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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

G

sherd / / in a scratched verse, and A.
G . on a wall / / in chalk R.H.  On the Roman vault / / Adam is made m
Fossils
Two Poems for
G / Tender and Merry / Lüneburg Heath / Tender and merry.  Other things
Two Poems for G
still warm.”  / / He’d the gift of the
gab .  And I didn’t need persuading.  / / I took his hand, pulled him do
Spells and Love
heroes, centaurs, gods from the temple-
gables , / / weight of a winged power / / out of the wind alighting—
Hermes of Olympia
.  / / Nettles or brambles, she plunged
gaily in / / but he feared Carabosse in the thorny brakes / / and co
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ze / / rolled back across my heart the
gain and loss.  / / I swallowed, but the tears blotted my gaze.  / / “
The Black-out
the cause / / which moves the tides of
gain and loss.  / / This year we saw a shining being enter, / / like
Winter Solstice
able theirs, / / ours much) miraculous
gain , / / ours, theirs, does remain / / —the heaven which Blake’s lo
Die Weisse Rose
ained much ground—but was such ground a
gain ?  / / The dim light dimmed further, and soon he must, / / he tho
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ent here, / / as though what some have
gained / / informs this air / / Peace is won, though, from / / effo
Villevieille
bloody, but he could not stop.  / / He
gained much ground—but was such ground a gain?  / / The dim light dimm
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
he business of living, its failures and
gains , / / let us never lose touch with the joys and the pains / / o
Hymn
/ have briefer occupation of, / / but
gains no wide or long control / / against the stronger counterblast. 
Entropy
ears towards unbeing.  / / The flailing
galaxies are fleeing / / from spaces where light drowns at last, / /
Entropy
ing space.  / / Perhaps / / these huge
galaxies are only atoms / / of a vaster matter (as the electron’s cha
Credo
/ / The star-swarms, the vast-wheeling
galaxies , / / dwindle to pin-points in speed-gathering flight / / fr
Macrocosm
Holes in Space /
Galaxies , galleon-bold adventurers, pass / / out through uncharted ni
Holes in Space
lions in a galaxy / / one of uncounted
galaxies sailing space.  / / Perhaps / / these huge galaxies are only
Credo
of Mount Palomar, / / leapt from some
galaxy , far / / past the faint nebula / / remotest ranged / / withi
The Sea
rk, / / one of uncounted millions in a
galaxy / / one of uncounted galaxies sailing space.  / / Perhaps / /
Credo
“
Gale is Dead” / May we assign a cause? / / —who cannot be content /
“Gale is Dead”
t.  Beach deep / / in snow.  A ceaseless
gale that / / strips it.  Night for you.  / / Warm summer cycle / / r
For Cecil
/ The water whitening under the black
gale / / was scooped up, shaken, broken, shredded, thinned / / into
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
, / / but any love’s a wind-break when
gales bend / / the unseasoned heart.  Sidelong she saw him wait, / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
g) back to you, and that all / / these
gales , miles, months cannot defeat love’s existence.  / /
Two Poems from a New Life
illness calmed the aimless flow / / of
gall .  From such a still height I looked down / / and watched detached
The Black-out
Holes in Space / Galaxies,
galleon -bold adventurers, pass / / out through uncharted night, / /
Holes in Space
d Gulls / The heron manoeuvres its slow
galleon -sails, / / writhes its proud neck, / / as the attack / / of
Heron and Gulls
/ sold us to separate benches in war’s
galley .  / / Redeem us soon.  But while you may not so, / / lay on our
Prayer to Time
er the sun / / and he’s raring / / to
gallop away.  / /
Against Anorexia:  For Cathy
off the page— / / the rider reins his
galloping horse towards here, blows / / his trumpet over her head.  Th
Nadia
the strife / / with gangsters and with
gamblers on the game, / / whetters and users of the deliberate knife.
The Black-out
nly son.  / / He dare not hive off on a
gambler’s hope / / that chance, sown on the wind, might somehow sprou
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / no one can stop, / / for in this
game / / at every ladder’s top / / you find a snake begin.  / /
The Game
The
Game / Back to square one, or some square in / / the bottom row.  / /
The Game
ittle / / water or vegetation and less
game , / / footsore and starving, worn out, nearly lost.  / / The girl
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
love fore-defeat the devil’s monstrous
game ?  / / Love’s grand illusion ‘Love can master Fate’.  / / His ligh
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ the forest, marking movements of the
game , / / making all ready for the King’s hunting.  / / He walked dro
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
l’s sad cry for company, alone.  / / No
game , no streams, hardly a rain-puddle; / / and worst a hard blank gr
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
the grim wait; / / always his mocking
game / / stacked against us.  / / But no, not always.  / / These two
Two Poems from a New Life
e bad seasons thinned / / the woods of
game .  The hunting being poor / / the princes lolled about the draught
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e live, know nature.  I believe / / our
game was worth her candle after all.  / /
The Reckoning
with gangsters and with gamblers on the
game , / / whetters and users of the deliberate knife.  / / Between th
The Black-out
e hero, careless, bored, / / hunts the
gamy hills alone, / / and the tokens of his birth / / (the cap, the
Dark Age
Louise adored / / wicked little Carly
Gancher , / / and did just that.  / /
Vignette
Vignette / Carly
Gancher at four / / knew all the answers and a good many more, / / m
Vignette
er the princess’s visit / / (the boy a
gangling woodman of eighteen) / / came news again: this Christmas-tim
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
equally guilty of the strife / / with
gangsters and with gamblers on the game, / / whetters and users of th
The Black-out
behind their desert lines / / I was in
gaol , a women’s prison it had been / / under the Italians.  The cell-w
War-time Anecdote
t stole, perhaps, and died, they say in
gaol .) / / Their Parthenon endures; and thus shall, sad, / / crowded
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
d lock.  / / The scissors left a little
gap / / filled long ago by growth, and now / / the threads she wove
Ballad
he bowed to her.  / / Work along for a
gap .  Left of the way / / bushes and scrub were knotted to the briar. 
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
on, / / leaving a dusty cavernous lump
gaping / / at the sun, at the dead moon, dead as the moon.  / /
Stones
against prevailing dark) / / one’s own
garbled , prejudiced reckoning.  / /
Balance Sheet
Wat, Avila, / / Eiffel Tower, Pont due
Gard …  / / …  Remove the camera / / and the eyes behind / / are, you’
Tourist
death, in bed / / above the scavenged
garden ).  / /
Revisited
come to you / / a child too in the old
garden .  / / A spring morning, light green, dark green, / / sun-shado
Otherworld
were buried long ago: / / one from the
garden at Jesmond Hill / / (not, as it sounds, in Newcastle / / but
Bury My Heart
ol playing-field / / but a corner of a
garden (before that house / / was sold five or six years before) a ch
Summers
et raise each spring new flowers in the
garden , / / draw green afresh out of the creaking wood.  / / Yet not,
Prayer to Time
.  She waited.  / / Unnoticed the formal
garden / / found itself as a jungle.  / / Round her the house grew ol
Mariana in Miniature
rm summer cycle / / ride.  Home, in the
garden found / / you dying.  Today, / / bitter beautiful winter / /
For Cecil
licably away / / leaving behind love’s
garden fresh and green.  / / She is not here; yet here, and on your wa
The Black-out
arling.  Truly I’ll stay / / out on the
garden -grass, not force the doorway / / —just try.  But as for that si
Love Scene
ill / / with its flowers, birds in the
garden —made her journal / / a sampler that does not fade.  / /
Eugénie de Guérin
t us to the promised land of love / / (
garden more sweet than childhood’s happy valley) / / and having crown
Prayer to Time
nd further.  / / He has left the walled
garden of Faith, walks / / anywhere wilful thought may lead.  She look
Eugénie de Guérin
u chose stone to raise / / your lovely
garden round.  / / Did you suffer much?  / / Would to know the answer
For Cecil
Winter
Garden / Under the grey cold / / redder than brown, white / / crimso
Winter Garden
he went off / / in a tearing hurry, to
garland that house, he said.  / / That’s what my friend told me, and s
Spells and Love
innocent band / / white-dressed, green
garlanded , under the blue / / bright sky, keeping their rhythm fairly
Pelopia and Thyestes
Hymn / for the wedding of Lucy and
Garth / To make a world all kinds aspire, / / all kinds are needed, b
Hymn
before naked Jews / / were herded into
gas .  / / And that is past too.  / / World about us now / / West and
Causes
live.  A soldier must obey.  / / “You to
gas -chamber duty at Auschwitz.  You / / to herd the beasts in Belsen. 
Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank
sweet to the taste.  / / He crawled out
gasping , sat there in the sun / / and dreamed of the princess, and wa
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ears London’s refuse / / from railway,
gasworks , factory and drain / / past wordy Westminster to the mined s
The Black-out
walked out together through the broken
gate .  / / And how did they get home?  And were his mother / / and fat
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Freedom / The
gate groans to behind, / / thud of finality.  / / Strange town at clo
Freedom
ere in sight.  / / He caught her by the
gate -house.  “Where am I?  / / Who am I?”  She clung to him with this mo
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
gh.  / / Beyond an empty space a castle-
gate / / stood open.  He went in.  No one at all.  / / No one.  The empt
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
s Leicester Square.  / / The first tube
gate was shut, but not the second.  / / Down sandbag-narrowed steps I
The Black-out
precipitous promontory / / dark trees
gather , and the white monastery / / looks east over the sea.  / / Eas
September Cruise
ound whose channelled stone / / speeds
gather as lives hurtle down.  / /
Anniversaries
Anniversaries / Speeds
gather as lives hurtle down / / the helter-skelter of the years— / /
Anniversaries
ralling on one almost hears / / speeds
gather as lives hurtle down / / the helter-skelter.  Of the year’s /
Anniversaries
ade image, / / when the sun leaves it,
gather its own shadow / / into itself, itself into its shadows, / /
Dream under a Carob-tree
/ / with the flesh of God.  / / Elders
gather , the bells / / ring out of time.  / / What ugly villain commit
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
be young it’s the end being old / / so
gather the roses of ripe middle age.”  / /
[The municipal building stood square in my dream]
s thought? / / what secret force could
gather / / you, form and soul, in this drop, mingled straight / / fr
Becoming
be all.  / / The boat staggered under a
gathered blow / / reeling and cracking, and the tiller’s kick / / hu
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ye, eye without sight / / whose circle
gathered both sides of the screen: / / conscious terrified eyes and n
Block 21
of the ape.  / / The future’s cloud is
gathered / / into a monstrous shape.  / / Yet here and now about me /
Other World
of the ape; / / the future’s cloud is
gathered / / into a monstrous shape; / / yet here and now about me /
[Today we feel behind us]
d Town / From woods and valleys now the
gathered night / / spreads to the open, darkening field and hill.  /
Country and Town
time, / / a time shared.  / / Wish the
gathered swallows joy of their far journey / / and ourselves prepare
Swallows
come, / / between the set moon and the
gathering dawn, / / I turned to Hampstead and walked slowly home.  /
The Black-out
es, / / dwindle to pin-points in speed-
gathering flight / / from a lost centre: seeming to press back / / d
Macrocosm
rp as frost or flame: / / the fairies,
gathering for the grand event.  / / A crowned white cradlehood, and un
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
y and no mistake.  / / Now, though, the
gathering of the valley-cleft / / mountains beleaguered him, and offe
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
, twittering, sitting again there, / /
gathering themselves to go.  / / More in keeping perhaps to see them s
Swallows
e shadows of the children / / parting,
gathering , trailing across the empty / / sand, in evening’s awareness
For Rachel
rf over her bent head, black / / thick
gauntlets on her hands.  Most deeply aged / / he could not doubt her,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
I seen / / shining sequins on a white
gauze dress?  / / I do not know— / / old, old, infinitely old and lon
Wind
sign / / that all she had and was she
gave .  / / Alas, honest and warm and brave / / she lost them both by
Ballad
he fought the tiller’s will.  At last it
gave / / and set the righted boat running before / / the wind, aslan
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
like, / / just as to statues generally
gave faces / / no more expressive than their lovely bottoms).  / / No
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
uld strew / / flowers in the road.  Who
gave fear a glance?  / / All this now in its turn forgotten, few / /
Sur le Pont d’Avignon
he dowerers bent above.  / / Beauty one
gave her; another kindness; and wit; / / charm; and a true heart.  The
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
queen looked, and a curve suddenly / /
gave her the sea-lapped city where this marriage / / should make her
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
wisting free.  But was it God’s / / wit
gave Him that smart answer?  He was Steward / / of a vast trust, and a
The Betrayal
The fairy gifts had worked—if what they
gave / / in truth had made her what she was in truth.  / / The Queen
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
rm in whom her soul had lived, / / she
gave it now to be a sign / / that all she had and was she gave.  / /
Ballad
r past, a Cambridge winter evening / /
gave me, amazed, the Aurora Borealis.  / / Later again, but still a lo
A Hoard
“The hundred years’ sleep was not all I
gave .  / / “My gift was love.  And where love is, I am.  / / You love t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
west) its lovely tail / / (the greeks
gave temples fronts and backs alike, / / just as to statues generally
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
and comes to Me.”  / / Then all around
gave thanks / / on bended knee, / / blessed God for a soul rescued /
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
u may; / / in plain words, what no one
gave / / this child was love.  Without love / / all those happy thing
“Gale is Dead”
heets, salted and stiff.  / / Then they
gave too, the sails slumped to the floor.  / / Now he could keep her m
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e vast mass.  It was impossible.  / / He
gave up.  / / Deeper in the thorn, a nest / / he thought, an odd one,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / plaster painted for marble.  These
gave way / / and gold and ivory shatter in the fall.  / /
Against Pedestals
/ / which deftly shaved and gutted the
gay shell.  / / That tempted him.  “What are they?”  “Sea-urchins.”  / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
watch again Nijinsky jump.  / / But the
gay twenties got a dusty answer: / / with fear sounding its gong of b
The Twenties
don or in Lyme / / timelessly scraping
gay unheeded time / / to guide in draughts and grease (rooms over sho
La Fontaine et le Déluge
/ under a haze of pearl.  / / A girl’s
gaze / / absorbing life, considering life, behind / / a smooth foreh
Two Serenities
in the sun.  What other / / such frozen
gaze frighted him long ago?  / / He dropped his eyes from hers to the
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
t a dark trunk stood / / that boy, his
gaze intent on her again— / / loitering, spying on her high griefs—co
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
heart.  Sidelong she saw him wait, / /
gaze patiently.  She frowned, but turned to him / / smiling:  “You were
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
y and by / / uncurtain unchanged to my
gaze , / / since they are dead and I am old.  / / The night is trackle
Night
with winking, wrinkled flashes—held his
gaze .  / / Still on the sand he sat, in the cool wind, / / while time
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
own doorstep / / (sink that searching
gaze ) / / stinking jetsam lies.  / / Here.  Now.  No escape.  / /
Causes
who stood aside and fixed her with his
gaze / / troubling her faintly…  Now, suddenly known / / her guide of
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ I swallowed, but the tears blotted my
gaze .  / / “You know,” remarked my guide, “you make a cross / / too e
The Black-out
r to the ford; soon from the crest / /
gazed on his kingdom, standing by its Queen.  / / He loved her, yes.  W
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
the peak, and in the evening glow / /
gazed on the marvellous bonfire, which with her / / he’d seen a green
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e was a love for them to share.  / / He
gazed to the blue rim.  Then turned his back.  / / Sick with the knowle
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
she lecture him so priggishly?  / / He
gazed unseeing at a glowing tree / / hating himself, his love, his ho
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
us and Herminius dead—Black Auster / /
gazing into his master’s face / / while the grey horse whirls through
Poetry
ens, lies under this stone / / dead in
Gela among the white / / wheatlands; a man at need / / good in fight
Aeschylus’ Epitaph
/ / Iridescent the cleaned world, / /
gem -colour-spangled.  / / And clear, still, diamond-lit / / by washed
Exchange
the sword in his hands.  / / There were
gems in the gold hilt, but it was not that / / —the work was wonderfu
Finis
ved and hurled on rock was lost / / in
general clamour and din.  But he was sure / / though he put all his we
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
uls respond more slowly / / and in the
general hurly-burly / / the solid truth no longer stands alone, / /
That Way Madness Lies
nd backs alike, / / just as to statues
generally gave faces / / no more expressive than their lovely bottoms
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
the autumn fly, / / I cannot count the
generations gone— / / but once upon a time, in some demesne, / / the
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
upidity, distilled / / through stunted
generations ; yet moving in it / / a blindworm urge to love makes for
Law Report
paid / / in part—a penny in / / each
generous pound?  / / This and this I see / / there for me to do, / /
Villevieille
man can do it.  / / Barbarian or Greek,
Gentile or Jew, it / / comes to the same.  Free? we are all bond still
Man in Nature
current shall go.  / / And so it went,
gentle , reflective, blue / / or swelling black boiling to white, thro
Sur le Pont d’Avignon
rified staring eyes.  / / Hear / / the
gentle voice in the common foreign tongue / / Encore un peu, mon enfa
Block 21
ut of your natural load” / / and added
gentler :  “Come.”  We passed across / / under Queen Anne, and North by
The Black-out
s rain, rough in a storm, dripping / /
gently , a cloud.  Water—always the sea, / / dark slate under a nearing
Varangian in Mickelgard
slowly, quietly rotting, / / dustily,
gently flaking, / / dropping to pieces round her.  / / She could not
Mariana in Miniature
) perhaps / / he’ll come, and lay / /
gently in your lap / / his favourite toy / / for you to enjoy / / a
[Time is a child]
her evidence, / / spoke to her always
gently , put a stop / / to any funny stuff by the defence.  / / The de
Change Places…
e.  / / Over her breasts my hands moved
gently , / / the new-formed girlhood she bared for me; / / over all h
Love Scene
mudgeonly / / to lament / / more than
gently this slackening strength.  / /
[The track up the wild stream]
g / / from them.  Unhappiness hides the
genuine scar / / under some other likely-seeming thing; / / you know
The Black-out
light, a clear- / / eyed, firm-handed
geometer , / / built an intelligible world / / of surfaced shapes.  /
For Cecil
George Jackson / George Jackson tried to break jail / / —a few friend
George Jackson
George Jackson /
George Jackson tried to break jail / / —a few friends (brothers)—gun
George Jackson
is year): / / pink of campion and wild
geranium , / / toad-flax, cow-parsley, yellow stragglers, / / a singl
[Late October hedges]
se reds.  Once it was Nazism / / —those
Germans ).  Others are hated / / simply for being other (those blacks,
Choice
nded in the sea / / (though one he did
get back); and presently / / he took, feeling both wicked and absurd,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
and felt the salt and bitter gulf / /
get him hard by the throat again.  He retched / / again, and brought u
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / He walked a little way upstream to
get / / his bottles full of the near-brackish marsh- / / water—the m
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ay it do you.  / / I don’t think you’ll
get home a second time.”  / /
Odysseus
the broken gate.  / / And how did they
get home?  And were his mother / / and father fond of her at once?  His
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
but a familiar air / / a car.  “Hullo;
get in.”  Familiar too / / the friendly voice, and I was glad to hear.
The Black-out
/ tomorrow there behind today.  / / To
get it ordered, rounded, kempt / / would be to die before I die.  / /
A Prayer
have stolen that lamb—too many of them
get lost.”  / / “Why does he keep his flock so far this way?  / / Or h
On the Border
Greek Folk Song / All the girls
get married, and likely lads they wed, / / but for me, pretty Janet,
Greek Folk Song
heaviness off my hurting knuckles, / /
get me on my feet again.  Another milestone.  / /
The Fall
kin.  Good-bye / / that shield.  I shall
get one no worse quite easily.  / /
Two Songs of a Mercenary
s is unlucky” (that laugh again).  / / “
Get one yourself”, she nodded at the sea.  / / He looked along the roc
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
er / / —ten days and nights I couldn’t
get out of bed.  / / These are the springs of my love.  Mark them, lady
Spells and Love
give up, / / give in, lie down and not
get up again.  / / No, he would not die yet.  And to turn back / / was
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
lled him with delight.  / / “Come here. 
Get warm.  I’ve got all that you’ll need / / if you’ve the courage for
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
my actions, all be God’s?” / / by this
gets answered “No.  Not wholly God’s.  / / If Caesar give you arms, you
The Betrayal
but no error— / / naked image of what
gets done.  / / And yet those silent weavings in the air / / are beau
Heron and Gulls
slippery mess, skids to her knees, / /
gets up, her dress and hands dripping with gore.  / / Red smears down
Pelopia and Thyestes
’ll be going soon / / —have to put off
getting married.”  “It’s a hard life.  / / Why can’t the bastards leave
On the Border
ng gulls slow-pecking on the sand, / /
getting quite close before he loosed the string, / / the only thing t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
our / / house here”—it was a long time
getting started, / / but the child’s straying fancy was alerted / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ife is more than pulse and breath, / /
getting through days and years till one is dead.  / / To see both side
The Black-out
/ He’d been in jail half his life.  / /
Ghetto -bred, then cop-picked, / / what hope in his black future?  / /
George Jackson
ith the Joneses, / / with our father’s
ghost , with the Enemy Over There, / / faster to the moon, to Mars, /
Curvature of Space
ay come / / to see the truth itself in
ghostly stuff, / / and then the void beyond the cliff / / will swing
That Way Madness Lies
Dreams / That
ghosts come home…  Things I don’t believe / / I still like sometimes t
Dreams
nd / / shrinks and hazes, and dreaming
ghosts of islands / / rise half perceptibly.  / / World is numberless
September Cruise
Way Madness Lies / / / / When first
ghosts of our own begetting / / force us back to the precipice / / a
That Way Madness Lies
, nor those who live / / haunt as cold
ghosts the memory of the dead / / but warmly help and guide.  / / Fla
Prayer to Truth
from her other tales.  / / Fairies and
giants , kings and queens of old, / / princesses in the toils of sorce
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ool, you had the love / / of her whose
gift , above / / all her warm gifts, is loving.  / / You fool, how cou
Hebona
/ / for something for his love—a love-
gift and / / a proof that this new world was truly won.  / / Northwar
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
He’d have no part in that, but fetch a
gift / / from the unknown coast by the unknown steep / / mountains,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ened so, she’ll waken: / / love is the
gift I brought.  I give it now, / / and who can say if that’s the bett
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
a kind of prayer.  / / The unbelievable
gift / / of our late love should not be, cannot be / / rejected or e
May Day, 1986
d while it’s still warm.”  / / He’d the
gift of the gab.  And I didn’t need persuading.  / / I took his hand, p
Spells and Love
/ and who can say if that’s the better
gift / / or the lost sleep among the bush and bracken?”  / / Silent t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ars’ sleep was not all I gave.  / / “My
gift was love.  And where love is, I am.  / / You love the princess, an
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ thing which doubles those, / / the
gift which makes them known, / / felt.  But the figure on the other si
“Gale is Dead”
? here?  Here it was, a fact, / / a sea-
gift wished him in this forest-hell.  / / He found himself again, with
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e / / stand round and look down at the
gifted bud.  / / The little boy, wrapped to a kind of heaven, / / lov
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
fully recover / / mankindness with its
gifts and pains, / / even proud perhaps to suffer / / the flaunting
Fairy Story
be humble, sad; consider that / / your
gifts are good and time is with you still.  / / A careful house of car
The Black-out
incess, is coming here.’  / / The fairy
gifts had worked—if what they gave / / in truth had made her what she
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
her whose gift, above / / all her warm
gifts , is loving.  / / You fool, how could you lose / / her love, unl
Hebona
of shame / / hot in her face, friends
giggling , crowd’s rude cracks / / barking about her, the poor child m
Pelopia and Thyestes
ttle while was dead.  / / On marble and
gilded bronze the sun is burning / / by the laughing sea.  / / Among
Gunnar of Lithend
singers silently, / / while Laurence,
Giles and I on things remote / / from this search talked at ease.  And
The Black-out
d Greenwich are / / embarked, we went,
Giles leading.  Soon the song, / / lost for a while, came loud.  The go
The Black-out
int rhythm of music far up stream.  / /
Giles turned intent, and soon across the pearled / / water we saw a b
The Black-out
dances at Sadler’s Wells / / and Sally
Gilmour at the Mercury.  / / Greatness perhaps there is; but I who wai
The Black-out
Lady into Fox / Sally
Gilmour dancing / The lady of the house / / shrinks from a shrilling
Lady into Fox
y wishful stories, / / where boy meets
girl again, and what has been / / wrong withers inexplicably away /
The Black-out
/ Where shall I start?  / / Eubulus’s
girl , Anaxo, / / was picked to carry a basket for Artemis / / to her
Spells and Love
d women’s lavatories, / / I saw a tall
girl , and not yet drawn close / / knew Molly and stood still.  “But th
The Black-out
from Eugénie de Guérin’s Journal / The
girl came into the church / / from changing light, / / birdsong and
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
/ nights, days) saw—in a dream?— / / a
girl come to the stream / / and strip herself.  He leapt / / awake.  T
Pelopia and Thyestes
/ / But I’d talked enough.  I laid the
girl / / down among the flowers.  A soft cloak spread, / / my arm rou
Love Scene
arving, worn out, nearly lost.  / / The
girl grew up and married a young groom / / in the King’s stables.  To
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
s of food and love / / —a sweet little
girl —hanging’s not bad enough— / / But who can know the darkness of t
Law Report
ngs / / the drawn body of a young / /
girl .  / / I see Anne Frank / / on the cross, offering of / / our in
Stray Thoughts at a Wedding
can’t wait for me / / there’s another
girl in our house who’s quite ready / / to marry, a pretty girl, just
Love Scene
Song / for Thomas / The
girl in the train looks out with brown eyes / / fixed and lost.  / /
Song
o’s quite ready / / to marry, a pretty
girl , just right for you.”  / / That was what she said but I can talk
Love Scene
ge and drew along.  / / A bright-haired
girl laughing jumped out: “good-bye, / / thanks,” and fled.  Waited at
The Black-out
undled in / / with girl or boy.  Boy or
girl lying / / looked up into that eye, eye without sight / / whose
Block 21
ey must home to the church / / and the
girl must die.  / / They set a stake in the square / / for her soul’s
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
before them, / / till someone saw the
girl / / nibbling a hard green / / cast-out shell.  / / Coaxed into
The Green Children of Woolpit
d / / from Satan’s siege.  / / But the
girl of flesh they burned / / for her sacrilege.  / /
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
he still trolley, trundled in / / with
girl or boy.  Boy or girl lying / / looked up into that eye, eye witho
Block 21
/ / a time’ but “When my mother was a
girl ”— / / particularity, strange and not good— / / her parents live
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
She really can’t be said / / a pretty
girl / / precisely, rather a cleverly remade / / pretty doll.  / / B
Song
thout the boy once more / / seeing the
girl .  Preferment’s chancy flow / / at court washed the poor widow far
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e took the shape, / / he thought, of a
girl sleeping on a bed, / / then changed, merged, telescoped.  The poi
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
r beyond it lay / / the fairy-promised
girl .  That thought caressed / / him still, even while he limped mecha
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ned to talk— / / the boy less than the
girl .  / / The boy did not live, / / went down where they came from /
The Green Children of Woolpit
strip herself.  He leapt / / awake.  The
girl was there.  / / Slender and firm and white, / / formed for a man
Pelopia and Thyestes
that in / / the vision—wondered if the
girl were faked / / too, wholly real as form and face had been.  / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
stylis, / / strew them on then.  Stupid
girl , what are you thinking of?  / / Would even you make a joke of me
Spells and Love
h dead elms and beeches / / (beautiful
girl with anorexia), / / the will to flourish perished in men and wom
Desert Island?
lost a crime?  / / But someone saw the
girl / / with her apron-full.  / / They follow her to the fields.  /
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
hands moved gently, / / the new-formed
girlhood she bared for me; / / over all her body, the young skin bare
Love Scene
r whether her children / / were common
girls and boys / / or brought shimmering shadows / / to the griefs a
The Green Children of Woolpit
Grace / Two tall beautiful
girls / / both in white dresses / / walking in the dusk / / under w
Grace
kinds of pretty play / / young men and
girls can know and not go all the way / / —something like that will d
Love Scene
Greek Folk Song / All the
girls get married, and likely lads they wed, / / but for me, pretty J
Greek Folk Song
tresses loved him, / / even the little
girls she had got for him, / / loved him and understood him, she love
A Dream
t natural that you should hate / / the
girls who kept your sovereign lord amused?  / / They hurl at you unmer
To Hera
of a small East Coast college, / / the
girls young academics, / / one as it happens Greek, / / the other on
Grace
today Philista’s / / mother (the flute-
girl’s ) and Melixo’s came / / to see me early, Dawn pink in the sky,
Spells and Love
Blind / The blind
girl’s face, which never was / / composed before a looking-glass, /
Blind
sea / / under a haze of pearl.  / / A
girl’s gaze / / absorbing life, considering life, behind / / a smoot
Two Serenities
drawing.  / / These were lifted from a
girl’s grave, / / put there by friends, by her parents probably, / /
Label
an / / is an island’ or, if / / brine-
girt by circumstance, / / a desert island then.  / / …  Yes, there is
Touch
healed.  / / Accept the vision.  Let it
give / / a form on which to mould and build.  / /
Hymn
/ All are (should be) born free?  / /
Give absolute freedom to a newborn baby, / / it dies.  / / And so, mu
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
ond / / which limits Liberty, / / the
give -and-take / / more real than Equality.  / / This indeed is anothe
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
stake.  / / Oneself is not one’s own to
give / / as though it were a braided lock.  / / The scissors left a l
Ballad
/ the christening-sisters meant / / to
give her, if not all, / / much—looks, a quick mind, / / a feeling he
“Gale is Dead”
bracelet braided from her hair / / to
give her love, but he was dead / / and never came again to her.  / /
Ballad
lower / / (even before).  None chose to
give her power / / to love.  Better, they thought, keep fancy free?  /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
on. / / —“and when you see he’s alone,
give him a sign, / / then say ‘Simaetha’s waiting’, and bring him her
Spells and Love
/ (to check that they are there).  / /
Give him a smile / / sometimes.  Do not speak / / when he looks your
[Time is a child]
ly / / Age takes everything we hate to
give .  / / Huddled in his barbed camp we fret, we grieve / / numbly u
Age
op on the dead-leaf silt, give up, / /
give in, lie down and not get up again.  / / No, he would not die yet.
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ken: / / love is the gift I brought.  I
give it now, / / and who can say if that’s the better gift / / or th
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
od / / observed, absorbed, lies ready. 
Give it power.  / / “Consider those whose lives have kindled your life
The Black-out
d-ranger, if…  / / If nothing—she would
give it to him still— / / how dare she lecture him so priggishly?  /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
y, / / Age takes everything we hate to
give : / / knowledge and strength, to his imperative / / obedient, lo
Age
y.  / / Age takes everything we hate to
give , / / leaves us our fee to Death, the will to live.  / /
Age
/ charm; and a true heart.  They did not
give love.  / / Love would follow the others presently, / / love felt
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ Rapt Mary sat and drank all he could
give .  / / Martha was tired and cross and so to blame.  / / (I speak a
The Two Ways
to hope.  / / And yet her death-throes
give me pain.  / /
Great Britain
Age / Age takes everything we hate to
give / / not everything we have—in mockery / / leaves us (our fee to
Age
Does it matter?  / / Aconite, snowdrop,
give place to primrose, / / bluebell to buttercup, dog-rose.  / / Flo
Seasons
I do not know, but know we should / /
give praise.  / /
Gratitude
e bony tree / / still bare.  Now though
give thanks, be blessed / / in the reviving mystery.  / /
Renewal
wife like she is I shouldn’t half / /
give the nice neighbours a belly-laugh.  / / You’re all right, darling
Love Scene
he thought, drop on the dead-leaf silt,
give up, / / give in, lie down and not get up again.  / / No, he woul
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
nger / / what is your sex, that we may
give you a name? / / your tastes, that we may make our house your hom
Becoming
d “No.  Not wholly God’s.  / / If Caesar
give you arms, yours not to question / / when he gives orders.  Render
The Betrayal
ot.  / / These and the message had been
given him.  / / ‘All right’ he thought.  ‘The next test is the river.’ 
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
thought, that’s in her and need not be
given ?  / / Or did not think?  Well satisfied, the five / / stand roun
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
nking (none of those she knew / / were
given to thought), but his thought acquiesced / / too easily in Fate
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ght.  / / Here I must leave you.  I have
given you / / the keys of hope; further I cannot lead.  / / Not I the
The Black-out
/ / yet’s as much taker quite / / as
giver —throws upon / / her basic monotone / / scents, colours, notes,
Fair Exchange
rms, yours not to question / / when he
gives orders.  Render unto Caesar / / your armed and ordered self, and
The Betrayal
g aloud / / is odd in a crowd / / and
gives rise to rumour.  / / Don’t talk in a train / / unless to compla
Merrie England
lar.  / / Here a pittance- / / pension
gives the ailing old / / a choice between hunger and cold.  / / There
Dinner
e / / out-of-season summer / / we are
giving each other / / or fate is giving us, which is at any rate / /
[Late October hedges]
y, / / out from its hide-out, in, / /
giving obstacles space, / / sensitive certainty.  / / Honour this rad
Bat
but sandbanks shift under the fog / /
giving the lie to chart and log.) / / We must be careful where we tre
Lost
/ / (few in this world), her thoughts,
giving them shape / / in clear, beautiful words.  / / For this they s
Eugénie de Guérin
e are giving each other / / or fate is
giving us, which is at any rate / / (whomever we thank for it) ours. 
[Late October hedges]
metimes was; hardly aware, and yet / /
glad in the woods to be with one friend lost.  / / The weather worsene
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
too / / the friendly voice, and I was
glad to hear.  / / I stooped, hand on the open door, but drew / / bac
The Black-out
light on the leaves across a clear / /
glade —smote him.  O beauty, delight, love, pain.  / / A violent longing
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
out the shell but cracked it—would / /
gladly have fled, but stayed from stubbornness.  / / Next time with bl
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
lovely weather, / / felt with surprise
gladness to be still there.  / / He walked a little way upstream to ge
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ flowers in the road.  Who gave fear a
glance ?  / / All this now in its turn forgotten, few / / but dance, d
Sur le Pont d’Avignon
ts / / into this dark, / / and in the
glance , dance of / / the beams they throw / / crystals glisten in an
Music is Landscape
shoulders closing / / across the sunk
glance , / / knotted, shrunk.  This / / is not stillness of peace / /
Winter Recalled
Stray Thoughts at a Wedding /
Glance lifts to a crucifix.  / / Form of the sacrificial Man, / / dra
Stray Thoughts at a Wedding
ty / The light falls equally on all; it
glances / / from brilliant colours and bright faces, / / sinks in da
The Party
child / / busy with his own play, / /
glancing occasionally / / towards the grown-ups / / (to check that t
[Time is a child]
wn sandbag-narrowed steps I reached the
glare , / / but swift a sanded figure from his work / / turned and fo
The Black-out
.  His eyelids dropping / / against the
glare , he drowsed, half dreaming yet / / guiding the tiller—whence he
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
cognise / / that all our houses are of
glass .  / /
H.A.R.P.
a composure in the end / / no looking-
glass can lend.  / /
Blind
ever was / / composed before a looking-
glass , / / learns a composure in the end / / no looking-glass can le
Blind
chandeliers / / (and dark past draped
glass , Les Misérables).  / / Then, 1870.  / / Sedan, Paris besieged, F
Time’s Reach
frost and ice.  The black twigs cased in
glass / / rang on each other in the bitter wind.  / / A magic of the
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Through the Looking-
Glass / Towards the hill would Alice go / / it slipped away from her.
Through the Looking-Glass
silent.  / / She lives behind a wall of
glass / / which speech, touch do not pass.  / / But what she sees liv
Nadia
him rise and struggle on.  / / Then his
glazed eyes (he might have gone a mile, / / two, fifty yards) awoke t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ke our daily bread.  / / She’s the wild
gleam of heaven’s sending.  / / Summer’s slow spell is different from
Dance of the Seasons
/ / water we saw a black smudge with a
gleam / / of metal at the prow.  “A gondola; / / Laurence,” he said. 
The Black-out
PUBLIC LIBRARY winked with a welcoming
gleam .  / / Within, book in hand, I looked down at a page / / which s
[The municipal building stood square in my dream]
will do / / that dies quickly but has
gleamed first (star-fall).  / / I like to lay up my harvest in the win
Treasure
he net’s cast in other waters / / more
gleaming wonders leap from the mass:  / / Catullus, Villon, Aeschylus,
Poetry
attained / / by climbing now.  A steep
glen at his feet / / falling away, told him to follow it, / / descen
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
’s due to the bat.  / / Before the hang-
glider / / (daring it earlier and much more skilfully) / / here’s on
Bat
hat sand-edged plain?  / / He groped.  A
glimmer , sinking.  If it fails, / / darkness…  But no, the light flamed
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Glimpse / Beauty sleeps in the air, / / colour and music.  Shine / /
Glimpse
orribly / / cloaked face she could not
glimpse ; but she was caught, / / trapped, pinned on the rough bank; y
Pelopia and Thyestes
ill-latched shutter of the mind.  / / I
glimpse out there / / a swollen belly, hollowed eyes, / / blank star
Dinner
ught links steward to Caesar / / which
glimpsed might both throw light on the praised steward / / and make H
The Betrayal
he top / / he turned, looked back, and
glimpsed , miles to the east, / / the sea.  He suddenly felt alone and
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
rom it, not back but far ahead, / / he
glimpsed remote between blue-distanced downs / / a faint flat blue, a
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
oked along the rock, and presently / /
glimpsed them, clumped low under the water-line.  / / He waded in and
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
other side a strip of ragged wood, / /
glimpsed through it sheep grazing in a field.  / / Green world in my e
Green World
Two
Glimpses from Dante’s Hell / Accidie / Brunetto Latini under the Fire-
Two Glimpses from Dante’s Hell
/ / has a straw in its beak / / gold-
glinting / / in the new sun / / in the soft air.  / / The delayed ye
Late Spring
d in a whirl of shadow / / whose white
glints can build no world.  / / Under bright sun, whole / / the world
Exchange
/ / the beams they throw / / crystals
glisten in answer / / which could not know / / till then they were o
Music is Landscape
d like weeping.  / / The bright morning
glistens on the night’s tears.  / / Time heals and doesn’t heal, / /
News of a Death
uc, Dumas fils, / / red velvet drapes,
glittering chandeliers / / (and dark past draped glass, Les Misérable
Time’s Reach
ead it…  No.  No bodily pathway / / this
glittering skein the light-source casts you / / … and yet… and yet /
September Cruise
ean through the stable-seeming spinning
globe / / —drought-blistered, cyclone-hit, / / quake-riven earth, as
Antipodes
ils torn, / / drifts shuddering in the
gloom / / of the increasing storm.  / / Must she soon / / heal over,
England, 1981
hone / / but now within under a winter
gloom / / the gorse on the brown moor is out of bloom / / that still
Another Spring
/ just as though / / against the day’s
gloom / / they make their own light.  / / Hearth in a dusky room.  /
Winter Garden
, / / can you succumb to an unreasoned
gloom ?  / / This way and that I love and am loved; happy / / I—could
Tristi Fummo
e is left us but to render war / / all
glory and all power.  / / War is a pit of horror; and defeat / / by t
Prayer to Truth
t of Chaucer, / / other Milton (flawed
glory of Paradise Lost) / / The White Devil and the Duchess of Malfi,
Poetry
rendered unto peace / / the power and
glory she would have shared with us, / / no choice is left us but to
Prayer to Truth
/ He dropped his eyes from hers to the
gloved hands / / which deftly shaved and gutted the gay shell.  / / T
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
time ago / / a thunder-flash put out a
glow / / and then / / another light was water-quenched.  / / Life go
Anniversary
/ He made the peak, and in the evening
glow / / gazed on the marvellous bonfire, which with her / / he’d se
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
now is / / with me warmly; and in that
glow I find / / the image of you with less pain and more peace.  / /
[White foam sweeps]
he hearth, / / torch in the hand, / /
glow in the heart.  / /
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
green-gold / / the bare-stemmed bushes
glow , / / just as though / / against the day’s gloom / / they make
Winter Garden
Everywhere a thin beauty.  / / Even the
glow / / of autumn leaves is mute, palely yellowing / / towards wint
[Noon.  But the sun is low]
ip joined hands there.  And the singular
glow / / of lovers’ meeting was a thing it knew.  / / On days of merr
Sur le Pont d’Avignon
chills are chance.  Destined the steady
glow / / our loving knows.  / /
[Wind is chilly on shoulders]
sharpening of the senses, heightening,
glow , / / ray from a red sunset, deepening / / the colours in the ha
What Do They Feel?
ing blue / / above, echo of blues that
glow / / round us (green, violet) in the sea.  / /
Delos in Spring
/ infinitely distant lost warm hum and
glow .  / / The long-drawn moment, intolerably taut, / / suddenly loos
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ss / / but not my bus.  / / Comforting
glow , warmth of drink, food / / begin to fade.  / / Lovers close, hel
[Wind is chilly on shoulders]
ght in the Thames valley / / I came on
glow -worms.  Years earlier still, at dusk, / / fireflies flickered bes
A Hoard
e wedding-feast / / endured a look and
glowed to wine, / / our two humanities, increased / / by love to one
Hymn
ou.”  / / “Ah, you” his heart in answer
glowed upon / / her glowing heart, his smile on her smile—two / / in
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ring no trace / / in mind or eye.  / /
Glowing , drooping in spirit and in face / / momently like a flower /
The Lilies of the Field
is heart in answer glowed upon / / her
glowing heart, his smile on her smile—two / / in one.  She raised her
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
, her dead Son on her knees, / / white-
glowing marble wrought / / to perfect intricacy of draperies, / / pe
Pietà
n this new element to master.  Then / /
glowing picked up his bow and with sure eye / / shot down a seagull f
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
priggishly?  / / He gazed unseeing at a
glowing tree / / hating himself, his love, his hopelessness.  / / And
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
.  / / Now the sun goes down.  Parthenon
glows / / above the shaded wall, and near at hand / / glows the monu
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
o hard the splendour of the power; / /
glows like a star their mould, but in an hour / / burns out.  / /
Lamps
the shaded wall, and near at hand / /
glows the monument of Philopappos / / (a Syrian princeling of the Rom
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
/ / by star and sun bent truly to his
goal , / / and on the afternoon of the fifth day / / he looked down a
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / knowing his weariness, knowing his
goal / / here, here, within the circle.  Oh fool, fool.  / / Worn out
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
hat somewhere in that labyrinth lay his
goal .  / / Not for itself the mountain had commanded / / his steps, b
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / move like the river to my certain
goal .  / / She smiled: “this is no loss,” she said.  “If you / / had s
The Black-out
aster” / / to obedient Alice.  / / The
goal still flies ahead.  / / Faster, faster, to keep up with the Jones
Curvature of Space
ar / / in Andromeda’s nebula.  / / The
goal whisks on, / / the tip of our own fool tail.  / /
Curvature of Space
hat was a dream of contraries.  / / Our
goal’s before us, and / / —yet “Who would find his life…”  Is this /
Through the Looking-Glass
u!  Hi!  You over there!  / / One of your
goats is caught in a bush, caught tight.  / / You’ll leave her there f
On the Border
e somewhere else.  / / Sahara, Arizona,
Gobi , / / back of Australian bush.  / / We are growth, greenness, /
Drought
here go I.  / / There goes the grace of
God .  / /
Reflection
uestion / / to be reframed in terms of
God and Caesar / / as equal powers.  So Christians can make Caesar /
The Betrayal
down / / and broke the features of the
god / / and of the living precinct made / / this beauty of scattered
Delos in Spring
p / / presupposes that there is / / a
God , and one who’s well / / disposed to our helplessness.  / / All of
Living and Dying
/ and on his left hand hung the face of
God , / / and played at war between them with the soul of Nijinsky /
Nijinsky
envisage death / / or life as acts of
god .  / / And yet I can’t envisage life either / / (or death) as an u
Question
Uncertain / I don’t believe in
God , and yet I pray; / / still less in magic, but I practise it.  / /
Uncertain
rump a furrow in the blue.  / / The Sea-
god , ardour kindled by the view, / / the beauteous youth doth cruelly
September Cruise
/ the still, stale air.  / / Would not
God be in His world / / of living day?  / / She laid the thing in her
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
e above, / / nor any place remains for
God but love.  / /
Cosmology
We have to know / / God, if there be a
god , cannot be so.  / / The handsome plinths we built for them were al
Against Pedestals
ilver monstrance / / with the flesh of
God .  / / Elders gather, the bells / / ring out of time.  / / What ug
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
hanks / / on bended knee, / / blessed
God for a soul rescued / / from Satan’s siege.  / / But the girl of f
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
ter not have been born.  / / And to ask
God for help / / presupposes that there is / / a God, and one who’s
Living and Dying
ll the world, though not above / / God—
God for her is truly Love— / / but above all others: / / the baby br
Eugénie de Guérin
Reflection / There but for the grace of
God go I.  / / I smiled compassionately, / / walked on complacently. 
Reflection
ve all the world, though not above / /
God —God for her is truly Love— / / but above all others: / / the bab
Eugénie de Guérin
/ love in bliss, love in grief.  Love is
God .  God is Love / /
Hymn
/ / Block half freed from the quarry. 
God hardly half freed, / / adumbrated in the block.  He does not heed
September Cruise
But by setting Caesar / / over against
God He allowed the question / / to be reframed in terms of God and Ca
The Betrayal
The Betrayal / “To
God ” He answered “those things which are God’s, / / and what is Caesa
The Betrayal
g / We all go under earth / / but not,
God help us, before / / inflicting so much hurt / / we’d better not
Living and Dying
thereby, Himself being God’s / / son,
God Himself, defraud Himself?  Is God’s / / a share only?  They thought
The Betrayal
at they were gods.  We have to know / /
God , if there be a god, cannot be so.  / / The handsome plinths we bui
Against Pedestals
nd all earlier years spun through.  / /
God , if there is a god, may have his reasons / / for what he did and
Question
uestion:  / / Will Caesar die in God or
God in Caesar?  / /
The Betrayal
ild again, and pray / / (if knowing no
god in honesty I may) / / for charity.  / /
Original Sin
n thought, / / not the slain Son, / /
God in man.  / / The Greek saw / / clearer, truer, / / when he knew
Divinity
rs is a part.  / / God is Love.  Love is
God .  In that creed or in this / / or in none, here’s a truth which un
Hymn
A Prayer /
God , in whom I have no faith, / / hear my unbelieving prayer: / / no
A Prayer
e in bliss, love in grief.  Love is God. 
God is Love / /
Hymn
om dreams: / / love—love of God, since
God is love; / / and love of man, since that we are; / / and most, t
Hymn
the love of which ours is a part.  / /
God is Love.  Love is God.  In that creed or in this / / or in none, he
Hymn
/ / “Beauty is.  / / Accept this.  / /
God is not / / any other / / —not the Father / / of Christian thoug
Divinity
nk / / to live in peace.  The angry sea-
god / / is not assuaged.  / / This you shall do.  / / Take ship again
Odysseus
ith all the time in the world.  / / “Oh
God , I’m tired” she said.  / / “I wish I were dead.”  / /
Mariana in Miniature
s spun through.  / / God, if there is a
god , may have his reasons / / for what he did and will or will not do
Question
/ / pity us.  Come your reckoning, / /
God more readily then, judging, / / shall pity you.  We stuffed our sk
Villon’s Epitaph
ull in man / / breaks down in discord. 
God must start again.  / / Larch, gorse, rough grass, / / heather, br
Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank
, spinning, and in the centre / / hung
God Nijinsky, and Diaghilev not.  / /
Nijinsky
Prayer / I have no belief in a personal
god / / nor, if I had, could I imagine him / / swayed by prayer; yet
Prayer
aesar?  / / No.  The steward’s master is
God , not Caesar.  / / From the good city bravely back old Plato / / f
The Betrayal
ld declare / / (even believe), to be a
god of love.  / /
Betrayals
ckpot question:  / / Will Caesar die in
God or God in Caesar?  / /
The Betrayal
ul or Plato, / / of Buddha or Mahomet,
God or gods.  / / Paul’s song of charity I love, in Plato / / the pas
The Betrayal
to other and to / / chance or fate or
God or what we choose / / to call it, for being thus unforehopedly bl
[Yes, you’re right]
a world from dreams: / / love—love of
God , since God is love; / / and love of man, since that we are; / /
Hymn
er?  Were I God’s / / (if I believed in
God ), were I His steward / / would He have me use tricks on Him this
The Betrayal
universe / / breathed from the will of
God / / which set the peasant to labour and not question / / and her
Eugénie de Guérin
the last sky that does not move / / is
God , who moves them all, moves us, through love.  / / Earth is a speck
Cosmology
ne another in the name of / / the same
God , whom both sides could declare / / (even believe), to be a god of
Betrayals
to the mystery.  / / Good unbelieved-in
God , why should you care / / to show a kindness to an atheist? / / s
Uncertain
y though, / / I should like to believe
God / / will have me on the mat / / to tell Him and myself / / ever
A Hot Bath at Bedtime
when your mourning / / is folded away,
god willing.  But now / / I’ll be good, I promise—I do know how.  / /
Love Scene
I owe thanks first to the Cyprian / /
goddess , and after the Cyprian thanks, my dear, / / to you, who broug
Spells and Love
, / / shine out while I croon, to you,
goddess , and to Hecate, / / your earth-dark Other who has even the do
Spells and Love
/ / snatches of what they sang, / / “
Goddess , be good to us”, / / knew his polluted state / / (the cloud
Pelopia and Thyestes
As the flame melts this wax (O help me,
goddess ) / / may this Myndian, this Delphis waste with love, / / and
Spells and Love
eldest daughter / / the forester stood
godfather .  Their home / / was always his.  He played with her and taug
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
en, Elsa’s brothers, / / and the white
godhead , Leda’s lover.  / / That long-stretched neck, those purposeful
Bicycle Ride
ted by your mate / / most human of the
gods and most abused / / was it not natural that you should hate / /
To Hera
ged stillness / / of heroes, centaurs,
gods from the temple-gables, / / weight of a winged power / / out of
Hermes of Olympia
t my door…  There’s someone else.  Love’s
gods / / have drawn his wandering fancy away from me.  / / I’ll go to
Spells and Love
Whom the
Gods Love / Considering our mortality / / and that most of us will no
Whom the Gods Love
lato, / / of Buddha or Mahomet, God or
gods .  / / Paul’s song of charity I love, in Plato / / the passionate
The Betrayal
arth’s plain / / whence the inconstant
gods send dearth and rain / / and playfully allot our joy and pain.  /
Cosmology
pt the old / / pretence that they were
gods .  We have to know / / God, if there be a god, cannot be so.  / /
Against Pedestals
/ son, God Himself, defraud Himself?  Is
God’s / / a share only?  They thought by a trick question / / to have
The Betrayal
/ / “Only the worldly-wise can manage
God’s / / affairs.  Go down into the cave with Plato.  / / Make friend
The Betrayal
od” He answered “those things which are
God’s , / / and what is Caesar’s render unto Caesar,” / / But did He
The Betrayal
s, to stone / / and a half-light.  / /
God’s body lay on the altar.  / / She pitied Him there / / under the
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
“Should not my life, my actions, all be
God’s ?” / / by this gets answered “No.  Not wholly God’s.  / / If Caes
The Betrayal
/ by this gets answered “No.  Not wholly
God’s .  / / If Caesar give you arms, yours not to question / / when h
The Betrayal
/ he tried to cheat his master?  Were I
God’s / / (if I believed in God), were I His steward / / would He ha
The Betrayal
/ is star-frosted.  And, alone, / / a
god’s nail-paring, / / a silver sliver caught on / / western darknes
Exchange
/ service—what’s Caesar’s in the end be
God’s ?  / / “Only the worldly-wise can manage God’s / / affairs.  Go d
The Betrayal
/ may yet bring Caesar back with us to
God’s / / service—what’s Caesar’s in the end be God’s?  / / “Only the
The Betrayal
/ But did He not thereby, Himself being
God’s / / son, God Himself, defraud Himself?  Is God’s / / a share on
The Betrayal
/ may have to sacrifice some bargains. 
God’s / / terms, His best friends admit, are long-term—Plato / / no
The Betrayal
/ against His twisting free.  But was it
God’s / / wit gave Him that smart answer?  He was Steward / / of a va
The Betrayal
comes hopelesser, / / natural goodness
goes bad… / / one would think.  But this man / / can create his own s
George Jackson
their lovely bottoms).  / / Now the sun
goes down.  Parthenon glows / / above the shaded wall, and near at han
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
ave / / the flag at the mast head / /
goes last under the wave.  / /
Five Poems for Roni
e I’m out of it too.  / / That’s how it
goes .  More than grieve for her / / missing, love what she had and was
A poem you may like to see
her light was water-quenched.  / / Life
goes on, finished lives recede / / and remain.  / / New lives we love
Anniversary
and empires pass.  / / Life changes and
goes on, / / hard among these terraces of vine and thin corn, / / in
September Cruise
m (you know who) to my house.  / / Bran
goes on next.  Artemis, Moon, you can move / / Death’s adamant door, a
Spells and Love
life, and change the plan, / / as life
goes on, or think we do, / / or think at any rate we can, / / planni
Cedar
e, London and Edinburgh.  / / The world
goes round and the words come round again.  / / Down in the plain Napo
On the Border
/ / Among the emperor’s guard the wine
goes round / / with rattle of dice and song, and some are thinking /
Gunnar of Lithend
rude reply.  / / There go I.  / / There
goes the grace of God.  / /
Reflection
/ Nothing can come of nothing, nothing
goes / / to nothing, but we cannot see the cause / / which moves the
Winter Solstice
What
goes up must come down / We can’t tell what mistake / / it was that w
What goes up must come down
s / / —a predictable order, if nothing
goes wrong, / / to protect us from fear and to guide us along.  / / Y
Hymn
ngs cease.  / / “Martin” she said, “how
goes your pilgrimage?”  / / No remembered, no memory-wakening voice /
The Black-out
/ blind with blind is better / / than
going alone.  / / We are all blind / / and stumbling blindly fall /
Blind
To lose / / my prison and my peace by
going away…  / / Could I?…  But only said:  “How can I go?  / / My mothe
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
g”, I the same / / and asked if he was
going far.  / / He said “As far as Golgotha.”  / / And then I knew and
Quo Vadis
s and down, / / until, five days’ hard
going from the coast, / / he reached it.  Just before he made the top
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ “My brother’s been called and I’ll be
going soon / / —have to put off getting married.”  “It’s a hard life. 
On the Border
/ / one dark night late when they were
going to bed.  / / My mother—she was your age, just about—” / / (he m
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
d scarlet wool round the bowl.  / / I’m
going to bind my man to me, my hard love.  / / Eleven days, and he has
Spells and Love
anching—massed together, / / a wash of
gold across the water-meadows.  / / Like other things this year (may,
Buttercups
/ —their feet are ivory, their hair is
gold , / / all we believed is true, except the old / / pretence that
Against Pedestals
one, burn half-divine.  / / Behind the
gold and frankincense / / comes myrrh for our mortality, / / but in
Hymn
n a clay foot, / / stands crowned with
gold and is mankind.  / /
On the Towpath
ted for marble.  These gave way / / and
gold and ivory shatter in the fall.  / /
Against Pedestals
t / / under the bright lights, against
gold and white, / / he watched entranced the colour-sparkling sea:  /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
kle drooping antlered sprays / / pink,
gold and white, sweetening the light stillness / / by bird-notes pier
The Grass Road
f Edwardian baroque.  / / In letters of
gold from an architrave block / / PUBLIC LIBRARY winked with a welcom
[The municipal building stood square in my dream]
its red / / but winds have washed the
gold from the white birches.  / / Autumn is off where summer and sprin
Dance of the Seasons
wire / / has a straw in its beak / /
gold -glinting / / in the new sun / / in the soft air.  / / The delay
Late Spring
his hands.  / / There were gems in the
gold hilt, but it was not that / / —the work was wonderful, and the m
Finis
which sang to me likewise in letters of
gold / / “If it’s hell to be young it’s the end being old / / so gat
[The municipal building stood square in my dream]
odel, / / few and broken but straight,
gold in the sun, / / the cities of Greece: which flowered in her own
Greece
nuarius’s blood / / froths cold in its
gold -mounted phial.  / / In canyons of the high-slummed hill / / sick
Naples
quering may.  / / The buttercup’s purer
gold / / puts the dandelion out, / / Children undress to bathe.  / /
Another Summer
Another Spring / The field of cloth of
gold shines as it shone / / but now within under a winter gloom / /
Another Spring
from a grave: / / a pair of ear-rings,
gold , simple design; / / a bronze mirror, its shine a roughened green
Label
from which a dozen greens melt towards
gold .  / / Summer and I are neither young nor old, / / the quiet midd
Revisited
han brown, white / / crimson and green-
gold / / the bare-stemmed bushes glow, / / just as though / / again
Winter Garden
Acropolis / Gone are the ivory and
gold , / / the colours and the singing gone, / / but shining still th
Acropolis
eaks a field / / with clear puddles of
gold .  / / Two truths to accept / / with a crooked neighbour’s love /
Another Summer
ove / / before Struwwelpeter and straw-
gold vanish / / in a silky puff.  / / Sweetness spreads about / / fr
Another Summer
ightly sheared / / from grass to surf,
golden against the noon, / / lovely, inhospitable.  In the lee / / he
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Other World / A
golden age, an Eden / / before the growth of wrong / / has haunted h
Other World
a channel for the silver boat, / / the
golden boat) the Zodiac / / threads the constellated black.  / / Thes
Night
d thing, worn to a sieve, / / once the
golden bowl of memory.  / / Age takes everything we hate to give, / /
Age
s place.  / / Squatting on waterskis, a
golden boy / / ploughs with his rump a furrow in the blue.  / / The S
September Cruise
sea / / the six white horses swept the
golden carriage.  / / The young queen looked, and a curve suddenly /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
sson, / / Magellan, one / / seeking a
golden fleece, a white whale, / / legend and life, by sail / / or st
The Sea
[
Golden , red, brown] / Golden, red, brown— / / when they begin to loos
[Golden, red, brown]
[Golden, red, brown] /
Golden , red, brown— / / when they begin to loosen and come down / /
[Golden, red, brown]
them home in it, / / their home—those
golden shores, / / flower-wooded hills, which loved them once.  / /
[Some exiles know]
/ / Their beards curled yellower than
goldenrod / / and their chests shone brighter than you are shining, M
Spells and Love
another range.  Light, dark brown, reds,
golds , patched / / and mingled, were a revelation to him / / of autu
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
was going far.  / / He said “As far as
Golgotha .”  / / And then I knew and the cock crew.  / /
Quo Vadis
and cold; I shivered, watching / / the
gondola grow smaller on the wide / / water—so lose them too?  But the
The Black-out
h a gleam / / of metal at the prow.  “A
gondola ; / / Laurence,” he said.  No more than in a dream / / surpris
The Black-out
, / / lost for a while, came loud.  The
gondola / / shot from beneath the bridge and drew along.  / / A brigh
The Black-out
nt trouble worse, and when we part / /
gondola sunk or walkers not returning / / may turn a casual parting t
The Black-out
/ Then his glazed eyes (he might have
gone a mile, / / two, fifty yards) awoke to the wide stream.  / / He
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
true) / / this Martin Luther, dead and
gone , / / alive saw something he must do / / and left it very thorou
Thoughts on the Lavatory
e an uninhabitable / / waste, humanity
gone / / and all our dream.  / / If, considering this, / / we can su
Consider
n a note / / to tell his mother he was
gone , and gone.  / / The sky was clear, the dawn-wind light but good,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ mountains!  The river-water was nearly
gone / / and in the mountains there would surely be / / springs—and
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
moment of the absent sun / / cease, be
gone .  / / And saw begin / / out of the same darkness strangely growi
Winter Solstice
Acropolis /
Gone are the ivory and gold, / / the colours and the singing gone, /
Acropolis
ne day she broke out—“But you should be
gone / / away from here, my father’s woods, your mother” / / she alm
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ and shattered on the rock.  One arrow
gone .  / / Be careful.  He looked where the two flasks lay.  / / A bow,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
untain-water, sweet and clean, / / was
gone before.  “I asked him what he ate— / / seagulls he shot and cooke
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ly, / / I cannot count the generations
gone — / / but once upon a time, in some demesne, / / there lived, in
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
gold, / / the colours and the singing
gone , / / but shining still the temples hold / / their broken faces
Acropolis
ere / / as still it will be when we’re
gone .  / / Decay, corruption foster life.  / / Even the fossil forming
Change
Cliff / A jutting stone / / yields, is
gone / / down into air / / But foot is home / / and hand, firm / /
Sea Cliff
ace of habitation—house / / and street
gone from the fresh earth like a dream; / / freshness and silence of
The Black-out
What am I?  / How, when the ground’s
gone from under one’s feet, / / find a fixed point from which to star
What am I?
existed so strongly, warmly, and is now
gone , / / her existence is more real still, now and here, / / than t
Death
a natural centre.  / / Now my centre’s
gone .  / / I am haunted by / / a thought: might it have been meant?  /
For Cecil
med nothing to me now that she / / was
gone ; I hoped no more for Anabel, / / when “Martin” from the shadow o
The Black-out
by a fall / / of slanting steel, / /
gone in a burst of blood.  / / Yet, against lost years / / gone with
Die Weisse Rose
reshness, clearness of spring not quite
gone / / in the long siesta of summer’s afternoon.  / / With that ahe
Sixtieth Summer
/ “You?…” a faint trouble in a moment
gone , / / lost in a smile as warm as sunlight—“You.”  / / “Ah, you” h
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ays for hate’s advance.  / / The road’s
gone now.  Rejoice with us then, who / / but dance, dance on the jutti
Sur le Pont d’Avignon
/ but he had done his business and was
gone .  / / She sat a long time on the stony ground, / / the naked swo
Pelopia and Thyestes
someone else can have her.  The bloom’s
gone —she’s coarse— / / the charm too (she had it)—now she’s on heat /
Love Scene
s ago / / —five hundred years and more
gone / / since we burned the maid at Rouen) / / drenched the brush w
Makherás
/ a little known, / / world on world
gone .  / / Spare a small grief / / for lovely shell or leaf / / that
Fossils
arpet’s not / / that summer four years
gone —that’s gone to rot / / in yielding featureless black mould below
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
he New Year to hunt.  Those three months
gone / / the castle was for nine their quiet home.  / / But now the Q
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
s, calling, the world of children.  / /
Gone the seagulls, silence.  The beach is empty, / / and water, advanc
For Rachel
o the altar, / / finds it robbed.  / /
Gone the silver monstrance / / with the flesh of God.  / / Elders gat
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
/ to tell his mother he was gone, and
gone .  / / The sky was clear, the dawn-wind light but good, / / as he
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ wind seemed among my bones.  Molly was
gone .  / / The sky was clouded over; my feet were heavy; / / houses a
The Black-out
.  / / Before I looked again I knew her
gone ; / / then looked, and shivering left the deeper shade, / / and
The Black-out
o my father / / and chilled beheld him
gone ; then where she led / / followed, but half my mind followed in G
The Black-out
/ / that summer four years gone—that’s
gone to rot / / in yielding featureless black mould below.  / / For t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
kiss of your pretty mouth / / I’d have
gone to sleep happy.  But if your door had been barred / / be sure I’d
Spells and Love
and found it, as he guessed, empty—all
gone / / together to the castle?  Carabosse / / had seen to that?—or
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Where?  / Where are they
gone , where?  / / Into thin air—into thinner far than air, / / into a
Where?
.  / / What is she looking for?  What is
gone ?  Why / / this black frost / / on a spring face?  She really can’
Song
lood.  / / Yet, against lost years / /
gone with the white rose / / horribly lopped, / / the manner of the
Die Weisse Rose
/ / his occupation and his dream, all
gone .  / / Would he, from lack of will to live, have let / / death ta
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
hours, almost as soon / / as entered,
gone ; / / yet drags his feet / / down grey boredoms, the grim wait;
Two Poems from a New Life
ightly touching.  Waking, / / the dream
gone you shall keep the sweetness.  / /
Otherworld
sty answer: / / with fear sounding its
gong of boom and slump / / disaster closed, like madness on a dancer.
The Twenties
the world in fee; / / for evil and for
good , a power.  / / But nothing lasts indefinitely.  / / She fails now
Great Britain
e’s our apprehension / / of beauty and
good (also of bad and ugly, / / but those are negatives, / / shadow
Credo
one is dead.  / / To see both sides is
good ; always to keep / / a sensitive balance on the fence is bad.  /
The Black-out
despairing hell / / breathed by these
good and brave, / / Kurt Huber and his children:  / / Willi Graf, Chr
Die Weisse Rose
stake in the square / / for her soul’s
good , / / and first of the faggots they laid / / the rose from the w
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
he convent and the court have their own
good , / / and its own good the way you took instead.”  / / The bridge
The Black-out
sad; consider that / / your gifts are
good and time is with you still.  / / A careful house of cards has fal
The Black-out
won in / / at last to land, he lay as
good as dead / / he didn’t know how long.  He sensed the air, / / cam
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
sky was clear, the dawn-wind light but
good , / / as he moved outwards in his loaded boat.  / / Most of the m
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
where he had lived—that’s why he was so
good / / at all that craft—there wasn’t tree or track / / he didn’t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
out doubt in the absolute being of / /
good , beauty, love, / / and that beyond the irreparable errors, / /
Credo
now, each resolved to earth and our own
good .  / / But search your heart—there you will find us still / / to
The Black-out
ow must fall, / / and not all days are
good , / / but there are perfect days.  / / To what I do not know, but
Gratitude
elt the power of / / breaking away for
good , but thought ‘I’ll make / / the difficult traverse to that bourn
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
rs.  / / How does it feel when they say
good -bye for good?  / / No, I see no tears, / / but a sharpening of t
What Do They Feel?
he sun across two thousand years.  / / “
Good -bye.”  “Good luck.”  “But you can’t trust them.  He may / / have st
On the Border
ear my longing as I have borne it.  / /
Good -bye, Moon on your shining throne.  Good-bye / / you other stars t
Spells and Love
right-haired girl laughing jumped out:  “
good -bye, / / thanks,” and fled.  Waited at the back the strong / / o
The Black-out
I didn’t want to, but I saved my skin. 
Good -bye / / that shield.  I shall get one no worse quite easily.  / /
Two Songs of a Mercenary
Good-bye, Moon on your shining throne. 
Good -bye / / you other stars that ride with the quiet night.  / /
Spells and Love
/ often, on either side.  / / But what
good can hate do?  / / The stocks of hate build up / / (and stocks of
Choice
table want, though such things are / /
good causes for unhappiness, does not spring / / from them.  Unhappine
The Black-out
aster is God, not Caesar.  / / From the
good city bravely back old Plato / / framed laws for shadow-men.  Does
The Betrayal
ve / / this vision is the image of his
good .  / / Cold, and a kind of darkness, which did not drown / / the
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ falling or superfluous hair / / or a
good crop has dandruff in.  / / You name it, we’ve the lot.  / / Yet t
Gratitude
tle sad.  / / Not very.  I’ve had / / a
good day; now at evening aware / / of so much more to bless me than I
[The track up the wild stream]
What Hope?  / Dreams of
good / / drown in angry blood.  / / Romeo and Juliet, / / Leila and
What Hope?
must in their passage make his own work
good .  / / Each time its task: cutting the undergrowth, / / keeping d
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
He knew in this last fight against the
good / / fairy, the bad was rousing all her power.  / / His strength
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ire / / was sinister, and boded him no
good .  / / He turned on to the unencumbered ground / / between the th
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
l”— / / particularity, strange and not
good — / / her parents lived out in the country, down / / beside the
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
we did / / the thought will have been
good .  / / I know, if ever / / your image came to mind it brought /
Leap Year
away, god willing.  But now / / I’ll be
good , I promise—I do know how.  / / Don’t be hard, darling.  Truly I’ll
Love Scene
e / / when time comes to be free.  / /
Good , if new warmth new-quickening his straining / / loosens the bind
Chrysalis
tight.  / / You’ll leave her there for
good if you don’t take care.  / / No, down a bit.  Yes, there—a bit to
On the Border
ite / / wheatlands; a man at need / /
good in fight / / —witness the hallowed field of Marathon, / / witne
Aeschylus’ Epitaph
en / / perhaps—another meeting equally
good .  / / In the darkness I could not trace again / / each feature’s
The Black-out
children; your sea, your land; / / our
good love in its best time, here, now is / / with me warmly; and in t
[White foam sweeps]
s two thousand years.  / / “Good-bye.”  “
Good luck.”  “But you can’t trust them.  He may / / have stolen that la
On the Border
at four / / knew all the answers and a
good many more, / / master of wickedness.  / / After working some rea
Vignette
t, / / forget his anger.  / / And much
good may it do you.  / / I don’t think you’ll get home a second time.”
Odysseus
knew but could not name.  / / He said “
Good morning”, I the same / / and asked if he was going far.  / / He
Quo Vadis
ome, but smiled as she turned, and said
good night…  / / How can one love and not be understood?  / / He brood
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
does it feel when they say good-bye for
good ?  / / No, I see no tears, / / but a sharpening of the senses, he
What Do They Feel?
Deep hoarded in your heart a wealth of
good / / observed, absorbed, lies ready.  Give it power.  / / “Conside
The Black-out
being had.  / / I walk apart in our own
good other time, / / you beside me.  And for a moment I’m / / sure of
[My grandchildren are stamping the ice-puddles]
ntly / / and settled steady in the old
good quarter.  / / He was abreast now, nearly, of the cape / / and dr
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
et—work forbidden her, not for / / any
good reason but because, they said, / / the fingers of a princess wer
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
l men have an equal share / / of sound
good sense and reasoning.  / / We who are sped crave your praying / /
Villon’s Epitaph
or race— / / the single greatest human
good , / / sign of our brother-and-sisterhood.  / /
Love…  No
rn different.  / / Difference, / / the
good sine qua non of humanness, / / cannot be tailored to equality, /
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
the wicked fairy’s laugh, / / felt the
good smile, began to understand / / the necessary double face of fate
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
t enough— / / rather, not many, but so
good , / / so satisfying, enough’s irrelevant— / / after the last lea
[Golden, red, brown]
is, through our lives.  / / The natural
good state is anarchy / / —would be, if human nature let it be, / /
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
ade, all right.  / / Not, that’s not so
good .  / / Steve Davis knocked out / / of the semi-final.  You / / wo
For Cecil
/ left unspoiled.  / / Advance / / is
good , surely (as well / / as being inevitable).  / / Help it, honour
Progress
rose.  / / The wild rose was my flower. 
Good that these late flowers / / are here for me, you, us now in this
[Late October hedges]
t have their own good, / / and its own
good the way you took instead.”  / / The bridge shadow, darker than a
The Black-out
for.  / / Nothingness is at least / /
good , though not the best.  / /
Miscarriage
ny?  / / Just such a vile perversion of
good thought / / used to fill Smithfield with the smell of flesh in f
Betrayals
I’m afraid / / won’t be amused.  But a
good time’s being had.  / / I walk apart in our own good other time, /
[My grandchildren are stamping the ice-puddles]
fe must settle for / / sometimes, it’s
good to be born.  / / All the same, unborn / / is untroubled, at peac
Miscarriage
d-over, the lived through, / / the too
good to be true, / / is nothing, and we bear / / self-pitying now ou
Scheme
es of what they sang, / / “Goddess, be
good to us”, / / knew his polluted state / / (the cloud a moment thi
Pelopia and Thyestes
te / / my answers to the mystery.  / /
Good unbelieved-in God, why should you care / / to show a kindness to
Uncertain
member that if this war is won / / the
good we claim to do waits to begin; / / or lost, an acreage to our ha
Prayer to Truth
your praying / / of Mary’s Son, by His
good willing, / / that we may share in His blessing, / / thunder of
Villon’s Epitaph
ld, / / but he had wisdom / / I felt,
good wisdom.  / / I sat contented at his feet / / on the midnight Acr
Homage
/ the fairy for, he could not think her
good / / would fail him—but the fairy’s curse?—Ah, that.  / / Off to
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
, years for fun, / / years of trouble,
good / / years, years of dream / / and doing, thought and love, / /
Die Weisse Rose
rase / / of Queen Victoria:  ‘I will be
good .’?  / / I laughed, and suddenly in cloud and blaze / / rolled ba
The Black-out
peless becomes hopelesser, / / natural
goodness goes bad… / / one would think.  But this man / / can create
George Jackson
l / / of fury and hate / / a fugitive
goodwill , / / hardly to be / / before it dissipates.  / / Oh, humani
What Hope?
d through this warm / / clear air / /
gooseflesh me with fear.  / /
Antipodes
are broken picking at the knot / / of
Gordian anguish in the heart; / / and others in whose silence sounds
The Party
/ / severing tough stems and more than
Gordion -tied / / knots.  It was almost in his hand—a few / / strands
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
s up, her dress and hands dripping with
gore .  / / Red smears down her white skirt, the red of shame / / hot
Pelopia and Thyestes
and their love.  / / Later, in a swift
gorge , rough cliffs above, / / shared toil and danger made part of th
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Helen in all tongues of the world, / /
Gorgias Tamynis on a sherd / / in a scratched verse, and A.G. on a wa
Fossils
The West of Ireland /
Gorse and rock and bog lap the wall / / and wind hurls the sea in the
The West of Ireland
from the empty gown / / a vixen to the
gorse .  / / Loving from loving hands / / inexorably drawn / / moves
Lady into Fox
ow within under a winter gloom / / the
gorse on the brown moor is out of bloom / / that still pricks to the
Another Spring
cord.  God must start again.  / / Larch,
gorse , rough grass, / / heather, bracken, moss, / / wild rose on the
Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank
/ our planks are rotten, our sails are
gossamer …  / / But dark is unaware of the truths of day.  / / Let the
Voyage
ijinsky jump.  / / But the gay twenties
got a dusty answer: / / with fear sounding its gong of boom and slump
The Twenties
would have been lovely.  / / And if I’d
got a kiss of your pretty mouth / / I’d have gone to sleep happy.  But
Spells and Love
elight.  / / “Come here.  Get warm.  I’ve
got all that you’ll need / / if you’ve the courage for the land-journ
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / The weather worsened and the Queen
got better / / or bored, and took her daughter back to town.  / / The
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
him, / / even the little girls she had
got for him, / / loved him and understood him, she loved him herself,
A Dream
/ a thing about the procession or how I
got home, / / and after that I went down with a high fever / / —ten
Spells and Love
other story; but, I know, / / how they
got home really belongs to this.  / / The castle ruined, the great tho
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
for this.  / / That man from Myndus has
got me, soul and body.  / / You go and watch by Timategus’s place / /
Spells and Love
is mother in his father’s bed, / / but
got no extra kick from the affair / / having no notion who these peop
No Complex
.”  / / “But ear is what / / I haven’t
got .”  / / “Poor dear.”  / /
Disability
.”  A noble cry, / / and “What have you
got to lose but chains?”  So why / / slave-camps, torture (body, mind)
Betrayals
lid, whirling Paris:  / / Winterhalter,
Gounod , Offenbach, Guys, / / Viollet-le-Duc, Dumas fils, / / red vel
Time’s Reach
/ / aren’t only prisoner / / —warder,
Governor too, / / responsible for what / / conditions prevail there.
Body
rilling horn.  / / Slips from the empty
gown / / a vixen to the gorse.  / / Loving from loving hands / / ine
Lady into Fox
e is pure, is absolute, is ours, / / a
grace , a blessing we can never lose.  / /
[Our lives are in other hands]
beautiful.  / / I felt the presence of
grace / / like Yeats at Lissadell.  / /
Grace
hesy to a full stop.  Ours the open / /
grace of a question mark.  / /
Desert Island?
y.  / / There go I.  / / There goes the
grace of God.  / /
Reflection
Reflection / There but for the
grace of God go I.  / / I smiled compassionately, / / walked on compl
Reflection
Grace / Two tall beautiful girls / / both in white dresses / / walki
Grace
’s Juan and Marlowe’s Faustus.  / / And
gradually , a peak behind hills / / that rise or shrink as we move thr
Poetry
Kurt Huber and his children:  / / Willi
Graf , Christl Probst, / / Alex Morell, Hans Scholl, / / Sophie Schol
Die Weisse Rose
Alex Morell, / / Christl Probst, Willi
Graf / / —so many years lost / / (none more than twenty-five, / / S
Die Weisse Rose
(you know who) to my house.  / / Barley-
grains first shrivel in the fire—why, Thestylis, / / strew them on th
Spells and Love
flails, beating / / the husks from the
grains , heavy fans shifting / / the chaff from the freed grains.  One
Dream under a Carob-tree
l kindness count / / into the bowl the
grains of rice.  / / Far away, far…  / / But look across / / the stre
Dinner
shifting / / the chaff from the freed
grains .  One time, one way.  / / One image.  All man’s images of man /
Dream under a Carob-tree
me: / / the fairies, gathering for the
grand event.  / / A crowned white cradlehood, and under it / / a pink
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
the devil’s monstrous game?  / / Love’s
grand illusion ‘Love can master Fate’.  / / His light should dissipate
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
avery, but not pretend / / that war is
grand .  / / Make us remember that if this war is won / / the good we
Prayer to Truth
dren are stamping the ice-puddles] / My
grandchildren are stamping the ice-puddles, / / dirty and sometimes d
[My grandchildren are stamping the ice-puddles]
[My
grandchildren are stamping the ice-puddles] / My grandchildren are sta
[My grandchildren are stamping the ice-puddles]
ve with one another.  / / Our children,
grandchildren ; your sea, your land; / / our good love in its best tim
[White foam sweeps]
fields, after it leaves the wood.  / / “
Grandfather was the old King’s forester / / (your grandfather’s).  Whe
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
was the old King’s forester / / (your
grandfather’s ).  When I was very small / / my mother used to carry me
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ld granny had a fall / / and died, and
grandpa came to live at our / / house here”—it was a long time gettin
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e shimmering chandeliers of Thrushcross
Grange .”  / / But I: “remember Roe Head and Law Hill, / / remember Br
The Black-out
me out there / / to see them, but old
granny had a fall / / and died, and grandpa came to live at our / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
d father, near and dear, / / taken for
granted .  Not as yet for her / / painful passion obsessively distilled
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ten / / fewer than twelve remain.  / /
Granted , that limit’s set / / loosely—perhaps there wait / / twenty
[Now of threescore and ten]
d watched the root / / of a green tree
grappling the rock.  And dressed / / and clambered nimbly up the cliff
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
… / / fingers supple / / to caress or
grasp , / / unravel muddle, / / adapt chance, / / determine beauty,
Lopped
s the new morning finds / / dew on the
grass .  / /
Scheme
w life begin.  / / Beetle and man, / /
grass and cedar, climbed to complexity / / from cells formed in the s
The Sea
/ / blood stood in puddles, slopped on
grass and stone.  / / The leader skirts these hazards.  Several more /
Pelopia and Thyestes
ft.  / / The campus was beautiful, / /
grass and tall trees, / / grave colonial buildings.  / / These seriou
Grace
…colder…then, a matter of moments, / /
grass , brambles, everything around is white.  / /
Magic
ago I suppose it was / / lying in long
grass , eyes shut, sun on face, / / imagining—no, pretending rather— /
Summers
she would have had / / you do.  Let the
grass / / green up again, buds / / plump on the tree, / / the quiet
Against Anorexia:  For Cathy
t start again.  / / Larch, gorse, rough
grass , / / heather, bracken, moss, / / wild rose on the heath / / —
Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank
[The grass in the next field] / The
grass in the next field / / is greener?  No.  / / Ours is emerald.  /
[The grass in the next field]
[The
grass in the next field] / The grass in the next field / / is greener
[The grass in the next field]
t into a space of powerful slopes, / /
grass long and burnt silver, bounded / / by clumped, huge close-leave
Los Altos Hills
ndscape / Music is landscape: / / wide
grass / / melts to a skyline, / / dips to a stream.  / / Landscape i
Music is Landscape
ned in front of us.  / / Over the short
grass my feet too were silent; / / silent and dark behind the nebulou
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Truly I’ll stay / / out on the garden-
grass , not force the doorway / / —just try.  But as for that sister of
Love Scene
ted on a stick-fire.  On / / thin rough
grass of a valley-alp he dropped / / his weariness, and slept without
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
n—wind-washed pink thrift / / in short
grass on low sandstone cliffs, / / long low black rocks enclosing /
Bury My Heart
/ / is on the other side of the short
grass on the hill, / / reaches out into the thieving and loving, / /
[The bare, beautiful borders]
long rampart, crowned / / with coarse
grass —pricked him and drew blood.  He smiled / / thinking of her who n
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
The
Grass Road / I stepped out of my thoughts / / and saw the grass road
The Grass Road
ped out of my thoughts / / and saw the
grass road straight between dark hedges / / patchworked with green an
The Grass Road
by campion in the grass / / while the
grass -skirted poppy-dancer / / dips to the wind her brilliant head /
Dance of the Seasons
mers / This afternoon lying in the long
grass / / sun on my face, eyes shut, remembering / / sixty years ago
Summers
Buttercups / Low to the
grass —tall, branching—massed together, / / a wash of gold across the
Buttercups
horizon’s rim / / —burn every blade of
grass / / that might be green for him.  / / Huge sound trembling / /
Scorched Earth
ness, / / water runs thin / / thin as
grass .  / / The desert shows through flaking green.  / / Mars might ha
Drought
hushed birds on boughs crouch, deep in
grass the hare.  / / Twigs cracking, one dog’s bark, / / momently pie
Country and Town
before) a child / / happy in the long
grass , the hot sun.  / / Open my eyes now on what afternoon?  / /
Summers
/ washing the autumn out of leaves and
grass / / till a hard winter clamped suddenly down / / in frost and
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e horizon, straightly sheared / / from
grass to surf, golden against the noon, / / lovely, inhospitable.  In
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ed inland, thrusting through stiff dune-
grass / / which speared him till he bled.  Beyond, below / / the soft
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
is answered / / now by campion in the
grass / / while the grass-skirted poppy-dancer / / dips to the wind
Dance of the Seasons
copse.  / / Monstrance and Host in the
grass / / wink at the sky.  / / They must home to the church / / and
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
Yellow daisies in sheets over the green
grass , / / yellow cowslip-balls of flowering fennel, / / yellow mimo
Makherás
home, “We’d start a family”.  / / After
grassed acres, / / here you chose stone to raise / / your lovely gar
For Cecil
th their spread of softer-sanded, spear-
grassed dunes / / miles away to the rivers of Barnstaple.  / / Later
Bury My Heart
itude / I don’t know what to thank, but
grateful I feel, / / not only for affection—for natural beauty.  / /
Gratitude
ring yokel spy on me!) / / Yet she was
grateful to him for that too / / and something made her speak.  “Those
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
nd-water-wandering swan?  / / Or did he
gratefully recover / / mankindness with its gifts and pains, / / eve
Fairy Story
-polished lackadaisical perfection / /
grates .  I move away / / admiring perhaps, certainly disliking.  / / B
Hermes of Olympia
ver could / / renege on such suffusing
gratitude .  / /
[Yes, you’re right]
Gratitude / I don’t know what to thank, but grateful I feel, / / not
Gratitude
Gratitude / Man and woman constantly (are we not?) / / are constipate
Gratitude
e / / her churlishness; and felt, too,
gratitude .  / / This love was not that dredged from her deep dream, /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
t, / / apprehension of grief.  / / Our
gratitude weighs no less than our care.  / /
May Day, 1986
cts in this case / / were taken from a
grave : / / a pair of ear-rings, gold, simple design; / / a bronze mi
Label
love, but others formed beyond / / the
grave .  ‘A sacrifice, my love, my youth.’  / / Among these words the bl
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / a hundred years to lay him in the
grave / / and raise a prince to rouse the bride.  The knell / / ‘a hu
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
.”  / / “You’re dead and laid into your
grave / / and yet you speak and groan.  / / Is it the earth that weig
A Ballad
Survival / I don’t suppose out of the
grave / / any of me will last, to grieve / / and joy with those I lo
Survival
winter’s image of / / the unresponding
grave , / / are changed in spring’s breath.  / / Stripped trees put gr
The Difference
utiful, / / grass and tall trees, / /
grave colonial buildings.  / / These serious scholars, teachers / / w
Grace
g.  / / These were lifted from a girl’s
grave , / / put there by friends, by her parents probably, / / to be
Label
Popular name for archaeologist / / is
grave -robber.  / / Not without reason.  / / Still, might perhaps the m
Label
me tides of experience / / alone could
grave those channels, from those strong / / contours erode the softne
In the Audience
.  / / Victoria busily / / stamped the
grave Wesley / / and others had filled; / / but Cromwell (and Charle
Merrie England
y came from / / through the pit of the
grave , / / while greenness receded / / from his sister’s skin.  / /
The Green Children of Woolpit
hair, / / hears the laugh / / of the
gravedigger .  / / My thoughts posture, / / but a rude thought / / si
Catharsis
n and formed anew.  / / “Speak to him,”
gravely said my guide; and I / / “many have I honoured, many loved, b
The Black-out
reen brilliance of the meadow / / into
graver green of the wood’s shadow / / sky-chinked above, bluebell-poo
Two Summer Songs
rchyard?  / / A little church, with few
graves / / lying close together / / —brothers and cousins, I suppose
A Ballad
the palace-wall, / / robs the revered
graves .  We see / / the singer silent at the fall / / of the King, th
Dark Age
dogs shaking / / as she fleets by over
graveyards , over black blood.  / / Be there, fell Hecate, see me throu
Spells and Love
/ / I am not falling.  Falling implies
gravity / / and something there below at the fall’s end.  / / I am (s
What am I?
but turned once more / / north up the
Grays Inn Road.  Where the moon shone / / across a tram-wire mesh, we
The Black-out
ed wood, / / glimpsed through it sheep
grazing in a field.  / / Green world in my eyes, heart.  Other summers,
Green World
eded time / / to guide in draughts and
grease (rooms over shops) / / rude Master Tom’s and prim Miss Betty’s
La Fontaine et le Déluge
ranks and the women to the fields, / /
grease wiped from rifles, a new edge ground on spears / / —a stack of
On the Border
me force from the flesh?  / / Agony and
greasy ash.  / / What did the soul steal from the flame?  / / New wing
Joan of Arc
t and in yours slumbered a seed / / of
great and happy life.  An early page / / closed my unfinished book; ho
The Black-out
d the princess.  What is it?  / / Why, a
great ball in celebration of / / her fourteenth Christmas (she was au
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Great Britain / Once she held half the world in fee; / / for evil and
Great Britain
all: / / tables, stools, hangings, one
great chair, and all / / empty.  The play seemed waiting to begin.  /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / am neither great nor likely to be
great .  / / “For happiness a still more doubtful season: / / we are a
The Black-out
on up.  / / And there below him lay the
great forest.  / / Acres of leafage unbelievably stretched / / almost
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
a camera, where all divine / / Piero’s
great frescoes stand.”  “Your Italy,” / / I said, “your frescoes, all
The Black-out
n, / / paved, echoing, empty—on to the
great hall: / / tables, stools, hangings, one great chair, and all /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
To Hera /
Great Hera, much ill-treated by your mate / / most human of the gods
To Hera
or—what?—to set me free / / am neither
great nor likely to be great.  / / “For happiness a still more doubtfu
The Black-out
ad?”  / / I laughed: “a hard time to be
great or happy.  / / Greatness I think we lack since Yeats is dead; /
The Black-out
of the secretive stream / / to make a
great poem.  / /
Yeats and Water-Birds
e, in Plato / / the passionate search. 
Great spirits, Paul and Plato, / / but the long hopes they hold and b
The Betrayal
red Hymettus.  Suddenly stood plain / /
great St Paul’s, and before it tall and still, / / Like a poplar or a
The Black-out
gs to this.  / / The castle ruined, the
great thorn-barrier / / was breached and withered too.  The track they
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
r forester had found it / / beside the
great -treed miles of memory.  / / Seldom by that was the young prince
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e piling rocks.  At last appeared / / a
great wall of south-facing cliff, which stretched / / west, west to t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
again and grinned.  / / And once when a
great wind-gust caught the water / / and spooned a pint of brine over
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
hell.  / / He found himself again, with
greater care, / / severing tough stems and more than Gordion-tied /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
wife.  / / Would have been bride, with
greater love, of Christ, / / but stays with her father / / who needs
Eugénie de Guérin
h to wreck, but man can do it— / / his
greatest and last proof of power and will— / / and part of what we ru
Man in Nature
e-group, class or race— / / the single
greatest human good, / / sign of our brother-and-sisterhood.  / /
Love…  No
“a hard time to be great or happy.  / /
Greatness I think we lack since Yeats is dead; / / yet we have Eliot,
The Black-out
and Sally Gilmour at the Mercury.  / /
Greatness perhaps there is; but I who wait / / invisibly chained for—
The Black-out
e houses pile, / / and half my mind in
Greece , among rocks, still / / clambered Hymettus.  Suddenly stood pla
The Black-out
again / / to Dorset, Devon, Berkshire,
Greece , and quite / / forget the misery of exile when / / Ithaca lay
The Black-out
Greece / Sea; rocks and sea; rock and pine, / / red earth and olive,
Greece
followed, but half my mind followed in
Greece .  / / “Such light,” I said, “and more the full moon shed / / w
The Black-out
/ when caught by night my second day in
Greece / / we lost our way about the twentieth mile / / where hills
The Black-out
ll of tide.  / / “East from the sea and
Greece , west out of beech- / / woods, Berkshire, childhood, Anabel, t
The Black-out
ht, gold in the sun, / / the cities of
Greece : which flowered in her own spring, / / withered through the do
Greece
re hills broke to the sea, and ‘this is
Greece ’ / / I thought.”  We walked in silence for a while.  / / At Bla
The Black-out
e fiend / / the fruits that wait their
greed and passion cull, / / once wrecked the mind / / make with the
Nijinsky
atiate, / / secret on unwrapped secret
greedily piled.  / / But knowing better?  Hardly a trace of that.  / /
Greenham Common
Greek Folk Song / All the girls get married, and likely lads they wed,
Greek Folk Song
k, but man can do it.  / / Barbarian or
Greek , Gentile or Jew, it / / comes to the same.  Free? we are all bon
Man in Nature
Love Scene / from the
Greek of Archilochus / “… but if you’re in a hurry and can’t wait for
Love Scene
he slain Son, / / God in man.  / / The
Greek saw / / clearer, truer, / / when he knew / / long ago / / in
Divinity
A Ballad / from the
Greek / That time we started drinking / / early on Saturday / / and
A Ballad
young academics, / / one as it happens
Greek , / / the other one Italian.  / / Well, so patterns shift.  / /
Grace
here is west) its lovely tail / / (the
greeks gave temples fronts and backs alike, / / just as to statues ge
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
ng new flowers in the garden, / / draw
green afresh out of the creaking wood.  / / Yet not, deaf Time, before
Prayer to Time
/ / she came again, to set beside the
green / / and bare the forest in its hour of fire.  / / She passed hi
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ by clumped, huge close-leaved trees,
green and dark.  / / Something like an English parkland / / but bigge
Los Altos Hills
tween dark hedges / / patchworked with
green and grey / / and flecked with white of large convolvulus caught
The Grass Road
mn, black-boughed winter, / / spring’s
green -and-white return: / / another beauty flowers into / / the wild
Cassandra’s Song
the sun-paled blue.  / / Pass from the
green brilliance of the meadow / / into graver green of the wood’s sh
Two Summer Songs
a bronze mirror, its shine a roughened
green / / but on the back still, delicately lined, / / a leaf-fan on
Label
meone saw the girl / / nibbling a hard
green / / cast-out shell.  / / Coaxed into feeding / / with raw husk
The Green Children of Woolpit
The
Green Children of Woolpit / Over beyond the river / / the children sa
The Green Children of Woolpit
ld garden.  / / A spring morning, light
green , dark green, / / sun-shadows and a sparkle of dew.  / / Light a
Otherworld
rom the hill looked down / / over dank
green dissolving into grey, / / dreamed of a dragon or a robber-knigh
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ternoon / Morning / Summer recurs.  / /
Green fields of childhood greet us / / washed with yellow and white,
Two Summer Songs
every blade of grass / / that might be
green for him.  / / Huge sound trembling / / through remote air / /
Scorched Earth
ed weeks / / they were together in the
green forest.  / / Nettles or brambles, she plunged gaily in / / but
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ by the long sharp line dividing (dun
green from black) / / rough immemorial pasture from new plough, / /
A Dream
s the innocent band / / white-dressed,
green garlanded, under the blue / / bright sky, keeping their rhythm
Pelopia and Thyestes
dder than brown, white / / crimson and
green -gold / / the bare-stemmed bushes glow, / / just as though / /
Winter Garden
rás / Yellow daisies in sheets over the
green grass, / / yellow cowslip-balls of flowering fennel, / / yello
Makherás
joys will it lead?  / / Dancers on the
green / / have followed the fairies under hill.  / /
Freedom
y, / / above this bare hill and a pine-
green hill, / / from the Acropolis, the Parthenon / / burns back sti
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
and broken to harmony).  / / The sky is
green .  Hymettus / / miraculously blushes, soon / / is grey again.  /
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
Desert Island?  / Loved England, / /
green land skeletal with dead elms and beeches / / (beautiful girl wi
Desert Island?
water, precise but darkened, / / light
green leaves dark, and strangely the flowers / / (the light bright wh
Omens
illusory fire— / / grey rocks; bushes
green , many-coloured, dark.  / / Once it blazed to heaven, this hillsi
Makherás
.  / / The desert shows through flaking
green .  / / Mars might have been, / / perhaps was, / / watered, sown
Drought
/ improbably / / in the light-fingered
green / / of an ash-tree, / / catches the look, / / lifts the heart
Summer Vision
illiance of the meadow / / into graver
green of the wood’s shadow / / sky-chinked above, bluebell-pooled bel
Two Summer Songs
pring’s breath.  / / Stripped trees put
green on.  / / Not the felled one.  / /
The Difference
acle, / / tender on the high twigs the
green .  / / One year, of course, spring’s power past, / / summer will
Renewal
/ / breaking down in a pine-torrent of
green / / or rock straight to an olive-pearly plain, / / straight to
Greece
, / / sand stretched out from the flat
green plain.  The change / / in land-structure intrigued his thoughts
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
perished leaf / / are lovely as spring-
green , red fall.  / / Time’s spiral course through joy and grief / /
Hymn
roll off.  Summer is truly summer, / /
green sea foaming in cow-parsley and may, / / sun-streaked with dande
Relax
ong the grey-brown shore / / from grey-
green sea under a grey-blue sky, / / Low bright sun in the south, and
[White foam sweeps]
onfire, which with her / / he’d seen a
green sea, which soon, bare and black, / / she’d see again.  She loved
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
t may lead.  She looks / / out from the
green shade / / passionately fearing for his soul’s health (fearing /
Eugénie de Guérin
leaving behind love’s garden fresh and
green .  / / She is not here; yet here, and on your way / / another ne
The Black-out
ell-lake, / / and everywhere the clear
green / / (soft and strong as a child’s skin) / / of earliest summer
Seasons
still-miraculous spring / / drowns as
green summer settles in.  / / Now from the hedges drop the roses, / /
Man’s Seasons
/ A spring morning, light green, dark
green , / / sun-shadows and a sparkle of dew.  / / Light as the air ou
Otherworld
lack; / / more beautiful than summer’s
green tent now / / this brown carpet; yet this brown carpet’s not /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
looked, and foreign in his strange-cut
green .”  / / The image of the strange exhausted youth / / against the
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
an from Lynn.  / / But whether with the
green / / the memory / / of that country faded / / the story does n
The Green Children of Woolpit
/ / ships sliding by…  / / Rooted and
green / / these seem (though without roots, / / without sap, / / th
A Wreck
an like those who race for the cloth-of-
green / / through the fields outside Verona, / / and among those run
Two Glimpses from Dante’s Hell
rincess, and watched the root / / of a
green tree grappling the rock.  And dressed / / and clambered nimbly u
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
much of it is, need that be final?  / /
Green trees flourish unstricken.  Some recover / / from anorexia, and
Desert Island?
ave had / / you do.  Let the grass / /
green up again, buds / / plump on the tree, / / the quiet birds / /
Against Anorexia:  For Cathy
echo of blues that glow / / round us (
green , violet) in the sea.  / /
Delos in Spring
/ Marble in sun burning like snow.  / /
Green , violet, scarlet, scattered free, / / and blue, shadow of burni
Delos in Spring
/ since we must all go under with the
green ?”  / / Words found him—“The leaves die but the tree lives / / t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Green World / Green world outside the window, summer world.  / / Daffo
Green World
rough it sheep grazing in a field.  / /
Green world in my eyes, heart.  Other summers, / / last summer, your w
Green World
Green World /
Green world outside the window, summer world.  / / Daffodils on this s
Green World
] / The grass in the next field / / is
greener ?  No.  / / Ours is emerald.  / / Our grief is other: how seldom
[The grass in the next field]
Greenham Common / / / … of Hyacinth’s temperament.  Just such a child
Greenham Common
Credo / Blossom and
greening .  / / Recurring wonder.  / / For me this year not you recurri
Credo
out roots, / / without sap, / / their
greenness not their own), / / seem the trees, almost, / / that were
A Wreck
/ / brightens suddenly / / across the
greenness of the water-meadow / / a grey steeple against a blue-black
[Released from cloud the low sun at my back]
hrough the pit of the grave, / / while
greenness receded / / from his sister’s skin.  / / She grew up, and m
The Green Children of Woolpit
of Australian bush.  / / We are growth,
greenness , / / water falling, flowing.  / / Not enough sun / / is ou
Drought
he blue horizon / / from which a dozen
greens melt towards gold.  / / Summer and I are neither young nor old,
Revisited
s the featureless scape— / / blues and
greens melting in each other, fretted / / with winking, wrinkled flas
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
n / / in the mirror’s tinted grey—leaf-
greens , / / white birch-trunks, blue sky caught, / / hide darkness w
Water in a Wood
/ / where trips for Hampton Court and
Greenwich are / / embarked, we went, Giles leading.  Soon the song, /
The Black-out
recurs.  / / Green fields of childhood
greet us / / washed with yellow and white, / / daisy and buttercup. 
Two Summer Songs
of their own, in pairs / / or singly,
greeting each other / / with a kind of masonry, / / subtly apart, th
Climacteric by the Sea
rol round the mountain hide-out / / of
Gregory Afxendióu / / —here, where now welcomed I admire / / the lov
Makherás
ched where he’d come—but turning again,
grew / / a monstrous hill of thorn before his face / / just where a
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
oke too the horizon of the sea / / and
grew at length into a cliff-faced range— / / mountains!  The river-wat
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ and loved her as his own.  And as she
grew / / he talked to her, more than he ever had / / even to her mot
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
f as a jungle.  / / Round her the house
grew old / / slowly, quietly rotting, / / dustily, gently flaking, /
Mariana in Miniature
pent / / his days trudging.  The prince
grew quickly sore, / / but sensibly took off his shoes and went / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / furnished and empty, and—the sense
grew strong— / / empty an age—‘When that old forester, / / who died
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
d / / from his sister’s skin.  / / She
grew up, and married / / a man from Lynn.  / / But whether with the g
The Green Children of Woolpit
g, worn out, nearly lost.  / / The girl
grew up and married a young groom / / in the King’s stables.  To their
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
he loved them) and meant / / well.  She
grew up dévote / / but kind and wise, with the wisdom of innocence, /
Eugénie de Guérin
/ dangerous appeasement, till the mind
grew weary.  / / I passed by each and did not pause to con her, / / b
The Black-out
/ / miraculously blushes, soon / / is
grey again.  / /
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
, free and wild, / / under a bright, a
grey , always a wide sky, / / your riding country, where you played as
Two Poems for G
hedges / / patchworked with green and
grey / / and flecked with white of large convolvulus caught / / amon
The Grass Road
t of me: / / a heron, lifting its wide
grey angled wings, / / its long neck out, rising into slow flight.  /
Omens
shore / / from grey-green sea under a
grey -blue sky, / / Low bright sun in the south, and from the north /
[White foam sweeps]
gone; / / yet drags his feet / / down
grey boredoms, the grim wait; / / always his mocking game / / stacke
Two Poems from a New Life
/ the scars but be itself again.  / /
Grey boughs beneath the perished leaf / / are lovely as spring-green,
Hymn
m sweeps] / White foam sweeps along the
grey -brown shore / / from grey-green sea under a grey-blue sky, / /
[White foam sweeps]
adow, / / wrenched olive (willow- / /
grey , but no river, / / no mist)—another / / harsher country.  / / H
Five Poems for Roni
/ closed eyes swollen.  / / Snow under
grey cloud.  / / Monochrome world from Cambridge / / to the Border.  O
For Cecil
/ These fields and trees / / would, if
grey clouds were even on the sky / / or if the sun were bold and high
Early Train
Winter Garden / Under the
grey cold / / redder than brown, white / / crimson and green-gold /
Winter Garden
ight makes beautiful / / all the brick-
grey desert, the swirling banner / / we bear of smoke, smoke of facto
“Life is sweet, brother”
wn / / over dank green dissolving into
grey , / / dreamed of a dragon or a robber-knight / / against her, of
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ps along the grey-brown shore / / from
grey -green sea under a grey-blue sky, / / Low bright sun in the south
[White foam sweeps]
I are still apart, / / only the sullen
grey / / grieving’s not there / / but piercing longing to be where /
[The clouds that pressed the air]
symbol of the swan / / and that of the
grey gull.  Nearer the bone / / was the moorhen.  / / Like something n
Yeats and Water-Birds
g into his master’s face / / while the
grey horse whirls through wolf-wild passes, / / brings fear to the Tu
Poetry
Under the grey sky / / he stood by the
grey lake / / and turned the sword in his hands.  / / There were gems
Finis
Again seen / / in the mirror’s tinted
grey —leaf-greens, / / white birch-trunks, blue sky caught, / / hide
Water in a Wood
Quo Vadis / I fled by night and in the
grey / / of dawn met on the lonely way / / a man I knew but could no
Quo Vadis
/ shimmering light lost again / / in
grey reversion of rain?  / / Rain and sun, snow, wind, / / weather an
Exchange
er / / we lose the illusory fire— / /
grey rocks; bushes green, many-coloured, dark.  / / Once it blazed to
Makherás
oaks, / / out over grey shining water,
grey / / shining mud of an East-coast estuary.  / / The last, dropped
Bury My Heart
n’s but topped with oaks, / / out over
grey shining water, grey / / shining mud of an East-coast estuary.  /
Bury My Heart
but still grey.  Silver / / rather than
grey .  / / Silver and white, / / embodied light / / of the overcast
Return
six cygnets, full grown / / but still
grey .  Silver / / rather than grey.  / / Silver and white, / / embodi
Return
Finis / Under the
grey sky / / he stood by the grey lake / / and turned the sword in h
Finis
ain-puddle; / / and worst a hard blank
grey sky over all / / (no trees to guide his forest-sense)—east, west
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
he greenness of the water-meadow / / a
grey steeple against a blue-black / / cloud mounting blue sky.  / / I
[Released from cloud the low sun at my back]
his shadow / / beside the river?  / / —
grey willow, other / / than olive.  Cypress / / are you?—whose countr
Five Poems for Roni
erless shades of blue, breaking / / to
greys , to silver, white.  A light wind makes / / the flat sea wrinkle,
September Cruise
its core) / / pollute love, discolour
grief .  / / But from my old long love now and its grief / / these sta
[Feelings of guilt]
/ Time’s spiral course through joy and
grief / / exacts and justifies it all.  / / This riven world in which
Hymn
world on world gone.  / / Spare a small
grief / / for lovely shell or leaf / / that loosed or crushed before
Fossils
ner?  No.  / / Ours is emerald.  / / Our
grief is other: how seldom can we go / / cropping it together, being
[The grass in the next field]
d or above, / / love in bliss, love in
grief .  Love is God.  God is Love / /
Hymn
found in an affirmative answer / / her
grief not lessened / / but pride to help her.  / / My mother had her
Wounds
ment of our guilt, / / apprehension of
grief .  / / Our gratitude weighs no less than our care.  / /
May Day, 1986
/ But from my old long love now and its
grief / / these stains are being washed away / / by the strong strea
[Feelings of guilt]
brought shimmering shadows / / to the
griefs and joys / / of life in the flat fields / / under the sky’s b
The Green Children of Woolpit
ain— / / loitering, spying on her high
griefs —coarse, rude— / / crossly she turned her look and step aside. 
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
the grave / / any of me will last, to
grieve / / and joy with those I love and leave.  / / And any other wa
Survival
too.  / / That’s how it goes.  More than
grieve for her / / missing, love what she had and was, is, / / and l
A poem you may like to see
Huddled in his barbed camp we fret, we
grieve / / numbly under his rifling hands, but he / / leaves us our
Age
u that way.  / / I don’t say / / don’t
grieve .  Of course you will.  But share / / what matters with me (you w
A poem you may like to see
l apart, / / only the sullen grey / /
grieving’s not there / / but piercing longing to be where / / whatev
[The clouds that pressed the air]
of wrong or right.  The desert-beach was
grim / / but was the way, one way and no mistake.  / / Now, though, t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
d—not indeed Despair / / but, huge and
grim enough, / / the Black Knight of the Question-Mark, / / and with
Masque
n arrows.  And the way / / home was the
grim mountains…  But the way on?  / / The words seemed almost spoken mo
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
imbing from cape and cliff…  He felt the
grim / / threat, shivered in the sun.  So what?  Go back?  / / A gust b
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
s his feet / / down grey boredoms, the
grim wait; / / always his mocking game / / stacked against us.  / /
Two Poems from a New Life
knuckles / / in the rough black London
grime .  / / I’ve fallen before / / (my feet almost as clumsy as my fi
The Fall
er / / of earth and air,” I said, “the
grime that palls / / this town must choke you more than me.”  “A chang
The Black-out
proffered hope, / / pretend kindness… 
Grind the axe, / / heap the faggots.  Notch it up.  / /
Royal Family
my heavy bag, / / my weight behind me
grinding my raw knuckles / / in the rough black London grime.  / / I’
The Fall
er rarity.  / / Next morning hooves and
grinding wheels awoke him.  / / He looked down on the yard, straight f
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ng man,” she’d say.  He crowed again and
grinned .  / / And once when a great wind-gust caught the water / / an
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
fell, heavy on knees and knuckles, / /
gripping the handle of my heavy bag, / / my weight behind me grinding
The Fall
o your grave / / and yet you speak and
groan .  / / Is it the earth that weighs on you, / / that and your hea
A Ballad
s and horrible pain / / ground him.  He
groaned , and groaning felt himself / / there, somewhere, here, someth
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ught up more of the foul brine.  / / He
groaned and retched and vomited again, / / and knew himself alive and
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
d then I heard the dead man / / how he
groaned , and said / / “Are you a Turk?  Trample me then, / / foul me
A Ballad
e pain / / ground him.  He groaned, and
groaning felt himself / / there, somewhere, here, something at least
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Freedom / The gate
groans to behind, / / thud of finality.  / / Strange town at closing-
Freedom
/ conscious terrified eyes and numbed
groin ; / / white figures, busy hands, flicker of steel / / at the ro
Block 21
/ The girl grew up and married a young
groom / / in the King’s stables.  To their eldest daughter / / the fo
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
fs, curb that sand-edged plain?  / / He
groped .  A glimmer, sinking.  If it fails, / / darkness…  But no, the li
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ntrance there.  / / Back up the steps I
groped into the murk.  / / The moon was clouded, I was deadly tired.  /
The Black-out
armly help and guide.  / / Flash on our
groping a recurring vision / / of possible pattern laid through the c
Prayer to Truth
nd twisting to its end / / his fingers
groping felt another door.  / / He found the handle.  The small room da
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
.  Know / / featureless faces ground by
gross / / poverty, in common loss / / unsingular.  / / Here a pittan
Dinner
ng and beautiful / / but powerless and
grotesque / / where a man’s arm should spring.  / / Would he then, /
Fairy Story
/ of some at home dead in the ice-hard
ground .  / /
Gunnar of Lithend
/ / He gained much ground—but was such
ground a gain?  / / The dim light dimmed further, and soon he must, /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / a sleep that must see him into the
ground / / before another woke her; and knew drowned / / his brave t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
.  / / He turned on to the unencumbered
ground / / between the thorn-wall and the pine.  But soon / / a few y
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
he could not stop.  / / He gained much
ground —but was such ground a gain?  / / The dim light dimmed further,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ee streets.  Know / / featureless faces
ground by gross / / poverty, in common loss / / unsingular.  / / Her
Dinner
/ eyes, “is in Cambridge.”  “I am in the
ground , / / cold bones in Haworth,” said the parson’s daughter; / /
The Black-out
rd time frantically round the bare / /
ground -floor, a third time round the upper, and / / in a dark corner
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
t floor a second time in vain— / / the
ground -floor too, but he was still alone…  / / The fairy’s curse—a sho
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
rness.  / / To Carabosse all things are
ground for hate, / / but here we meet the other side—pity / / and lo
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e pain, sickness and horrible pain / /
ground him.  He groaned, and groaning felt himself / / there, somewher
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / off its tree for me may reach the
ground .  / / I have found / / a sounder spell.  Our love.  / / There w
[Golden, red, brown]
/ / and slept like death on the uneven
ground .  / / Like death, but in the dawn touched by a dream / / half
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
nnowing-fan.”  / / Plant the oar in the
ground , / / mark out a temenos, build an altar, sacrifice / / there
Odysseus
/ grease wiped from rifles, a new edge
ground on spears / / —a stack of polished shells or polished shields
On the Border
eon or Pericles / / draws to the drill-
ground the flower of life and land.  / / The shepherds of Parnes or th
On the Border
.  / / She sat a long time on the stony
ground , / / the naked sword across her naked thighs, / / staring dow
Pelopia and Thyestes
, unmagic we shall find / / the common
ground we left behind / / matter-of-fact with house and lane.  / / O
[Seen from the hill the hazy plain]
ly, / / to be there always in the dark
ground / / with the dead child.  / / Popular name for archaeologist /
Label
evails / / forcing it from its fishing-
grounds .  / / Nature’s brutal economy holds a mirror / / to human doi
Heron and Gulls
What am I?  / How, when the
ground’s gone from under one’s feet, / / find a fixed point from whic
What am I?
sense the boundaries / / of sex or age-
group , class or race— / / the single greatest human good, / / sign o
Love…  No
y a basket for Artemis / / to her holy
grove in the feast-day procession / / (they’d a lot of animals, even
Spells and Love
/ —trees specially sacred in the holy
grove .  / / You that I’ve named, you that I’ve forgotten, / / you tha
Poetry
ur flesh and spirit, longing-torn, / /
grow bitter with the burden of the years.  / / Make viable our hopes a
Prayer to Time
threads she wove in love and hope / /
grow dim to her and lose their power, / / but on his arm still burnin
Ballad
and forth.  The trader found his markets
grow .  / / Friendship joined hands there.  And the singular glow / / o
Sur le Pont d’Avignon
ndign may come / / indeed, but it must
grow / / from seed yourself shall sow / / in your own daughter’s wom
Pelopia and Thyestes
/ Let us learn wisdom at the oar, and
grow / / kinder by your unkindness, cruel Time.  / / Let not our fles
Prayer to Time
o itself, itself into its shadows, / /
grow one again with nature in the night.  / /
Dream under a Carob-tree
flesh cast its bloom and shapely hands
grow sharp.  / / Here be content only to form and keep / / peace in t
Inscription for a Convent
; I shivered, watching / / the gondola
grow smaller on the wide / / water—so lose them too?  But the shrammed
The Black-out
lled, / / Dropped from my child-heart,
grow / / there where they were buried long ago: / / one from the gar
Bury My Heart
mong / / down, under spread wing; / /
growing , never grows / / wholly away, stays / / linked still to pare
Parenthood
untry, where you played as a child / /
growing the you I love.  Yet that land / / I move through in your word
Two Poems for G
/ / out of the same darkness strangely
growing / / with warmth and light and the returning sun / / another
Winter Solstice
ered me / / relationship—only an inner-
grown / / and self-existent you I cannot see.”  / / “I am not all tha
The Black-out
then another / / and six cygnets, full
grown / / but still grey.  Silver / / rather than grey.  / / Silver a
Return
—have I ever really, though, / / quite
grown up?  But that’s / / another question.) The thing / / that strik
Climacteric by the Sea
each, splash and shout / / in the sea. 
Grown -ups lounge out / / from the pub to drink on the wall / / or si
Climacteric by the Sea
glancing occasionally / / towards the
grown -ups / / (to check that they are there).  / / Give him a smile /
[Time is a child]
and the walls stay, distilled knowledge
grows black, / / an unbalance, an ache, / / breeds nightmares and th
Chrysalis
w who) to my house.  / / This maresbane
grows in Arcadia, and all the foals / / and their mothers, cropping i
Spells and Love
/ the eye of the Corinth canal.  Another
grows / / in the far corner of Weymouth Bay, at Ringstead, / / looks
Bury My Heart
undress to bathe.  / / My crooked heart
grows old.  / /
Another Summer
the moon.  / / Sometimes when the self
grows thin / / I am my father or my son.  / / A mechanist philosophy
Shadow and Substance
don drawn / / about the isolated brain
grows tight.  / / Roads closed, wires cut, / / he sees no more the kn
Nijinsky
under spread wing; / / growing, never
grows / / wholly away, stays / / linked still to parents / / by fib
Parenthood
atred’s well invested.  The capital / /
grows year by year.  Love / / lies in the current account.  We spend it
Choice
ft a little gap / / filled long ago by
growth , and now / / the threads she wove in love and hope / / grow d
Ballad
, see, / / can’t watch the change, the
growth .  But after all / / it won’t be long before I’m out of it too. 
A poem you may like to see
/ back of Australian bush.  / / We are
growth , greenness, / / water falling, flowing.  / / Not enough sun /
Drought
no end.  / / Still through the hostile
growth he pressed and thrust, / / clothes torn, skin bloody, but he c
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
etween rock-broken falls / / and rough
growth of the steep / / difficult slope.  / / People have scrambled u
[The track up the wild stream]
/ A golden age, an Eden / / before the
growth of wrong / / has haunted human fancy / / indissolubly long /
Other World
initiated bride / / cycle of seed and
growth , strength and decay; / / tomorrow’s natural course / / follow
Wedding Night
rnoons he slept, utterly done, / / but
grudged all such delays, the daylight’s waste— / / not that he had a
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
all across it play / / flickers of the
grumbling storm, / / and through this warm / / clear air / / goosef
Antipodes
.  No one at all.  / / No one.  The empty
guard -room seemed to wait— / / bench, table, brazier, weapons on the
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
laughing sea.  / / Among the emperor’s
guard the wine goes round / / with rattle of dice and song, and some
Gunnar of Lithend
even the tongue-tied struggler jealous
guards / / his refuge of unspoken words.  / / It takes long plotting
The Party
Eugénie de
Guérin / She hung out of her window to watch the stars.  / / They hust
Eugénie de Guérin
hepherdess of Cahuzac / from Eugénie de
Guérin’s Journal / The girl came into the church / / from changing li
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
for which one guesses / / or fails to
guess a meaning, be the mere slicing / / across our world, with which
Dimension
rester’s house / / and found it, as he
guessed , empty—all gone / / together to the castle?  Carabosse / / ha
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ a craving to be had by… well, you’ve
guessed .  / / His lust, once lit, burned on.  So, did they find / / re
Beyond Measure
e in a new / / and subtler one.  You’ve
guessed it: cannot true / / love fore-defeat the devil’s monstrous ga
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
o circumvent them which they never / /
guessed .  She was sempstress now, and competent.  / / She was at work o
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ of Alpha Centauri (faster), of some
guessed star / / in Andromeda’s nebula.  / / The goal whisks on, / /
Curvature of Space
seeming happenings here, for which one
guesses / / or fails to guess a meaning, be the mere slicing / / acr
Dimension
ourt alone had come, / / with princely
guests , from the late autumn on / / till the New Year to hunt.  Those
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
nd communicate.  / / But what about the
Guiccioli ? about Augusta? / / and his friendships, which had always s
“Tell Lady Byron…”
w.  / / “Speak to him,” gravely said my
guide ; and I / / “many have I honoured, many loved, but none, / / no
The Black-out
to him / / smiling:  “You were my kind
guide and my friend / / a happy summer I shall not forget.”  / / He b
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
“our way lies on,” / / turned, saw my
guide , and turned again.  The chill / / wind seemed among my bones.  Mo
The Black-out
bright, dwindling.  Were they not / / a
guide ?  At least an omen.  ‘I accept.’  / / A day, a night—two, three da
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ry of the dead / / but warmly help and
guide .  / / Flash on our groping a recurring vision / / of possible p
Prayer to Truth
re so / / he must believe she’d make a
guide for him.  / / He turned inland, thrusting through stiff dune-gra
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ank grey sky over all / / (no trees to
guide his forest-sense)—east, west, / / north, south, all points were
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ssly scraping gay unheeded time / / to
guide in draughts and grease (rooms over shops) / / rude Master Tom’s
La Fontaine et le Déluge
ut long neglect / / had left it more a
guide -line than a road.  / / And then, perhaps a quarter of a mile /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ured, many loved, but none, / / not my
guide , more than you.”  He answered: “why / / worshipping us, have you
The Black-out
possessed, / / half turned; but not my
guide .  My purpose froze.  / / We went on, but I felt as we turned West
The Black-out
r faintly…  Now, suddenly known / / her
guide of four years back—and understood.  / / ‘He loves me.  That boy l
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
lk the woods; they chose / / to be her
guide (oh, well-spent years!) the boy.  / / So that summer for seven e
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
you will find us still / / to help and
guide , only departing should / / the heart reject us, if it can and w
The Black-out
e more is / / truth but not flesh,” my
guide said; “not the scene / / which nicely rounds so many wishful st
The Black-out
nt for him, sent for him—omen, yes, and
guide .  / / The birds, the ruffled sea, changelessly changing, / / th
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ce and patience should know how to / /
guide the cross spirit with a steady rein / / now dogrose bushes star
Again
come with us too?  Come with us.”  But my
guide / / touched me; I shook my head: “meet soon.”  The boat / / pas
The Black-out
a while.  / / At Blackfriars’ Bridge my
guide turned up the hill / / by narrow alleys where the houses pile,
The Black-out
t—that world I knew.”  / / “Prophet and
guide , unhoped for helper sent me,” / / I said, “I would of all have
The Black-out
ng, / / to protect us from fear and to
guide us along.  / / Yet we stand here today, not two selves but a pai
Hymn
the noiseless passage of my friend and
guide .  / / We turned, and left behind the shadowy spaces / / of Parl
The Black-out
d my gaze.  / / “You know,” remarked my
guide , “you make a cross / / too easily out of your natural load” /
The Black-out
Not courage nor the offered avatar / /
guided his thought to a deliberate choice / / of dedication.  The offe
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / but still by personal intellect is
guided / / his way who will.”  I smiled: “surely from you / / comes m
The Black-out
/ to follow something other / / which
guides us against reason.  / / But most, surely, to care.  / / Care fo
Caring
d water runs by walls.  / / I sought my
guide’s look: “uncorrupted lover / / of earth and air,” I said, “the
The Black-out
Freedom, this too burns among / / our
guiding stars.  / / Fraternity.  / / That at least (at last) is easy. 
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
are, he drowsed, half dreaming yet / /
guiding the tiller—whence he had embarked / / withdrawn and lost as w
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
to turn from the world’s woes.  / / In
Guildford Place, where London’s nicest statue / / kneels with her pit
The Black-out
y always.  / / Can only keep / / as to
guilt , a certain sense of proportion; / / an unforgetting longing for
Judgement
perfect by / / acknowledgement of our
guilt , / / apprehension of grief.  / / Our gratitude weighs no less t
May Day, 1986
our fear for them, / / is that shared
guilt .  But our love stands free. / / thank you for loving me, letting
[Our lives are in other hands]
[Feelings of
guilt ] / Feelings of guilt, feelings of resentment / / (resentment wo
[Feelings of guilt]
[Feelings of guilt] / Feelings of
guilt , feelings of resentment / / (resentment worse perhaps, but hard
[Feelings of guilt]
metimes wicked as well, / / sharing in
guilt , part of the guilty world.  / / Visited on our children…  Part of
[Our lives are in other hands]
ement / In this matter of innocence and
guilt / / we can’t win.  We’re all guilty always.  / / Can only keep /
Judgement
/ shifts into proportion resentments,
guilts .  / / And oh I pray it can do the same for yours.  / / But deat
[White foam sweeps]
rs.  / / But death, though it froze the
guilts , the resentments, / / is easier accepted than a living trouble
[White foam sweeps]
and guilt / / we can’t win.  We’re all
guilty always.  / / Can only keep / / as to guilt, a certain sense of
Judgement
ll defending / / justice, seem equally
guilty of the strife / / with gangsters and with gamblers on the game
The Black-out
ning day?  / / We too, we two, / / are
guilty with the rest, and like the rest / / without power, / / can o
May Day, 1986
ell, / / sharing in guilt, part of the
guilty world.  / / Visited on our children…  Part of the pain, / / the
[Our lives are in other hands]
e’s bed] / Lancelot’s blood must run in
Guinevere’s bed / / because he could not have her maidenhead.  / /
[Lancelot’s blood must run in Guinevere’s bed]
[Lancelot’s blood must run in
Guinevere’s bed] / Lancelot’s blood must run in Guinevere’s bed / / b
[Lancelot’s blood must run in Guinevere’s bed]
/ / surprised, I listened to the faint
guitar .  / / Down to the quay below Westminster Bridge, / / where tri
The Black-out
e retched, and felt the salt and bitter
gulf / / get him hard by the throat again.  He retched / / again, and
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e rocky promontory / / looks over blue
gulf -water to the blue / / mountains of Achaea, and through / / the
Bury My Heart
stal, child to children / / as gull to
gull across the sand and water.  / / Look, on the sand a small way fro
For Rachel
lone, / / gull-tenanted, and soon / /
gull -dropping-white / / on the myth-dark / / sea; that is yet this s
The Sea
are not air, which are not sea) / / a
gull jerks its oil-bound strength about, / / that way, this way, no w
Black
im to a stone / / humped in the tides,
gull -lone, / / gull-tenanted, and soon / / gull-dropping-white / /
The Sea
l of the swan / / and that of the grey
gull .  Nearer the bone / / was the moorhen.  / / Like something not kn
Yeats and Water-Birds
stand and move.  / / He took the bow.  A
gull perched on the cliff.  / / He aimed and loosed, but the shaft pas
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ humped in the tides, gull-lone, / /
gull -tenanted, and soon / / gull-dropping-white / / on the myth-dark
The Sea
the crystal, child to children / / as
gull to gull across the sand and water.  / / Look, on the sand a small
For Rachel
achel / Above the sea and the wide sand
gulls fly calling / / or walk far out by the ripples’ edge, where chi
For Rachel
oth wicked and absurd, / / to stalking
gulls slow-pecking on the sand, / / getting quite close before he loo
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Heron and
Gulls / The heron manoeuvres its slow galleon-sails, / / writhes its
Heron and Gulls
ss of tomorrow.  / / Brief wind ruckles
gulls ’ feathers, wrinkles water, / / drops, still.  Break from above i
For Rachel
.  / / Her laughter’s end was lost in a
gull’s cry, / / repeated, dropped, picked up, interminably / / torme
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
a-urchins.”  / / “May I…?”  She laughed (
gull’s cry) “To buy and sell / / love-presents is unlucky” (that laug
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
aked, spiny, treacherous stone, / / no
gull’s sad cry for company, alone.  / / No game, no streams, hardly a
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
g-shit in London; / / New York, chewed
gum .  / / To each culture-surface / / its proper scum.  / /
Pavements
I my ten-palm sword / / and my fathom
gun ?  / / A likely lad, a bonny fighter / / by nights without a moon.
A Ballad
eak jail / / —a few friends (brothers)—
gun and knife— / / a few men killed.  The break failed.  / / Jackson w
George Jackson
/ Sentries, patrol with dog and tommy-
gun / / where crave in their cat’s-cradle of barbed wire / / these p
Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank
Gunnar of Lithend / Riding down to the ship of exile waiting / / in t
Gunnar of Lithend
per skill.  He almost lived afloat.  / /
Gurgle and clop and slap and hiss, water / / moving along the moving
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ed in the sun.  So what?  Go back?  / / A
gust bellied the sail, and then strengthened.  / / He moved the tiller
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
rinned.  / / And once when a great wind-
gust caught the water / / and spooned a pint of brine over his head,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Scheme / A word, a
gust / / of wind, and our delightful plan is dust.  / / The loved, th
Scheme
ostly scattered, lost in / / defeating
gusts , but comes in bright bursts as if / / to remind me that your vo
Two Poems from a New Life
her brilliant head / / by time’s rough
gusts soon to be tonsured.  / / Spring came, and hardly come had fled
Dance of the Seasons
oved hands / / which deftly shaved and
gutted the gay shell.  / / That tempted him.  “What are they?”  “Sea-urc
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
k towards the palpable vision.  / / The
guttering candle flared up straight.  Out.  / / Night claimed him.  / /
Pietà
:  / / Winterhalter, Gounod, Offenbach,
Guys , / / Viollet-le-Duc, Dumas fils, / / red velvet drapes, glitter
Time’s Reach