty answer: / / with
fear sounding its gong of boom and slump / / disaster closed, like ma
The Twenties
rm round her neck, I comforted / / her
fear .  The fawn soon ceased to flee.  / / Over her breasts my hands mov
Love Scene
d / / we have been forced to fight and
fear / / the natural world, that’s yet our dear / / mother and love.
The Rift
d I not say / / Anabel sent me?  Do not
fear the wind / / has failed me of my peace, or her the wood.  / / Sh
The Black-out
/ Help it, honour it.  Yet / / do not
fear to regret / / what best and loveliest / / is disposed of with t
Progress
s through wolf-wild passes, / / brings
fear to the Tuscan market-place.  / / A little later came Kipling’s ba
Poetry
knife-edge of his tongue and look, / /
feared by so many, he concealed from her.  / / (He turned them on the
Change Places…
mbles, she plunged gaily in / / but he
feared Carabosse in the thorny brakes / / and coaxed her to the ford;
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
rely dared by any from / / the forest,
fearful of the cloven and cliffed / / wind-naked way.  He went peacefu
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ionately fearing for his soul’s health (
fearing / / for his body’s too, mortally sick) yet sharing / / still
Eugénie de Guérin
from the green shade / / passionately
fearing for his soul’s health (fearing / / for his body’s too, mortal
Eugénie de Guérin
the bastard misconcepts, falsehoods and
fears .  / / And though with age’s oncoming you harden / / the channel
Prayer to Time
g.  All fell / / away in action, hopes,
fears / / for you.  Eternal bliss nears / / for you, for me the paral
Virgil’s Farewell to Dante
o—yet comforting / / against her wider
fears .  She wept a bit, / / then, feeling better, dried her eyes—as we
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
r Artemis / / to her holy grove in the
feast -day procession / / (they’d a lot of animals, even a lioness)— /
Spells and Love
ers share.  / / As water at the wedding-
feast / / endured a look and glowed to wine, / / our two humanities,
Hymn
omorrow.  / / Brief wind ruckles gulls’
feathers , wrinkles water, / / drops, still.  Break from above into thi
For Rachel
he block.  He does not heed / / precise
feature , upright stance.  He is here in the block, / / itself still ro
September Cruise
one—that’s gone to rot / / in yielding
featureless black mould below.  / / For the first time Time’s inescapa
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
eet, or two or three streets.  Know / /
featureless faces ground by gross / / poverty, in common loss / / un
Dinner
time, their race—perhaps mankind, / /
featureless in a swarming desolation / / as light falls on the blind.
Fossils
ted, / / entranced his hearing, as the
featureless scape— / / blues and greens melting in each other, frette
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
.  / / Looked into Down’s / / Syndrome
features .  / / A happening.  / / Why ask what it can mean?  / /
Ten Seconds on a Tube Platform
nnocence aid.  And yet / / those kindly
features now in her bad dreams / / merge with that other frightening
Change Places…
hange / Everything we love / / puts on
features of / / all that we loved before, / / and perhaps of all /
Fair Exchange
olumned temples down / / and broke the
features of the god / / and of the living precinct made / / this bea
Delos in Spring
ed under brutal lamps, / / fine Jewish
features suffering-sunk / / down on the collarbone, hangs / / the dr
Stray Thoughts at a Wedding
kness I could not trace again / / each
feature’s line, and scarcely tried; such peace / / flowed over me to
The Black-out
more.  / / And on that twenty-ninth of
February / / nineteen-eighty-four / / you, I suppose, and I the whol
Leap Year
own the hill.  / / The maddened father,
fed / / by his own brother’s hate / / his own children for meat, /
Pelopia and Thyestes
ing, / / hearing, her life with others
fed his joy.  / / But unhoped chance soon made him one with those:  /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
read / / flat as the sea, and sea-like
fed / / on hopes that sought (but found the quag) / / the path acros
Lost
now / / the coloured worlds your eyes
fed to your heart?  / /
Green World
itain / Once she held half the world in
fee ; / / for evil and for good, a power.  / / But nothing lasts indef
Great Britain
ing we hate to give, / / leaves us our
fee to Death, the will to live.  / /
Age
we have—in mockery / / leaves us (our
fee to Death) the will to live.  / / Condemned we snatch at every shor
Age
e—each successively / / leaves us.  Our
fee to Death, the will to live, / / outlasts this tarnished thing, wo
Age
ifling hands, but he / / leaves us our
fee to Death.  The will to live / / (which yet loves nothing like a se
Age
uite / / spent, he could only drag his
feebleness / / to a known woodman’s hut there by the stream / / to b
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
tale like to be / / equal to ours?—oh,
feed and fan your flame.”  / / I bent and watched the waters to the se
The Black-out
dew.  / / Light as the air our hair our
feed .  / / Love will be there and not need making, / / light bodies l
Otherworld
n / / cast-out shell.  / / Coaxed into
feeding / / with raw husk and stalk / / they lost some of their wild
The Green Children of Woolpit
hough / / notice myself, against all I
feel and know, / / covet the fountain of youth or a new birth?  / /
Death
/ / more in keeping with how I am and
feel .  / / Autumn is near.  / / Autumn is beautiful.  / / All seasons
Swallows
again when wrong is dead.  / / Today we
feel behind us / / the struggle of the ape.  / / The future’s cloud i
Other World
[Today we feel behind us] / Today we
feel behind us / / the struggle of the ape; / / the future’s cloud i
[Today we feel behind us]
[Today we
feel behind us] / Today we feel behind us / / the struggle of the ape
[Today we feel behind us]
d trouble; more, he knew / / she would
feel better with a task to do, / / a stake in the adventure as it wer
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
rendered two; what I must yet      / /
feel , brushed me then.  / / To left the plane-trees stood / / part li
The Black-out
es on / / in me, timeless and harsh.  I
feel harden / / here in my chest that lump of childish lead / / (and
Revisited
rly add to what they would forget, / /
feel in stale blood renewed a prick of hate / / and press towards a h
May Day
, / / blankness, unrecognition, / / I
feel my eyes adjusting, / / frozen memory / / melting back to the be
Return
on’t know what to thank, but grateful I
feel , / / not only for affection—for natural beauty.  / / Here it’s l
Gratitude
not lose / / the flame, whose power I
feel of work and love, / / in ashes of self-pity and abuse.  / / Just
The Black-out
duces the true me’ / / That’s what you
feel / / often.  Sometimes though / / don’t you clearly see / / thi
Body
eymoon).  / / Much more because / / we
feel our chords so faultlessly in tune / / how can there be / / the
[I have (what seemingly you do not see)]
the footless cliff) / / I hope I shall
feel relief / / as well as, I hope, regret.  / /
[When the moment comes to forget]
/ / Timeless nothing’s enough.  / / I
feel so dirty though, / / I should like to believe God / / will have
A Hot Bath at Bedtime
/ / But only about ten to go / / does
feel strange.  / /
[Threescore and ten or so]
ing which colours them through.  / / We
feel such thankfulness / / each to other and to / / chance or fate o
[Yes, you’re right]
swer to a trick question.  / / Why do I
feel that answer to that question / / such a betrayal of His trust as
The Betrayal
y, that is.  / / Sick and weak, / / we
feel them take over / / reality, / / shameful, frightening, / / tel
Against Anorexia:  For Cathy
ffords me room / / to think as well as
feel , / / to study what I owe / / and how it might be paid / / in p
Villevieille
/ Nothing for foot to press on or hand
feel / / to tell me I can count myself a substance still.  / / Am I j
What am I?
What Do They Feel?  / What do they
feel , two old people who part / / knowing quite certainly / / they w
What Do They Feel?
What Do They
Feel ?  / What do they feel, two old people who part / / knowing quite
What Do They Feel?
/ years, many years.  / / How does it
feel when they say good-bye for good?  / / No, I see no tears, / / bu
What Do They Feel?
/ and remains empty.  / / Their net of
feeling and thought / / compassed the cosmos once, now let drop / /
Where?
wider fears.  She wept a bit, / / then,
feeling better, dried her eyes—as well / / she did—“The Queen—Long li
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
get back); and presently / / he took,
feeling both wicked and absurd, / / to stalking gulls slow-pecking on
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
, / / much—looks, a quick mind, / / a
feeling heart, and one / / thing which doubles those, / / the gift w
“Gale is Dead”
g brain / / come into contact with the
feeling heart?  / / Knowing men starving while the rank cigar / / per
The Black-out
His love he dare not venture from.  / /
Feeling his neck jerk on the tautened rope / / he turned again.  Desce
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
mer than this / / the word I want, the
feeling is / / affection, which need not arise / / from beauty, char
Love…  No
thoughts she looked into the wood, / /
feeling its foredoomed beauty like a pain.  / / And there of course ag
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ght.  / / Sight is silence / / without
feeling mind.  / / We bring our own lights / / into this dark, / / a
Music is Landscape
/ Your joy of life, your shining / /
feeling that everything / / is possible, faded from you in / / a nar
[Most of us, somewhere along the road]
/ / on a prepared brain.  / / Heart’s
feeling / / transfigures again / / that transposed vision / / of ac
Music is Landscape
[
Feelings of guilt] / Feelings of guilt, feelings of resentment / / (r
[Feelings of guilt]
[Feelings of guilt] /
Feelings of guilt, feelings of resentment / / (resentment worse perha
[Feelings of guilt]
Feelings of guilt] / Feelings of guilt,
feelings of resentment / / (resentment worse perhaps, but hard to say
[Feelings of guilt]
nts and their sound.  / / Faces express
feelings , release words.  / / She looks away from them, down, towards
Nadia
my hurting knuckles, / / get me on my
feet again.  Another milestone.  / /
The Fall
grime.  / / I’ve fallen before / / (my
feet almost as clumsy as my fingers) / / but always up almost before
The Fall
Kastro / Traverse the beach, from your
feet always / / a light-path on the water reaches / / towards sun, m
September Cruise
serving, / / all the time our own / /
feet and hands, tongue, thoughts, thoughtlessness / / are fretting, w
Change
isionary heart, / / fetter the lifting
feet .  / / And on his right hand hung the face of Diaghilev, / / and
Nijinsky
r Jody / Our idols fall.  Not that their
feet are clay / / —their feet are ivory, their hair is gold, / / all
Against Pedestals
ot that their feet are clay / / —their
feet are ivory, their hair is gold, / / all we believed is true, exce
Against Pedestals
n are our imaginings, / / and soon our
feet are travelling / / accustomed streets.  / / But at the second an
That Way Madness Lies
, “with flapping / / aimlessly certain
feet , as you have done / / always from that first party till we parte
The Black-out
/ as entered, gone; / / yet drags his
feet / / down grey boredoms, the grim wait; / / always his mocking g
Two Poems from a New Life
/ by climbing now.  A steep glen at his
feet / / falling away, told him to follow it, / / descending to clim
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
when the ground’s gone from under one’s
feet , / / find a fixed point from which to start again?  / / I am not
What am I?
rose on the heath / / —bare from bony
feet , / / fouled, burned—recreate / / beauty, breed out of death, /
Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank
somehow to tread it / / with lightened
feet .  / / Hewn from the rock / / huge he lies, / / relaxed and watc
September Cruise
e north and on his head.  / / Above his
feet is spread / / a dome studded with unfamiliar / / configurations
Antipodes
ight under the clear / / sky, from our
feet laps to eternity.  / / Alone each listens, holding to an ear / /
Parted
e dark, I could not move / / spirit or
feet , now I am strong and light.  / / Walk with me home, where Hampste
The Black-out
ood wisdom.  / / I sat contented at his
feet / / on the midnight Acropolis / / listening / / among marble a
Homage
” / / Quieted now I moved with lighter
feet .  / / Past Camden Town we took the Chalk Farm Road, / / turned w
The Black-out
er had not yet dried.  / / On hard bare
feet she hurried down the hill.  / / The maddened father, fed / / by
Pelopia and Thyestes
ade in the alley-shop was mine, / / my
feet struggling from my own pursuing voices / / which broke in my own
A Dream
) for more than this.  / / And then his
feet .  The forester had spent / / his days trudging.  The prince grew q
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
issed on the clouded hill / / I set my
feet to climb.  Let me not lose / / the flame, whose power I feel of w
The Black-out
ont of us.  / / Over the short grass my
feet too were silent; / / silent and dark behind the nebulous / / ci
The Black-out
gone.  / / The sky was clouded over; my
feet were heavy; / / houses and trees printing their darker tone / /
The Black-out
e measure of the sands by now.  / / His
feet were sounder, and he husbanded / / the life-blood water with mor
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
metimes, more often lower / / to legs,
feet , which unaware / / betray so much.  / / These too her pencil cat
Nadia
tar.  / / Meanwhile my body, through my
feet / / while I look up, points home, / / clean through the stable-
Antipodes
nag / / stumbles, drags / / rambling
feet , / / won’t, can’t / / keep the pace you want.  / / Rein slack /
Against Anorexia:  For Cathy
until “he wrapped his colours” as / /
Felicia Dorothea Hemans says / / “round his breast on a blood-red fie
The Black-out
promise is the prince’s bride.”  / / He
fell asleep as she was speaking.  No / / dreams, a deep, sweet, long s
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
d years / / of paralysed yearning.  All
fell / / away in action, hopes, fears / / for you.  Eternal bliss nea
Virgil’s Farewell to Dante
k of these first.  / / So, in pain they
fell .  But also as fall / / sparks.  The wind blows against the fire /
Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville
ds now.  He took it.  / / A clotted mass
fell clear, / / a natural tunnel from the other side / / opened to j
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
The Fall / I tripped and
fell , heavy on knees and knuckles, / / gripping the handle of my heav
The Fall
yards, over black blood.  / / Be there,
fell Hecate, see me through to the end, / / and make these spells of
Spells and Love
was his life and is our theme.  / / It
fell in his fourth year.  He could recall / / all his long age the sce
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
th at eleven, I think, or twelve / / I
fell in love—the only adequate phrase:  / / Love in the Valley, Phoebu
Poetry
pair thinned on my heart.  The moonlight
fell / / on her pale face and tall, slight, angular figure.  / / “And
The Black-out
ded—sallow as a dead leaf.  / / My hair
fell out and my body thinned away / / to skin and bone.  I tried every
Spells and Love
m.  / / A few tears formed but scarcely
fell .  / / She bound the bracelet on his arm.  / / Plaited in smiling
Ballad
ar.  Clean from my heart the black cloud
fell ; / / softly the fresh wind moved; the stars were bright, / / be
The Black-out
/ / He did not wait his host—drank and
fell to / / on the hard victuals (they were far from new / / did cro
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ripped trees put green on.  / / Not the
felled one.  / /
The Difference
The Difference / Leaves on a
felled tree / / do not drift away / / to earth and slow decay— / /
The Difference
ng in tears.  / / And now, alone on the
fells , companioned only / / by the long sharp line dividing (dun gree
A Dream
to the east, / / the sea.  He suddenly
felt alone and lost, / / homesick, afraid; but turned back, pressed o
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ying.  A sense of loss, / / pain deeply
felt .  And yet, this was a story.  / / A story.  What, whose story?  And
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ing to its end / / his fingers groping
felt another door.  / / He found the handle.  The small room dazzled hi
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
y purpose froze.  / / We went on, but I
felt as we turned West / / that I was trying to turn from the world’s
The Black-out
urned her look and step aside.  / / But
felt at once her natural kindness chide / / her churlishness; and fel
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
on.  / / The nurse’s tale?  Yes, but he
felt aware / / of much, much more, than she could ever have said.  /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ the gift which makes them known, / /
felt .  But the figure on the other side, / / rejected, black, said /
“Gale is Dead”
ed the coast between the capes / / and
felt constricted, narrowly hedged in.  / / West, his mother’s tramonta
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
d sky?  / / A heavier darkness, dull as
felt , / / creeps up across the pattern, damps / / then blots the swo
Night
follow the others presently, / / love
felt for her, when the pink bud should flower / / (even before).  None
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
s he old, / / but he had wisdom / / I
felt , good wisdom.  / / I sat contented at his feet / / on the midnig
Homage
he could ever have said.  / / He almost
felt he was the forester, / / had lived all this inside that heart an
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
between the curtain and the moon, / /
felt herself blush, laughed ‘Oh how nice’—half child / / still, if al
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ ground him.  He groaned, and groaning
felt himself / / there, somewhere, here, something at least again.  /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
u said) relief.  We made plans.  / / You
felt I had failed you / / profoundly.  I don’t forget.  / / But must n
For Cecil
l we parted / / —your pleasure, if you
felt it, never shown, / / no bright spark in your love that might hav
The Black-out
stage.  Go on / / and speak to her.”  I
felt my legs obey, / / and joined her by the pedestal alone.  / / “Yo
The Black-out
at last for it to go.  / / Then, when I
felt my throat hard on the tether, / / the thaw—soft air one night, a
The Black-out
ntracts against a knot of pride:  / / I
felt myself shrunk in the cold, but whole / / and me; and turned to E
The Black-out
etimes on the windy hill / / of home I
felt no less a prisoner.  / / Of itself exiled and imprisoned will /
The Black-out
t midnight, when at last the Queen / /
felt pain crown her initiation’s joy, / / an old forester whom a whee
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
the world my fancied spring.  / / “You
felt the crusted snow melt from your winter, / / the spring’s pulse i
The Black-out
and strode / / down the right fork.  He
felt the fairy smile.  / / Over the miles, under the leafy light, / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
y heard, the wicked fairy’s laugh, / /
felt the good smile, began to understand / / the necessary double fac
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
s / / climbing from cape and cliff…  He
felt the grim / / threat, shivered in the sun.  So what?  Go back?  / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
him.  Still less / / now than before he
felt the power of / / breaking away for good, but thought ‘I’ll make
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
achers / / were also beautiful.  / / I
felt the presence of grace / / like Yeats at Lissadell.  / /
Grace
ng at least again.  / / He retched, and
felt the salt and bitter gulf / / get him hard by the throat again.  H
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
rish / / with thirst and weariness, he
felt the wish / / to rest torture, having no wish to die.  / / Home h
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
f love was said / / by either) but she
felt there too that he / / took passively the fact of love, instead /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ndness chide / / her churlishness; and
felt , too, gratitude.  / / This love was not that dredged from her dee
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / —and cold, and horrible / / —but
felt whatever way / / this endlessly absorbing love, earth.  / / Obse
[Now of threescore and ten]
urned my head.  / / I know what Orpheus
felt when turning he / / touched emptiness.  What Emily had said / /
The Black-out
rprise that it was lovely weather, / /
felt with surprise gladness to be still there.  / / He walked a little
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
might he mature into a wiser man?  / /
Feminist , reading this, do not resent / / the unacceptable words ‘man
Greenham Common
to keep / / a sensitive balance on the
fence is bad.  / / Not yours to raise a fiery cross and sweep / / the
The Black-out
/ alleys of huts.  Crowded miseries / /
fenced with high barbs, eyed from towers, stain / / earth and sky wit
Two Poems for G
: “unhappiness has always reasons; / /
fences about the truth, veils on her face.  / / The heaviness you fath
The Black-out
pools and foaming / / firths of tide,
fencing / / the cowrie beach— / / looks out to Lundy or along the lo
Bury My Heart
wan high in flight / / across the flat
fenland .  No dream— / / this is today and I am I.  / / No swan, though
Bicycle Ride
/ / yellow cowslip-balls of flowering
fennel , / / yellow mimosa.  Other flowers, white and red, / / pink, m
Makherás
lesh and soul flowered / / in those of
Ferdinand .”  / / Ophelia to Miranda:  / / “I too knew the clear dawn;
Dialogue
d, / / turned with the tramlines along
Ferdinand Street, / / the Malden Road, and on until we trod, / / pas
The Black-out
ier’) / / where the even motion of the
Ferris wheel / / contrasts with the Octopus whose tilted axis / / an
Content
oved along the shore.  / / His fingers’
festering pain burned up his arm.  / / Almost blindly he turned toward
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
me.  / / He’d have no part in that, but
fetch a gift / / from the unknown coast by the unknown steep / / mou
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
—the Captain had to pick on me / / to
fetch another lot.  / / I didn’t know the way, though / / —a stranger
A Ballad
k shock-hair / / phoning the police to
fetch him in the little shop / / in the narrow alley.  / / But he esc
A Dream
er theme / / —spirit, whence formed or
fetched here, on what wing / / (whole) or wind (scattered) whither—no
Dulce et Decorum
erds of Parnes or the Pyrenees / / are
fetched to the ranks, and the frontier-posts are manned.  / / The men
On the Border
ing sinning / / dared not approach the
fête , / / crept in the scrub below / / the holy place.  He lay / / u
Pelopia and Thyestes
and innocently proud.  / / But at such
fêtes , that honour may be done / / duly to deity, fine steers are bro
Pelopia and Thyestes
fold and mock the visionary heart, / /
fetter the lifting feet.  / / And on his right hand hung the face of D
Nijinsky
fade.  / / Lovers close, held together,
feud / / against wind.  / / I stand alone, shiver.  But not alone / /
[Wind is chilly on shoulders]
/ / loving children / / cheated by a
feud , / / sundered, bewildered, dead, / / breathe from the tomb.  /
What Hope?
t while you may not so, / / lay on our
fever patience’s cool rime.  / / Let us learn wisdom at the oar, and g
Prayer to Time
and after that I went down with a high
fever / / —ten days and nights I couldn’t get out of bed.  / / These
Spells and Love
ar / / recurring like a nightmare or a
fever .  / / Yet while our personal intellects endure / / we remain ma
The Black-out
e silence of the dark.  / / The town is
fevered ; but as night wears on, / / blood cooler, quieted the pulse’s
Country and Town
…  / / ‘The prince’s bride’…  That was a
fevered dream.  / / He looked down at the flasks, the bow, the quiver
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e dry / / before he reached the river. 
Feverish / / with thirst and weariness, he felt the wish / / to rest
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ight and day / / (time lost) closed in
fever’s bewildering storm.  / / His arrows one by one lost on missed k
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
d ten] / Now of threescore and ten / /
fewer than twelve remain.  / / Granted, that limit’s set / / loosely—
[Now of threescore and ten]
ys / / linked still to parents / / by
fibres , filaments / / charged with subtle currents. / / which must f
Parenthood
pth of a dream / / to know that hollow
field .  / /
Words from a Dream
ght / / spreads to the open, darkening
field and hill.  / / To stars and window-panes withdraws the light.  /
Country and Town
is isn’t the edge of the school playing-
field / / but a corner of a garden (before that house / / was sold f
Summers
/ lest he find them clear.  / / Charred
field , / / clotted stream.  / / I have spoiled my world / / for a ba
Scorched Earth
d is hollow now’.  / / What is a hollow
field ?  / / Dream-words do not allow / / analysis, or yield / / mean
Words from a Dream
glimpsed through it sheep grazing in a
field .  / / Green world in my eyes, heart.  Other summers, / / last su
Green World
its firths round us, embracing rock and
field .  / / Here too sea clings round the hard land / / but other wat
Varangian in Mickelgard
the next field] / The grass in the next
field / / is greener?  No.  / / Ours is emerald.  / / Our grief is oth
[The grass in the next field]
/ Words from a dream ‘For ever / / the
field is hollow now’.  / / What is a hollow field?  / / Dream-words do
Words from a Dream
Another Spring / The
field of cloth of gold shines as it shone / / but now within under a
Another Spring
that hence he might recognise / / the
field of his last fight.  But the dense floor / / kept all its secrets
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ood in fight / / —witness the hallowed
field of Marathon, / / witness the long-haired Mede.  / /
Aeschylus’ Epitaph
s / / “round his breast on a blood-red
field of Spain;” / / who saw his way among all possible ways / / and
The Black-out
ht, / / a round high moon lighting the
field path home.  / / Cold…colder…then, a matter of moments, / / gras
Magic
e, to some happy end.  / / Thus was the
field ploughed for the seed to fall / / of love, that was his life an
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
between night and night, / / till the
field reached a hedge and the hours formed in days, / / days in years
Hymn
[The grass in the next
field ] / The grass in the next field / / is greener?  No.  / / Ours is
[The grass in the next field]
The Lilies of the
Field / They think as they take breath, bearing no trace / / in mind
The Lilies of the Field
ubtle, unkempt; / / distant, streaks a
field / / with clear puddles of gold.  / / Two truths to accept / /
Another Summer
where it starts to curl / / among the
fields , after it leaves the wood.  / / “Grandfather was the old King’s
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
watched the Spartan soldiers burn their
fields , / / and learnt to steal.  Here the plague / / struck them, th
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
Early Train / These
fields and trees / / would, if grey clouds were even on the sky / /
Early Train
e men to the ranks and the women to the
fields , / / grease wiped from rifles, a new edge ground on spears /
On the Border
ner where the road / / turns from the
fields into the wood, / / we met there sometimes—we?— / / at dusk, w
From the Air
n / Morning / Summer recurs.  / / Green
fields of childhood greet us / / washed with yellow and white, / / d
Two Summer Songs
ng of Dominick and Jo / Through untimed
fields of childhood the shadows and light / / stretched far out but c
Hymn
e hedges to lift or droop / / over the
fields of daisy and buttercup, / / freshness, clearness of spring not
Sixtieth Summer
o here not even in dreams can reach the
fields / / of peace and hope, / / when up from foot and finger hourl
The Embankment
for the cloth-of-green / / through the
fields outside Verona, / / and among those runners he seemed / / not
Two Glimpses from Dante’s Hell
apron-full.  / / They follow her to the
fields .  / / She tells them all, / / leads them by track and tussock,
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
riefs and joys / / of life in the flat
fields / / under the sky’s breadth / / from their mother’s dark sour
The Green Children of Woolpit
beauty.  / / Here it’s light colours on
fields / / varying softly across hedges, between trees, / / away to
Gratitude
trong in the streets the legions of the
fiend / / the fruits that wait their greed and passion cull, / / onc
Nijinsky
in a procession, led by one / / whose
fierce , dark look I knew; who never was / / weak to regret, but follo
The Black-out
sun out of the sea, loud cries / / of
fierce white birds circling, fish-plunging, woke him.  / / He stretche
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
fence is bad.  / / Not yours to raise a
fiery cross and sweep / / the world before a cause, but none the more
The Black-out
mists came up and choked / / that very
fiery particle, it was Lady Byron / / he wanted told… what?  / /
“Tell Lady Byron…”
to cool / / his sweating body—knew the
fiery shock / / of snow-water, colder than he had thought / / water
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / In autumn (her own mistress, near
fifteen ) / / she came again, to set beside the green / / and bare th
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
goal, / / and on the afternoon of the
fifth day / / he looked down a broad valley from a col / / higher th
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
itenothe’s / / high chalk head.  / / A
fifth in Ithaca, from the end / / of the long landlocked harbour with
Bury My Heart
them with the soul of Nijinsky / / in
fifty -two pieces like a pack of cards; / / and the faces whirled in i
Nijinsky
s (he might have gone a mile, / / two,
fifty yards) awoke to the wide stream.  / / He plunged in where the wa
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
issed his wife and said / / “I must go
fight again, / / who once believed they could be fought away.”  / /
Presage
ounting fear.  / / He knew in this last
fight against the good / / fairy, the bad was rousing all her power. 
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
o the world / / we have been forced to
fight and fear / / the natural world, that’s yet our dear / / mother
The Rift
ing night / / Love summoned Dignity to
fight , / / and Pride, against Despair; / / but Pride and Dignity /
Masque
forces us out of nature, to upset, / /
fight , break nature, defy her, defeat her.  Yet / / only we, seeing he
The Reckoning
ht recognise / / the field of his last
fight .  But the dense floor / / kept all its secrets hidden.  He descen
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ against her, of his long and terrible
fight / / finally won.  The monster dead, he lay / / wounded to death
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ream.  / / How can a hero find a way to
fight / / needle or thorn?  The fact would come to him / / and put hi
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ew fear and hope again.  / / “He had to
fight the fairy’s curse to win / / the fairy’s promise—that was what
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
wheatlands; a man at need / / good in
fight / / —witness the hallowed field of Marathon, / / witness the l
Aeschylus’ Epitaph
er.  / / And, alas, / / once a freedom
fighter always a terrorist.  / / Not so different really.  Those we hat
Choice
ist / / seen the other way’s a freedom
fighter .  / / And, alas, / / once a freedom fighter always a terroris
Choice
fathom gun?  / / A likely lad, a bonny
fighter / / by nights without a moon.  / / Three nights and days toge
A Ballad
nuckle] / Age’s bony knuckle / / (mean
fighter ) takes me in the mouth, / / and as I spit another tooth out /
[Age’s bony knuckle]
rn / / her killed, her only, son, / /
fighting a foreigners’ war in a far country.  / / Darkness.  / / But T
Time’s Reach
/ and two-score more took prisoner / /
fighting in the hills.  / / But then the sword broke in my hand, / /
A Ballad
side.  He lost control.  Then he / / was
fighting water.  Nothing he could do / / was anything.  The water sucke
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
again.  / / Mind shakes to see / / how
fighting wind and fire can absolutely / / destroy themselves and all.
Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville
n dead.  How much does memory wane?  / /
figure and face and voice I thought I had, / / but now with inexpress
The Black-out
her pale face and tall, slight, angular
figure .  / / “And you?”  I said; and she: “you know me well.  / / The m
The Black-out
enly loosens to a blessed light: / / a
figure by the cradle, white by white— / / one more forgotten fairy, b
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ walked on complacently.  / / Later a
figure caught my eye / / —the same? another? odd.  / / The mirror mad
Reflection
mself to the fire.  / / A hunched black
figure crouching in its light / / lifted her head and was his nurse. 
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ched the glare, / / but swift a sanded
figure from his work / / turned and forbade me right of entrance ther
The Black-out
e is beautiful.  / / Out of the black a
figure moved, strained face / / raised to the curtained room, white i
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ch makes them known, / / felt.  But the
figure on the other side, / / rejected, black, said / / “These she s
“Gale is Dead”
ified eyes and numbed groin; / / white
figures , busy hands, flicker of steel / / at the roots of life, a sca
Block 21
line of the railway / / a formal row,
filament -flowers, / / radio telescopes with lifted faces / / listeni
Two Cultures?
linked still to parents / / by fibres,
filaments / / charged with subtle currents. / / which must flow on t
Parenthood
lost or never found.  Life, that should
fill / / my days with action, chokes them with excuse.  / / Find me t
The Black-out
.  Be / / the year’s spring / / yours. 
Fill / / out again your young, / / your beautiful / / body’s emptin
Against Anorexia:  For Cathy
in square plainly hemmed, but she would
fill , / / she thought, the centre with embroidery.  / / She’d meant i
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
perversion of good thought / / used to
fill Smithfield with the smell of flesh in fire / / as Protestant, Ca
Betrayals
Beauty / Drink (your
fill / / you never can) / / beauty of earth, skill / / of visionary
Beauty
ountains stopped, / / his water-bottle
filled at a cold stream, / / a shot bird roasted on a stick-fire.  On
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ed the grave Wesley / / and others had
filled ; / / but Cromwell (and Charles / / the foolish and false) /
Merrie England
nurse.  Desire / / for nothing happier
filled him with delight.  / / “Come here.  Get warm.  I’ve got all that
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ The scissors left a little gap / /
filled long ago by growth, and now / / the threads she wove in love a
Ballad
cattered prodigally, / / eye and heart
filled .  / / Poetry?  / / This year… / / beauty is not enough, / / t
Another Summer
Such loss.  A life that might / / have
filled so many four-year cycles more.  / / And on that twenty-ninth of
Leap Year
Albatross / Happy those who
filled / / that ever-hungry beak.  / / Hangs heavy on my neck / / Ti
Albatross
d, / / and now, sitting over the blood-
filled trench, / / the hero peered into the opening shadows / / and
Odysseus
Seen from the hill the hazy plain / /
filled up with light is fairyland.  / / We climbed from there, and sha
[Seen from the hill the hazy plain]
fled.  / / He half-noticed the room was
filled with light, / / and hurrying down saw half-unconsciously / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
not, or not yet.  / / Dusk was already
filling up the wood / / when an awareness seeped to his numbed life /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
itter wind sighed through the wood / /
filling with dusk.  She shivered and turned back / / home, but smiled
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
nbach, Guys, / / Viollet-le-Duc, Dumas
fils , / / red velvet drapes, glittering chandeliers / / (and dark pa
Time’s Reach
d to death for thieving, lying / / and
filthy habits which, the father said, / / were driving him and her mo
Law Report
way.  I seem to see a sharp / / dorsal
fin already cutting the air, / / betraying a shark / / (yet dream st
Advent
of love to cruelty.  / / I see / / the
final bomb fall wide in open ocean / / —harmless?  Look—circles of des
Stones
e really put to it, / / brought to the
final crunch, / / is the one thing that counts.  / / But as we live ‘
Touch
true though much of it is, need that be
final ?  / / Green trees flourish unstricken.  Some recover / / from an
Desert Island?
wanted, once or twice essayed / / its
final peak; but reached his fourteenth year / / before one summer’s l
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
d always on the children.  Must / / the
final turn / / of the irreversible screw / / fix the coffin-lid down
May Day, 1986
s, not in this but a just war / / with
final victory; even if the best / / must fall, the hour of triumph is
The Black-out
teve Davis knocked out / / of the semi-
final .  You / / would have liked that, though / / Hurricane Higgins w
For Cecil
The gate groans to behind, / / thud of
finality .  / / Strange town at closing-time, / / the street-cold worl
Freedom
/ leads them by track and tussock, / /
finally stops / / where a wild rose-bush flowers / / at the edge of
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
er, of his long and terrible fight / /
finally won.  The monster dead, he lay / / wounded to death.  His lady
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ound’s gone from under one’s feet, / /
find a fixed point from which to start again?  / / I am not falling.  F
What am I?
rning, at last, again / / faithless we
find a miracle, / / tender on the high twigs the green.  / / One year
Renewal
ame / / at every ladder’s top / / you
find a snake begin.  / /
The Game
make an easy dream.  / / How can a hero
find a way to fight / / needle or thorn?  The fact would come to him /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Middle Age—Did you really hope / / to
find an answer to that one on this page?  / / Sell it down the river,
Problem
d leads the blind / / when they cannot
find / / anyone / / else, and together, / / blind with blind is bet
Blind
/ and the eyes behind / / are, you’ll
find , / / blind.  / /
Tourist
l’s before us, and / / —yet “Who would
find his life…”  Is this / / too mirror-land?  / /
Through the Looking-Glass
/ It has taken half my life and more to
find / / how I was self-deceived.  / / Now in humility / / I must be
Original Sin
painfully learned how not to care / /
find how to care become a failing skill: / / am seldom now made inwar
Teach Us…
it difficult to forgive Tom Moore] / I
find it difficult to forgive Tom Moore / / for burning Byron’s journa
[I find it difficult to forgive Tom Moore]
[I
find it difficult to forgive Tom Moore] / I find it difficult to forgi
[I find it difficult to forgive Tom Moore]
/ / suffer his mandate too.  / / He’ll
find it doesn’t do.  / / Land, ocean, wind, / / starved and poisoned
Dr Faustus
he moon, off to the right, / / I could
find it.  I followed him, and made it out.  / / Six months ago above an
A Hoard
hind the house in Prinsengracht— / / I
find it in my heart / / to love you after all.  / /
Hermes of Olympia
w Hill, / / remember Brussels.  Can you
find it strange / / there should be times this city sits me ill?”  /
The Black-out
at mankind’s temperament / / might now
find itself worked by womankind / / towards a better-knowing humankin
Greenham Common
, ask the (for me) wrong question, / /
find me no answer.  So much for Paul and Plato?  / / So much for me—an
The Betrayal
d to my slave / / “Thestylis, you must
find me the cure for this.  / / That man from Myndus has got me, soul
Spells and Love
h action, chokes them with excuse.  / /
Find me the path missed on the clouded hill / / I set my feet to clim
The Black-out
the story of the unjust steward / / I
find myself a world away from Plato / / and in a most strange world. 
The Betrayal
Antipodes / I
find Orion the hunter here / / up to the north and on his head.  / /
Antipodes
s.  Surely we / / in the end / / shall
find ourselves made free / / to roam the pastures side by side?  / /
[The grass in the next field]
lust, once lit, burned on.  So, did they
find / / relief?  No.  His fastidiousness could not / / endure the ima
Beyond Measure
then, / / unchanged, unmagic we shall
find / / the common ground we left behind / / matter-of-fact with ho
[Seen from the hill the hazy plain]
/ / with me warmly; and in that glow I
find / / the image of you with less pain and more peace.  / / And you
[White foam sweeps]
t of us, somewhere along the road, / /
find the way lost and the dark wood / / a fear.  / / I, already old,
[Most of us, somewhere along the road]
l seasons are beautiful, but now / / I
find the year’s wheel / / move faster—more than sixty turns / / comp
Swallows
—pile the brooks with muck / / lest he
find them clear.  / / Charred field, / / clotted stream.  / / I have
Scorched Earth
is kitten-eyes unclose / / some people
find / / they have chosen even better than they knew.  / / May that b
Epithalamium
/ But search your heart—there you will
find us still / / to help and guide, only departing should / / the h
The Black-out
laid through the confusion.  / / Truth,
find us strength to make our ways confirm / / and not deface its form
Prayer to Truth
/ Till the other day he’d no fault to
find with me / / any more than I with him.  But today Philista’s / /
Spells and Love
poke:  / / “You shall win home / / and
find your wife waiting for you, your son / / a man now and a friend,
Odysseus
o his hand a handkerchief.  / / And he,
finding still in his other hand / / the shell “And this is yours.”  Sh
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
your unschemed hope, as the new morning
finds / / dew on the grass.  / /
Scheme
an heart or rather the human frame / /
finds in its broken sleep / / despair so wearisome / / that it is fo
[Why do I dream this pause]
/ The priest comes to the altar, / /
finds it robbed.  / / Gone the silver monstrance / / with the flesh o
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
in.  / / Naked under brutal lamps, / /
fine Jewish features suffering-sunk / / down on the collarbone, hangs
Stray Thoughts at a Wedding
honour may be done / / duly to deity,
fine steers are brought; / / and by the altar where they slashed the
Pelopia and Thyestes
er of dear Amphimedo”, I said, / / “(a
fine woman she was—pity she’s dead), / / there are plenty of kinds of
Love Scene
e that in deed.  / / …  Fire… martyrdom… 
Fine words.  Bend your mind back / / to these whom white men shot for
Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville
g arms, / / between our hands, between
finger and thumb, / / whittles and whittles and there is nothing ther
That Way Madness Lies
ce and hope, / / when up from foot and
finger hourly creeps / / stronger the tide of cold.  / /
The Embankment
— / / and then he thought of a pricked
finger , of / / a sleep that must see him into the ground / / before
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
es round her.  / / She could not lift a
finger / / with all the time in the world.  / / “Oh God, I’m tired” s
Mariana in Miniature
tions / / improbably / / in the light-
fingered green / / of an ash-tree, / / catches the look, / / lifts
Summer Vision
he pencil.  / / (And out of what depth,
fingered on a steamed-up pane, / / can that loud trumpeter charge aga
Nadia
re / / (my feet almost as clumsy as my
fingers ) / / but always up almost before I was down, / / taking a pr
The Fall
.  But part of me prays, part keeps / /
fingers crossed for a magpie from the left / / (things at least of th
Uncertain
, and suddenly / / this was a hilt her
fingers fastened on.  / / Twisted, no purchase, she tugged pitifully,
Pelopia and Thyestes
black, and twisting to its end / / his
fingers groping felt another door.  / / He found the handle.  The small
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
The young man, knowing the power in his
fingers , / / knowing the vision in the block, / / stood back from th
Pietà
reason but because, they said, / / the
fingers of a princess were not meant / / for needlework.  She laughed
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
s.  Must this spell too / / his scissor-
fingers picking through / / dissolve?  Shall all spells be unpicked, o
End of Fairy-Story
Fairy Story / Her blistered
fingers stumbling at their task / / as time ran short / / yet she co
Fairy Story
e-ends murmur / / of a lost limb…  / /
fingers supple / / to caress or grasp, / / unravel muddle, / / adap
Lopped
g as he moved along the shore.  / / His
fingers ’ festering pain burned up his arm.  / / Almost blindly he turn
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Finis / Under the grey sky / / he stood by the grey lake / / and tur
Finis
Each year requires another year / / to
finish some new thing begun, / / round off some ragged, trailing tail
A Prayer
o bed yet—I want to play, to / / read,
finish this…  Can’t I wait up?”  The question / / falls.  Plato, Paul, a
The Betrayal
life as it’s been—disorderly, / / half-
finished , half-begun, hoped, dreamt, / / tomorrow there behind today.
A Prayer
was water-quenched.  / / Life goes on,
finished lives recede / / and remain.  / / New lives we love do not k
Anniversary
Dozens / / of questions where a story
finishes / / follow of course.  Mostly the answer, though, / / leads
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
angian in Mickelgard / Woods, beech and
fir .  Water—always / / streams sounding hidden, suddenly leaping / /
Varangian in Mickelgard
y Cyprus hills, raised that sacrificial
fire .  / /
Makherás
ggered, crawled, dragged himself to the
fire .  / / A hunched black figure crouching in its light / / lifted h
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
bodies flowered, our faces / / were on
fire , and our whispers were as sweet as honey.  / / And not to make to
Spells and Love
l Smithfield with the smell of flesh in
fire / / as Protestant, Catholic, turn and turn about / / burned one
Betrayals
/ / sparks.  The wind blows against the
fire / / beating it down, and only blows it higher.  / / Sparks, wind
Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville
ily / / together.  At last the planet’s
fire / / begins to weaken, flicker, vanishes / / in night, marking t
September Cruise
an unordered jumble of things.  / / The
fire , brutally quenched, was still a fire / / whose high flame, even
Question
hakes to see / / how fighting wind and
fire can absolutely / / destroy themselves and all.  / / Sparks?  A ma
Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville
y Delphis’s flesh waste so in consuming
fire .  / / Draw him, bird-wheel, draw him (you know who) to my house. 
Spells and Love
/ / wind, death, darkness, fear, / /
fire , flowers, / / pain, angels singing.  / /
Beethoven
hall / / shouting for more wood on the
fire , for light / / and food, wine and more food.  The castle store /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
mount higher / / we lose the illusory
fire — / / grey rocks; bushes green, many-coloured, dark.  / / Once it
Makherás
left me.  My wretched heart / / caught
fire .  I must have looked awful.  I don’t remember / / a thing about th
Spells and Love
tretched and stripped, plunged too.  The
fire -in-ice / / and the harsh salt combined almost to choke him.  / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
f not in will, are that in deed.  / / … 
Fire … martyrdom…  Fine words.  Bend your mind back / / to these whom wh
Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville
thirteen hundred years.  / / Not ice or
fire , no shrieks, no tears, / / but hopeless ill yearning for well.  /
Virgil’s Farewell to Dante
ed it and toss the shreds on the savage
fire .  / / …O Love, harsh Eros, why do you cling so hard? / / —pond-l
Spells and Love
st of all, but a nearer flame too:  / /
fire on the hearth, / / torch in the hand, / / glow in the heart.  /
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
am, / / a shot bird roasted on a stick-
fire .  On / / thin rough grass of a valley-alp he dropped / / his wea
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
l / Accidie / Brunetto Latini under the
Fire -Rain / “Joy we denied,” / / they mutter in the mud, “out there /
Two Glimpses from Dante’s Hell
rish / / others are born to burn.  / /
Fire -raising autumn, black-boughed winter, / / spring’s green-and-whi
Cassandra’s Song
/ / and bare the forest in its hour of
fire .  / / She passed him often, sometimes paused to speak— / / she l
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
f for treating me so.  / / Now, though,
fire -spells to bind him.  / / But, O Moon, / / shine out while I croo
Spells and Love
ready.  Surely Love / / builds a hotter
fire than Hephaestus under Etna.”— / / These are the springs of my lo
Spells and Love
unds the roar / / of a remote, fanatic
fire .  / / To each a tower: fanatics have their dream / / —Utopia or
The Party
t of yesterday / / through a pillar of
fire .  / / Tonight; intrusive memory’s sudden force: / / chastity and
Wedding Night
ut still wildest, least biddable slave,
fire / / twist in his hand / / and make a suddener end.  / /
Dr Faustus
ight.  / / The cliffs.  And under them a
fire was lit.  / / He staggered, crawled, dragged himself to the fire.
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
re seems / / one kindling only for the
fire / / whose heat can forge a world from dreams: / / love—love of
Hymn
he fire, brutally quenched, was still a
fire / / whose high flame, even remembered, warms and sings.  / / Man
Question
/ / Barley-grains first shrivel in the
fire —why, Thestylis, / / strew them on then.  Stupid girl, what are yo
Spells and Love
me roadway would blow.  / / Wheatfields
fired , a pleasant city’s sack / / —these in the other scale-pan you m
Sur le Pont d’Avignon
jointed dolls of clay; / / likewise of
fired clay, half a dozen crocks, / / five of them black, prettily for
Label
ed, plunged over head / / and out, new-
fired .  Then something caught his eye.  / / A flowered bush, studded am
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
rms.  Years earlier still, at dusk, / /
fireflies flickered beside the Ionian Sea.  / / In that same far past,
A Hoard
nkle, / / suddenly kindles / / stars,
firefruits fallen / / from the sun’s high tree.  / / Today the sea is
September Cruise
ose flowed and ebbed—now weak, / / now
firm again, then suddenly deadly sick.  / / But still he dragged and h
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e spirit’s eye keeps clear, its footing
firm , / / and tune its ear, too negligent in peace, / / to hear the
Prayer to Truth
e.  The girl was there.  / / Slender and
firm and white, / / formed for a man’s delight, / / lovely and unawa
Pelopia and Thyestes
how to help you, but our intent / / is
firm as our love, and perhaps we shall be able.  / /
[White foam sweeps]
Cosmology / The sky is a
firm dome bounding earth’s plain / / whence the inconstant gods send
Cosmology
ight, spring light, a clear- / / eyed,
firm -handed geometer, / / built an intelligible world / / of surface
For Cecil
ir / / But foot is home / / and hand,
firm / / on notched rock.  / / Oh, the subtle / / steps of the coupl
Sea Cliff
r heart cried out in fear / / for some
firm rock, rose circling and alit / / on love—not the half-child’s ro
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
love.  This paradox / / (a rift in the
firm -seeming rocks) / / rives all we’ve done and all we could / / do
The Rift
hot tear-shower / / she turned to the
firm shoulder there, a tower / / founded on rock above her quivering
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
dder in the stocking, wrecking / / the
firm silk.  He’s a fool / / and she’s hysterical / / and one no longe
Back Room, 1944
ugh / / its vaulted ways.  Suddenly the
firm stance / / falters, joined banks are sundered anew.  / / But dan
Sur le Pont d’Avignon
arves and poisons her; / / extends his
firman further: / / water and air / / suffer his mandate too.  / / H
Dr Faustus
f cards has fallen flat: / / turn to a
firmer building now.”  “I will” / / I answered, sad; then heard: “our
The Black-out
Time’s Reach / Who so
firmly set in time and place / / as the Empress Eugénie?  / / High ni
Time’s Reach
princess too.  The boy was only, / / at
first , a servant—one whose natural state / / was being at her bidding
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
tree’s edge, and could / / see nothing
first , but slowly the dim light / / shaped me the shadows among which
The Black-out
and poison him / / —unless rather his
first / / but still wildest, least biddable slave, fire / / twist in
Dr Faustus
Your message to bring me here / / was
first by only as much as the other day / / I managed to beat dear Phi
Spells and Love
en abortive love can be / / called the
first cause, however sharp its sting.  / / You are unhappy because you
The Black-out
ht arm out.  That beach.  He’d been there
first / / crossing huge mountains, wandering and wild / / ‘full of h
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e brave blossom is white, / / and this
first day of June / / warm air, / / soft sun / / take over.  And I c
Upward Turn
clear / / after-heat dusk of summer’s
first decline.  / / “By such a moon we quarrelled at Arezzo / / over
The Black-out
n the ramparts.  Down, / / searched the
first floor a second time in vain— / / the ground-floor too, but he w
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
That Way Madness Lies / / / / When
first ghosts of our own begetting / / force us back to the precipice
That Way Madness Lies
For Cecil / Morning’s
first light, spring light, a clear- / / eyed, firm-handed geometer, /
For Cecil
’s curse.  / / He won through from that
first mistake, / / but only just—and whether we / / have left oursel
Mother’s Malison
e hold a double talisman—are free, / /
first of as many worlds as books, and then / / have learnt from them
The Black-out
uare / / for her soul’s good, / / and
first of the faggots they laid / / the rose from the wood.  / / Shriv
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
, and though / / my heart warms to the
first of winter weather / / I could have cried at last for it to go. 
The Black-out
vourite uncle to the child who had / /
first opened to him.  But he told them little / / of who he was or whe
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
as you have done / / always from that
first party till we parted / / —your pleasure, if you felt it, never
The Black-out
oon,” he said.  “By such a shine / / we
first saw Florence resting in the clear / / after-heat dusk of summer
The Black-out
ow who) to my house.  / / Barley-grains
first shrivel in the fire—why, Thestylis, / / strew them on then.  Stu
Spells and Love
one, / / dead in pain.  Think of these
first .  / / So, in pain they fell.  But also as fall / / sparks.  The w
Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville
/ / that dies quickly but has gleamed
first (star-fall).  / / I like to lay up my harvest in the wind.  / /
Treasure
e whatever carcase in the dust.  / / As
first , think of these last: / / this man, this woman, this child.  /
Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville
er range, which curled / / back to the
first (this he less saw than reckoned) / / bounding the plain, and th
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ureless black mould below.  / / For the
first time Time’s inescapable stream / / sensed in that truth, her he
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Moon.  / / —“But as it is, I owe thanks
first to the Cyprian / / goddess, and after the Cyprian thanks, my de
Spells and Love
d on towards Leicester Square.  / / The
first tube gate was shut, but not the second.  / / Down sandbag-narrow
The Black-out
steep / / rock.  There dossed down, at
first uneasily / / but later in a long untroubled sleep.  / / Awaking
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e all others: / / the baby brother she
first was jealous of, / / but they were knitted together in lasting l
Eugénie de Guérin
Brueghel’s Babylon / / reversed) when
first we’re launched.  But soon / / spiralling on one almost hears /
Anniversaries
o the ship of exile waiting / / in the
firth below / / his horse threw him.  He rose, looked round, and said
Gunnar of Lithend
/ By moon-heaped ocean, strait / / and
firth where the tides race, / / Leif Ericsson, / / Magellan, one /
The Sea
osing / / clear pools and foaming / /
firths of tide, fencing / / the cowrie beach— / / looks out to Lundy
Bury My Heart
aring storm.  The sea, reaching / / its
firths round us, embracing rock and field.  / / Here too sea clings ro
Varangian in Mickelgard
Content /
Fish and chips under the pines at Manly, / / looking across the small
Content
y caught, / / hide darkness where that
fish is moving / / like an escaped thought.  / /
Water in a Wood
lows’ acrobatic flawless flight.  / / A
fish jumps at the corner of my eye, / / back into black unglimpsed /
Water in a Wood
es / / of fierce white birds circling,
fish -plunging, woke him.  / / He stretched and stripped, plunged too. 
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ide flows deep / / round weedy timbers
fish / / smooth-threading pass.  / / Tide out, on bright / / days ch
A Wreck
a trim boat / / and an old long-shore
fisherman to teach / / the basic skills; those mastered, knew the pri
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
er reaches / / towards sun, moon, / /
fisher’s lamp, recurring flashes / / of lighthouse beam.  The path is
September Cruise
oops, prevails / / forcing it from its
fishing -grounds.  / / Nature’s brutal economy holds a mirror / / to h
Heron and Gulls
ped flat on the bed.  / / Next morning,
fit and fresh, the mystery / / puzzled him of the empty room, stale f
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ooth hill, the woods / / you love, the
fitted words / / you love.  Love and mourn, / / but the world must tu
Change
erhaps there wait / / twenty or twenty-
five / / —but I’d as soon not live / / (sooner) as long as that, /
[Now of threescore and ten]
up steep valleys and down, / / until,
five days’ hard going from the coast, / / he reached it.  Just before
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
t, heaven help us, many years ago / / —
five hundred years and more gone / / since we burned the maid at Roue
Makherás
f fired clay, half a dozen crocks, / /
five of them black, prettily formed but plain, / / the sixth (small l
Label
garden (before that house / / was sold
five or six years before) a child / / happy in the long grass, the ho
Summers
Five Poems for Roni / / / / / / One full half of the willow was r
Five Poems for Roni
years lost / / (none more than twenty-
five , / / Sophie twenty-one.  / / Kurt Huber was much older / / but
Die Weisse Rose
/ Or did not think?  Well satisfied, the
five / / stand round and look down at the gifted bud.  / / The little
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Water in a Wood /
Five terraced meres / / dammed from a slow small stream.  / / Black s
Water in a Wood
and Tom’s / / throwaway, that in / /
five years perhaps, working at / / home, “We’d start a family”.  / /
For Cecil
ing up their ungrateful task, / / must
fix it irremovably, / / till where’s the mask and where’s the face?  /
H.A.R.P.
urn / / of the irreversible screw / /
fix the coffin-lid down / / over humanity just / / in our late-flowe
May Day, 1986
and pain, / / timeworn image, will not
fix / / the shifting look.  / / Lift it again.  / / Naked under bruta
Stray Thoughts at a Wedding
he train looks out with brown eyes / /
fixed and lost.  / / What is she looking for?  What is gone?  Why / / t
Song
l / / round masked skin.  / / Only the
fixed brown eyes seem to reveal / / someone within.  / / Self-made? s
Song
nd compass these as one / / kept their
fixed course—where does not matter / / now, nor under cloud or clear
Shipwreck
t, though; / / or were it so / / that
fixed face was not moulded on his heart / / but on his will.  / / Can
And Then
en in the wood / / who stood aside and
fixed her with his gaze / / troubling her faintly…  Now, suddenly know
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
gone from under one’s feet, / / find a
fixed point from which to start again?  / / I am not falling.  Falling
What am I?
Yes, but how bright and brave / / the
flag at the mast head / / goes last under the wave.  / /
Five Poems for Roni
from shining water / / bravely bridged—
flagged battlements recalling / / story and dream…  A sadness in your
For Rachel
ch whipped his body with their scalding
flail .  / / The noon was darkness, and the terrible coast / / could n
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ar / / wears towards unbeing.  / / The
flailing galaxies are fleeing / / from spaces where light drowns at l
Entropy
/ / where they had laboured with heavy
flails , beating / / the husks from the grains, heavy fans shifting /
Dream under a Carob-tree
ing, the old life.  / / Peace and order
flake away.  / / Every mountain, plain and bay / / breeds its princel
Dark Age
Parenthood / Husk
flakes from the seed / / and nothing in plant or tree / / cares if i
Parenthood
, quietly rotting, / / dustily, gently
flaking , / / dropping to pieces round her.  / / She could not lift a
Mariana in Miniature
as grass.  / / The desert shows through
flaking green.  / / Mars might have been, / / perhaps was, / / water
Drought
stone he left caught / / that straight
flame .  / /
Pietà
/ like a ladder down a stocking, like
flame / / along dry wood.  But flame is beautiful / / —more like the
Back Room, 1944
tween the starving North and war’s dull
flame , / / distressed only by the knowledge of distress, / / disturb
The Black-out
nched, was still a fire / / whose high
flame , even remembered, warms and sings.  / / Man’s acts and suffering
Question
Joan of Arc / What did the
flame force from the flesh?  / / Agony and greasy ash.  / / What did t
Joan of Arc
/ equal to ours?—oh, feed and fan your
flame .”  / / I bent and watched the waters to the sea / / running, an
The Black-out
you, who brought me here and out of the
flame .  / / I was almost burnt up already.  Surely Love / / builds a h
Spells and Love
at might have started / / an answering
flame in me.”  “The Paris spring / / and hope,” I answered, “made me l
The Black-out
ng, like flame / / along dry wood.  But
flame is beautiful / / —more like the ladder in the stocking, wreckin
Back Room, 1944
(you know who) to my house.  / / As the
flame melts this wax (O help me, goddess) / / may this Myndian, this
Spells and Love
.  / / What did the soul steal from the
flame ?  / / New wings for its dream.  / /
Joan of Arc
in that void / / with the little ugly
flame of temper.  / /
Back Room, 1944
alked drowned in his dreams.  Then a red
flame / / smote him—light on the leaves across a clear / / glade—smo
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ and as incorporeal, sharp as frost or
flame : / / the fairies, gathering for the grand event.  / / A crowned
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
tar / / brightest of all, but a nearer
flame too: / / fire on the hearth, / / torch in the hand, / / glow
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
t and noise.  / / The moment’s timeless
flame transcends / / imagination’s competence.  / / Marble in sun bur
Delos in Spring
do not be too sad / / for those whose
flame was blown out while they had / / unflawed happiness of the hour
Whom the Gods Love
The plain / / is streaked with yellow
flame / / which licks the lower hills.  As we mount higher / / we los
Makherás
bright / / as though lit by the inner
flame / / which sears his spirit day and night / / they mark his bon
Ballad
feet to climb.  Let me not lose / / the
flame , whose power I feel of work and love, / / in ashes of self-pity
The Black-out
fails, / / darkness…  But no, the light
flamed up—of course, / / the teller of all stories, his old nurse.  /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e rich in leaf / / as the solid trunks
flanking this along the river.  / / How can the sap rise?  / / How doe
Five Poems for Roni
u came towards me sad,” she said, “with
flapping / / aimlessly certain feet, as you have done / / always fro
The Black-out
alance; some / / smoulder an age; some
flare smokily up; / / some by a chance blow are untimely over; / / o
Lamps
es crackle as the heat takes them, / /
flare up suddenly and not even ash is left.  / / May Delphis’s flesh w
Spells and Love
It all / / —horror, lust, oracle— / /
flared to one hideous end.  / / She fought the hard sinews, the horrib
Pelopia and Thyestes
pable vision.  / / The guttering candle
flared up straight.  Out.  / / Night claimed him.  / / But in the whitt
Pietà
I’ve no inkling of) / / a temper that
flares high on a short fuse.  / / A bad combination, one would suppose
[I have (what seemingly you do not see)]
country.  / / Here, in my country, / /
flares no cypress.  / / Misty willow / / dreams by the river, / / dr
Five Poems for Roni
ter.  Of the year’s / / pattern we mark
flash off, flash on, / / the signal-lights repassed, of tears / / an
Anniversaries
ad / / but warmly help and guide.  / /
Flash on our groping a recurring vision / / of possible pattern laid
Prayer to Truth
year’s / / pattern we mark flash off,
flash on, / / the signal-lights repassed, of tears / / and happiness
Anniversaries
/ / Half a lifetime ago / / a thunder-
flash put out a glow / / and then / / another light was water-quench
Anniversary
nbright, she is slender.  / / His teeth
flash snowy in his wit, / / hers with the laugh that answers it.  / /
On the Towpath
er, fretted / / with winking, wrinkled
flashes —held his gaze.  / / Still on the sand he sat, in the cool wind
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
un, moon, / / fisher’s lamp, recurring
flashes / / of lighthouse beam.  The path is always / / there, and yo
September Cruise
ensitive mind and heart, and store / /
flashes of truth which pass and many miss, / / but sensibility locked
The Black-out
, bulls walking pastures / / in kingly-
flashing coats under burning rays.  / / By now the tide was running:  K
Poetry
sword in his hands / / then tossed it
flashing towards the middle of the lake.  / / A hand came up and caugh
Finis
/ Waking, he drank deep from his water-
flask / / but would not pause to hunt or cook.  Eating / / could wait
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ and would even leave his precious oil-
flask with me, / / but now it’s eleven days since I’ve even seen him.
Spells and Love
/ Be careful.  He looked where the two
flasks lay.  / / A bow, eleven arrows.  And the way / / home was the g
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
vered dream.  / / He looked down at the
flasks , the bow, the quiver / / and the cold ash.  All a dream it was
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
.  / / But all this slowed him, and his
flasks were dry / / before he reached the river.  Feverish / / with t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ and to our vision’s limit spread / /
flat as the sea, and sea-like fed / / on hopes that sought (but found
Lost
tween blue-distanced downs / / a faint
flat blue, and knew it for the sea— / / and longed to lose for once t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
his promontory.  / / And all along that
flat edge of flat land / / a young man journeying.  A sense of loss, /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
he asked.  “The blight / / is just that
flat fact that what is must cease.”  / / “But no.  No.  All that once ha
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
one swan high in flight / / across the
flat fenland.  No dream— / / this is today and I am I.  / / No swan, t
Bicycle Ride
the griefs and joys / / of life in the
flat fields / / under the sky’s breadth / / from their mother’s dark
The Green Children of Woolpit
range, / / sand stretched out from the
flat green plain.  The change / / in land-structure intrigued his thou
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ud to its low noon.  / / The wind-swept
flat horizon / / under the high-cloud-mottled pallid blue / / offers
[Bare trees black]
t pass.  / / But what she sees lives.  A
flat illustration / / jumps off the page— / / the rider reins his ga
Nadia
y.  / / And all along that flat edge of
flat land / / a young man journeying.  A sense of loss, / / pain deep
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ew / / did cross his mind) and dropped
flat on the bed.  / / Next morning, fit and fresh, the mystery / / pu
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
n struck as it lifted from the sea / /
flat on the climbing land, flat on the coast / / the rock-piled and t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
the sea / / flat on the climbing land,
flat on the coast / / the rock-piled and the sandy promontory / / al
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / would rush through the camp-site,
flat / / out, crying out “Louise, Louise, / / save me”.  / / Twelve-
Vignette
ns! what a blessed change / / from the
flat ribbon stretching on and on.  / / The nurse’s tale?  Yes, but he f
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ver, white.  A light wind makes / / the
flat sea wrinkle, / / suddenly kindles / / stars, firefruits fallen
September Cruise
ey-head / / he saw the mountain—a tall
flat -topped peak / / between two shadowed cliffs sunlit, which said /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ A careful house of cards has fallen
flat : / / turn to a firmer building now.”  “I will” / / I answered, s
The Black-out
road / / and could no more.  He dropped
flat where he stood / / and slept like death on the uneven ground.  /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
eary way, / / the narrow ribbon of the
flatland shore / / stretching on endlessly.  Until one day / / it cur
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
the square-cut marks of man / / having
flatness enough for a small dwelling, / / hundreds of small dwellings
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
hat.  / / Off to his right the bank was
flattened back, / / and the far left bank too; and at that spot / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
with the flies.  / / Insult-tinselling
flattery , / / cat-and-mouse of proffered hope, / / pretend kindness…
Royal Family
/ even proud perhaps to suffer / / the
flaunting symbol of a difference?  / /
Fairy Story
d, a lot of Chaucer, / / other Milton (
flawed glory of Paradise Lost) / / The White Devil and the Duchess of
Poetry
dragon-flies, / / swallows’ acrobatic
flawless flight.  / / A fish jumps at the corner of my eye, / / back
Water in a Wood
Joy / Ask no surety of this
flawless morning / / for noon or afternoon.  Take what may / / come—b
Joy
of campion and wild geranium, / / toad-
flax , cow-parsley, yellow stragglers, / / a single honeysuckle.  / /
[Late October hedges]
e small-boat anchorage / / to the sail-
flecked harbour.  Clear, still evening light.  / / Stillness undisturbe
Content
atchworked with green and grey / / and
flecked with white of large convolvulus caught / / among blackberry-f
The Grass Road
knowing nothing, sweats with fear.  / /
Fled are the open sky, the easy slumber.  / / Now in a narrowing chamb
That Way Madness Lies
l but cracked it—would / / gladly have
fled , but stayed from stubbornness.  / / Next time with bleeding hands
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Quo Vadis / I
fled by night and in the grey / / of dawn met on the lonely way / /
Quo Vadis
.  / / Spring came, and hardly come had
fled / / —footloose wanderer, not pretending / / to stay us like our
Dance of the Seasons
/ she broke into a flood of tears and
fled .  / / He half-noticed the room was filled with light, / / and hu
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ren for meat, / / learning the horror,
fled / / … night and day, day and night… / / came to the Delphic fan
Pelopia and Thyestes
flight / / leaving him sick, until he
fled to them / / again—or else took refuge in a new / / and subtler
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
umped out: “good-bye, / / thanks,” and
fled .  Waited at the back the strong / / oarsman, in front the singers
The Black-out
r the water, / / dwindling, lost.  / /
Fledged presently, son, daughter, / / circle, take flight / / from o
Out from the Cliff
/ / her fear.  The fawn soon ceased to
flee .  / / Over her breasts my hands moved gently, / / the new-formed
Love Scene
/ Magellan, one / / seeking a golden
fleece , a white whale, / / legend and life, by sail / / or steam or
The Sea
unbeing.  / / The flailing galaxies are
fleeing / / from spaces where light drowns at last, / / an ultimate
Entropy
/ / / Treasure in heaven?  Rather, the
fleeting kind— / / the exchanged smile, the small kindness (so small
Treasure
nt and Memory / The shutter flicks; the
fleeting moment stays / / pinned on time like a butterfly on a board,
Moment and Memory
s years / / knowing at twenty / / the
fleeting seasons in their beauty / / would not again appear / / ofte
[Housman was old beyond his years]
o has even the dogs shaking / / as she
fleets by over graveyards, over black blood.  / / Be there, fell Hecat
Spells and Love
Arc / What did the flame force from the
flesh ?  / / Agony and greasy ash.  / / What did the soul steal from th
Joan of Arc
cho left on eye, / / on ear, on parted
flesh .  All dreams.  But even / / moments of dream are moments passing—
Separation
ng / / cool on brow and hand / / till
flesh and soul flowered / / in those of Ferdinand.”  / / Ophelia to M
Dialogue
nkindness, cruel Time.  / / Let not our
flesh and spirit, longing-torn, / / grow bitter with the burden of th
Prayer to Time
the longing blood allay its heat, / /
flesh cast its bloom and shapely hands grow sharp.  / / Here be conten
Inscription for a Convent
ed to fill Smithfield with the smell of
flesh in fire / / as Protestant, Catholic, turn and turn about / / b
Betrayals
ut this once more is / / truth but not
flesh ,” my guide said; “not the scene / / which nicely rounds so many
The Black-out
one the silver monstrance / / with the
flesh of God.  / / Elders gather, the bells / / ring out of time.  /
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
ullo, dearie’ / / offered the troubled
flesh peace with dishonour, / / dangerous appeasement, till the mind
The Black-out
my mind / / (and in my heart and in my
flesh ), / / The all but palpable presence / / of your warmth, of you
[I have you always in my mind]
rom Satan’s siege.  / / But the girl of
flesh they burned / / for her sacrilege.  / /
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
/ both imaged back in this bone, this
flesh , / / this hour and place.  / / I look across through my old fac
Meeting
.  / / Clothe again / / in your lovely
flesh / / this poor skeleton.  / / Between waking and sleep / / thin
Against Anorexia:  For Cathy
/ Monks, harnessing the hungers of the
flesh / / to spiritual flights, less cold, less hard / / make their
The Embankment
ot even ash is left.  / / May Delphis’s
flesh waste so in consuming fire.  / / Draw him, bird-wheel, draw him
Spells and Love
f exile had me dying, but the poor / /
flesh won and brought me home.  I lived and died / / in the wide air,
The Black-out
led in the air, a sun-caught cloud, and
flew / / together up the westering fork.  The powers / / he trusted h
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
urned high then, but the answering / /
flicker died soon.”  “What can one build on one / / spring song?” she
The Black-out
groin; / / white figures, busy hands,
flicker of steel / / at the roots of life, a scarlet flood— / / and
Block 21
he planet’s fire / / begins to weaken,
flicker , vanishes / / in night, marking the unseen edge, / / the moo
September Cruise
earlier still, at dusk, / / fireflies
flickered beside the Ionian Sea.  / / In that same far past, a Cambrid
A Hoard
of others.  / / And that huge violence
flickers in that void / / with the little ugly flame of temper.  / /
Back Room, 1944
, away / / and all across it play / /
flickers of the grumbling storm, / / and through this warm / / clear
Antipodes
Moment and Memory / The shutter
flicks ; the fleeting moment stays / / pinned on time like a butterfly
Moment and Memory
to obedient Alice.  / / The goal still
flies ahead.  / / Faster, faster, to keep up with the Joneses, / / wi
Curvature of Space
g web / / —you will rot there with the
flies .  / / Insult-tinselling flattery, / / cat-and-mouse of proffere
Royal Family
magic.  / / Blue thin brilliant dragon-
flies , / / swallows’ acrobatic flawless flight.  / / A fish jumps at
Water in a Wood
lies, / / swallows’ acrobatic flawless
flight .  / / A fish jumps at the corner of my eye, / / back into blac
Water in a Wood
white, / / brilliant, one swan high in
flight / / across the flat fenland.  No dream— / / this is today and
Bicycle Ride
rom things which man has made, / / but
flight and court and hollow dome / / melt in each other, melt away, /
Cedar
windle to pin-points in speed-gathering
flight / / from a lost centre: seeming to press back / / dimension’s
Macrocosm
ently, son, daughter, / / circle, take
flight / / from ours to outer world, build worlds in / / differing w
Out from the Cliff
m / / and put his painted fantasies to
flight / / leaving him sick, until he fled to them / / again—or else
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ddenly from the cliff-face swept / / a
flight of white birds, wheeled over the boat / / westward, ahead, bri
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
send his mind / / on such an insolent
flight ?—the parable / / forgotten of the badger and the hind, / / an
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ its long neck out, rising into slow
flight .  / / The sight of a heron always lifts my heart, / / even tod
Omens
/ And every day at noon came the white
flights / / fanning out, wheeling west, ahead, as if / / meant for h
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
hungers of the flesh / / to spiritual
flights , less cold, less hard / / make their deliberate bed / / than
The Embankment
ear / / the buoy-lights of the planets
float / / marking the charted darkness where / / (a channel for the
Night
formed in the sea / / —elementals that
float on / / past (they the same) / / eel, dolphin, weed, / / coral
The Sea
end.  / / I am (so far as I am) rather
floating .  / / Nothing for foot to press on or hand feel / / to tell
What am I?
s a boy.”  “Thanks.  How can she keep the
flock ?”  / / “My two unmarried sisters can manage ours.”  / / “You’re
On the Border
m get lost.”  / / “Why does he keep his
flock so far this way?  / / Or has he an eye on the strength of the Tw
On the Border
sister—what’s her name?— / / kept the
flock sometimes a year or two ago— / / how’s she?”  “Just had a boy.” 
On the Border
y arms about you, watching / / our two
flocks cropping together against the Sicilian sea.  / /
Shepherd’s Song
el / / at the roots of life, a scarlet
flood — / / and other hands, quiet, soothing the head, / / veiling th
Block 21
is own white vision burned—and the dark
flood / / engulfed it—then the triumph of the light, / / yet blackne
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e.  It was enough, / / she broke into a
flood of tears and fled.  / / He half-noticed the room was filled with
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
oods, Berkshire, childhood, Anabel, the
flood / / waits for the turn,” began my helper.  “Each / / of countle
The Black-out
ve her for my bride’ / / his heart was
flooded with unreasoning joy.  / / The age of time between, life and d
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
our actual presence, and the peace / /
floods me that’s always in that happiness.  / / Longing’s back at once
[My grandchildren are stamping the ice-puddles]
ramparts.  Down, / / searched the first
floor a second time in vain— / / the ground-floor too, but he was sti
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
frantically round the bare / / ground-
floor , a third time round the upper, and / / in a dark corner of a co
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
field of his last fight.  But the dense
floor / / kept all its secrets hidden.  He descended, / / foothills. 
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
they gave too, the sails slumped to the
floor .  / / Now he could keep her more into the wind / / which shriek
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
a second time in vain— / / the ground-
floor too, but he was still alone…  / / The fairy’s curse—a shocking f
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
n he as I perhaps was young.’  / / That
floor was empty—up the stair again, / / he found himself out on the r
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
aid.  “By such a shine / / we first saw
Florence resting in the clear / / after-heat dusk of summer’s first d
The Black-out
ra’s Song / Beauty and dreams of beauty
flourish .  / / Earth leans and the leaves turn / / and things we shal
Cassandra’s Song
l girl with anorexia), / / the will to
flourish perished in men and women.  / / How have we come to this?  /
Desert Island?
s, need that be final?  / / Green trees
flourish unstricken.  Some recover / / from anorexia, and shine.  / /
Desert Island?
have to go.  / / But swept out in that
flow / / are others which should have stayed: / / what passion and l
Progress
/ seeing the girl.  Preferment’s chancy
flow / / at court washed the poor widow far away / / to be a hunting
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Later he learned the fords of the broad
flow / / beneath the nearer hills.  Alone long days / / walking, scra
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
water, through mud; winter’s boisterous
flow / / broken by stone piers, its attack / / turned, its wild move
Sur le Pont d’Avignon
ht day, / / watched bright, cool water
flow , / / drowsing (he had not slept / / nights, days) saw—in a drea
Pelopia and Thyestes
classical stillness calmed the aimless
flow / / of gall.  From such a still height I looked down / / and wat
The Black-out
d with subtle currents. / / which must
flow on to others.  / / Must we then, human, envy / / beast and flowe
Parenthood
been.  / / But here, just so, the river
flowed against / / the dark forest.  And now he knew the love / / he’
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
er power.  / / His strength and purpose
flowed and ebbed—now weak, / / now firm again, then suddenly deadly s
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
: / / a light such as in Paradise / /
flowed from the smile of Beatrice / / should fuse them in its white e
John Ruskin’s Wedding Night
ne, and scarcely tried; such peace / /
flowed over me to have her there as when / / nightmares or wars, quar
The Black-out
blackthorn / / (remnants of blackberry-
flower among the berries), / / a few rose-bushes burning with red hip
[Late October hedges]
gular character.  / / The beauty of the
flower , / / enough of course in itself, / / is informed with so much
Epoch
felt for her, when the pink bud should
flower / / (even before).  None chose to give her power / / to love. 
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
eneath.  / / She stirred and turned her
flower -face—that face.  / / He kissed her on the mouth and she awoke. 
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
eries, / / perfection of sorrow in the
flower -face.  / / The young man, knowing the power in his fingers, /
Pietà
r white rose.  / / The wild rose was my
flower .  Good that these late flowers / / are here for me, you, us now
[Late October hedges]
ove’s eyes and hands and all his senses
flower / / in speechless speech; but parted, bird in cage, / / shake
Love’s Eyes and Hands
/ taps us these messages.  / / Hearts
flower in words, or works of hand and mind, / / song and colour and s
Fossils
im / / has, in whatever season, / / a
flower -love that seems his own.  / / I love white spring, love the col
[Housman was old beyond his years]
ust we then, human, envy / / beast and
flower ? netted, / / knitted into this knot, / / envy beings empty /
Parenthood
man, for love.  / / Love is the heart’s
flower / / not only in these lovers’ / / cries—in all that sprang /
Fossils
cles / / draws to the drill-ground the
flower of life and land.  / / The shepherds of Parnes or the Pyrenees
On the Border
/ bluebell to buttercup, dog-rose.  / /
Flower -seasons return / / but not the season’s flowers.  / / And why
Seasons
, and as the bud / / is dying into the
flower , she shall prick / / her thumb, and all these heavenly qualiti
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e vision.  Latent, though, / / later to
flower , the love.  Now, from that day, / / nine years went on without
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / of autumn, but / / my sweetheart-
flower these have not: / / childheart (while the swallow / / settles
[Housman was old beyond his years]
spirit and in face / / momently like a
flower / / they touch the absolute value of each hour / / where ligh
The Lilies of the Field
r / / long affection opened its cactus-
flower , / / we noticed Time / / choosing to walk with us / / at our
Two Poems from a New Life
/ their home—those golden shores, / /
flower -wooded hills, which loved them once.  / /
[Some exiles know]
.  Then something caught his eye.  / / A
flowered bush, studded among the flowers / / with butterflies in scor
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e sun, / / the cities of Greece: which
flowered in her own spring, / / withered through the dog-days of Mace
Greece
brow and hand / / till flesh and soul
flowered / / in those of Ferdinand.”  / / Ophelia to Miranda:  / / “I
Dialogue
the amber past.  / / The ugly duckling
flowered into a swan; / / and if this child’s beauty, ephemeral, fade
Joy
bed.  / / Skin to bare skin our bodies
flowered , our faces / / were on fire, and our whispers were as sweet
Spells and Love
f the rose are done.  / / Each year the
flowering briar / / has touched this reach of life / / with a singul
Epoch
een grass, / / yellow cowslip-balls of
flowering fennel, / / yellow mimosa.  Other flowers, white and red, /
Makherás
/ over humanity just / / in our late-
flowering hour, / / our children’s, their children’s opening day?  /
May Day, 1986
/ —orange blinds, fountains, chestnuts
flowering , / / red mullet and tomato sauce, and sun; / / my love bur
The Black-out
gh.  I laid the girl / / down among the
flowers .  A soft cloak spread, / / my arm round her neck, I comforted
Love Scene
and you / / touching, the fairy world,
flowers / / and birdsong, is again ours.  / /
[Most of us, somewhere along the road]
stream, / / a dark bush jewelled with
flowers and butterflies / / shook him with beauty—or the early night,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
easons return / / but not the season’s
flowers .  / / And why should we mourn?  / / Why accept the pattern /
Seasons
ose was my flower.  Good that these late
flowers / / are here for me, you, us now in this late / / out-of-sea
[Late October hedges]
nally stops / / where a wild rose-bush
flowers / / at the edge of a copse.  / / Monstrance and Host in the g
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
nce, the road to the mill / / with its
flowers , birds in the garden—made her journal / / a sampler that does
Eugénie de Guérin
ugh your hands are dry.  / / Hands seek
flowers in April, hands seek coolth in May, / / hands seek a pair of
Greek Folk Song
hat long purse spending / / blackberry-
flowers in the bramble’s room, / / small-change for a cheapened purch
Dance of the Seasons
r blood, / / yet raise each spring new
flowers in the garden, / / draw green afresh out of the creaking wood
Prayer to Time
ys of merrymaking they would strew / /
flowers in the road.  Who gave fear a glance?  / / All this now in its
Sur le Pont d’Avignon
n-and-white return: / / another beauty
flowers into / / the wilderness we mourn.  / /
Cassandra’s Song
ng fading petals / / dropping from old
flowers , only a few new ones / / coming in their place.  Still, though
Omens
wind, death, darkness, fear, / / fire,
flowers , / / pain, angels singing.  / /
Beethoven
the railway / / a formal row, filament-
flowers , / / radio telescopes with lifted faces / / listening / / t
Two Cultures?
dges along this lane / / coloured with
flowers / / (seasons are late this year): / / pink of campion and wi
[Late October hedges]
ht green leaves dark, and strangely the
flowers / / (the light bright white and pink) invisible.  / / The dar
Omens
ering fennel, / / yellow mimosa.  Other
flowers , white and red, / / pink, mauve, blue, but most yellow.  The p
Makherás
/ / A flowered bush, studded among the
flowers / / with butterflies in scores, which suddenly moved, / / wh
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
onvolvulus caught / / among blackberry-
flowers with torn edges / / and honeysuckle drooping antlered sprays
The Grass Road
growth, greenness, / / water falling,
flowing .  / / Not enough sun / / is our complaint, / / too much rain
Drought
n end?  / / Or a beginning?  Can you cut
flowing / / water, or mark the moments of the wind?  / / Is it the wi
Winter Solstice
by the strong stream of our love, which
flows / / clean of those.  / / A further bliss to bless you for.  / /
[Feelings of guilt]
/ / These are no ship.  / / When tide
flows deep / / round weedy timbers fish / / smooth-threading pass.  /
A Wreck
ver catch the changing / / years.  Time
flows unbroken through.  / / What of that clearer frontier, ranging /
New Year
though it bore itself the spell / / he
flung it from him in the thorns, and wept.  / / The blood clotted and
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
s there something wrong?  / / A bump, a
flurry , and a choked-down cry / / lost in the cheers of the domestic
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ revealed the body’s subtleties / /
flushed from the warm blood’s quickening.  / / The yielding and the st
John Ruskin’s Wedding Night
f I could do…”  / / He stopped; and she
flushed too, but angrily / / (how dare this stuttering yokel spy on m
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
.  But today Philista’s / / mother (the
flute -girl’s) and Melixo’s came / / to see me early, Dawn pink in the
Spells and Love
Nadia /
Flute with no reed, violin / / left unstringed.  / / Instrument evolv
Nadia
e my thoughts, and then / / “You fool”
fluted “you fool” the liquid song / / “you fool, you had the love /
Hebona
ve you tried to catch / / these autumn
flutterers ?  / / Almost all elude your snatching / / though one may s
[Golden, red, brown]
/ Above the sea and the wide sand gulls
fly calling / / or walk far out by the ripples’ edge, where children
For Rachel
off into the air, / / taught itself to
fly , / / fly properly like a bird.  / / Twittering light-scared thing
Bat
/ farther than swallows in the autumn
fly , / / I cannot count the generations gone— / / but once upon a ti
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
he air, / / taught itself to fly, / /
fly properly like a bird.  / / Twittering light-scared thing, / / bli
Bat
From the Air /
Flying high / Flying low / (for L) / Far down past melting drifts of c
From the Air
From the Air / Flying high /
Flying low / (for L) / Far down past melting drifts of cloud / / remo
From the Air
maresbane grows in Arcadia, and all the
foals / / and their mothers, cropping it, run mad on the mountains.  /
Spells and Love
ve, / / the phosphorus sparkles in the
foam below / / like sequins on a dress—where have I seen / / shining
Wind
black and red, / / footed in shifting
foam , crowned with thin jade, / / broke down to island-rocks.  One too
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
er a comb, / / like currents traced in
foam / / on fast water.  / / My thoughts / / lift from the stream, d
How not to listen to music
/ of sea and sky, thickening, till only
foam / / shone in the black; light imperceptibly / / withdrawn from
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
[White foam sweeps] / White
foam sweeps along the grey-brown shore / / from grey-green sea under
[White foam sweeps]
[White
foam sweeps] / White foam sweeps along the grey-brown shore / / from
[White foam sweeps]
ck rocks enclosing / / clear pools and
foaming / / firths of tide, fencing / / the cowrie beach— / / looks
Bury My Heart
Summer is truly summer, / / green sea
foaming in cow-parsley and may, / / sun-streaked with dandelion and b
Relax
uned to another sound-range, eyes which
focus / / in a different light.  They whisper / / to man’s mind half-
Two Cultures?
ead, / / but sandbanks shift under the
fog / / giving the lie to chart and log.) / / We must be careful whe
Lost
/ / differing ways their own.  When we
fold / / fond revisiting loves, cheek will be cold, / / salt from se
Out from the Cliff
ed / / is Eden, prison, path of exile,
fold .  / / Who happy kiss within / / to passers jealous, cold, / / c
A Window
t that again when your mourning / / is
folded away, god willing.  But now / / I’ll be good, I promise—I do kn
Love Scene
Greek
Folk Song / All the girls get married, and likely lads they wed, / /
Greek Folk Song
selves away.  / / We must weep / / our
follies and our wickednesses, our failure; / / not least, for our own
Buttercups
People have scrambled up.  / / I try to
follow , but / / too steep, rough, hard / / for this old / / body.  I
[The track up the wild stream]
skirts these hazards.  Several more / /
follow her skill.  One, dreaming after these, / / treads in the slippe
Pelopia and Thyestes
irl / / with her apron-full.  / / They
follow her to the fields.  / / She tells them all, / / leads them by
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
his feet / / falling away, told him to
follow it, / / descending to climb further in the end.  / / An hour o
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
f questions where a story finishes / /
follow of course.  Mostly the answer, though, / / leads to another sto
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
not to deny nature; / / to divine and
follow reason / / yet to dare at a moment / / to follow something ot
Caring
on / / yet to dare at a moment / / to
follow something other / / which guides us against reason.  / / But m
Caring
They did not give love.  / / Love would
follow the others presently, / / love felt for her, when the pink bud
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
efore the prisoner free.  / / What now? 
Follow the wind / / away, follow your will.  / / To what joys will it
Freedom
/ What now?  Follow the wind / / away,
follow your will.  / / To what joys will it lead?  / / Dancers on the
Freedom
d / / and took the track he could have
followed blind.  / / His head was clear, his heart strangely at peace.
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
eheld him gone; then where she led / /
followed , but half my mind followed in Greece.  / / “Such light,” I sa
The Black-out
f to the right, / / I could find it.  I
followed him, and made it out.  / / Six months ago above an Aegean har
A Hoard
who never was / / weak to regret, but
followed his few days / / his light, until “he wrapped his colours” a
The Black-out
she led / / followed, but half my mind
followed in Greece.  / / “Such light,” I said, “and more the full moon
The Black-out
at / / of shadeless, windless noon, he
followed it, / / lost and recovered, up steep valleys and down, / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
c castle, leaving a bleak moor.  / / We
followed on across the dreary circus, / / pit where the sordid alleys
The Black-out
ad?  / / Dancers on the green / / have
followed the fairies under hill.  / /
Freedom
with windows and a view.”  / / My eyes
followed the water running faster, / / fast to the sea—and sudden I s
The Black-out
Buddha no less than Plato.  / / I am no
follower of Paul or Plato, / / of Buddha or Mahomet, God or gods.  /
The Betrayal
ay; / / tomorrow’s natural course / /
following simply out of yesterday / / through a pillar of fire.  / /
Wedding Night
’s irrelevant— / / after the last leaf
follows its crooked trail / / to carpet the bare wood, / / days in a
[Golden, red, brown]
fore it—and we have had the past.  / / “
Follows the dark but interesting future.”  / / “The interest that thro
The Black-out
more the known nor knows the seen.  / /
Follows the fall: / / strong in the streets the legions of the fiend
Nijinsky
Our lives are subject to wickedness and
folly / / in others.  Harder to bear, our children’s lives / / are su
[Our lives are in other hands]
me?  And were his mother / / and father
fond of her at once?  His cousins, / / how did they and the princess l
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Teach Us…  / / / Have always been too
fond of sitting still, / / and having painfully learned how not to ca
Teach Us…
ering ways their own.  When we fold / /
fond revisiting loves, cheek will be cold, / / salt from sea-wind.  /
Out from the Cliff
La
Fontaine et le Déluge / “Some food, for pity.”  / / “Why?  What did you
La Fontaine et le Déluge
aint in French exclusively; / / Margot
Fonteyn dances at Sadler’s Wells / / and Sally Gilmour at the Mercury
The Black-out
n’s hut there by the stream / / to beg
food and a shelter for the night.  / / The hut was dark, and silent to
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
in the dusk of walls, craved scraps of
food and love / / —a sweet little girl—hanging’s not bad enough— / /
Law Report
’d foraged round the kitchens, wine and
food / / at least a week’s supply—written a note / / to tell his mot
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / Comforting glow, warmth of drink,
food / / begin to fade.  / / Lovers close, held together, feud / / a
[Wind is chilly on shoulders]
/ puzzled him of the empty room, stale
food / / but other thoughts took over.  Combed and cleaned / / he thr
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
La Fontaine et le Déluge / “Some
food , for pity.”  / / “Why?  What did you do / / in summer?”  / / “I s
La Fontaine et le Déluge
—not a word he’ll say.  / / I bring him
food , I bring him drink—he pushes them away.  / / I spread him blanket
Greek Folk Song
/ / sick children sell themselves for
food .  / / Song… and blue sea… and on the blue / / distance, Tiberius
Naples
for light / / and food, wine and more
food .  The castle store / / was low, replenishment impossible.  / / Th
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
re wood on the fire, for light / / and
food , wine and more food.  The castle store / / was low, replenishment
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
fool, unlovable?  / / Fool, fool, fool,
fool .”  / /
Hebona
ified, / / unsummoned, Hope, the loyal
fool .  / /
Masque
has no laughing shadow / / —poor lost
fool .  / /
Catharsis
ng, wrecking / / the firm silk.  He’s a
fool / / and she’s hysterical / / and one no longer cares / / to pu
Back Room, 1944
caught by chance / / or captained by a
fool / / drifting drove on this shore.  / / These are no ship.  / / W
A Wreck
to lose my thoughts, and then / / “You
fool ” fluted “you fool” the liquid song / / “you fool, you had the lo
Hebona
/ you fool, unlovable?  / / Fool, fool,
fool , fool.”  / /
Hebona
l, / / you fool, unlovable?  / / Fool,
fool , fool, fool.”  / /
Hebona
ou fool, / / you fool, unlovable?  / /
Fool , fool, fool, fool.”  / /
Hebona
/ / here, here, within the circle.  Oh
fool , fool.  / / Worn out he dropped on the leaf-mould and slept.  / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
last.  He looked again.  / / A pine…  Oh,
fool —full-circle fool.  He wept, / / knowing his weariness, knowing hi
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
gain.  / / A pine…  Oh, fool—full-circle
fool .  He wept, / / knowing his weariness, knowing his goal / / here,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
all her warm gifts, is loving.  / / You
fool , how could you lose / / her love, unless because, / / you fool,
Hebona
ove, unless because, / / you fool, you
fool , of having / / simply become, you fool, / / you fool, unlovable
Hebona
goal whisks on, / / the tip of our own
fool tail.  / /
Curvature of Space
s, and then / / “You fool” fluted “you
fool ” the liquid song / / “you fool, you had the love / / of her who
Hebona
/ / simply become, you fool, / / you
fool , unlovable?  / / Fool, fool, fool, fool.”  / /
Hebona
here, here, within the circle.  Oh fool,
fool .  / / Worn out he dropped on the leaf-mould and slept.  / / Wakin
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / her love, unless because, / / you
fool , you fool, of having / / simply become, you fool, / / you fool,
Hebona
fool, of having / / simply become, you
fool , / / you fool, unlovable?  / / Fool, fool, fool, fool.”  / /
Hebona
ed “you fool” the liquid song / / “you
fool , you had the love / / of her whose gift, above / / all her warm
Hebona
by so answering their question / / He
fooled the spies and priests, the Christian’s question / / “Should no
The Betrayal
/ / but Cromwell (and Charles / / the
foolish and false) / / they it was killed.  / /
Merrie England
t too.  And sadly we know ourselves / /
foolish often, sometimes wicked as well, / / sharing in guilt, part o
[Our lives are in other hands]
Catharsis / Lear storms.  / / The
fool’s laughter / / takes the wind from his sail / / the moment afte
Catharsis
/ of peace and hope, / / when up from
foot and finger hourly creeps / / stronger the tide of cold.  / /
The Embankment
d on.  / / All the princes were slow of
foot and wit.  / / Deep in a curtained window, quite alone, / / the p
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ds, is gone / / down into air / / But
foot is home / / and hand, firm / / on notched rock.  / / Oh, the su
Sea Cliff
he cracked / / torso, tilted on a clay
foot , / / stands crowned with gold and is mankind.  / /
On the Towpath
I am) rather floating.  / / Nothing for
foot to press on or hand feel / / to tell me I can count myself a sub
What am I?
closer.  Huge cliffs black and red, / /
footed in shifting foam, crowned with thin jade, / / broke down to is
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
its secrets hidden.  He descended, / /
foothills .  And evening suddenly showed his eyes / / the river of his
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / the spirit’s eye keeps clear, its
footing firm, / / and tune its ear, too negligent in peace, / / to h
Prayer to Truth
ently lointaine— / / she simply had no
footing in his dream.  / / The little one perhaps was prettier, / / c
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ment comes to forget / / (night on the
footless cliff) / / I hope I shall feel relief / / as well as, I hop
[When the moment comes to forget]
ng came, and hardly come had fled / / —
footloose wanderer, not pretending / / to stay us like our daily brea
Dance of the Seasons
water or vegetation and less game, / /
footsore and starving, worn out, nearly lost.  / / The girl grew up an
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
we are here.”  / / I listened, and his
footsteps left no sound.  / / The light wind faded out as he came near
The Black-out
point.  / / Long before dawn / / he’d
foraged round the kitchens, wine and food / / at least a week’s suppl
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ed figure from his work / / turned and
forbade me right of entrance there.  / / Back up the steps I groped in
The Black-out
m to ply her thread / / in secret—work
forbidden her, not for / / any good reason but because, they said, /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
he’s brave and true enough) / / shall
force a way and wake her with a kiss.  / / And it’s to love that, wake
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
od / / brought his forebodings back in
force .  And yet / / he had so much, so very much, to thank / / the fa
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / Tonight; intrusive memory’s sudden
force : / / chastity and desire, / / acts of childhood, parents, affe
Wedding Night
object of its thought? / / what secret
force could gather / / you, form and soul, in this drop, mingled stra
Becoming
Joan of Arc / What did the flame
force from the flesh?  / / Agony and greasy ash.  / / What did the sou
Joan of Arc
yet, we need a sense of sin / / to put
force in our will to virtue.  / / Life is split like a migraine:  / /
Responsibility
young skin bare, / / I spilt my white
force , just touching her yellow hair.  / /
Love Scene
eyed / / to strike the boy with a full
force of truth, / / through time and two discursive tongues relayed. 
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ the ice-cap on that love—its living
force / / shifts into proportion resentments, guilts.  / / And oh I p
[White foam sweeps]
made him rouse.  Hardly in him / / the
force that made him rise and struggle on.  / / Then his glazed eyes (h
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
stay / / out on the garden-grass, not
force the doorway / / —just try.  But as for that sister of yours, /
Love Scene
first ghosts of our own begetting / /
force us back to the precipice / / and empty air sucks suddenly / /
That Way Madness Lies
agged and hacked, hour after hour.  / /
Forced by exhaustion to a moment’s rest / / he saw the little tunnel
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
cked nature ruin us in the fall / / we
forced , have had our vision.  While we live / / we know we live, know
The Reckoning
predictable / / current caught him and
forced him out to sea.  / / He fought it, and knew fear and hope again
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
carefully / / began to cut his way.  He
forced the task / / to be the cutting each thick stem, each string /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
lves and to the world / / we have been
forced to fight and fear / / the natural world, that’s yet our dear /
The Rift
/ despair so wearisome / / that it is
forced to hope.  / /
[Why do I dream this pause]
raordinary process of becoming man / /
forces us out of nature, to upset, / / fight, break nature, defy her,
The Reckoning
/ sharp-circling sloops, prevails / /
forcing it from its fishing-grounds.  / / Nature’s brutal economy hold
Heron and Gulls
the hills again / / hustled him to the
ford —be hanged the deer!  / / He made the peak, and in the evening glo
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
s.  A track?  / / Reached by a ford?  The
ford he found, but not / / the track—or if a track, so overgrown…  /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
sight of the princess.  / / But at the
ford his weakness frightened him— / / all but swept off he made the b
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
horny brakes / / and coaxed her to the
ford ; soon from the crest / / gazed on his kingdom, standing by its Q
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
n the trees.  A track?  / / Reached by a
ford ?  The ford he found, but not / / the track—or if a track, so over
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Dark through the woods, he reached the
ford with dawn, / / and when night came, deep in the mountains stoppe
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ike his hand.  / / Later he learned the
fords of the broad flow / / beneath the nearer hills.  Alone long days
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ou’ve guessed it: cannot true / / love
fore -defeat the devil’s monstrous game?  / / Love’s grand illusion ‘Lo
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
le and shaking, Love.  / / Then, almost
fore -defeated, Love / / sensed at his shoulder something move… / / s
Masque
of the sunstruck wood / / brought his
forebodings back in force.  And yet / / he had so much, so very much,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
looked into the wood, / / feeling its
foredoomed beauty like a pain.  / / And there of course against a dark
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ is cheated of its natural star, / /
forefailed / / through odds of brutal, hopeless circumstance.  / / Bu
Dinner
considering life, behind / / a smooth
forehead , clear, utterly free / / from any mark, almost like a child’
Two Serenities
ver.  A drenching sweat / / stood on my
forehead like dew and trickled down.  / / I couldn’t utter, no more th
Spells and Love
r.  Utterly worn out / / he looked, and
foreign in his strange-cut green.”  / / The image of the strange exhau
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ the King, the Queen, the court, the
foreign throng / / of princes—the princesses stayed at home.  / / He
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ear / / the gentle voice in the common
foreign tongue / / Encore un peu, mon enfant.  Mon enfant, n’aie pas p
Block 21
killed, her only, son, / / fighting a
foreigners ’ war in a far country.  / / Darkness.  / / But Time has tri
Time’s Reach
the sandy promontory / / alike in his
foreshortened vision lost.  / / Their sweep enclosed the harbour-city’
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
[Fall rainbows the
forest -acred mountains] / Fall rainbows the forest-acred mountains, /
[Fall rainbows the forest-acred mountains]
st-acred mountains] / Fall rainbows the
forest -acred mountains, / / unbelievable ranges / / of daily changin
[Fall rainbows the forest-acred mountains]
/ / And there below him lay the great
forest .  / / Acres of leafage unbelievably stretched / / almost past
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
the river flowed against / / the dark
forest .  And now he knew the love / / he’d been made captive by the im
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
most rarely dared by any from / / the
forest , fearful of the cloven and cliffed / / wind-naked way.  He went
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
act, / / a sea-gift wished him in this
forest -hell.  / / He found himself again, with greater care, / / seve
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
set beside the green / / and bare the
forest in its hour of fire.  / / She passed him often, sometimes pause
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
knew.  / / But he would talk about the
forest -land / / where he had lived—that’s why he was so good / / at
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
s October.  Work was traversing / / the
forest , marking movements of the game, / / making all ready for the K
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
w hill.  / / Other times it can be / /
forest , mountain, sea.  / / Stupidity is powerful, and ill will.  / /
Gratitude
ks / / they were together in the green
forest .  / / Nettles or brambles, she plunged gaily in / / but he fea
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
l but not the wood.  / / And though the
forest perish, it has been.”  / / “But what’s the comfort there?” she
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
in-ways / / to his wood-knowledge.  The
forest -plain below / / stretched to the farther slopes; far beyond th
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ky over all / / (no trees to guide his
forest -sense)—east, west, / / north, south, all points were sullenly
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
s: a river, wet, / / shining against a
forest .  Then, clearer yet, / / her form, her face, the dear unknown p
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
noon / / dry and still drew her down a
forest -track.  / / The trunks rose black out of the level brown; / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ue.  He knew the lad / / was taken as a
forester , and ever / / a loved friend in the household by the river /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
kingdom held / / but poor and tame our
forester had found it / / beside the great-treed miles of memory.  /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ve said.  / / He almost felt he was the
forester , / / had lived all this inside that heart and head, / / and
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
than this.  / / And then his feet.  The
forester had spent / / his days trudging.  The prince grew quickly sor
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
o speak / / a word for him to the head
forester / / (partly he hated trouble; more, he knew / / she would f
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
bles.  To their eldest daughter / / the
forester stood godfather.  Their home / / was always his.  He played wi
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
are, yet there’s a difference.  / / The
forester , the poor court-lady’s son / / we knew before, could not wit
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
And there, she said, / / stood a young
forester .  Utterly worn out / / he looked, and foreign in his strange-
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
trong— / / empty an age—‘When that old
forester , / / who died before my birth, was weeping sent / / away, w
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
crown her initiation’s joy, / / an old
forester whom a wheel had crushed / / died.  Eighty years, they said,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
d.  / / “Grandfather was the old King’s
forester / / (your grandfather’s).  When I was very small / / my moth
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ll my life / / in what I can.  I am her
forester .’  / / It came unnaturally calm and clear.  / / ‘She is my la
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ot so.  / / He made his way to the head
forester’s house / / and found it, as he guessed, empty—all gone / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
running furiously / / outward, saw the
forester’s ignorance / / (inland bred), waited for the turning tide /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
housekeeper.  / / Far among far-spread
forests half-ringed by hills, / / a distant, lovely, rough and empty
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
g only for the fire / / whose heat can
forge a world from dreams: / / love—love of God, since God is love; /
Hymn
had failed you / / profoundly.  I don’t
forget .  / / But must not let that / / blot out what were surely our
For Cecil
s lovely.  / / Enjoy today’s beauty and
forget care.  / /
Relax
/ / who yearly add to what they would
forget , / / feel in stale blood renewed a prick of hate / / and pres
May Day
iranda to Ophelia:  / / “Then you would
forget ?  / / Had you your life to make again / / You would never meet
Dialogue
friend / / a happy summer I shall not
forget .”  / / He blushed.  The thousand things he had to say / / went
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
f the sea.  / / He will accept it, / /
forget his anger.  / / And much good may it do you.  / / I don’t think
Odysseus
/ / Life is sweet, / / as you did not
forget / / living, never let / / fear or horror deny it; / / so now
Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank
you and you.  / / I am the sea.  Do not
forget me.  / /
The Wave
s to forget] / When the moment comes to
forget / / (night on the footless cliff) / / I hope I shall feel rel
[When the moment comes to forget]
Easy to live below the built wall, / /
forget the exiled sea.  / / I am the wave that sweeps over the wall, /
The Wave
evon, Berkshire, Greece, and quite / /
forget the misery of exile when / / Ithaca lay lovely in the moonligh
The Black-out
my harvest in the wind.  / / Smug, you
forget the other crop (tare / / in the wheat)—careless insensitive un
Treasure
.  Hands seeking / / other outlets / /
forget the pencil.  / / (And out of what depth, fingered on a steamed-
Nadia
lies by, be it a man, / / may he quite
forget them, as once in Naxos, they say, / / Theseus forgot Ariadne f
Spells and Love
[When the moment comes to
forget ] / When the moment comes to forget / / (night on the footless
[When the moment comes to forget]
ason, / / more of recurrent moods, I’m
forgetful of:  / / De la Mare very early, Christina, the other Emily /
Poetry
long the paved and parapeted track / /
forgetful of the tamed wildness below / / once-separated worlds long
Sur le Pont d’Avignon
curving but uncentred dark.  / / Beyond
forgets its meaning like above, / / nor any place remains for God but
Cosmology
end: / / my loss, not Byron’s, I can’t
forgive him for.  / /
[I find it difficult to forgive Tom Moore]
/ / do more than understand, more than
forgive , / / more than love our enemies.  Trust them.  / / “Put up you
Against Deterrents
ive Tom Moore] / I find it difficult to
forgive Tom Moore / / for burning Byron’s journal—yet in the end / /
[I find it difficult to forgive Tom Moore]
[I find it difficult to
forgive Tom Moore] / I find it difficult to forgive Tom Moore / / for
[I find it difficult to forgive Tom Moore]
s once in Naxos, they say, / / Theseus
forgot Ariadne for all her beauty.  / / Draw him, bird-wheel, draw him
Spells and Love
ack mountain’s rim.  / / But often mind
forgot the joy of eyes.  / / Valley, col, valley formed his zigzag way
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
to have remembered / / but had, truly,
forgotten , / / after initial numbness, / / blankness, unrecognition,
Return
/ / small but so painful it cannot be
forgotten / / by either party.  “It wasn’t meant”’s a rotten / / excu
Treasure
Du Bellay—let it pass.  / / How have I
forgotten Emily Bronte, / / so many years my constant star and love? 
Poetry
e cradle, white by white— / / one more
forgotten fairy, but this one not / / thereby to malice moved or bitt
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
a glance?  / / All this now in its turn
forgotten , few / / but dance, dance on the jutting stump, dance.  / /
Sur le Pont d’Avignon
how many miles / / and after you have
forgotten how many days / / you will meet a man / / who says “That’s
Odysseus
/ He must have another fancy, and I’m
forgotten .  / / Now with these love-spells I’ll bind him.  But if he hu
Spells and Love
ch an insolent flight?—the parable / /
forgotten of the badger and the hind, / / and with it the sad facts. 
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / You that I’ve named, you that I’ve
forgotten , / / you that I’ve remembered but not named, lest / / the
Poetry
ndering, and strode / / down the right
fork .  He felt the fairy smile.  / / Over the miles, under the leafy li
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e miles, under the leafy light, / / at
fork or cross-track he went still by whim, / / rejecting reason’s que
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
and flew / / together up the westering
fork .  The powers / / he trusted had not failed him but had proved /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
d up the tree.  One branch from the main
fork / / was broken and lay level from a ragged end / / resting on t
Five Poems for Roni
rter of a mile / / within the wood, it
forked .  He paused, but checked / / his reason’s helpless wondering, a
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ur ways confirm / / and not deface its
form .  / /
Prayer to Truth
dream still of a shapely / / innocent
form , a dolphin curving clear, / / scattering diamonds.  Man was born
Advent
and dissolved, / / autumn and evening
form again.  / /
For Cecil
irl were faked / / too, wholly real as
form and face had been.  / / But here, just so, the river flowed again
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
row sharp.  / / Here be content only to
form and keep / / peace in the heart.  / /
Inscription for a Convent
nst the fainter sky, / / seen in their
form , and seen and formed anew.  / / “Speak to him,” gravely said my g
The Black-out
hat secret force could gather / / you,
form and soul, in this drop, mingled straight / / from love’s well an
Becoming
t a forest.  Then, clearer yet, / / her
form , her face, the dear unknown princess.  / / Then darkness.  / / Re
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
s from the sloping road above us / / a
form , my mother, came.  “From Cambridge how / / came she?” my prophet
The Black-out
it odd / / to frame some longings in a
form of prayer / / addressed to something which may not be there / /
Prayer
ding / Glance lifts to a crucifix.  / /
Form of the sacrificial Man, / / drained of urgency and pain, / / ti
Stray Thoughts at a Wedding
/ Accept the vision.  Let it give / / a
form on which to mould and build.  / /
Hymn
e must let moments pass / / to memory,
form the phases of our life, / / not like the camera catch the fading
Moment and Memory
/ touches the senses, nothing further;
form / / thins into smoke, thence into lightless air; / / the soul i
That Way Madness Lies
right in the sun.  Her slight and lovely
form / / was all his dream.  He stood and fought his heart / / within
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
to be, or change its nature, structure,
form .  / / Within this same salt tide / / the other end of time / /
The Sea
our house your home?  / / What is your
form , your nature, / / that love may know the object of its thought? 
Becoming
ot come.  She waited.  / / Unnoticed the
formal garden / / found itself as a jungle.  / / Round her the house
Mariana in Miniature
long the old line of the railway / / a
formal row, filament-flowers, / / radio telescopes with lifted faces
Two Cultures?
elow, close by, / / the joined streams
formed a rock-pool, deep and spread.  / / He shivered, but he stripped
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
on, / / reshaping the inheritance / /
formed and re-formed before we were / / as still it will be when we’r
Change
, / / seen in their form, and seen and
formed anew.  / / “Speak to him,” gravely said my guide; and I / / “m
The Black-out
ping the inheritance / / formed and re-
formed before we were / / as still it will be when we’re gone.  / / D
Change
d lips / / to take my love, but others
formed beyond / / the grave.  ‘A sacrifice, my love, my youth.’  / / A
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ocks, / / five of them black, prettily
formed but plain, / / the sixth (small like the others) a masterpiece
Label
ld she liked the warm.  / / A few tears
formed but scarcely fell.  / / She bound the bracelet on his arm.  / /
Ballad
.  / / Slender and firm and white, / /
formed for a man’s delight, / / lovely and unaware, / / he watched h
Pelopia and Thyestes
sts my hands moved gently, / / the new-
formed girlhood she bared for me; / / over all her body, the young sk
Love Scene
e joy of eyes.  / / Valley, col, valley
formed his zigzag way / / by star and sun bent truly to his goal, /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
the field reached a hedge and the hours
formed in days, / / days in years, and a pattern took shape in our wa
Hymn
, climbed to complexity / / from cells
formed in the sea / / —elementals that float on / / past (they the s
The Sea
f the deeper theme / / —spirit, whence
formed or fetched here, on what wing / / (whole) or wind (scattered)
Dulce et Decorum
ing boy.  / / And then a patch of doubt
formed suddenly / / ‘How will the young price know that he is I?  / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ough a point of not- / / being, are re-
formed what? where? to be / / keel on what un-isled ocean, spark / /
Holes in Space
t of shade / / —inevitable images / /
forming from things which man has made, / / but flight and court and
Cedar
ption foster life.  / / Even the fossil
forming in the stone / / helped build a shape which was not there bef
Change
heart more than content / / with other
forms , compulsive as a song / / and as incorporeal, sharp as frost or
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ithless prayer?  / / Dark power / / of
formula and rune, to trust / / you would be worse and sillier.  / / T
Uncertain
by nature / / (their nature, its own)
forsake .  / / Does it matter?  / / Aconite, snowdrop, give place to pr
Seasons
iblical conversation / “Why hast though
forsaken me?”  / / “What have I to do with thee?”  / /
Biblical conversation
ted worlds long wandered, back / / and
forth .  The trader found his markets grow.  / / Friendship joined hands
Sur le Pont d’Avignon
to build for middle age.  / / Being no
fortress , neither is it a prison.  / / Patience is not concerned with
Patience
time keeps / / the keys of this thorn
fortress ”—smiled at him.  / / His eyes closed, and he opened them alon
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
s and be free.  / / The world is round,
fortunes are made, deeds done.  / / The youngest son sets out with emp
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
for him behind.  But he was pressed / /
forward by more than the immediate dry / / lust for the river.  Far be
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ered wind.  / / The boat moved rippling
forward on the sea, / / purposeful.  Suddenly from the cliff-face swep
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / “Anabel,” I thought, and pressing
forward questioned:  / / “Anabel?” and unanswered turned my head.  / /
The Black-out
, corruption foster life.  / / Even the
fossil forming in the stone / / helped build a shape which was not th
Change
Fossils / Here in this rock lie stony semblances / / of shells—here w
Fossils
when we’re gone.  / / Decay, corruption
foster life.  / / Even the fossil forming in the stone / / helped bui
Change
at and blood / / ran down his face, he
fought a mounting fear.  / / He knew in this last fight against the go
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
me.  / / ’The fairy’s curse’—he knew he
fought a spell…  / / Who knew?  Who fought?  / / A sudden violent blast
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
w he fought a spell…  / / Who knew?  Who
fought ?  / / A sudden violent blast / / roused the prince brutally fr
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
n, / / who once believed they could be
fought away.”  / /
Presage
pinned on the rough bank; yet still she
fought , / / biting him, scratching him, and suddenly / / this was a
Pelopia and Thyestes
rm / / was all his dream.  He stood and
fought his heart / / within the door, and mastering it in part / / m
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
him and forced him out to sea.  / / He
fought it, and knew fear and hope again.  / / “He had to fight the fai
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ flared to one hideous end.  / / She
fought the hard sinews, the horribly / / cloaked face she could not g
Pelopia and Thyestes
e lifted water driving over him / / he
fought the tiller’s will.  At last it gave / / and set the righted boa
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / again, and brought up more of the
foul brine.  / / He groaned and retched and vomited again, / / and kn
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
“Are you a Turk?  Trample me then, / /
foul me if you’re a Jew, / / but if you’re of my own blood / / let m
A Ballad
e heath / / —bare from bony feet, / /
fouled , burned—recreate / / beauty, breed out of death, / / carpet a
Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank
d you lose a lamb the other day?  / / I
found a dead one this side, not far from here, / / not one of mine, o
On the Border
or me may reach the ground.  / / I have
found / / a sounder spell.  Our love.  / / There will be days, not eno
[Golden, red, brown]
Then she saw it, and knew it, and there
found / / a truth she dare not meet.  Trembling and cold / / she wrun
Pelopia and Thyestes
/ This came later.  / / When they were
found / / at the bottom of the pit / / hand in hand / / blinking up
The Green Children of Woolpit
ck?  / / Reached by a ford?  The ford he
found , but not / / the track—or if a track, so overgrown…  / / Still,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
outhern cape lay mystery.  / / Home, he
found fuss and news, a messenger / / arrived, announcing the immediat
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ll go under with the green?”  / / Words
found him—“The leaves die but the tree lives / / to leaf again.  Trees
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
wished him in this forest-hell.  / / He
found himself again, with greater care, / / severing tough stems and
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
, without path, / / without ladder, he
found himself, / / climbed into his own light.  / /
George Jackson
r was empty—up the stair again, / / he
found himself out on the ramparts.  Down, / / searched the first floor
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ndered, back / / and forth.  The trader
found his markets grow.  / / Friendship joined hands there.  And the si
Sur le Pont d’Avignon
/ itself’s not hard to accept.  / / I
found I could adapt, / / not only practically / / but in myself, mor
[Living alone is lonely]
/ / concerning her dead son.  / / And
found in an affirmative answer / / her grief not lessened / / but pr
Wounds
yet learned the taste / / of pleasure,
found in her bewildered heart / / the instincts (as she judged them)
Beyond Measure
y to the head forester’s house / / and
found it, as he guessed, empty—all gone / / together to the castle?  C
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / but poor and tame our forester had
found it / / beside the great-treed miles of memory.  / / Seldom by t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
.  / / Unnoticed the formal garden / /
found itself as a jungle.  / / Round her the house grew old / / slowl
Mariana in Miniature
ed, “long.  My way / / is lost or never
found .  Life, that should fill / / my days with action, chokes them wi
The Black-out
/ Love walked alone, and presently / /
found —not indeed Despair / / but, huge and grim enough, / / the Blac
Masque
wards peace.  / / Sought, and sometimes
found .  / / Peace is present here, / / as though what some have gaine
Villevieille
n she woke she could bear it less / / —
found scissors and cut / / the offending hand away.  More punishment. 
Eugénie de Guérin
/ Numb, cold and utterly worn out, he
found / / that he was walking back down the dark road / / and could
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
day.  / / Monday morning early / / we
found the drink was out / / —the Captain had to pick on me / / to fe
A Ballad
gers groping felt another door.  / / He
found the handle.  The small room dazzled him / / with shafted sunligh
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
hey?… / / later, each separately, / /
found the night-slow / / familiar way / / home to the lit farmsteads
From the Air
like fed / / on hopes that sought (but
found the quag) / / the path across the quaking bog.  / /
Lost
/ / a few yards in under the oaks, he
found / / the undergrowth master again.  The noon / / was hidden.  His
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
a long cold walk, past midnight, / / I
found the whole world round me suddenly whiten.  / / In memory’s chest
A Hoard
/ it curved off, merging into mud.  He
found / / the wide mouth of a sluggish-seeming river.  / / Beyond, th
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
wood-ranger.  Not quite the same / / he
found the woods of his day’s work, as when / / ranged for delight alo
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
dreadful mountains to his home / / and
found the worst.  Returned on the same track, / / not hopeful or afrai
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ll of hope’ he told the child— / / and
found there, not the worst, but the next worst / / thing in his life.
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
.  She laughed at that and, clever, / /
found ways to circumvent them which they never / / guessed.  She was s
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
er cycle / / ride.  Home, in the garden
found / / you dying.  Today, / / bitter beautiful winter / / cycling
For Cecil
o the firm shoulder there, a tower / /
founded on rock above her quivering pool.  / / It was a love-match (th
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
straight / / from love’s well and the
fountain of delight?  / / Waters distilled, secreted, / / strained th
Becoming
nst all I feel and know, / / covet the
fountain of youth or a new birth?  / /
Death
me lighter-hearted / / —orange blinds,
fountains , chestnuts flowering, / / red mullet and tomato sauce, and
The Black-out
puddles, / / dirty and sometimes deep. 
Fountains of muddy / / water are splashing.  Their mother, I’m afraid
[My grandchildren are stamping the ice-puddles]
e chatter of water.  / / His chattering
fountain’s dry.  / /
The Last Oracle
lear, now eddying round again, / / the
founts unquenched, the fumes of brimstone spill / / from the cities o
On the Border
d and ate / / and slept.  He let twenty-
four hours pass / / before he faced the question how to cross, / / r
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Vignette / Carly Gancher at
four / / knew all the answers and a good many more, / / master of wi
Vignette
/ / existence in two dimensions or in
four / / or many, but can’t imaginatively believe, / / envisage them
Dimension
ne thirty-four—two years to run / / or
four or six; is your tale like to be / / equal to ours?—oh, feed and
The Black-out
And indeed he would come to me three or
four times a day / / and would even leave his precious oil-flask with
Spells and Love
at thirty she, / / Humfry Payne thirty-
four —two years to run / / or four or six; is your tale like to be /
The Black-out
ife that might / / have filled so many
four -year cycles more.  / / And on that twenty-ninth of February / /
Leap Year
rmined by the season’s need.  / / Then,
four years after the princess’s visit / / (the boy a gangling woodman
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
…  Now, suddenly known / / her guide of
four years back—and understood.  / / ‘He loves me.  That boy loves me’
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
his brown carpet’s not / / that summer
four years gone—that’s gone to rot / / in yielding featureless black
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ng, his belt drawn tight.  / / The next
four years lent him less time to dream / / being apprenticed to a tou
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
-ninth of February / / nineteen-eighty-
four / / you, I suppose, and I the whole day through / / probably ne
Leap Year
/ / how many lifetimes earlier, / / a
fourteen -year-old countess from proud Spain, / / exchanged letters, f
Time’s Reach
a great ball in celebration of / / her
fourteenth Christmas (she was autumn-born).  / / Why here?  The princes
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ed / / its final peak; but reached his
fourteenth year / / before one summer’s long day saw him there.  / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Dimension / ‘Time is the
fourth dimension’?  Isn’t it more / / a medium? peculiar means by whic
Dimension
e and is our theme.  / / It fell in his
fourth year.  He could recall / / all his long age the scene—clear as
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Lady into
Fox / Sally Gilmour dancing / The lady of the house / / shrinks from
Lady into Fox
It was a shell, / / its shaven bright
fragility intact.  / / How could it be? here?  Here it was, a fact, /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
f our partedness (together / / only in
fragments of a honeymoon).  / / Much more because / / we feel our cho
[I have (what seemingly you do not see)]
/ the human heart or rather the human
frame / / finds in its broken sleep / / despair so wearisome / / th
[Why do I dream this pause]
prayer; yet do not think it odd / / to
frame some longings in a form of prayer / / addressed to something wh
Prayer
lear as a dream / / and, like a dream,
framed in obscurity.  / / Out of the positive blackness of the night /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e good city bravely back old Plato / /
framed laws for shadow-men.  Does He (like Plato?) / / hope that, thou
The Betrayal
lump of childish lead / / (and a man’s
framework croaks towards death, in bed / / above the scavenged garden
Revisited
Then, 1870.  / / Sedan, Paris besieged,
France lost, / / exile, chilled in English Chislehurst, / / widowhoo
Time’s Reach
e clear sky round your birth.  / / Anne
Frank lost her breath into that air / / just when your innocent steps
Two Poems for G
y of a young / / girl.  / / I see Anne
Frank / / on the cross, offering of / / our indifference, of my / /
Stray Thoughts at a Wedding
Two Poems in Memory of Anne
Frank / Orders / Röslein auf der Heiden / “Soldiers, advance against t
Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank
n half-divine.  / / Behind the gold and
frankincense / / comes myrrh for our mortality, / / but in this radi
Hymn
aph / / in a blown-up snapshot of Anne
Frank’s wall / / —her pin-ups, marking her strip of that confined wor
Hermes of Olympia
-ladings / / farther, faster, in their
frantic , red-queen, / / heartblank hunger to out-hurry time.  / / The
Full Circle
who had blessed him.  / / A third time
frantically round the bare / / ground-floor, a third time round the u
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Liberté, Égalité,
Fraternité / Liberty.  / / That’s difficult already.  / / All are (sho
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
urns among / / our guiding stars.  / /
Fraternity .  / / That at least (at last) is easy.  / / Not easy to mak
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
ce, but slow fretting which is bound to
fray / / the bonds of love; but in your own strength now / / they wi
The Black-out
our minds.  But what brings you into my
fray ?  / / You thought to breathe your soul into the wind, / / dissol
The Black-out
/ invisibly chained for—what?—to set me
free / / am neither great nor likely to be great.  / / “For happiness
The Black-out
make with the soul and with the sinews
free , / / and all help, all hope far / / blindfold and mock the visi
Nijinsky
/ / Green, violet, scarlet, scattered
free , / / and blue, shadow of burning blue / / above, echo of blues
Delos in Spring
ruin, we shall rue it.  / / Is the wind
free and strong? we must subdue it / / “Blow this way, that way, cool
Man in Nature
es) / / those acres of heath and wook,
free and wild, / / under a bright, a grey, always a wide sky, / / yo
Two Poems for G
hink it may) for you.  / / May you live
free / / (as far as love allows) from jealousy, / / his meanest avat
Epithalamium
/ and then at last the naked blade came
free … / / but he had done his business and was gone.  / / She sat a l
Pelopia and Thyestes
was big odds / / against His twisting
free .  But was it God’s / / wit gave Him that smart answer?  He was Ste
The Betrayal
ain.  / / We hold a double talisman—are
free , / / first of as many worlds as books, and then / / have learnt
The Black-out
/ / a smooth forehead, clear, utterly
free / / from any mark, almost like a child’s.  / /
Two Serenities
a road / / I owe to you—if I am partly
free / / from the slothful depressive mud that slowed / / my way, I
The Black-out
sounding hidden, suddenly leaping / /
free from the steep, white in a long fall.  Water / / —always rain, ro
Varangian in Mickelgard
already.  / / All are (should be) born
free ?  / / Give absolute freedom to a newborn baby, / / it dies.  / /
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
ure practice / / when time comes to be
free .  / / Good, if new warmth new-quickening his straining / / loose
Chrysalis
out or wither.  / / Nestling and cub go
free / / of the uncaring father, / / the season-sloughing mother.  /
Parenthood
/ where natural beauty, mutual love are
free .  / / Ointments you have to soothe the personal smart, / / and t
The Black-out
ad / / of making it a life or breaking
free .  / / One day she broke out—“But you should be gone / / away fro
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
love.  Better, they thought, keep fancy
free ?  / / Or thought, that’s in her and need not be given?  / / Or di
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ng ago.  / / A better might dare now go
free , rejoice / / in a new land in a new love, a wife / / perhaps, c
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / I’ve known before.  / / Under that
free sky stand / / alleys of huts.  Crowded miseries / / fenced with
Two Poems for G
/ to make his way there and for once be
free …  / / Supper, bed, mother brought him home again.  / / His mother
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
that shared guilt.  But our love stands
free . / / thank you for loving me, letting me love you.  / / We love
[Our lives are in other hands]
ow the face / / they chiselled back to
free the block.  This is his place.  / / Squatting on waterskis, a gold
September Cruise
him / / to kick over the traces and be
free .  / / The world is round, fortunes are made, deeds done.  / / The
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
the end / / shall find ourselves made
free / / to roam the pastures side by side?  / /
[The grass in the next field]
ntil / / our beterness prevail / / to
free us from the wheel…  / / Either of these.  But these and anything /
Balance Sheet
tile or Jew, it / / comes to the same. 
Free ? we are all bond still / / and, part of what we ruin, we shall r
Man in Nature
orld lies wide / / before the prisoner
free .  / / What now?  Follow the wind / / away, follow your will.  / /
Freedom
/ You are unhappy because you dare not
free / / your self-bound life, but sit with bated breath / / —a kind
The Black-out
freed from the quarry.  God hardly half
freed , / / adumbrated in the block.  He does not heed / / precise fea
September Cruise
companion setting too.  / / Block half
freed from the quarry.  God hardly half freed, / / adumbrated in the b
September Cruise
y fans shifting / / the chaff from the
freed grains.  One time, one way.  / / One image.  All man’s images of m
Dream under a Carob-tree
s that absolute, beyond / / our reach,
Freedom , a star.  / / Equality.  / / That’s more difficult still / /
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
om fighter.  / / And, alas, / / once a
freedom fighter always a terrorist.  / / Not so different really.  Thos
Choice
y terrorist / / seen the other way’s a
freedom fighter.  / / And, alas, / / once a freedom fighter always a
Choice
the supposed choice already made.  / /
Freedom he’d half so longed for was now his / / total and dead.  The w
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Freedom / The gate groans to behind, / / thud of finality.  / / Stran
Freedom
/ Though not so strong / / a light as
Freedom , this too burns among / / our guiding stars.  / / Fraternity.
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
hould be) born free?  / / Give absolute
freedom to a newborn baby, / / it dies.  / / And so, mutatis mutandis
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
Recessional / Your
freedom , which our fathers stole / / in careless, unregenerate days,
Recessional
efore the fall: / / sleep easy and eat
freely , and again / / travel, and watch again Nijinsky jump.  / / But
The Twenties
vision tells / / one need not paint in
French exclusively; / / Margot Fonteyn dances at Sadler’s Wells / /
The Black-out
tand.”  “Your Italy,” / / I said, “your
frescoes , all through you are mine.  / / Through you I have, such as I
The Black-out
ra, where all divine / / Piero’s great
frescoes stand.”  “Your Italy,” / / I said, “your frescoes, all throug
The Black-out
away / / leaving behind love’s garden
fresh and green.  / / She is not here; yet here, and on your way / /
The Black-out
d the much-used blade / / marvellously
fresh and keen—it was not that, / / not that at least chiefly which m
Finis
Black / Under the light
fresh day / / my spirit moves like a black beetle.  No, / / the beetl
Black
ion—house / / and street gone from the
fresh earth like a dream; / / freshness and silence of the country ni
The Black-out
ighter than you are shining, Moon, / /
fresh -oiled from a round of bouts in the wrestling-school.  / / These
Spells and Love
ows—kneeling, drank and drank / / (the
fresh river thrusting the ebb-tide) and / / crawled out again, heavy
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
on the bed.  / / Next morning, fit and
fresh , the mystery / / puzzled him of the empty room, stale food / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Soon, rested, cautiously / / tried his
fresh -water-swimmer’s limbs again / / in this new element to master. 
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
t the black cloud fell; / / softly the
fresh wind moved; the stars were bright, / / before dawn and the moon
The Black-out
y face and shouts “Love”, / / the wild
fresh wind; the rest / / is lifted, whirled up in the wind of love; /
Wind
from the fresh earth like a dream; / /
freshness and silence of the country night.  / / I spoke: “if I did no
The Black-out
the fields of daisy and buttercup, / /
freshness , clearness of spring not quite gone / / in the long siesta
Sixtieth Summer
th-west / / we are all mad.  / / Don’t
fret / / that the tired nag / / stumbles, drags / / rambling feet,
Against Anorexia:  For Cathy
/ their memories up.  The empty-hearted
fret .  / / The empty-bellied, the still driven poor, / / who yearly a
May Day
ive.  / / Huddled in his barbed camp we
fret , we grieve / / numbly under his rifling hands, but he / / leave
Age
blues and greens melting in each other,
fretted / / with winking, wrinkled flashes—held his gaze.  / / Still
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
hat brings no true / / peace, but slow
fretting which is bound to fray / / the bonds of love; but in your ow
The Black-out
gue, thoughts, thoughtlessness / / are
fretting , working on, / / reshaping the inheritance / / formed and r
Change
ir kind.  / / Sex is everywhere / / as
Freud made us aware, / / and he was surely right / / but wrong surel
Fair Exchange
for you, your son / / a man now and a
friend , a few old friends.  / / Between you you shall clear your house
Odysseus
smiling:  “You were my kind guide and my
friend / / a happy summer I shall not forget.”  / / He blushed.  The t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
paces, / / the noiseless passage of my
friend and guide.  / / We turned, and left behind the shadowy spaces /
The Black-out
mad thing, breaking away from sport and
friend .  / / Draw him, bird-wheel, draw him (you know who) to my house
Spells and Love
en as a forester, and ever / / a loved
friend in the household by the river / / and favourite uncle to the c
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ Time, this time, / / shows himself a
friend .  / / Larks with difficulty into the wild wind / / wing, singi
Two Poems from a New Life
t / / glad in the woods to be with one
friend lost.  / / The weather worsened and the Queen got better / / o
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ admit that he destroyed it as Byron’s
friend : / / my loss, not Byron’s, I can’t forgive him for.  / /
[I find it difficult to forgive Tom Moore]
awash, drowns your creatures, / / your
friend , sib, spouse, child, you and you.  / / I am the sea.  Do not for
The Wave
hat house, he said.  / / That’s what my
friend told me, and she’s trustworthy.  / / And indeed he would come t
Spells and Love
timid, he walked his long dreams with a
friend / / who’d share his joy and pain, who’d lead, or rather / / m
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
stol / / and laid me where I lie.  / /
Friend , you’re a christened man, / / weep for me, weep for me.”  / /
A Ballad
“Hullo; get in.”  Familiar too / / the
friendly voice, and I was glad to hear.  / / I stooped, hand on the op
The Black-out
en / / you’ll know that you and he are
friends .  / /
[Time is a child]
me bargains.  God’s / / terms, His best
friends admit, are long-term—Plato / / no less than Paul, Buddha no l
The Betrayal
/ / a man now and a friend, a few old
friends .  / / Between you you shall clear your house and your kingdom
Odysseus
Jackson tried to break jail / / —a few
friends (brothers)—gun and knife— / / a few men killed.  The break fai
George Jackson
from a girl’s grave, / / put there by
friends , by her parents probably, / / to be there always in the dark
Label
the red of shame / / hot in her face,
friends giggling, crowd’s rude cracks / / barking about her, the poor
Pelopia and Thyestes
or a proper serenade, with two or three
friends .  / / I’d have brought the apples of Dionysus with me / / and
Spells and Love
nds, / / not necessarily / / intimate
friends , not lovers—old friends / / who have known each other well, q
What Do They Feel?
/ they will never see each other again? 
Friends , / / not necessarily / / intimate friends, not lovers—old fr
What Do They Feel?
y / / intimate friends, not lovers—old
friends / / who have known each other well, quite well, from youth; /
What Do They Feel?
own into the cave with Plato.  / / Make
friends with Mammon, make Mammon your steward.”  / / But who serves wh
The Betrayal
eam all day / / of warm companionship,
friendship and love, / / but when some actual company’s offered, move
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
The trader found his markets grow.  / /
Friendship joined hands there.  And the singular glow / / of lovers’ m
Sur le Pont d’Avignon
om proud Spain, / / exchanged letters,
friendship , with the aging author / / of Le Rouge et le Noir and La C
Time’s Reach
Guiccioli? about Augusta? / / and his
friendships , which had always so much of love?  / / Why narrow, cerebr
“Tell Lady Byron…”
e sun.  What other / / such frozen gaze
frighted him long ago?  / / He dropped his eyes from hers to the glove
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ing, truly, / / to be ashamed of, / /
frightened by, even / / surprised at.  / / North-north-west / / we a
Against Anorexia:  For Cathy
/ / merge with that other frightening
frightened face.  / /
Change Places…
cess.  / / But at the ford his weakness
frightened him— / / all but swept off he made the bank just.  Quite /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
r bad dreams / / merge with that other
frightening frightened face.  / /
Change Places…
.  Strange, and most beautiful, / / and
frightening .  Shaken by a hot tear-shower / / she turned to the firm s
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
take over / / reality, / / shameful,
frightening , / / telling us we / / aren’t who we are, / / hate whom
Against Anorexia:  For Cathy
(though most suitable) / / yet he was
frightening too—yet comforting / / against her wider fears.  She wept
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
m (you know who) to my house.  / / This
fringe from Delphis’s cloak he lost, and I / / now shred it and toss
Spells and Love
d the bones within / / (we, the bones)
fritter away.  / / Never laugh at our suffering.  / / We all need merc
Villon’s Epitaph
Bicycle Ride / In
front a black cloud masks the sky.  / / Behind me the sun’s levelling
Bicycle Ride
rned away / / and another omen rose in
front of me: / / a heron, lifting its wide grey angled wings, / / it
Omens
ud / / the eleven day moon whitened in
front of us.  / / Over the short grass my feet too were silent; / / s
The Black-out
.  / / My mother had her wounds / / in
front .  She went to face things.  / / What though I wonder, / / what w
Wounds
at the back the strong / / oarsman, in
front the singers silently, / / while Laurence, Giles and I on things
The Black-out
Wounds / Were all his wounds in
front ? / / would ask a Spartan mother / / concerning her dead son.  /
Wounds
/ / Till, about noon he thought, there
fronted him / / no choice, no way—a mountainous barrier / / of thorn
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
again / / and all between huge cliffs
fronted the sea.  / / No spot there where a small boat might be beache
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / are fetched to the ranks, and the
frontier -posts are manned.  / / The men to the ranks and the women to
On the Border
oken through.  / / What of that clearer
frontier , ranging / / life against death? surely a true / / disconti
New Year
Dark Age /
Frontiers break to barbary.  / / Hunger burns the palace-wall, / / ro
Dark Age
vely tail / / (the greeks gave temples
fronts and backs alike, / / just as to statues generally gave faces /
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
rd winter clamped suddenly down / / in
frost and ice.  The black twigs cased in glass / / rang on each other
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
’s two alembics) lies / / built out of
frost and mist and level light / / before our ordinary eyes.  / /
Early Train
for?  What is gone?  Why / / this black
frost / / on a spring face?  She really can’t be said / / a pretty gi
Song
song / / and as incorporeal, sharp as
frost or flame: / / the fairies, gathering for the grand event.  / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
he Scorpion’s tail, / / Saturn’s black
frost poisoning the sun…  / / Put it as you will, / / the christening
“Gale is Dead”
rack, face smarting / / in the evening
frost / / —this monochrome stillness looks / / like death but is som
For Cecil
/ there is a chance (chance?) / / the
frost will break, youth / / break to its natural dance.  / /
Winter Recalled
/ Again night’s vaulting / / is star-
frosted .  And, alone, / / a god’s nail-paring, / / a silver sliver ca
Exchange
western darkness, hangs the moon.  / /
Frosted stars are veiled / / in black.  The clean air is thick / / su
Exchange
/ ripple-ridged beach / / through the
frothing water-edges / / that came and went, that come and go.  / / D
Climacteric by the Sea
Naples / St. Januarius’s blood / /
froths cold in its gold-mounted phial.  / / In canyons of the high-slu
Naples
ound I watched its beauty change—clouds
frown / / or cold sun brighten over it, and though / / my heart warm
The Black-out
saw him wait, / / gaze patiently.  She
frowned , but turned to him / / smiling:  “You were my kind guide and m
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
me for yours.  / / But death, though it
froze the guilts, the resentments, / / is easier accepted than a livi
[White foam sweeps]
lf turned; but not my guide.  My purpose
froze .  / / We went on, but I felt as we turned West / / that I was t
The Black-out
ivered in the sun.  What other / / such
frozen gaze frighted him long ago?  / / He dropped his eyes from hers
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
on, / / I feel my eyes adjusting, / /
frozen memory / / melting back to the beauty / / I now see.  / /
Return
drain it of all power.  / / A stiff, a
frozen silence settled down / / like a sea-mist.  A minute or an hour,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
d.  / / Among those sparklers, set like
frozen spray, / / are some as cold: all their mutations done, / / th
Macrocosm
heather / / black through the snow—the
frozen winter breaking, / / softening, resolving round me, vanishing;
The Black-out
Ripe they hang on the bough, / / last-
fruits of the primal tree / / matured ineluctably / / to fall any ti
In my beginning is my end
reets the legions of the fiend / / the
fruits that wait their greed and passion cull, / / once wrecked the m
Nijinsky
the armature where they laid / / their
fugitive creations, the three sweet witches.  / / The strongest beauty
Dance of the Seasons
the chill / / of fury and hate / / a
fugitive goodwill, / / hardly to be / / before it dissipates.  / / O
What Hope?
, but you shall to the vow / / and the
fulfilment come, / / though in the heart sits pinioned, strengthless,
Waiting
remains / / for me.  Never mind.  / / A
full , a whole time, / / a time shared.  / / Wish the gathered swallow
Swallows
e, from the future (which seems / / so
full and so eternal, so unknown / / behind all dreamed impossible pre
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
He looked again.  / / A pine…  Oh, fool—
full -circle fool.  He wept, / / knowing his weariness, knowing his goa
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Full Circle / Uproot the rich hedges that roads may be wider / / that
Full Circle
conveyed / / to strike the boy with a
full force of truth, / / through time and two discursive tongues rela
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
and then another / / and six cygnets,
full grown / / but still grey.  Silver / / rather than grey.  / / Sil
Return
ive Poems for Roni / / / / / / One
full half of the willow was riven away, / / the other half hollowed b
Five Poems for Roni
his bow restrung, his quiver once more
full , / / he set out through the winter-beautiful / / woods for the
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e atmosphere.  / / The diapason closing
full in man / / breaks down in discord.  God must start again.  / / La
Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank
/ “Such light,” I said, “and more the
full moon shed / / when caught by night my second day in Greece / /
The Black-out
whiten.  / / In memory’s chest a drawer
full of certain treasures.  / /
A Hoard
uge mountains, wandering and wild / / ‘
full of hope, full of hope’ he told the child— / / and found there, n
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
wandering and wild / / ‘full of hope,
full of hope’ he told the child— / / and found there, not the worst,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
le way upstream to get / / his bottles
full of the near-brackish marsh- / / water—the mountain-water, sweet
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
the reach / / of river, silver at the
full of tide.  / / “East from the sea and Greece, west out of beech- /
The Black-out
er-bottles and a woodman’s bow / / and
full quiver.  But he was quite alone.  / / Then he remembered that his
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
it is not honest / / to prophesy to a
full stop.  Ours the open / / grace of a question mark.  / /
Desert Island?
me.  / / And then smote on his ears the
full , strange sound / / muted before—the breakers.  And the wild / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
omeone saw the girl / / with her apron-
full .  / / They follow her to the fields.  / / She tells them all, /
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
lossom’s fall.  / / A white tree at the
full ; / / whiteness loosening, falling, / / drifting on partial wind
[What words are there for Spring?]
ed, and the river came / / broader and
fuller out across a plain / / many days more to sand-dunes and the se
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ a double wall of smoke, / / to know
fully , judge fairly another heart / / is more than hard.  / / One lan
A Window
ome.  / / It had to end / / but, lived
fully , still is.  / / Time, this time, / / shows himself a friend.  /
Two Poems from a New Life
t.  / / The world’s our wilderness.  Man
fumbles through it, / / blind Oedipus constrained to rape and kill.  /
Man in Nature
e.  / / No, alone one has to make / / (
fumbling in the dark, / / measuring light against dark, / / light ag
Balance Sheet
/ the lonely deaf, the blind / / who
fumbling in the paralytic dark / / await no dawn, and those / / exil
Waiting
again, / / the founts unquenched, the
fumes of brimstone spill / / from the cities of the plain.  / /
On the Border
road.  / / The exposed trees absorb the
fumes / / which seep into our smoky rooms.  / / Yet houses, rooms, th
The Rift
Tristi
Fummo / How / / how, when you have happiness, see beauty, / / can yo
Tristi Fummo
lness undisturbed by the minuscule / /
Fun Pier (‘Famed for fun since 31’, / / ‘Happiness is a visit to the
Content
/ / ‘Happiness is a visit to the Manly
Fun Pier’) / / where the even motion of the Ferris wheel / / contras
Content
the minuscule / / Fun Pier (‘Famed for
fun since 31’, / / ‘Happiness is a visit to the Manly Fun Pier’) / /
Content
ised, unfulfilled / / years, years for
fun , / / years of trouble, good / / years, years of dream / / and d
Die Weisse Rose
o a still point.  Matter and energy / /
funnelled through a point of not- / / being, are re-formed what? wher
Holes in Space
e uppermost in my thoughts of you.  / /
Funny and kind.  / / You know bad trouble, mind / / your troubles, mi
Two Poems for G
will meet a man / / who says “That’s a
funny kind of winnowing-fan.”  / / Plant the oar in the ground, / / m
Odysseus
r always gently, put a stop / / to any
funny stuff by the defence.  / / The deadly knife-edge of his tongue a
Change Places…
wait.  / / He watched the river running
furiously / / outward, saw the forester’s ignorance / / (inland bred
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
all the dirt out, / / admit me to the
furnace .  / / After that, nothing.  / /
A Hot Bath at Bedtime
ooms, boudoirs, everywhere he went / /
furnished and empty, and—the sense grew strong— / / empty an age—‘Whe
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
golden boy / / ploughs with his rump a
furrow in the blue.  / / The Sea-god, ardour kindled by the view, / /
September Cruise
light whose kindness veils / / jut and
furrow , restoring innocence, / / restoring youth.  / / Innocence and
In the Audience
omb. / / to hover on the chill / / of
fury and hate / / a fugitive goodwill, / / hardly to be / / before
What Hope?
/ a temper that flares high on a short
fuse .  / / A bad combination, one would suppose, / / a recipe for tro
[I have (what seemingly you do not see)]
ar, who work on brain and heart / / to
fuse our sensibility and sense / / into one whole which will not crac
Prayer to Time
from the smile of Beatrice / / should
fuse them in its white embrace.  / / The temple-veil rent from his err
John Ruskin’s Wedding Night
n cape lay mystery.  / / Home, he found
fuss and news, a messenger / / arrived, announcing the immediate visi
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e your future viable, / / your ordered
future .  / / Hardly seen, / / all in a mist of blood is hid.  / / Not
Recessional
ssible future.  / / Open-ended / / our
future lies.  That is the future’s nature.  / / It is not necessary, it
Desert Island?
be contained, / / may yield a possible
future .  / / Open-ended / / our future lies.  That is the future’s nat
Desert Island?
nd learn / / lovely precisions for all
future practice / / when time comes to be free.  / / Good, if new war
Chrysalis
ssolve Time’s tyrannous / / one-way of
future , present, past.  / / Beach on our lotus-strand, and be / / hap
The Sirens
/ / “Follows the dark but interesting
future .”  / / “The interest that through all shadows cast / / shines
The Black-out
blessings of the West / / to make your
future viable, / / your ordered future.  / / Hardly seen, / / all in
Recessional
cop-picked, / / what hope in his black
future ?  / / What can the boy become except / / a sunk thing, a wreck
George Jackson
nging / / from lunch to love, from the
future (which seems / / so full and so eternal, so unknown / / behin
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / the struggle of the ape.  / / The
future’s cloud is gathered / / into a monstrous shape.  / / Yet here
Other World
/ / the struggle of the ape; / / the
future’s cloud is gathered / / into a monstrous shape; / / yet here
[Today we feel behind us]
ended / / our future lies.  That is the
future’s nature.  / / It is not necessary, it is not honest / / to pr
Desert Island?