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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

L

e Air / Flying high / Flying low / (for
L ) / Far down past melting drifts of cloud / / remote and faint lies
From the Air
Love…  No / (for
L ) / Love… no, for this that word won’t do, / / alike too wide and to
Love…  No
author / / of Le Rouge et le Noir and
La Chartreuse de Parme.  / /
Time’s Reach
La Fontaine et le Déluge / “Some food, for pity.”  / / “Why?  What did
La Fontaine et le Déluge
urrent moods, I’m forgetful of:  / / De
la Mare very early, Christina, the other Emily / / —trees specially s
Poetry
Label / The objects in this case / / were taken from a grave: / / a
Label
ours and dances, / / images himself at
labour and at play.  / / Man creates himself in his own image.  / / Th
Dream under a Carob-tree
back, / / bring back some token of my
labour and love.’  / / It was her birthday soon.  The court would come.
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ll of God / / which set the peasant to
labour and not question / / and her to tread, and equally not questio
Eugénie de Guérin
ould have stayed: / / what passion and
labour made / / perfect, what even chance / / left unspoiled.  / / A
Progress
ir mother’s dark sources / / past that
laboured earth.  / /
The Green Children of Woolpit
n the marble circle / / where they had
laboured with heavy flails, beating / / the husks from the grains, he
Dream under a Carob-tree
n / / have him at work or at play.  Man
labours and dances, / / images himself at labour and at play.  / / Ma
Dream under a Carob-tree
ond a doubt / / that somewhere in that
labyrinth lay his goal.  / / Not for itself the mountain had commanded
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ng child) / / yet never lacked, do not
lack , delight, / / would be wholly sorry to have missed life / / on
Climacteric by the Sea
duced by the ache / / attendant on the
lack / / of loving, mutual touch.  / /
Touch
ce / / patience may comfort you in the
lack of peace, / / itself may prove a substitute for peace, / / a su
Patience
is dream, all gone.  / / Would he, from
lack of will to live, have let / / death take him there under the tho
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
eat or happy.  / / Greatness I think we
lack since Yeats is dead; / / yet we have Eliot, for whom in Auden no
The Black-out
nd alighting— / / your smooth-polished
lackadaisical perfection / / grates.  I move away / / admiring perhap
Hermes of Olympia
this cartwheeling child) / / yet never
lacked , do not lack, delight, / / would be wholly sorry to have misse
Climacteric by the Sea
another tooth out / / I wonder if the
lack’ll / / offend you to see.  / / Never doubting that you do love m
[Age’s bony knuckle]
beautiful / / their coloured-shining,
lacquered shell; / / even the tongue-tied struggler jealous guards /
The Party
d / / and my fathom gun?  / / A likely
lad , a bonny fighter / / by nights without a moon.  / / Three nights
A Ballad
s for the hills.  And there we leave the
lad .  / / Later there’s more of him that may be heard / / from one wh
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ but on my head alone?  / / Wasn’t I a
lad too once, / / as likely as they come?  / / Hadn’t I my ten-palm s
A Ballad
Much of the rest was vague.  He knew the
lad / / was taken as a forester, and ever / / a loved friend in the
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
temper runs along the table / / like a
ladder down a stocking, like flame / / along dry wood.  But flame is b
Back Room, 1944
hout window, without path, / / without
ladder , he found himself, / / climbed into his own light.  / /
George Jackson
flame is beautiful / / —more like the
ladder in the stocking, wrecking / / the firm silk.  He’s a fool / /
Back Room, 1944
op, / / for in this game / / at every
ladder’s top / / you find a snake begin.  / /
The Game
/ that more cars may carry more carcase-
ladings / / farther, faster, in their frantic, red-queen, / / heartb
Full Circle
/ All the girls get married, and likely
lads they wed, / / but for me, pretty Janet, the sick man on his bed.
Greek Folk Song
turally calm and clear.  / / ‘She is my
lady and a prince’s wife.’  / / He stumbled, looked up, did not know t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
my house.  / / Three libations to you,
lady , and with each I cry / / “Be it a woman he lies by, be it a man,
Spells and Love
ught me how to use them.  / / But away,
Lady , bend your team to Ocean / / now, and I’ll bear my longing as I
Spells and Love
dead, he lay / / wounded to death.  His
lady bent above, / / the hot tears running down her face, and cried /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
n—music of the spheres, / / light—your
Lady broke the spell / / of eternity in Hell.  / / I had passed thirt
Virgil’s Farewell to Dante
d / / that very fiery particle, it was
Lady Byron / / he wanted told… what?  / /
“Tell Lady Byron…”
“Tell
Lady Byron…”  / What did he want her told?  Why indeed / / want to tell
“Tell Lady Byron…”
Lady into Fox / Sally Gilmour dancing / The lady of the house / / shr
Lady into Fox
are the springs of my love.  Mark them,
lady Moon.  / / About half way, near Lycon’s, who should pass us / /
Spells and Love
are the springs of my love.  Mark them,
lady Moon.  / / —“And if you had let me in (and they say I’m handsome
Spells and Love
are the springs of my love.  Mark them,
lady Moon. / / —and Theumaridas’ old Thracian nurse (she’s dead now),
Spells and Love
are the springs of my love.  Mark them,
lady Moon. / / —“and when you see he’s alone, give him a sign, / / t
Spells and Love
are the springs of my love.  Mark them,
lady Moon.  / / At last I made my mind up.  I said to my slave / / “Th
Spells and Love
are the springs of my love.  Mark them,
lady Moon.  / / —“But as it is, I owe thanks first to the Cyprian / /
Spells and Love
are the springs of my love.  Mark them,
lady Moon.  / / He looked at me, the rake, then lowered his eyes, / /
Spells and Love
are the springs of my love.  Mark them,
lady Moon.  / / —“He wantonly crazes the maiden out of her bower, / /
Spells and Love
are the springs of my love.  Mark them,
lady Moon.  / / I saw him, and my wits left me.  My wretched heart / /
Spells and Love
are the springs of my love.  Mark them,
lady Moon.  / / —“I was coming, by sweet Love’s self I swear I was com
Spells and Love
are the springs of my love.  Mark them,
lady Moon.  / / —I went colder than snow all over.  A drenching sweat /
Spells and Love
are the springs of my love.  Mark them,
lady Moon.  / / My colour faded—sallow as a dead leaf.  / / My hair fe
Spells and Love
into Fox / Sally Gilmour dancing / The
lady of the house / / shrinks from a shrilling horn.  / / Slips from
Lady into Fox
/ / But Time has tricks.  / / The old
lady / / who in this century / / took her cliff-top walk at Cap Mart
Time’s Reach
ence.  / / The forester, the poor court-
lady’s son / / we knew before, could not with a like eye / / view a
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
planet Mercury?”  / / I was tired, jet-
lagged , half dreaming.  Is it a dream?  / / I turned and saw a little w
A Hoard
a hundred years, a hundred years, were
laid — / / a hundred years to lay him in the grave / / and raise a pr
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ the harbour under the dark hills is
laid .”  / / But she: “our way waits.”  I turned to my father / / and c
The Black-out
hames our faces.  / / Trafalgar Square,
laid empty in the moonlight, / / and long Whitehall received my echoi
The Black-out
mmemorial pasture from new plough, / /
laid face on arm he wept—sobbing waves / / of hot tears washing the w
A Dream
/ or lost, an acreage to our hands is
laid / / heavier if not so wide.  / / Those who must die, let not the
Prayer to Truth
aid the king his father dead, / / then
laid his mother in his father’s bed, / / but got no extra kick from t
No Complex
speak with you.”  / / “You’re dead and
laid into your grave / / and yet you speak and groan.  / / Is it the
A Ballad
s to this brightness of a sword / / He
laid it among the reeds again, went slowly back / / to tell the king
Finis
/ but he pulled out his pistol / / and
laid me where I lie.  / / Friend, you’re a christened man, / / weep f
A Ballad
y.”  / / She stroked his hair, his head
laid on her knee.  / / “The fairy’s promise is the prince’s bride.”  /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
l.”  / / This respectable curse / / is
laid on us: worse / / than women or drink / / is laughter, is sobbin
Merrie England
le bores’ / / he thought.  And suddenly
laid plans to go.  / / His elder cousin was by no means plain / / or
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
o early.”  / / But I’d talked enough.  I
laid the girl / / down among the flowers.  A soft cloak spread, / / m
Love Scene
No Complex / Oedipus
laid the king his father dead, / / then laid his mother in his father
No Complex
ood, / / and first of the faggots they
laid / / the rose from the wood.  / / Shriven, she raised her face /
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
His world / / of living day?  / / She
laid the thing in her apron, / / slipped away.  / / The priest comes
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
straight trunks—the armature where they
laid / / their fugitive creations, the three sweet witches.  / / The
Dance of the Seasons
aching you so, it surely should be / /
laid there for you somehow to tread it / / with lightened feet.  / /
September Cruise
curring vision / / of possible pattern
laid through the confusion.  / / Truth, find us strength to make our w
Prayer to Truth
/ is fault not affliction.  What have I
laid up?  Where?  / /
Treasure
/ total and dead.  The world before him
laid / / was his and nothing.  Now he’d journey far / / and make hims
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
d sun / / the world in infinite beauty
laid .  / / “What else?  What else?”  / / Nothing.  “And what have left u
Interrogation
lling on a bed.  / / She seemed to have
lain down, dropped into dream, / / just now.  Her face was from him, b
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
rince to confront the monsters in their
lairs , / / outwit the witches, win the sweet princess.  / / The old s
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
n the last light, before it sank in the
lake .  / /
Finis
d it flashing towards the middle of the
lake .  / / A hand came up and caught it, swung it, a bright circle /
Finis
ech-trees / / rise out of the bluebell-
lake , / / and everywhere the clear green / / (soft and strong as a c
Seasons
ss it in the lake,” He went back to the
lake / / and stood and turned the bright sword in his hands / / then
Finis
the grey sky / / he stood by the grey
lake / / and turned the sword in his hands.  / / There were gems in t
Finis
d tell the king he had tossed it in the
lake .  / / But the dying king knew better / / and sent him back to th
Finis
ew better / / and sent him back to the
lake .  / / He turned the sword in his hands.  / / The king his master
Finis
ster to be obeyed.  / / “Toss it in the
lake ,” He went back to the lake / / and stood and turned the bright s
Finis
o tell the king he had tossed it in the
lake .  / / The king was not deceived.  / / Angry?  No.  Hardly sad.  / /
Finis
ur right.”  / / “Thanks.  Did you lose a
lamb the other day?  / / I found a dead one this side, not far from he
On the Border
rust them.  He may / / have stolen that
lamb —too many of them get lost.”  / / “Why does he keep his flock so f
On the Border
, it would be / / curmudgeonly / / to
lament / / more than gently this slackening strength.  / /
[The track up the wild stream]
Shadow and Substance / The
lamp in the translucent pane / / reflected overlays the moon.  / / So
Shadow and Substance
s / / towards sun, moon, / / fisher’s
lamp , recurring flashes / / of lighthouse beam.  The path is always /
September Cruise
Lift it again.  / / Naked under brutal
lamps , / / fine Jewish features suffering-sunk / / down on the colla
Stray Thoughts at a Wedding
ded belt, / / Betelgeuse and the clear
lamps .  / / Suns burn, worlds spin unhindered on.  / / This veiling is
Night
Lamps / We are the passing contacts of two worlds.  / / Power out of s
Lamps
’s blood must run in Guinevere’s bed] /
Lancelot’s blood must run in Guinevere’s bed / / because he could not
[Lancelot’s blood must run in Guinevere’s bed]
[
Lancelot’s blood must run in Guinevere’s bed] / Lancelot’s blood must
[Lancelot’s blood must run in Guinevere’s bed]
find his life…”  Is this / / too mirror-
land ?  / /
Through the Looking-Glass
/ And all along that flat edge of flat
land / / a young man journeying.  A sense of loss, / / pain deeply fe
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
he light stretched long across the dewy
land / / and you unheeded, to whom now we pray; / / Time, whose conv
Prayer to Time
a board:  / / “End of Reserve.  Private
land beyond.  / / Do not trespass”.  / / The unbroken path whispered,
Los Altos Hills
/ / Here too sea clings round the hard
land / / but other water is rare, rare as trees.  / / The sun, the ha
Varangian in Mickelgard
/ your presence at my side in this your
land .  / / But still the path tempted me on.  / / And suddenly I reach
Los Altos Hills
from the sea / / flat on the climbing
land , flat on the coast / / the rock-piled and the sandy promontory /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
meant.”  When he won in / / at last to
land , he lay as good as dead / / he didn’t know how long.  He sensed t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
d / / growing the you I love.  Yet that
land / / I move through in your words, love through your eyes, / / I
Two Poems for G
dare now go free, rejoice / / in a new
land in a new love, a wife / / perhaps, children.  For him it was not
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
need / / if you’ve the courage for the
land -journey.”  / / She stroked his hair, his head laid on her knee.  /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / a distant, lovely, rough and empty
land .  / / Learning from rangers, lost for lonely miles, / / he knew
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
oo.  / / He’ll find it doesn’t do.  / /
Land , ocean, wind, / / starved and poisoned must / / starve and pois
Dr Faustus
rt; / / you brought us to the promised
land of love / / (garden more sweet than childhood’s happy valley) /
Prayer to Time
heart / / is more than hard.  / / One
land , one house, one life, differently viewed / / is Eden, prison, pa
A Window
children, grandchildren; your sea, your
land ; / / our good love in its best time, here, now is / / with me w
[White foam sweeps]
and storm / / when all we see / / of
land shall cease / / to be, or change its nature, structure, form.  /
The Sea
ert Island?  / Loved England, / / green
land skeletal with dead elms and beeches / / (beautiful girl with ano
Desert Island?
The Sea / for Lucy, by request / The
land stoops to the sea.  / / Cliff, rock, sand, pebble beach, / / yie
The Sea
he flat green plain.  The change / / in
land -structure intrigued his thoughts today.  / / South up the coast,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
the drill-ground the flower of life and
land .  / / The shepherds of Parnes or the Pyrenees / / are fetched to
On the Border
ft shadow.  / / You, in your other / /
land , tread another / / sharper shadow / / than ever willow / / wea
Five Poems for Roni
/ / But he would talk about the forest-
land / / where he had lived—that’s why he was so good / / at all tha
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
g down a bird.  / / Three of his arrows
landed in the sea / / (though one he did get back); and presently /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
n Ithaca, from the end / / of the long
landlocked harbour with its island, / / enjoys the shining broom-slop
Bury My Heart
squatter’s tenure? / / where the harsh
landlord may distrain on all, / / the holding dissipate like sea-spra
The West of Ireland
The Wave / Easy to live in the
lands above the sea, / / claim nothing within the sea’s reach.  / / E
The Wave
appears, / / until I looked beyond the
lands of my language / / and Homer and Dante joined him as peers.  /
Poetry
/ / harvests a mint of luck in distant
lands , / / returns…  The youngest, not the only son.  / / He dare not
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ Clear, bright, very cold.  / / A hard
landscape , beautiful / / but hard.  Very cold.  / / Why should a chang
For Cecil
Change / Language and
landscape change.  / / What we were bred to seems / / immutably the s
Change
a skyline, / / dips to a stream.  / /
Landscape is music: / / the heart’s dream / / weaves with what we se
Music is Landscape
Music is
Landscape / Music is landscape: / / wide grass / / melts to a skylin
Music is Landscape
/ / that we ever shall.  / / We love a
landscape or / / a picture or a face / / —person, thing and place, /
Fair Exchange
un were bold and high, / / an ordinary
landscape seem; / / where now an otherworld of art or dream / / (the
Early Train
Music is Landscape / Music is
landscape : / / wide grass / / melts to a skyline, / / dips to a str
Music is Landscape
ill-rich city, on / / towards Chancery
Lane , but turned once more / / north up the Grays Inn Road.  Where the
The Black-out
edges] / Late October hedges along this
lane / / coloured with flowers / / (seasons are late this year):  /
[Late October hedges]
hind / / matter-of-fact with house and
lane .  / / O secret, o enchanted space / / thus spell-cast into time
[Seen from the hill the hazy plain]
he roads I took turned into lanes, / /
lanes dwindled into paths, / / and where should the path bring me to
A Ballad
arts.  / / The roads I took turned into
lanes , / / lanes dwindled into paths, / / and where should the path
A Ballad
pkins, the rest / / of Donne, a little
Langland , a lot of Chaucer, / / other Milton (flawed glory of Paradis
Poetry
/ until I looked beyond the lands of my
language / / and Homer and Dante joined him as peers.  / / But now th
Poetry
Change /
Language and landscape change.  / / What we were bred to seems / / im
Change
he’ll come, and lay / / gently in your
lap / / his favourite toy / / for you to enjoy / / a little, not ke
[Time is a child]
est of Ireland / Gorse and rock and bog
lap the wall / / and wind hurls the sea in the home’s face.  / / Who
The West of Ireland
a curve suddenly / / gave her the sea-
lapped city where this marriage / / should make her life.  Strange, an
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
under the clear / / sky, from our feet
laps to eternity.  / / Alone each listens, holding to an ear / / an e
Parted
in discord.  God must start again.  / /
Larch , gorse, rough grass, / / heather, bracken, moss, / / wild rose
Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank
/ / where once, between rose / / and
larch , Hell was.  / / Life is sweet, / / as you did not forget / / l
Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank
and grey / / and flecked with white of
large convolvulus caught / / among blackberry-flowers with torn edges
The Grass Road
eve widened to the junction of / / two
larger valleys.  Wind from distant snow / / struck deeply chill, but t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
oolly counterpointed by the cuckoo / /
lark song strikes out of the sun-paled blue.  / / Pass from the green
Two Summer Songs
time, / / shows himself a friend.  / /
Larks with difficulty into the wild wind / / wing, singing against it
Two Poems from a New Life
ly still.  / / He dropped the sails and
lashed the tiller.  Dressed / / and wrapped up in a rug he slept until
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ittle bole.”  / / Then, one morning, at
last , again / / faithless we find a miracle, / / tender on the high
Renewal
/ / from spaces where light drowns at
last , / / an ultimate diaspora.  / /
Entropy
ust perforce / / drive on the rocks at
last , and that be all.  / / The boat staggered under a gathered blow /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
eached / / behind the piling rocks.  At
last appeared / / a great wall of south-facing cliff, which stretched
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
here and here, up, down, / / settle at
last back on the stream, / / the water swirling under them, / / sure
How not to listen to music
its primal clarity— / / and could that
last best apparition be / / here but to lay some ointment to his sore
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
to breathe, / / trembling he stood at
last by his princess, / / heard in the stillness her soft breath, and
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Drifts over sky, / / drops over all at
last , / / contaminated dust.  / /
Headline
e of / / was true, and his beyond this
last defence.  / / Waking to water whispering by the bank, / / the da
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
us.  / / We know the spell of joys that
last , / / dreams which dissolve Time’s tyrannous / / one-way of futu
The Sirens
mud of an East-coast estuary.  / / The
last , dropped more lately, took deep root / / at Sheepstead, quiet co
Bury My Heart
t a mounting fear.  / / He knew in this
last fight against the good / / fairy, the bad was rousing all her po
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e might recognise / / the field of his
last fight.  But the dense floor / / kept all its secrets hidden.  He d
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
nter weather / / I could have cried at
last for it to go.  / / Then, when I felt my throat hard on the tether
The Black-out
end / Ripe they hang on the bough, / /
last -fruits of the primal tree / / matured ineluctably / / to fall a
In my beginning is my end
and laying it carefully in the reeds at
last , go back / / and tell the king he had tossed it in the lake.  /
Finis
track…  / / But thorn-crossed like the
last .  He looked again.  / / A pine…  Oh, fool—full-circle fool.  He wept
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
head, / / and lived (or died) too that
last horrible / / reach, among naked, spiny, treacherous stone, / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
my love.  Mark them, lady Moon.  / / At
last I made my mind up.  I said to my slave / / “Thestylis, you must f
Spells and Love
uiet sea / / the boat drifted from the
last impulse on…  / / So.  This way too…  Suppose the weather changes /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
oken) of the three, / / wrapped up the
last in red leaves from the wood / / and took the track he could have
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
, before your doubtful ruth / / in the
last instance do we lay our plea: / / our judges of appeal are Love a
Prayer to Time
/ / Fraternity.  / / That at least (at
last ) is easy.  / / Not easy to make work (we are all human) / / but
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
im / / he fought the tiller’s will.  At
last it gave / / and set the righted boat running before / / the win
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ng, enough’s irrelevant— / / after the
last leaf follows its crooked trail / / to carpet the bare wood, / /
[Golden, red, brown]
, swung it, a bright circle / / in the
last light, before it sank in the lake.  / /
Finis
And above the huge Pacific / / Mercury
last night.  / / One long ago summer midnight in the Thames valley /
A Hoard
The
Last Oracle / Tell the King: the intricate fane is fallen.  / / His pr
The Last Oracle
inarily, man.  / / But we must watch at
last our self-made image, / / when the sun leaves it, gather its own
Dream under a Carob-tree
ow, cerebral, unhappy Annabel? / / the
last person who should have picked on him, / / still less been taken
“Tell Lady Byron…”
ut man can do it— / / his greatest and
last proof of power and will— / / and part of what we ruin, we shall
Man in Nature
, an interrupted song.  / / There is no
last rose.  / / This year the constellations crowd and wander / / ric
Five Poems for Roni
/ / it slipped away from her.  / / At
last she turned her back, and so / / drew quickly near.  / / That was
Through the Looking-Glass
y about us here.  / / Pure light of the
last sky that does not move / / is God, who moves them all, moves us,
Cosmology
e youngest son, the chosen man) / / at
last suddenly across an unmarked border, / / thralled by a hand / /
Los Altos Hills
in my eyes, heart.  Other summers, / /
last summer, your world too.  / / Where are now / / the coloured worl
Green World
she tugged pitifully, / / and then at
last the naked blade came free… / / but he had done his business and
Pelopia and Thyestes
inevitably, steadily / / together.  At
last the planet’s fire / / begins to weaken, flicker, vanishes / / i
September Cruise
was / / that just at midnight, when at
last the Queen / / felt pain crown her initiation’s joy, / / an old
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
lost for lonely miles, / / he knew at
last the tracked woods like his hand.  / / Later he learned the fords
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
the dust.  / / As first, think of these
last : / / this man, this woman, this child.  / /
Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville
ing / / may turn a casual parting to a
last , / / though the night be deprived of moon and morning, / / day
The Black-out
/ / one from the year before.  / / The
last time this intercalary date / / joggled the calendar / / Cecil w
Leap Year
se out of the grave / / any of me will
last , to grieve / / and joy with those I love and leave.  / / And any
Survival
what he meant.”  When he won in / / at
last to land, he lay as good as dead / / he didn’t know how long.  He
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ the flag at the mast head / / goes
last under the wave.  / /
Five Poems for Roni
king through / / the tangles, light at
last upon a clue, / / draw one strand clear, even out of this skein,
Again
der the thorns?  Who knows?  / / But the
last word is not with Carabosse, / / or in this story was not, or not
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
dropped in water) / / pain; and worse (
last / / worst twist and waste) / / transmutation of love to cruelty
Stones
wheels on into the same seasons / / as
last year and all earlier years spun through.  / / God, if there is a
Question
Leap Year / No
last year’s letter, nor / / one from the year before.  / / The last t
Leap Year
/ / but they were knitted together in
lasting love / / before their mother / / died, when he was eight, sh
Eugénie de Guérin
from our panic deathwish, / / slip to
lasting sleep in a sterile slime.  / /
Full Circle
ouble and loss allow, / / harsh in its
lasting though their pain must be, / / and wide, wide the horizon of
The Black-out
and for good, a power.  / / But nothing
lasts indefinitely.  / / She fails now in her fated hour, / / hanging
Great Britain
ters back in the bleak wind / / an ill-
latched shutter of the mind.  / / I glimpse out there / / a swollen b
Dinner
oved.  / / Next day she slept late, but
late afternoon / / dry and still drew her down a forest-track.  / / T
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
n.  / / That night was warmer.  He slept
late , and then / / half a day’s walking brought him to the sand— / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
me, / / with princely guests, from the
late autumn on / / till the New Year to hunt.  Those three months gone
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
r little moved.  / / Next day she slept
late , but late afternoon / / dry and still drew her down a forest-tra
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
gs this year (may, daisies, roses) / /
late coming but, now come, here in profusion.  / / We are ruining the
Buttercups
own / / over humanity just / / in our
late -flowering hour, / / our children’s, their children’s opening day
May Day, 1986
ild rose was my flower.  Good that these
late flowers / / are here for me, you, us now in this late / / out-o
[Late October hedges]
/ / want to tell her anything at that
late hour?  / / Why her?  / / The whores and the boys of course were n
“Tell Lady Byron…”
Magic /
Late in a winter night, / / a round high moon lighting the field path
Magic
the cliff and on.  / / High on the col,
late in the afternoon, / / the rocks to left and right climbed steep
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / The unbelievable gift / / of our
late love should not be, cannot be / / rejected or even made less per
May Day, 1986
[Late October hedges] /
Late October hedges along this lane / / coloured with flowers / / (s
[Late October hedges]
[
Late October hedges] / Late October hedges along this lane / / colour
[Late October hedges]
mine.  My soul cries (child) to stay up
late —“Oh / / don’t send me to bed yet—I want to play, to / / read, f
The Betrayal
/ are here for me, you, us now in this
late / / out-of-season summer / / we are giving each other / / or f
[Late October hedges]
ng thus unforehopedly blest / / in the
late radiance of / / this encompassing untroubled love, / / I don’t
[Yes, you’re right]
one / / who loved her dearly though so
late .  / / She liked his love.  She liked him well.  / / After long col
Ballad
f someone there.  He stared dully.  Then,
late , / / smarted into himself.  Before him stood / / an old woman in
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Late Spring / A blackbird on the wire / / has a straw in its beak /
Late Spring
scape.  / / Now, outside hope, / / the
late sun breaks through / / and round us, me and you / / touching, t
[Most of us, somewhere along the road]
coloured with flowers / / (seasons are
late this year): / / pink of campion and wild geranium, / / toad-fla
[Late October hedges]
nocking at the door / / one dark night
late when they were going to bed.  / / My mother—she was your age, jus
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
oned; and he’d been nearly drowned / /
lately , crossing a river he knew well.  / / He turned along the bank,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
st estuary.  / / The last, dropped more
lately , took deep root / / at Sheepstead, quiet country of water and
Bury My Heart
anhood?…  / / The story and the vision. 
Latent , though, / / later to flower, the love.  Now, from that day, /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
tely, / / walked on complacently.  / /
Later a figure caught my eye / / —the same? another? odd.  / / The mi
Reflection
e me, amazed, the Aurora Borealis.  / /
Later again, but still a long time ago, / / walking home, a long cold
A Hoard
further in the end.  / / An hour or so
later and far below / / darkness mastered him, every muscle aching, /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
the Tuscan market-place.  / / A little
later came Kipling’s ballads: / / two men riding through a death-sown
Poetry
at dusk, would linger… we?… they?…  / /
later , each separately, / / found the night-slow / / familiar way /
From the Air
t the tracked woods like his hand.  / /
Later he learned the fords of the broad flow / / beneath the nearer h
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
dossed down, at first uneasily / / but
later in a long untroubled sleep.  / / Awaking in the morning he perce
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
to know each other and their love.  / /
Later , in a swift gorge, rough cliffs above, / / shared toil and dang
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
izzy, sank / / down on the beach.  / /
Later , killed, cooked and ate / / and slept.  He let twenty-four hours
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
he wood / / she braved the thorns, but
later , nine or ten / / perhaps—another meeting equally good.  / / In
The Black-out
Ballads, / / Campion, Wyatt.  A little
later on / / Lycidas draws ahead of L’Allegro / / as The Ancient Mar
Poetry
away to the rivers of Barnstaple.  / /
Later one lodged at Perachora, from the sanctuary / / below the light
Bury My Heart
rs she looked for but in laughter.  / /
Later , the boy walked on the sounding beach / / miles, hours.  He love
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
hills.  And there we leave the lad.  / /
Later there’s more of him that may be heard / / from one who knew him
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ry and the vision.  Latent, though, / /
later to flower, the love.  Now, from that day, / / nine years went on
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
the image of my dream.”  / / Lifetimes
later , / / visions half-realised littering his wake, / / his sublima
Pietà
of that they were sure.  / / This came
later .  / / When they were found / / at the bottom of the pit / / ha
The Green Children of Woolpit
from Dante’s Hell / Accidie / Brunetto
Latini under the Fire-Rain / “Joy we denied,” / / they mutter in the
Two Glimpses from Dante’s Hell
tence time?  / / Revelation implies the
latter , but can I believe it? / / (revelation being something I neith
Death
ne.  / / Sink into / / the seedy role,
laudator temporis acti?  / / No.  Bad trouble, but even our sick poluti
Desert Island?
ll / / love-presents is unlucky” (that
laugh again).  / / “Get one yourself”, she nodded at the sea.  / / He
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / certainly sharper, and inclined to
laugh / / and laugh at him—which, while of course it half / / annoye
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
), joke in a queue / / (a shared short
laugh )—anything will do / / that dies quickly but has gleamed first (
Treasure
sharper, and inclined to laugh / / and
laugh at him—which, while of course it half / / annoyed him, also mad
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
we, the bones) fritter away.  / / Never
laugh at our suffering.  / / We all need mercy, so go pray.  / / We di
Villon’s Epitaph
England Suspects.  / / If seized with a
laugh / / conceal it in cough.  / / Of course we have humour, / / bu
Merrie England
Yorkshire,” answered with a light / /
laugh Emily; “each to our own is true; / / each takes its own home by
The Black-out
e heard, they heard, the wicked fairy’s
laugh , / / felt the good smile, began to understand / / the necessar
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
red being.  / / Her look, her walk, her
laugh , her voice, the whole / / informed by her warm spirit—only seei
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ng / / on a split hair, / / hears the
laugh / / of the gravedigger.  / / My thoughts posture, / / but a ru
Catharsis
sh snowy in his wit, / / hers with the
laugh that answers it.  / / —Yet are they all that they pretend? (a /
On the Towpath
r blonde is mousy at the root.  / / The
laugh too, and the voice, are faked…  / / So what?—The image with the
On the Towpath
f / / give the nice neighbours a belly-
laugh .  / / You’re all right, darling.  You’re simple and straight / /
Love Scene
shed book; how does yours read?”  / / I
laughed : “a hard time to be great or happy.  / / Greatness I think we
The Black-out
een Victoria:  ‘I will be good.’?  / / I
laughed , and suddenly in cloud and blaze / / rolled back across my he
The Black-out
/ Since princess meeting prince cried,
laughed “Are / / all tasks done?”, spells are taken off / / and happ
End of Fairy-Story
were not meant / / for needlework.  She
laughed at that and, clever, / / found ways to circumvent them which
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
hey?”  “Sea-urchins.”  / / “May I…?”  She
laughed (gull’s cry) “To buy and sell / / love-presents is unlucky” (
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
and the moon, / / felt herself blush,
laughed ‘Oh how nice’—half child / / still, if already half woman, an
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
, again / / lifted her eyes on him and
laughed once more.  / / Her laughter’s end was lost in a gull’s cry, /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
you more than me.”  “A change,” / / she
laughed : “remember Elbe’s pillared halls, / / the shimmering chandeli
The Black-out
/ / Of course we have humour, / / but
laughing aloud / / is odd in a crowd / / and gives rise to rumour.  /
Merrie England
d drew along.  / / A bright-haired girl
laughing jumped out: “good-bye, / / thanks,” and fled.  Waited at the
The Black-out
d bronze the sun is burning / / by the
laughing sea.  / / Among the emperor’s guard the wine goes round / /
Gunnar of Lithend
/ who threw away the pearl / / has no
laughing shadow / / —poor lost fool.  / /
Catharsis
oward soul?  But Anabel / / who led you
laughing where the thorns were long / / sends me here now to comfort
The Black-out
hought / / sits in the corner / / and
laughs them out.  / / Only Othello / / who threw away the pearl / /
Catharsis
/ / your special power to bless:  / /
laughter and tenderness.  / / I haven’t seen (only with the mind’s eye
Two Poems for G
worse / / than women or drink / / is
laughter , is sobbing.  / / Who killed Cock Robin?  / / Cromwell, I thi
Merrie England
not in the tears she looked for but in
laughter .  / / Later, the boy walked on the sounding beach / / miles,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e dull, the worse than dull, / / whose
laughter like a leper’s bell / / falls in its own silence; and silent
The Party
atharsis / Lear storms.  / / The fool’s
laughter / / takes the wind from his sail / / the moment after.  / /
Catharsis
on him and laughed once more.  / / Her
laughter’s end was lost in a gull’s cry, / / repeated, dropped, picke
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Babylon / / reversed) when first we’re
launched .  But soon / / spiralling on one almost hears / / speeds gat
Anniversaries
/ We all need mercy, so go pray.  / /
Laundered by rain we are pegged here / / for the sun’s drying and bla
Villon’s Epitaph
is fallen.  / / His primitive hut, his
laurel of prophecy / / are lost to Apollo, lost the chatter of water.
The Last Oracle
front the singers silently, / / while
Laurence , Giles and I on things remote / / from this search talked at
The Black-out
of metal at the prow.  “A gondola; / /
Laurence ,” he said.  No more than in a dream / / surprised, I listened
The Black-out
nose / / between the men’s and women’s
lavatories , / / I saw a tall girl, and not yet drawn close / / knew
The Black-out
Thoughts on the
Lavatory / Like Luther (whom I do not love) / / I think too much abou
Thoughts on the Lavatory
y drawn / / moves mastered by an inner
law , / / a narrow supple vixen on quick black pads.  / /
Lady into Fox
need mercy, so go pray.  / / We died by
law , but do not sneer / / at the name of brother from us.  Think / /
Villon’s Epitaph
sits me ill?”  / / “Brussels, Roe Head,
Law Hill—exile and prison,” / / she said, “but sometimes on the windy
The Black-out
ge.”  / / But I: “remember Roe Head and
Law Hill, / / remember Brussels.  Can you find it strange / / there s
The Black-out
Law Report / This child was thrashed to death for thieving, lying / /
Law Report
city bravely back old Plato / / framed
laws for shadow-men.  Does He (like Plato?) / / hope that, though chea
The Betrayal
careful.  He looked where the two flasks
lay .  / / A bow, eleven arrows.  And the way / / home was the grim mou
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ned the bow south.  Dim to the starboard
lay / / a thin blue ribbon, merging past unravelling / / detail of t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
dispersed / / while easy coolness / /
lay aloft against my skin.  / / Why are we always thinking / / since
The Grass Road
sap has ceased to rise” we think.  / / “
Lay an axe to that brittle bole.”  / / Then, one morning, at last, aga
Renewal
far beyond those / / he knew the city
lay , and the princess, / / the fated child of many day-dreams’ yearni
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
When he won in / / at last to land, he
lay as good as dead / / he didn’t know how long.  He sensed the air, /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / a trim boat, rigged, provisioned,
lay at anchor.  / / They had no notion where the river ran, / / but t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
…  He went to bed under a spell / / and
lay awake long on the dancing thought / / ‘The princess, my princess,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
he sun / / revived him to his pain.  He
lay awhile, / / but something made him rouse.  Hardly in him / / the
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
m a col / / higher than any hill which
lay beyond.  / / The peaks were breaking to the coastal plain.  / / Th
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
athed hills spread on / / till nothing
lay beyond them but the sky.  / / Half their sweep, though, was blotte
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
or longer) perhaps / / he’ll come, and
lay / / gently in your lap / / his favourite toy / / for you to enj
[Time is a child]
ars, were laid— / / a hundred years to
lay him in the grave / / and raise a prince to rouse the bride.  The k
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
t / / that somewhere in that labyrinth
lay his goal.  / / Not for itself the mountain had commanded / / his
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
from the main fork / / was broken and
lay level from a ragged end / / resting on the strong spread of anoth
Five Poems for Roni
et the misery of exile when / / Ithaca
lay lovely in the moonlight.”  / / “Lovely—an exile to desire,” I said
The Black-out
lain.  / / South from the southern cape
lay mystery.  / / Home, he found fuss and news, a messenger / / arriv
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
h dreadful pain, for what he loved / /
lay on, away from her, and yet was she.  / / Waking, he knew the pain
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
us soon.  But while you may not so, / /
lay on our fever patience’s cool rime.  / / Let us learn wisdom at the
Prayer to Time
/ / and a half-light.  / / God’s body
lay on the altar.  / / She pitied Him there / / under the vaulted dar
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
erly weak but unfevered, aware, / / he
lay on the home-ridge.  The leaves were blowing / / from the brown woo
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ the sun climbed and declined, but he
lay on— / / the princess and his mother and his home, / / his occupa
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ul ruth / / in the last instance do we
lay our plea: / / our judges of appeal are Love and Truth / / whose
Prayer to Time
a-edge solution, salty, bloodwarm, / /
lay quick with life, with love, with mansoul.  / / Now we pump back po
Full Circle
ast best apparition be / / here but to
lay some ointment to his sore?  / / And yet, what could she do?  By her
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / lust for the river.  Far beyond it
lay / / the fairy-promised girl.  That thought caressed / / him still
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
pressed on up.  / / And there below him
lay the great forest.  / / Acres of leafage unbelievably stretched /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ stumbled, tumbled, and then he just
lay there / / as an inanimate thing lies where it’s thrown.  / / And
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / west to a range.  His hope perhaps
lay there / / but not, that seemed quite clear, to be attained / / b
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ing for his mother in his sleep.  / / I
lay there, my living body stiff as a doll.  / / These are the springs
Spells and Love
the scrub below / / the holy place.  He
lay / / under the hot, bright day, / / watched bright, cool water fl
Pelopia and Thyestes
eamed first (star-fall).  / / I like to
lay up my harvest in the wind.  / / Smug, you forget the other crop (t
Treasure
/ / finally won.  The monster dead, he
lay / / wounded to death.  His lady bent above, / / the hot tears run
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
sions, / / childhood.  / / From a deep
layer suddenly thrown / / up, a clear image: miles of sea-washed sand
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
iefly which made him hesitate, / / and
laying it carefully in the reeds at last, go back / / and tell the ki
Finis
e little daughter dead in the sea.  / /
Lays of Ancient Rome on my seventh birthday:  / / Horatius breasting t
Poetry
The half-moon on Orion’s shoulder / /
lays on the world light / / colder than sea-pearl.  / / Cold the wind
Night-piece
strength unproved, / / the treacherous
laziness of hand and brain, / / and love making no contact with the l
The Black-out
La Fontaine et
le Déluge / “Some food, for pity.”  / / “Why?  What did you do / / in
La Fontaine et le Déluge
, Gounod, Offenbach, Guys, / / Viollet-
le -Duc, Dumas fils, / / red velvet drapes, glittering chandeliers /
Time’s Reach
th the aging author / / of Le Rouge et
le Noir and La Chartreuse de Parme.  / /
Time’s Reach
Sur
le Pont d’Avignon / Timbers driven deep through summer-slack / / wate
Sur le Pont d’Avignon
iendship, with the aging author / / of
Le Rouge et le Noir and La Chartreuse de Parme.  / /
Time’s Reach
here in my chest that lump of childish
lead / / (and a man’s framework croaks towards death, in bed / / abo
Revisited
ow your will.  / / To what joys will it
lead ?  / / Dancers on the green / / have followed the fairies under h
Freedom
/ / the keys of hope; further I cannot
lead .  / / Not I the spirit whose eyes can brighten through / / your
The Black-out
/ who’d share his joy and pain, who’d
lead , or rather / / more often be led through the threatening wild /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
walks / / anywhere wilful thought may
lead .  She looks / / out from the green shade / / passionately fearin
Eugénie de Guérin
s, slopped on grass and stone.  / / The
leader skirts these hazards.  Several more / / follow her skill.  One,
Pelopia and Thyestes
e path went on and on / / irresistibly
leading / / like a path in a ballad or a story / / leading the wande
Los Altos Hills
nwich are / / embarked, we went, Giles
leading .  Soon the song, / / lost for a while, came loud.  The gondola
The Black-out
like a path in a ballad or a story / /
leading the wandering traveller / / (the youngest son, the chosen man
Los Altos Hills
Blind / Blind
leads the blind / / when they cannot find / / anyone / / else, and
Blind
e fields.  / / She tells them all, / /
leads them by track and tussock, / / finally stops / / where a wild
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
course.  Mostly the answer, though, / /
leads to another story; but, I know, / / how they got home really bel
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e leaves die but the tree lives / / to
leaf again.  Trees fall but not the wood.  / / And though the forest pe
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
this coal a leaf—this was a tree.  / /
Leaf and shell / / are with us still / / but delicately other than t
Fossils
.  / / Grey boughs beneath the perished
leaf / / are lovely as spring-green, red fall.  / / Time’s spiral cou
Hymn
t fallen and soaring bough were rich in
leaf / / as the solid trunks flanking this along the river.  / / How
Five Poems for Roni
ar / / is moving into spring / / with
leaf -bud, blossom, bird-song, / / nest-building.  / /
Late Spring
still water images / / every trunk and
leaf , dark but clear, / / a Claude, a dream.  / / A sword was never t
Water in a Wood
he back still, delicately lined, / / a
leaf -fan on whorled stalks, above the tang / / which held it in the h
Label
nough’s irrelevant— / / after the last
leaf follows its crooked trail / / to carpet the bare wood, / / days
[Golden, red, brown]
n seen / / in the mirror’s tinted grey—
leaf -greens, / / white birch-trunks, blue sky caught, / / hide darkn
Water in a Wood
ding moment / / to hold it like a dead
leaf in the hand.  / /
Moment and Memory
, fool.  / / Worn out he dropped on the
leaf -mould and slept.  / / Waking, he drank deep from his water-flask
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / dropped in a daze, he bled on the
leaf -mould / / uncaring, when his eye lit on the shell / / dropped t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
.  / / My colour faded—sallow as a dead
leaf .  / / My hair fell out and my body thinned away / / to skin and
Spells and Love
I hear my mother say / / “Each caught
leaf promises a happy day / / next year”.  / / Have you tried to catc
[Golden, red, brown]
must, / / he thought, drop on the dead-
leaf silt, give up, / / give in, lie down and not get up again.  / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
a small grief / / for lovely shell or
leaf / / that loosed or crushed before its hour / / left unfulfilled
Fossils
re was the sea; / / and in this coal a
leaf —this was a tree.  / / Leaf and shell / / are with us still / /
Fossils
need / / such magic fancies.  / / Any
leaf which dances / / off its tree for me may reach the ground.  / /
[Golden, red, brown]
him lay the great forest.  / / Acres of
leafage unbelievably stretched / / almost past sight—only a faint blu
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ Racked bones of the acacia stand / /
leafless , lifeless, deep into spring, / / and every year “This is the
Renewal
y smile.  / / Over the miles, under the
leafy light, / / at fork or cross-track he went still by whim, / / r
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
d brother lives in Babylon, / / Paris,
leagues away.  And further.  / / He has left the walled garden of Faith
Eugénie de Guérin
other’s tramontane kingdom reached / /
leagues north, she told him, to the sea again / / and all between hug
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
nd bone, / / lightly responding to his
lean , or thrown / / his whole weight’s strength against the buffeting
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ The tilted earth pauses, prepares to
lean / / the other way.  Our year begins again / / —or does another y
Winter Solstice
head.  In the same place / / I saw him
lean where Seurat leaned before.  / / He leaned and pulled his hand ac
The Black-out
o right the shadowed parapet / / where
leaned a man against the light and drew.  / / I looked across his arm,
The Black-out
ean where Seurat leaned before.  / / He
leaned and pulled his hand across his face: / / “the second darkness
The Black-out
place / / I saw him lean where Seurat
leaned before.  / / He leaned and pulled his hand across his face:  /
The Black-out
ll, though, starred with beauty.  / / I
leaned out, looking down at the dark reflection— / / bush in the smoo
Omens
/ ‘My knight, my prince, my love’, and
leaning kissed / / his dying mouth.  He died.  Or did her love / / rai
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
d dreams of beauty flourish.  / / Earth
leans and the leaves turn / / and things we shall not live to cherish
Cassandra’s Song
other waters / / more gleaming wonders
leap from the mass:  / / Catullus, Villon, Aeschylus, The Song of Rola
Poetry
Leap Year / No last year’s letter, nor / / one from the year before. 
Leap Year
/ / streams sounding hidden, suddenly
leaping / / free from the steep, white in a long fall.  Water / / —al
Varangian in Mickelgard
o the stream / / and strip herself.  He
leapt / / awake.  The girl was there.  / / Slender and firm and white,
Pelopia and Thyestes
he wide dew-pond of Mount Palomar, / /
leapt from some galaxy, far / / past the faint nebula / / remotest r
The Sea
ncess wants it so.  The boy’s / / heart
leapt —‘She loves…’—then dropped again: a love / / for here, not him. 
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
d there unharmed.  Vaguely he touched it—
leapt / / suddenly, knowing for what she was the old / / woman.  As t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Catharsis /
Lear storms.  / / The fool’s laughter / / takes the wind from his sai
Catharsis
/ under the black, thick tide / / we
learn / / all about despair.”  / / He ran like those who race for the
Two Glimpses from Dante’s Hell
arn (have to learn) to make it up; / /
learn blood (thicker than water) / / is not for spilling; / / learn
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
/ Brothers and sisters quarrel / / but
learn (have to learn) to make it up; / / learn blood (thicker than wa
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
/ The prisoner has time to think, and
learn / / lovely precisions for all future practice / / when time co
Chrysalis
n water) / / is not for spilling; / /
learn mutual love.  / / This is the bond / / which limits Liberty, /
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
sisters quarrel / / but learn (have to
learn ) to make it up; / / learn blood (thicker than water) / / is no
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
fever patience’s cool rime.  / / Let us
learn wisdom at the oar, and grow / / kinder by your unkindness, crue
Prayer to Time
/ the other—a thing our loving natures
learned / / each in an earlier day, / / something which colours them
[Yes, you’re right]
ay be killed / / by carelessness.  Have
learned from that to care.  / / A central part of our love’s nature (m
[Yes, you’re right]
itting still, / / and having painfully
learned how not to care / / find how to care become a failing skill: 
Teach Us…
cked woods like his hand.  / / Later he
learned the fords of the broad flow / / beneath the nearer hills.  Alo
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
(though / / hating herself and it) yet
learned the taste / / of pleasure, found in her bewildered heart / /
Beyond Measure
/ miles, hours.  He loved to swim, and
learned the tide, / / coaxed from his parents early a trim boat / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
they lost some of their wildness, / /
learned to talk— / / the boy less than the girl.  / / The boy did not
The Green Children of Woolpit
ant, lovely, rough and empty land.  / /
Learning from rangers, lost for lonely miles, / / he knew at last the
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
w to cross, / / regaining strength and
learning how to wait.  / / He watched the river running furiously / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
te / / his own children for meat, / /
learning the horror, fled / / … night and day, day and night… / / ca
Pelopia and Thyestes
while he dreamed senses and limbs were
learning .  / / The other way the rare-pathed hills spread on / / till
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
eamed their way along that stream, / /
learning to know each other and their love.  / / Later, in a swift gor
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ composed before a looking-glass, / /
learns a composure in the end / / no looking-glass can lend.  / /
Blind
any worlds as books, and then / / have
learnt from them a view of history: / / public affairs drift by with
The Black-out
whole ring an unflawed clarity— / / he
learnt the infinite variation of days, / / season’s return, and in th
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
herded in / / between the long walls,
learnt to live in slums, / / and watched the Spartan soldiers burn th
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
pecially violent / / death.  But have I
learnt / / to look it in the face, / / the disfigured face?  / /
Another Summer
an soldiers burn their fields, / / and
learnt to steal.  Here the plague / / struck them, thousands; struck t
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
und the kitchens, wine and food / / at
least a week’s supply—written a note / / to tell his mother he was go
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ there, somewhere, here, something at
least again.  / / He retched, and felt the salt and bitter gulf / / g
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e can’t conceive / / but must imply at
least / / an absence of unrest) / / not so much fear… rather distres
Balance Sheet
indling.  Were they not / / a guide?  At
least an omen.  ‘I accept.’  / / A day, a night—two, three days and the
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ce, / / as swift and beautiful / / at
least as all ships are, / / but caught by chance / / or captained by
A Wreck
erday and is tomorrow.  / / Unaware, at
least , as birds of the past or morrow, / / at work alone on a sand-ca
For Rachel
ng stars.  / / Fraternity.  / / That at
least (at last) is easy.  / / Not easy to make work (we are all human)
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
some ditch one and all.  / / Let us at
least be kind to our own kind.  / /
Blind
ather his first / / but still wildest,
least biddable slave, fire / / twist in his hand / / and make a sudd
Dr Faustus
keen—it was not that, / / not that at
least chiefly which made him hesitate, / / and laying it carefully in
Finis
and stiff, / / bruised, hungry—but at
least could stand and move.  / / He took the bow.  A gull perched on th
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
our wickednesses, our failure; / / not
least , for our own sake, / / what we are doing to nature as we love h
Buttercups
use / / your power, and do not use it
least for this: / / to strip your own inaction’s false excuse.”  / /
The Black-out
g to settle for.  / / Nothingness is at
least / / good, though not the best.  / /
Miscarriage
within a week / / or two or three, at
least he would return / / within the month.  He asked her, too, to spe
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ss in magic, but I practise it.  / / At
least I do not let / / the mirage of consistency / / dazzle me.  / /
Uncertain
and released / / if not by nothing, at
least / / in its own moment by almost anything?  / /
And Then
a magpie from the left / / (things at
least of that sort).  / / We only mean to say, perhaps:  / / Reason’s
Uncertain
most of us will not die / / before at
least our better side / / has long been longing to have died, / / do
Whom the Gods Love
ain.  She loved this country, so / / at
least there was a love for them to share.  / / He gazed to the blue ri
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
the fairies brought her’ / / serves at
least to express her rarity.  / / Next morning hooves and grinding whe
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e Reckoning / We are part of nature.  At
least , we issue from / / nature—yet wreck the balance of things, the
The Reckoning
e / / choice, by one mistake, / / can
leave an uninhabitable / / waste, humanity gone / / and all our drea
Consider
ieve / / and joy with those I love and
leave .  / / And any other way of living on / / I can as little wish f
Survival
/ This is my country I do not want to
leave .  / / But brood on that is stupid, self-defeative.  / / Be conte
Two Summer Songs
if already half woman, and soon / / to
leave childhood behind—if anyone / / really does that; and if, for he
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
hard life.  / / Why can’t the bastards
leave each other alone?  / / Ruined if I go—there’s only my pregnant w
On the Border
ht in a bush, caught tight.  / / You’ll
leave her there for good if you don’t take care.  / / No, down a bit. 
On the Border
p, took him in love / / that would not
leave him till he died, nor then.  / / Awake she took (all unaware) co
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
or four times a day / / and would even
leave his precious oil-flask with me, / / but now it’s eleven days si
Spells and Love
Epoch / Right we should
leave in June, / / the hedges lit with roses.  / / The years of the r
Epoch
rnity.  / / No, let me live as now, and
leave / / life as it’s been—disorderly, / / half-finished, half-begu
A Prayer
o loosen the child’s tether / / and to
leave soon enough.  / /
Parenthood
/ / woods for the hills.  And there we
leave the lad.  / / Later there’s more of him that may be heard / / f
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
nted.  I didn’t, I / / suppose, want to
leave the womb.  / / Moving across the snow / / towards the sun throu
For Cecil
ho heal the wounds of violence / / but
leave their scar, who work on brain and heart / / to fuse our sensibi
Prayer to Time
tting or a lucky chance / / for two to
leave their towers at once.  / / One, heart in hand, stands at another
The Party
by an absolute right.  / / Here I must
leave you.  I have given you / / the keys of hope; further I cannot le
The Black-out
er, bounded / / by clumped, huge close-
leaved trees, green and dark.  / / Something like an English parkland
Los Altos Hills
ow beds the wood where ours are now the
leaves .  / /
Becoming
a red flame / / smote him—light on the
leaves across a clear / / glade—smote him.  O beauty, delight, love, p
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
agged on / / washing the autumn out of
leaves and grass / / till a hard winter clamped suddenly down / / in
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
oloured riches.  / / Day by day, as the
leaves are loosed and shed / / and the stillness of the far solstice
Dance of the Seasons
something made her speak.  “Those summer
leaves / / are sunk to mud.  How should one not be sad / / since we m
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
is bay now for Delphis / / I burn.  The
leaves crackle as the heat takes them, / / flare up suddenly and not
Spells and Love
precise but darkened, / / light green
leaves dark, and strangely the flowers / / (the light bright white an
Omens
h the green?”  / / Words found him—“The
leaves die but the tree lives / / to leaf again.  Trees fall but not t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
three, / / wrapped up the last in red
leaves from the wood / / and took the track he could have followed bl
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
auty.  / / Even the glow / / of autumn
leaves is mute, palely yellowing / / towards winter.  Everything / /
[Noon.  But the sun is low]
our self-made image, / / when the sun
leaves it, gather its own shadow / / into itself, itself into its sha
Dream under a Carob-tree
The Difference /
Leaves on a felled tree / / do not drift away / / to earth and slow
The Difference
as shrill calling / / of child or bird
leaves the next moment empty.  / / Look on the walls, lofty and from n
For Rachel
to curl / / among the fields, after it
leaves the wood.  / / “Grandfather was the old King’s forester / / (y
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
auty flourish.  / / Earth leans and the
leaves turn / / and things we shall not live to cherish / / others a
Cassandra’s Song
takes everything we hate to give, / /
leaves us our fee to Death, the will to live.  / /
Age
not everything we have—in mockery / /
leaves us (our fee to Death) the will to live.  / / Condemned we snatc
Age
ient, love, hope—each successively / /
leaves us.  Our fee to Death, the will to live, / / outlasts this tarn
Age
ly under his rifling hands, but he / /
leaves us our fee to Death.  The will to live / / (which yet loves not
Age
are, / / he lay on the home-ridge.  The
leaves were blowing / / from the brown wood, but the boughs not yet b
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ (Theocritus’s second Idyll) / My bay-
leaves , where are they?  Bring them here, Thestylis, / / and the stuff
Spells and Love
fairy-story go / / some magic castle,
leaving a bleak moor.  / / We followed on across the dreary circus, /
The Black-out
ings of earth and life dried soon, / /
leaving a dusty cavernous lump gaping / / at the sun, at the dead moo
Stones
/ wrong withers inexplicably away / /
leaving behind love’s garden fresh and green.  / / She is not here; ye
The Black-out
econd sleeve of the twelfth shirt, / /
leaving her youngest brother one swan’s wing / / —strong and beautifu
Fairy Story
ut his painted fantasies to flight / /
leaving him sick, until he fled to them / / again—or else took refuge
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Tom, Les, Cecil) / Aegean / Kea Lion /
Leaving Kea / Syros to Naxos / Occultation of Jupiter / (Naxos harbour
September Cruise
give it to him still— / / how dare she
lecture him so priggishly?  / / He gazed unseeing at a glowing tree /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
met a mass / / solemn in a procession,
led by one / / whose fierce, dark look I knew; who never was / / wea
The Black-out
chilled beheld him gone; then where she
led / / followed, but half my mind followed in Greece.  / / “Such lig
The Black-out
st, / / trusting the fairy’s truth, he
led her on, / / weighed anchor, set sail.  Many days are lost / / thr
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ho’d lead, or rather / / more often be
led through the threatening wild / / by him, the brave one, to some h
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
rridor / / a small door somehow missed
led to a stair, / / low, narrow, black, and twisting to its end / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
withered too.  The track they tried / /
led to the river straight.  The fairy’s rancour / / was stilled for no
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
se hand about our childhood’s hand / /
led us delighted through the opening day, / / the light stretched lon
Prayer to Time
es the coward soul?  But Anabel / / who
led you laughing where the thorns were long / / sends me here now to
The Black-out
s brothers, / / and the white godhead,
Leda’s lover.  / / That long-stretched neck, those purposeful / / pin
Bicycle Ride
noon, / / lovely, inhospitable.  In the
lee / / he lost the breeze, and on a quiet sea / / the boat drifted
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
s, why do you cling so hard? / / —pond-
leech , sucking the dark blood out of me.  / / Draw him, bird-wheel, dr
Spells and Love
were a braided lock.  / / The scissors
left a little gap / / filled long ago by growth, and now / / the thr
Ballad
.  / / South up the coast, miles to his
left , a second / / and longer cape, almost sunk in the blue, / / rea
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ng said / / worked steadily, but as he
left , again / / lifted her eyes on him and laughed once more.  / / He
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ate in the afternoon, / / the rocks to
left and right climbed steep and bare / / to peak on peak, and on the
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
nk was flattened back, / / and the far
left bank too; and at that spot / / there seemed a thinning in the tr
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
we shall find / / the common ground we
left behind / / matter-of-fact with house and lane.  / / O secret, o
[Seen from the hill the hazy plain]
y friend and guide.  / / We turned, and
left behind the shadowy spaces / / of Parliament Square, crossed the
The Black-out
/ But in the whittled, bruised stone he
left caught / / that straight flame.  / /
Pietà
the face of Diaghilev, / / and on his
left hand hung the face of God, / / and played at war between them wi
Nijinsky
worship her, / / and made a pass; but
left her little moved.  / / Next day she slept late, but late afternoo
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ly for a way.  But long neglect / / had
left it more a guide-line than a road.  / / And then, perhaps a quarte
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
alive saw something he must do / / and
left it very thoroughly done.  / / A course of life, dear self, which
Thoughts on the Lavatory
/ flare up suddenly and not even ash is
left .  / / May Delphis’s flesh waste so in consuming fire.  / / Draw h
Spells and Love
thunder-stone / / struck my world and
left me / / broken and alone.”  / / Miranda to Ophelia:  / / “Then yo
Dialogue
lady Moon.  / / I saw him, and my wits
left me.  My wretched heart / / caught fire.  I must have looked awful.
Spells and Love
re.”  / / I listened, and his footsteps
left no sound.  / / The light wind faded out as he came near.  / / “Oh
The Black-out
owed to her.  / / Work along for a gap. 
Left of the way / / bushes and scrub were knotted to the briar.  / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ A new trouble: the choice of right or
left , / / of wrong or right.  The desert-beach was grim / / but was t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ue woven / / of past and hope, of echo
left on eye, / / on ear, on parted flesh.  All dreams.  But even / / m
Separation
but only just—and whether we / / have
left ourselves a chance to make / / a second choice in time, would be
Mother’s Malison
a under it, / / and calm.  Miles to his
left stretched the cold sands.  / / With painful care he worked round
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
r gone; / / then looked, and shivering
left the deeper shade, / / and tired and cold moved stiffly, vaguely
The Black-out
    / / feel, brushed me then.  / / To
left the plane-trees stood / / part lit; to right the shadowed parape
The Black-out
leagues away.  And further.  / / He has
left the walled garden of Faith, walks / / anywhere wilful thought ma
Eugénie de Guérin
/ fingers crossed for a magpie from the
left / / (things at least of that sort).  / / We only mean to say, pe
Uncertain
l to sleep.  / / Up early, off—a letter
left to warn / / his mother—hoped perhaps within a week / / or two o
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ knowing so much is done / / badly or
left undone, / / and if something’s done well, not knowing at all /
Balance Sheet
hat else?”  / / Nothing.  “And what have
left undone?”  / / Have sometimes upon world and sun / / turned eyes
Interrogation
ngs (most if not all / / true) done or
left undone to set us wrong.  / / The truths we think are not the home
Hebona
loosed or crushed before its hour / /
left unfulfilled its being, nor / / vanishing stamped its image on /
Fossils
ade / / perfect, what even chance / /
left unspoiled.  / / Advance / / is good, surely (as well / / as bei
Progress
Nadia / Flute with no reed, violin / /
left unstringed.  / / Instrument evolved, built / / with loving skill
Nadia
have shared with us, / / no choice is
left us but to render war / / all glory and all power.  / / War is a
Prayer to Truth
ng a golden fleece, a white whale, / /
legend and life, by sail / / or steam or dream driven, / / criss-cro
The Sea
catch it.  / / This is a place without
legend / / but not less magic.  / / Blue thin brilliant dragon-flies,
Water in a Wood
ed neck, those purposeful / / pinions,
legend is lifted on.  / /
Bicycle Ride
ldren’s children think of it? / / thin-
legged and mocked, in London or in Lyme / / timelessly scraping gay u
La Fontaine et le Déluge
he fall: / / strong in the streets the
legions of the fiend / / the fruits that wait their greed and passion
Nijinsky
nds sometimes, more often lower / / to
legs , feet, which unaware / / betray so much.  / / These too her penc
Nadia
/ / She sat there on a low bough, her
legs hanging, / / swinging a wide hat, not as in the wood / / she br
The Black-out
Go on / / and speak to her.”  I felt my
legs obey, / / and joined her by the pedestal alone.  / / “You came t
The Black-out
/ / her voice, as I walked on towards
Leicester Square.  / / The first tube gate was shut, but not the secon
The Black-out
/ and firth where the tides race, / /
Leif Ericsson, / / Magellan, one / / seeking a golden fleece, a whit
The Sea
ngry blood.  / / Romeo and Juliet, / /
Leila and Majnun, / / loving children / / cheated by a feud, / / su
What Hope?
linked by more than chance / / with a
lemming counterwish, / / that in that case as in this / / (man and d
What goes up must come down
/ Worse than out of joint.  / / Perhaps
lemming -men / / have reached the madness point, / / no return.  / /
This Time
ands seek a pair of little breasts, two
lemons on a tree.”  / /
Greek Folk Song
re in the end / / no looking-glass can
lend .  / /
Blind
ain, incalculable way, / / and passing
lend / / our eyes perception of a clearer air / / a brighter day.  /
The Lilies of the Field
eautiful for that, more beautiful, / /
lending / / a kind of sweetness to an undulled pang.  / /
“Life is sweet, brother”
y / / the traffic is one-way.  / / Sex
lends her delight / / to every joy, her stress / / to all our wicked
Fair Exchange
to him, / / but somebody unknown / /
lends unnecessary / / noise to a dead man / / by marks on this dumb
Tombstone
the horizon of the sea / / and grew at
length into a cliff-faced range— / / mountains!  The river-water was n
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ove have lived, knowing / / our narrow
length of time eternal deep.  / /
Happiness
owed your earth is on the swing / / of
lengthening days.  Be patient and allow / / winter its weakening onset
The Black-out
about the children.  / / Light slopes,
lengthens the shadows of the children / / parting, gathering, trailin
For Rachel
t drawn tight.  / / The next four years
lent him less time to dream / / being apprenticed to a tough old man,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ng-heeled boots, the crooked knife / /
lent us to hunt a monster with, / / misborn into a crueller myth / /
From the Air
on, Aeschylus, The Song of Roland, / /
Leopardi , Theocritus, Palamas, / / Heine, Hoffmann von Hoffmanswaldau
Poetry
e than dull, / / whose laughter like a
leper’s bell / / falls in its own silence; and silent some / / whose
The Party
September Cruise / (for Tom,
Les , Cecil) / Aegean / Kea Lion / Leaving Kea / Syros to Naxos / Occul
September Cruise
liers / / (and dark past draped glass,
Les Misérables).  / / Then, 1870.  / / Sedan, Paris besieged, France l
Time’s Reach
n the windy hill / / of home I felt no
less a prisoner.  / / Of itself exiled and imprisoned will / / the he
The Black-out
/ / the other melting images, / / is
less a truth than a disguise.  / / Life makes our life, for all we sai
Cedar
ross brimming waters of misery, / / no
less beautiful for that, more beautiful, / / lending / / a kind of s
“Life is sweet, brother”
either of us really believes that.  / /
Less because of our partedness (together / / only in fragments of a h
[I have (what seemingly you do not see)]
o should have picked on him, / / still
less been taken by him.  Why reach out to her / / at the moment of tru
“Tell Lady Byron…”
of the flesh / / to spiritual flights,
less cold, less hard / / make their deliberate bed / / than those th
The Embankment
what we made than what we’re made, / /
less dome and terrace than a tree.  / /
Cedar
vanishing stamped its image on / / the
less ephemeral stone.  / /
Fossils
morning when she woke she could bear it
less / / —found scissors and cut / / the offending hand away.  More p
Eugénie de Guérin
ith little / / water or vegetation and
less game, / / footsore and starving, worn out, nearly lost.  / / The
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
h / / to spiritual flights, less cold,
less hard / / make their deliberate bed / / than those that huddle t
The Embankment
ieve in God, and yet I pray; / / still
less in magic, but I practise it.  / / At least I do not let / / the
Uncertain
contriving against our wills / / a no
less ineluctably certain end / / for triumphant humankind, / / it do
What goes up must come down
/ with love parted, which is in no way
less / / itself for that, but can’t show all it is.  / /
[Bare trees black]
is a place without legend / / but not
less magic.  / / Blue thin brilliant dragon-flies, / / swallows’ acro
Water in a Wood
reamed escape sprang back to him.  Still
less / / now than before he felt the power of / / breaking away for
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
glow I find / / the image of you with
less pain and more peace.  / / And you, my warm love now, it’s our lov
[White foam sweeps]
e, cannot be / / rejected or even made
less perfect by / / acknowledgement of our guilt, / / apprehension o
May Day, 1986
curled / / back to the first (this he
less saw than reckoned) / / bounding the plain, and the small kingdom
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
make these spells of mine not a thought
less strong / / than were Circe’s or Medea’s or blonde Perimede’s.  /
Spells and Love
s, rooms, these woods too, are, / / no
less than cigarette and car / / creations of humanity.  / / From the
The Rift
ng, aware.  / / But after that / / for
less than half a year.  / / Such loss.  A life that might / / have fil
Leap Year
of grief.  / / Our gratitude weighs no
less than our care.  / /
May Day, 1986
ends admit, are long-term—Plato / / no
less than Paul, Buddha no less than Plato.  / / I am no follower of Pa
The Betrayal
Plato / / no less than Paul, Buddha no
less than Plato.  / / I am no follower of Paul or Plato, / / of Buddh
The Betrayal
ess, / / learned to talk— / / the boy
less than the girl.  / / The boy did not live, / / went down where th
The Green Children of Woolpit
ight.  / / The next four years lent him
less time to dream / / being apprenticed to a tough old man, / / hun
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
tiny speck / / circling an only little
less tiny spark, / / one of uncounted millions in a galaxy / / one o
Credo
seems / / after all, and its ruts are
less true than our dreams.  / / In the business of living, its failure
Hymn
m of depth and past— / / but surely no
less truthfully / / age-traced patterns on a domed sky?  / / A heavie
Night
/ / and looking back on it we see / /
less what we made than what we’re made, / / less dome and terrace tha
Cedar
nd by rote, / / each month for work or
less work docketed, / / only in the King’s hunting-season not / / st
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
n affirmative answer / / her grief not
lessened / / but pride to help her.  / / My mother had her wounds /
Wounds
the two rivers were the same— / / the
lesson of the two in one again.  / / So to the cliffs and round the pr
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ons done, / / their spectral light’s a
lesson to the sun / / on what attends an incandescent day.  / / The s
Macrocosm
ir / / —pile the brooks with muck / /
lest he find them clear.  / / Charred field, / / clotted stream.  / /
Scorched Earth
you that I’ve remembered but not named,
lest / / the proud procession should wind on for ever:  / / I have be
Poetry
er hunger and cold / / —not real cold,
let alone / / real hunger—not want / / and the consequent / / stres
Climacteric by the Sea
keep away from it— / / damn her, don’t
let anyone saddle me with that.  / / With a wife like she is I shouldn
Love Scene
uld he, from lack of will to live, have
let / / death take him there under the thorns?  Who knows?  / / But th
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ght / / compassed the cosmos once, now
let drop / / is seemingly simply not.  / /
Where?
s you did not forget / / living, never
let / / fear or horror deny it; / / so now, dead, can teach / / our
Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank
let her go home / / to her own place. 
Let / / her cruel spell fade, / / peak away, as / / she would have
Against Anorexia:  For Cathy
me / / between you and your plate / /
let her go home / / to her own place.  Let / / her cruel spell fade,
Against Anorexia:  For Cathy
/ / Rein slack / / on sunk neck, / /
let him amble home / / in his own time; / / dream, keep / / the sta
Against Anorexia:  For Cathy
anarchy / / —would be, if human nature
let it be, / / but humanness can only be itself / / by acceptance of
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
ole and healed.  / / Accept the vision. 
Let it give / / a form on which to mould and build.  / /
Hymn
a migraine: / / love it like that and
let it hurt you.  / /
Responsibility
fmanswaldau, / / Baudelaire, Du Bellay—
let it pass.  / / How have I forgotten Emily Bronte, / / so many year
Poetry
them, lady Moon.  / / —“And if you had
let me in (and they say I’m handsome / / and trim as any young man) t
Spells and Love
, / / a passport to eternity.  / / No,
let me live as now, and leave / / life as it’s been—disorderly, / /
A Prayer
ouded hill / / I set my feet to climb. 
Let me not lose / / the flame, whose power I feel of work and love, /
The Black-out
/ / but if you’re of my own blood / /
let me speak with you.”  / / “You’re dead and laid into your grave /
A Ballad
memory / / and, would we live, we must
let moments pass / / to memory, form the phases of our life, / / not
Moment and Memory
er by your unkindness, cruel Time.  / /
Let not our flesh and spirit, longing-torn, / / grow bitter with the
Prayer to Time
the pit / / of a complacent hate.  / /
Let not our knowing our cause the better be / / condition in us of co
Prayer to Truth
f not so wide.  / / Those who must die,
let not the spectres of / / the lost and missed torment, nor those wh
Prayer to Truth
ndly.  I don’t forget.  / / But must not
let that / / blot out what were surely our / / successes, our happin
For Cecil
the stall, sleep, / / dream, eat.  / /
Let the day-dream / / have its day / / till suddenly / / clouds thi
Against Anorexia:  For Cathy
as / / she would have had / / you do. 
Let the grass / / green up again, buds / / plump on the tree, / / t
Against Anorexia:  For Cathy
t I practise it.  / / At least I do not
let / / the mirage of consistency / / dazzle me.  / / That narrow ma
Uncertain
return / / from logical pursuit.  / /
Let the moment burn.  / /
Glimpse
you stand apart, / / if you have ever
let the reasoning brain / / come into contact with the feeling heart?
The Black-out
k is unaware of the truths of day.  / /
Let the ship drive through the keyhole of a star.  / /
Voyage
our way / / but surely we shall never
let them build / / into a barrier.  / / We know too well how kindness
[Yes, you’re right]
ing / / to the blood.  / / When he had
let Tiresias drink / / the old ambivalent spirit spoke:  / / “You sha
Odysseus
lled, cooked and ate / / and slept.  He
let twenty-four hours pass / / before he faced the question how to cr
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
times into some ditch one and all.  / /
Let us at least be kind to our own kind.  / /
Blind
l / / our compact with the devil.  / /
Let us detest aggression, pity pain, / / but recognise vengeance for
Prayer to Truth
on our fever patience’s cool rime.  / /
Let us learn wisdom at the oar, and grow / / kinder by your unkindnes
Prayer to Time
of living, its failures and gains, / /
let us never lose touch with the joys and the pains / / of this deepe
Hymn
peaceful to sleep.  / / Up early, off—a
letter left to warn / / his mother—hoped perhaps within a week / / o
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Leap Year / No last year’s
letter , nor / / one from the year before.  / / The last time this int
Leap Year
untess from proud Spain, / / exchanged
letters , friendship, with the aging author / / of Le Rouge et le Noir
Time’s Reach
ne façade of Edwardian baroque.  / / In
letters of gold from an architrave block / / PUBLIC LIBRARY winked wi
[The municipal building stood square in my dream]
page / / which sang to me likewise in
letters of gold / / “If it’s hell to be young it’s the end being old
[The municipal building stood square in my dream]
Letters / The pool of love standing in / / my heart deep and clear /
Letters
ahead, might I be content to sink, / /
letting it dull my ears against the song / / of siren autumn?—which l
Sixtieth Summer
nds free. / / thank you for loving me,
letting me love you.  / / We love each other.  Whatever happens now /
[Our lives are in other hands]
.  / / The trunks rose black out of the
level brown; / / against the blue the patterned twigs were black; /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
m the main fork / / was broken and lay
level from a ragged end / / resting on the strong spread of another w
Five Poems for Roni
es / / built out of frost and mist and
level light / / before our ordinary eyes.  / /
Early Train
ther” / Winter morning.  / / This clear
level light makes beautiful / / all the brick-grey desert, the swirli
“Life is sweet, brother”
/ / Now, as then, / / the beam comes
level through the air.  / / What summer noon struck blankly on, / / o
For Cecil
masks the sky.  / / Behind me the sun’s
levelling beam / / illuminates against it, white, / / brilliant, one
Bicycle Ride
passed and the sun went low behind / /
levelling the light across the circled space.  / / Slowly darkness see
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
(you know who) to my house.  / / Three
libations to you, lady, and with each I cry / / “Be it a woman he lie
Spells and Love
Liberté , Égalité, Fraternité / Liberty.  / / That’s difficult already.
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
ghted slave.  / / How could such little
liberty send his mind / / on such an insolent flight?—the parable /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité /
Liberty .  / / That’s difficult already.  / / All are (should be) born
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
/ / This is the bond / / which limits
Liberty , / / the give-and-take / / more real than Equality.  / / Thi
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
ld from an architrave block / / PUBLIC
LIBRARY winked with a welcoming gleam.  / / Within, book in hand, I lo
[The municipal building stood square in my dream]
s streaked with yellow flame / / which
licks the lower hills.  As we mount higher / / we lose the illusory fi
Makherás
irreversible screw / / fix the coffin-
lid down / / over humanity just / / in our late-flowering hour, / /
May Day, 1986
ider than that, till our ways seemed to
lie / / always together.”  From the darkness curled / / a faint rhyth
The Black-out
ars; wrongs beyond hope of mending / /
lie at the root of every decent life; / / those who sit still, and th
The Black-out
it up, your poor old wreck.  / / There. 
Lie down again.  So.  Here’s my hair, my neck, / / my silver body.  Touc
Greek Folk Song
dead-leaf silt, give up, / / give in,
lie down and not get up again.  / / No, he would not die yet.  And to t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
air / / hardly aware that he dared not
lie down, / / stumbled, tumbled, and then he just lay there / / as a
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
out his pistol / / and laid me where I
lie .  / / Friend, you’re a christened man, / / weep for me, weep for
A Ballad
the milky sky / / except where islands
lie / / hardly distinguishable through / / the bluish haze, / / the
September Cruise
But these and anything / / like these
lie outside / / my sense of what might be.  / / No, alone one has to
Balance Sheet
Fossils / Here in this rock
lie stony semblances / / of shells—here was the sea; / / and in this
Fossils
of each hour / / where lightly, thinly
lie / / the veils of memory, of hope and fear.  / / Like a bird, like
The Lilies of the Field
nks shift under the fog / / giving the
lie to chart and log.) / / We must be careful where we tread: / / th
Lost
.A.R.P.  / How could this traitor live a
lie ? / / watching his step, watching his speech, / / watching himsel
H.A.R.P.
live by the dream, / / the light that
lies and blinds.  / / Open your eyes, and yet may come to pass / / yo
Scheme
arry rock, / / the marble mountain.  He
lies below the face / / they chiselled back to free the block.  This i
September Cruise
dream / / (the spirit’s two alembics)
lies / / built out of frost and mist and level light / / before our
Early Train
with each I cry / / “Be it a woman he
lies by, be it a man, / / may he quite forget them, as once in Naxos,
Spells and Love
Under bright sun, whole / / the world
lies , dazzling, bridal, / / incorruptible.  / / All confusion lost in
Exchange
at searching gaze) / / stinking jetsam
lies .  / / Here.  Now.  No escape.  / /
Causes
ital / / grows year by year.  Love / /
lies in the current account.  We spend it piecemeal.  / / We love more
Choice
, / / inescapable stone.  / / The lion
lies , is as he always was.  / / High on the precipitous promontory /
September Cruise
g drifts of cloud / / remote and faint
lies mother earth.  / / Above the station of our birth / / we ride th
From the Air
e jutting stump, dance.”  / / Prince of
Lies , no.  The dark aspect is true, / / yet we must pledge our lifeblo
Sur le Pont d’Avignon
/ The path across the quaking bog / /
lies not quite where the others said.  / / (The seaman casts his thoug
Lost
/ the path across the quaking bog / /
lies not quite where the others said.  / / Watery mud-holes suck and c
Lost
/ I answered, sad; then heard: “our way
lies on,” / / turned, saw my guide, and turned again.  The chill / /
The Black-out
rsonal smart, / / and though this dark
lies on us all, a warning / / of present trouble worse, and when we p
The Black-out
wealth of good / / observed, absorbed,
lies ready.  Give it power.  / / “Consider those whose lives have kindl
The Black-out
t.  / / Hewn from the rock / / huge he
lies , / / relaxed and watchful, / / serene over the centuries.  / /
September Cruise
run of men?  / / The mangled reputation
lies / / stoned, to be spat on as we pass / / by those who dare not
H.A.R.P.
future.  / / Open-ended / / our future
lies .  That is the future’s nature.  / / It is not necessary, it is not
Desert Island?
chylus, Euphorion’s son / / of Athens,
lies under this stone / / dead in Gela among the white / / wheatland
Aeschylus’ Epitaph
That Way Madness
Lies / / / / When first ghosts of our own begetting / / force us b
That Way Madness Lies
st lay there / / as an inanimate thing
lies where it’s thrown.  / / And images of violent vividness / / drai
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
losing-time, / / the street-cold world
lies wide / / before the prisoner free.  / / What now?  Follow the win
Freedom
, flicker of steel / / at the roots of
life , a scarlet flood— / / and other hands, quiet, soothing the head,
Block 21
t, but the next worst / / thing in his
life .  Afraid, afraid went back, / / a dreadful journey, sick and almo
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
of that clearer frontier, ranging / /
life against death? surely a true / / discontinuity, estranging / /
New Year
lumbered a seed / / of great and happy
life .  An early page / / closed my unfinished book; how does yours rea
The Black-out
der those whose lives have kindled your
life / / and bring your torch out of the ivory tower.”  / / She cease
The Black-out
the unarchitected tree.  / / We plan a
life , and change the plan, / / as life goes on, or think we do, / /
Cedar
ning joy.  / / The age of time between,
life and death, died / / into a handsgrasp for the yearning boy.  / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
seed to fall / / of love, that was his
life and is our theme.  / / It fell in his fourth year.  He could recal
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
idening black.  / / Look down into your
life and know the night.  / /
Macrocosm
draws to the drill-ground the flower of
life and land.  / / The shepherds of Parnes or the Pyrenees / / are f
On the Border
me as I moved / / and thought about my
life and little done / / —sensibility dumb and strength unproved, /
The Black-out
radise.”  / / Ophelia to Miranda:  / / “
Life and love are hell.  / / But the heart’s misery / / only the hear
Dialogue
of the unfenced edge, / / meaningless
life ; and love’s affirming faith.  / /
Wedding Night
rue and kind.  / / It has taken half my
life and more to find / / how I was self-deceived.  / / Now in humili
Original Sin
died.  Or did her love / / raise him to
life and set him at her side?  / / The story shifted like the shifting
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
dd.  / / I can’t envisage death / / or
life as acts of god.  / / And yet I can’t envisage life either / / (o
Question
ver mind the rent and stain.  / / Enjoy
life as it was before the fall: / / sleep easy and eat freely, and ag
The Twenties
No, let me live as now, and leave / /
life as it’s been—disorderly, / / half-finished, half-begun, hoped, d
A Prayer
rips through / / touching the shade to
life / / as suddenly a reflecting pool, / / somewhere a tinkling fal
[High boughs arch over the half-dry creek]
ide / / the other end of time / / saw
life begin.  / / Beetle and man, / / grass and cedar, climbed to comp
The Sea
s gaze / / absorbing life, considering
life , behind / / a smooth forehead, clear, utterly free / / from any
Two Serenities
playfully allot our joy and pain.  / /
Life between earth below and sky above / / is work and breeding and t
Cosmology
were sounder, and he husbanded / / the
life -blood water with more care.  And though / / extreme exhaustion an
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e’d journey far / / and make himself a
life , but not a new / / heart-life, since to the old he must be true.
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
you dare not free / / your self-bound
life , but sit with bated breath / / —a kind of cowardice and treacher
The Black-out
fleece, a white whale, / / legend and
life , by sail / / or steam or dream driven, / / criss-cross the seas
The Sea
es.  / / Pirates and empires pass.  / /
Life changes and goes on, / / hard among these terraces of vine and t
September Cruise
earl.  / / A girl’s gaze / / absorbing
life , considering life, behind / / a smooth forehead, clear, utterly
Two Serenities
tal polarities, / / false as this, his
life constrained / / him too to accept, extend.  / / That’s not to re
George Jackson
very thoroughly done.  / / A course of
life , dear self, which you / / at seventy may meditate on.  / /
Thoughts on the Lavatory
han hard.  / / One land, one house, one
life , differently viewed / / is Eden, prison, path of exile, fold.  /
A Window
ll like sometimes to pretend— / / that
life doesn’t come to a ragged end / / but death knits up the ravelled
Dreams
/ Or / / to be sent bach— / / another
life , down or up the scale, / / again, again, again, until / / our b
Balance Sheet
p, blood, / / all springs of earth and
life dried soon, / / leaving a dusty cavernous lump gaping / / at th
Stones
s of god.  / / And yet I can’t envisage
life either / / (or death) as an unordered jumble of things.  / / The
Question
wire!  / / Death-wish dances / / with
Life -enhancement / / cheek to cheek.  / /
Sea Cliff
this multifarious earth.  / / Accepting
life entails acceptance / / of death to balance birth, / / of depres
Climacteric by the Sea
’re gone.  / / Decay, corruption foster
life .  / / Even the fossil forming in the stone / / helped build a sh
Change
ht.  ‘As it has been / / all through my
life , for all my life it is:  / / I am her servant and she is my queen
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
th than a disguise.  / / Life makes our
life , for all we said; / / and looking back on it we see / / less wh
Cedar
tive self:  / / Look backward down your
life / / for the constellated roses.  / /
Epoch
on: / / how, having muddled through my
life , / / for worse, for better, to this age, / / how do I deserve /
[I have you always in my mind]
killed.  / / He’d been in jail half his
life .  / / Ghetto-bred, then cop-picked, / / what hope in his black f
George Jackson
another light was water-quenched.  / /
Life goes on, finished lives recede / / and remain.  / / New lives we
Anniversary
an a life, and change the plan, / / as
life goes on, or think we do, / / or think at any rate we can, / / p
Cedar
/ / of dedication.  The offering of his
life / / had been made and accepted long ago.  / / A better might dar
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
nce.  “There is more to do / / than any
life has time to dream,” he said.  / / “Many, many the things I meant,
The Black-out
rsh / / night here; whose lives, which
life has tried to quench, / / seem shrunk now to their end; / / who
The Embankment
h- / / screaming seagulls were all the
life he’d seen.  / / So, drowsing at the tiller, the boy recalled / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
mber (remembering that death, / / that
life ) how, out of the night, / / without window, without path, / / w
George Jackson
ows / / to the griefs and joys / / of
life in the flat fields / / under the sky’s breadth / / from their m
The Green Children of Woolpit
/ I am to love her, serve her, all my
life / / in what I can.  I am her forester.’  / / It came unnaturally
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / till with your hundredth year your
life is done, / / you shall be born the prince for whom time keeps /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
no more,” she said; / / “not so life. 
Life is more than pulse and breath, / / getting through days and year
The Black-out
her, a oneness, aware / / of a mystery—
life is not just what it seems / / after all, and its ruts are less t
Hymn
hose rings about your eyes?  / / Surely
life is only love / / and love is paradise.”  / / Ophelia to Miranda:
Dialogue
o put force in our will to virtue.  / /
Life is split like a migraine: / / love it like that and let it hurt
Responsibility
een rose / / and larch, Hell was.  / /
Life is sweet, / / as you did not forget / / living, never let / /
Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank
“
Life is sweet, brother” / Winter morning.  / / This clear level light
“Life is sweet, brother”
e us, and / / —yet “Who would find his
life …”  Is this / / too mirror-land?  / /
Through the Looking-Glass
en / / all through my life, for all my
life it is:  / / I am her servant and she is my queen.  / / I am to lo
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
d asks no more,” she said; / / “not so
life .  Life is more than pulse and breath, / / getting through days an
The Black-out
/ is less a truth than a disguise.  / /
Life makes our life, for all we said; / / and looking back on it we s
Cedar
ack by nature, and no doubt / / enjoys
life much of the time in its own way.  / / My spirit moves, as over me
Black
the misery / / even the happiest / /
life must settle for / / sometimes, it’s good to be born.  / / All th
Miscarriage
hristian’s question / / “Should not my
life , my actions, all be God’s?” / / by this gets answered “No.  Not w
The Betrayal
ll swing him down and swallow him.  / /
Life narrows down between our closing arms, / / between our hands, be
That Way Madness Lies
/ / to memory, form the phases of our
life , / / not like the camera catch the fading moment / / to hold it
Moment and Memory
when an awareness seeped to his numbed
life / / of someone there.  He stared dully.  Then, late, / / smarted
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ would be wholly sorry to have missed
life / / on this multifarious earth.  / / Accepting life entails acce
Climacteric by the Sea
ct of love, instead / / of making it a
life or breaking free.  / / One day she broke out—“But you should be g
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
t at the fall / / of the King, the old
life .  / / Peace and order flake away.  / / Every mountain, plain and
Dark Age
ately other than these; / / a world of
life perished and vanished / / taps us these messages.  / / Hearts fl
Fossils
ed and struck / / and hurled him down. 
Life sang from a far tree.  / / Horrible pain, sickness and horrible p
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
imself a life, but not a new / / heart-
life , since to the old he must be true.  / / Not courage nor the offer
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ and man’s an infant still in earth’s
life -span.  / / If he doesn’t burn the house and himself in it / / mi
Greenham Common
here this marriage / / should make her
life .  Strange, and most beautiful, / / and frightening.  Shaken by a h
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
r myth / / we use against our mother’s
life .  / / That corner where the road / / turns from the fields into
From the Air
ess than half a year.  / / Such loss.  A
life that might / / have filled so many four-year cycles more.  / / A
Leap Year
ng.  My way / / is lost or never found. 
Life , that should fill / / my days with action, chokes them with excu
The Black-out
ts do not perish, build / / memory and
life ; the artist’s captured moment / / lives like a memory / / and,
Moment and Memory
ng / / lie at the root of every decent
life ; / / those who sit still, and those who fall defending / / just
The Black-out
g suddenly within, / / secreted from a
life -time, and released / / if not by nothing, at least / / in its o
And Then
Two Poems from a New
Life / Time / Distance / ‘The enemy’ / / people say, / / meaning Tim
Two Poems from a New Life
/ how’s she?”  “Just had a boy.”  “Long
life to him.”  / / Thanks.  They’ve taken her man for the army though.”
On the Border
hen you would forget?  / / Had you your
life to make again / / You would never meet—?”  / / Ophelia to Mirand
Dialogue
s of violent vividness / / drained his
life to themselves: a river, wet, / / shining against a forest.  Then,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
helia:  / / “How can I understand?  / /
Life was a still morning / / cool on brow and hand / / till flesh an
Dialogue
I would” I said.  “I’ve wanted to all my
life , / / which is quite a long time now.”  / / “At its brightest thi
A Hoard
) / / of earliest summer.  This is / /
life , which live things by nature / / (their nature, its own) forsake
Seasons
for much more than each other: / / for
life , which that lost spark has shown as spoiled.  / / This darkness t
Law Report
put off getting married.”  “It’s a hard
life .  / / Why can’t the bastards leave each other alone?  / / Ruined
On the Border
ng briar / / has touched this reach of
life / / with a singular character.  / / The beauty of the flower, /
Epoch
, salty, bloodwarm, / / lay quick with
life , with love, with mansoul.  / / Now we pump back poison from our p
Full Circle
m spirit—only seeing, / / hearing, her
life with others fed his joy.  / / But unhoped chance soon made him on
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
natural interlocking of death / / and
life , with our unnatural “I am”.  / / The extraordinary process of bec
The Reckoning
, / / womb-child) but all the chain of
life within / / the egg, the sperm, be hideously undone, / / take th
Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank
d was bond, / / should he love out his
life .  Yet what, in truth, / / had she to offer?  Not these hands and l
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
r / / phrase in in time “and make some
life your own.”  / / He sighed.  Easy, he thought, for her to say.  / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
failure of the heart.  / / Your joy of
life , your shining / / feeling that everything / / is possible, fade
[Most of us, somewhere along the road]
ct is true, / / yet we must pledge our
lifeblood to renew / / the link, when choice can muster strength and
Sur le Pont d’Avignon
ones of the acacia stand / / leafless,
lifeless , deep into spring, / / and every year “This is the end.  / /
Renewal
/ half threescore and ten.  / / Half a
lifetime ago / / a thunder-flash put out a glow / / and then / / an
Anniversary
ried me, / / a pressed man, to serve a
lifetime / / under the sail of poetry / / —the old moon in the new m
Poetry
ittle boy, Kenneth Clark, / / how many
lifetimes earlier, / / a fourteen-year-old countess from proud Spain,
Time’s Reach
not quite, the image of my dream.”  / /
Lifetimes later, / / visions half-realised littering his wake, / / h
Pietà
om white men shot for being black.  / /
Life’s all one colour, spilled / / beside whatever carcase in the dus
Elegy for the Dead at Sharpeville
ced in / / hearts holding memory along
life’s increase / / (and outsoars too these wars no one can win), /
Dulce et Decorum
/ Reason’s steps / / are too stiff for
life’s path, where fate / / takes like cloud unpredictable shapes.  /
Uncertain
Anniversary / “Half-way along
life’s road…” / / half threescore and ten.  / / Half a lifetime ago /
Anniversary
pace and time / / touches in us into a
life’s short light / / the temporal earth.  / / Calm shine some, in w
Lamps
to pieces round her.  / / She could not
lift a finger / / with all the time in the world.  / / “Oh God, I’m t
Mariana in Miniature
d / / wing, singing against it as they
lift / / and their trilling is mostly scattered, lost in / / defeati
Two Poems from a New Life
/ on fast water.  / / My thoughts / /
lift from the stream, dance upon / / the secret motions of the air, /
How not to listen to music
ll not fix / / the shifting look.  / /
Lift it again.  / / Naked under brutal lamps, / / fine Jewish feature
Stray Thoughts at a Wedding
/ —with the rose light in the hedges to
lift or droop / / over the fields of daisy and buttercup, / / freshn
Sixtieth Summer
ent-flowers, / / radio telescopes with
lifted faces / / listening / / to secrets of the universe…  / / List
Two Cultures?
of shaping and drawing.  / / These were
lifted from a girl’s grave, / / put there by friends, by her parents
Label
continually.  / / The sun struck as it
lifted from the sea / / flat on the climbing land, flat on the coast
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ed steadily, but as he left, again / /
lifted her eyes on him and laughed once more.  / / Her laughter’s end
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
lack figure crouching in its light / /
lifted her head and was his nurse.  Desire / / for nothing happier fil
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
hose purposeful / / pinions, legend is
lifted on.  / /
Bicycle Ride
s of stooping men— / / one face: hers,
lifted sleeping.  So she took him / / once more a child asleep, took h
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
the boat all but under a wave.  / / The
lifted water driving over him / / he fought the tiller’s will.  At las
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ the wild fresh wind; the rest / / is
lifted , whirled up in the wind of love; / / I open my arms and close
Wind
ck the visionary heart, / / fetter the
lifting feet.  / / And on his right hand hung the face of Diaghilev, /
Nijinsky
Summer Vision / A wild rose
lifting / / from the hedge-top / / hooks its way upwards, / / on an
Summer Vision
omen rose in front of me: / / a heron,
lifting its wide grey angled wings, / / its long neck out, rising int
Omens
fore.  / / Anyhow, with threescore / /
lifting over the hill, / / it’s a moment to take a cool / / look in
[Now of threescore and ten]
tide.  / / The darkness stirs along its
lifting spine / / in slight but bitter wind.  / / Stir the bare trees
The Embankment
.”  She looked at it / / wondering.  He,
lifting the half-worked stuff, / / ran the needle deep in his thumb,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
A Dream / Something withheld him from
lifting the spade to strike / / the white-faced tall shopkeeper with
A Dream
Climbing among pines / / the Parthenon
lifts again its lovely head / / or rather (here is west) its lovely t
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
oo heavy / / even for a heron’s wings,
lifts it a little.  / / Accept the omen, heart.  / / Rejoice in beauty
Omens
light.  / / The sight of a heron always
lifts my heart, / / even today when the heart might seem too heavy /
Omens
n ash-tree, / / catches the look, / /
lifts the heart / / to a still starburst / / in the night of thought
Summer Vision
dandelion and buttercup.  / / Light air
lifts the silted vapours away / / to deep heaven, which like the deep
Relax
Stray Thoughts at a Wedding / Glance
lifts to a crucifix.  / / Form of the sacrificial Man, / / drained of
Stray Thoughts at a Wedding
ound himself, / / climbed into his own
light .  / /
George Jackson
r Cecil / Morning’s first light, spring
light , a clear- / / eyed, firm-handed geometer, / / built an intelli
For Cecil
aut, / / suddenly loosens to a blessed
light : / / a figure by the cradle, white by white— / / one more forg
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
sun went low behind / / levelling the
light across the circled space.  / / Slowly darkness seeped up out of
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ (fumbling in the dark, / / measuring
light against dark, / / light against prevailing dark) / / one’s own
Balance Sheet
/ / measuring light against dark, / /
light against prevailing dark) / / one’s own garbled, prejudiced reck
Balance Sheet
aked with dandelion and buttercup.  / /
Light air lifts the silted vapours away / / to deep heaven, which lik
Relax
pet / / where leaned a man against the
light and drew.  / / I looked across his arm, and having set / / eyes
The Black-out
shouting for more wood on the fire, for
light / / and food, wine and more food.  The castle store / / was low
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e half-noticed the room was filled with
light , / / and hurrying down saw half-unconsciously / / the castle r
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
but those are negatives, / / shadow to
light ).  And somehow I believe / / without doubt in the absolute being
Credo
strangely growing / / with warmth and
light and the returning sun / / another being.  / / And love in loss,
Winter Solstice
I think about you more / / and better. 
Light and / / warmth that irradiated / / us.  Bonfire on the night be
For Cecil
to snapping communication-lines / / of
light , / / are lost.  Night wins.  / / Swirling vastness a lost speck.
Holes in Space
ssary.  / / Though not so strong / / a
light as Freedom, this too burns among / / our guiding stars.  / / Fr
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
sun-shadows and a sparkle of dew.  / /
Light as the air our hair our feed.  / / Love will be there and not ne
Otherworld
e.  / / Over the miles, under the leafy
light , / / at fork or cross-track he went still by whim, / / rejecti
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ence, picking through / / the tangles,
light at last upon a clue, / / draw one strand clear, even out of thi
Again
ng it, a bright circle / / in the last
light , before it sank in the lake.  / /
Finis
/ built out of frost and mist and level
light / / before our ordinary eyes.  / /
Early Train
hen he knew / / long ago / / in sun’s
light , / / behind the night’s / / spangled tent, / / an unmoved mov
Divinity
came into the church / / from changing
light , / / birdsong and trees, to stone / / and a half-light.  / / G
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
t the sun is low, / / coldly bright in
light blue sky.  / / Everywhere a thin beauty.  / / Even the glow / /
[Noon.  But the sun is low]
will be there and not need making, / /
light bodies lightly touching.  Waking, / / the dream gone you shall k
Otherworld
rk, and strangely the flowers / / (the
light bright white and pink) invisible.  / / The dark unflowered bush
Omens
n cleft.  / / There is more shadow than
light / / but broken brilliance drips through / / touching the shade
[High boughs arch over the half-dry creek]
.  / / The sky was clear, the dawn-wind
light but good, / / as he moved outwards in his loaded boat.  / / Mos
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
thed the air’s brightness, / / watched
light changing on broken rock, as day / / climbed and declined.  And d
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Orion’s shoulder / / lays on the world
light / / colder than sea-pearl.  / / Cold the wind too / / and I, a
Night-piece
tion—for natural beauty.  / / Here it’s
light colours on fields / / varying softly across hedges, between tre
Gratitude
y a faint blue rim, / / another range. 
Light , dark brown, reds, golds, patched / / and mingled, were a revel
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ its early bloom / / offering cups of
light .  / / Despair / / is judged by some / / the lowest sin.  And th
Upward Turn
ut was such ground a gain?  / / The dim
light dimmed further, and soon he must, / / he thought, drop on the d
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
xies are fleeing / / from spaces where
light drowns at last, / / an ultimate diaspora.  / /
Entropy
The Party / The
light falls equally on all; it glances / / from brilliant colours and
The Party
reless in a swarming desolation / / as
light falls on the blind.  / / Paris loves Helen in all tongues of the
Fossils
stellations / / improbably / / in the
light -fingered green / / of an ash-tree, / / catches the look, / /
Summer Vision
If it fails, / / darkness…  But no, the
light flamed up—of course, / / the teller of all stories, his old nur
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
r / / weaves in this country / / soft
light for willow / / to spread shade other / / than olive, cypress /
Five Poems for Roni
Black / Under the
light fresh day / / my spirit moves like a black beetle.  No, / / the
Black
ous than that / / struck by a trick of
light from ugliness / / even for one / / for whom that ugliness hold
“Life is sweet, brother”
ong and trees, to stone / / and a half-
light .  / / God’s body lay on the altar.  / / She pitied Him there /
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
the old garden.  / / A spring morning,
light green, dark green, / / sun-shadows and a sparkle of dew.  / / L
Otherworld
mooth water, precise but darkened, / /
light green leaves dark, and strangely the flowers / / (the light bri
Omens
he day’s gloom / / they make their own
light .  / / Hearth in a dusky room.  / /
Winter Garden
To stars and window-panes withdraws the
light .  / / Hunched to the chill / / hushed birds on boughs crouch, d
Country and Town
my mind followed in Greece.  / / “Such
light ,” I said, “and more the full moon shed / / when caught by night
The Black-out
till only foam / / shone in the black;
light imperceptibly / / withdrawn from all, to those thin streaks ret
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
able month be June? / / —with the rose
light in the hedges to lift or droop / / over the fields of daisy and
Sixtieth Summer
hill the hazy plain / / filled up with
light is fairyland.  / / We climbed from there, and shall descend / /
[Seen from the hill the hazy plain]
corruptible.  / / All confusion lost in
light / / it is ours.  Rejoice in it.  / / Hush.  Do you not see / / w
Exchange
shire.”  “Or Yorkshire,” answered with a
light / / laugh Emily; “each to our own is true; / / each takes its
The Black-out
A hunched black figure crouching in its
light / / lifted her head and was his nurse.  Desire / / for nothing
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / commonness, muddy? / / shimmering
light lost again / / in grey reversion of rain?  / / Rain and sun, sn
Exchange
/ Winter morning.  / / This clear level
light makes beautiful / / all the brick-grey desert, the swirling ban
“Life is sweet, brother”
k.  / / He pushed the door and struck a
light .  No one.  / / Empty the single room.  On a rough block / / were
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
d his stain) / / crying on the Lord of
Light / / not to be purified / / but to be shown the way / / to ven
Pelopia and Thyestes
in one harmony about us here.  / / Pure
light of the last sky that does not move / / is God, who moves them a
Cosmology
y.  / / Silver and white, / / embodied
light / / of the overcast day / / on the dark water.  / / Back in a
Return
dreams.  Then a red flame / / smote him—
light on the leaves across a clear / / glade—smote him.  O beauty, del
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ar / / which glimpsed might both throw
light on the praised steward / / and make His answer to the priests’
The Betrayal
spray, or with the white blaze / / of
light on water—dark cloud, sweeping showers— / / or the whole ring an
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
the beach, from your feet always / / a
light -path on the water reaches / / towards sun, moon, / / fisher’s
September Cruise
athing the air, / / looking across the
light , / / planning, doing, aware.  / / But after that / / for less
Leap Year
/ / Her face was memory where the cold
light poured / / and memory the colours in her hair, / / and in my e
The Black-out
21 / The huge reflector of the hanging
light / / repeated the repeated, the unique scene, / / canopied the
Block 21
d / / as some thoughts dive out of the
light .  / / Ripples are quickly still.  Again seen / / in the mirror’s
Water in a Wood
e willow? / / misty country, / / soft-
light river?  / / Are you the other?  / / Even the shadow / / cast by
Five Poems for Roni
, / / sea and no river, / / harsh sea-
light .  River / / weaves in this country / / soft light for willow /
Five Poems for Roni
y properly like a bird.  / / Twittering
light -scared thing, / / blind but unfalteringly / / aware of its bla
Bat
/ see nothing first, but slowly the dim
light / / shaped me the shadows among which I stood.  / / She sat the
The Black-out
lusion ‘Love can master Fate’.  / / His
light should dissipate the looming dark, / / while the embodiment of
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
crystal bubble about the children.  / /
Light slopes, lengthens the shadows of the children / / parting, gath
For Rachel
pathway / / this glittering skein the
light -source casts you / / … and yet… and yet / / reaching you so, i
September Cruise
For Cecil / Morning’s first
light , spring light, a clear- / / eyed, firm-handed geometer, / / bu
For Cecil
for the deaf world to hear, / / spring
light , spring water, winter, / / wind, death, darkness, fear, / / fi
Beethoven
o my house…  / / The moment I heard his
light step through my door— / / These are the springs of my love.  Mar
Spells and Love
/ pink, gold and white, sweetening the
light stillness / / by bird-notes pierced but not dispersed / / whil
The Grass Road
l-flecked harbour.  Clear, still evening
light .  / / Stillness undisturbed by the minuscule / / Fun Pier (‘Fam
Content
med fields of childhood the shadows and
light / / stretched far out but changed quickly between night and nig
Hymn
ghted through the opening day, / / the
light stretched long across the dewy land / / and you unheeded, to wh
Prayer to Time
/ / waited in marble innocence: / / a
light such as in Paradise / / flowed from the smile of Beatrice / /
John Ruskin’s Wedding Night
oelacanth unchanged / / from years ere
light , / / that falls now caught / / in the wide dew-pond of Mount P
The Sea
/ no more live by the dream, / / the
light that lies and blinds.  / / Open your eyes, and yet may come to p
Scheme
/ / touches in us into a life’s short
light / / the temporal earth.  / / Calm shine some, in whom power and
Lamps
e, eyes which focus / / in a different
light .  They whisper / / to man’s mind half-intelligible truths / / f
Two Cultures?
we’ve not / / are in an absolute cold
light / / to sink or save us…  / / Or / / to be sent bach— / / anot
Balance Sheet
ret, but followed his few days / / his
light , until “he wrapped his colours” as / / Felicia Dorothea Hemans
The Black-out
nd / / —blank blackness / / the sun’s
light / / until kindled / / by act of sight.  / / Sight is silence /
Music is Landscape
ed in rigid abstinence, / / children’s
light voices and cool hands / / were all he dared to dream in woman. 
John Ruskin’s Wedding Night
/ spirit or feet, now I am strong and
light .  / / Walk with me home, where Hampstead sleeps above / / the q
The Black-out
.  / / She, stepping suddenly where the
light was thrown, / / cried:  “Hangs the sheath still empty, and the s
The Black-out
t out a glow / / and then / / another
light was water-quenched.  / / Life goes on, finished lives recede /
Anniversary
ce.  Faintly wells / / a pale returning
light whose kindness veils / / jut and furrow, restoring innocence, /
In the Audience
d his footsteps left no sound.  / / The
light wind faded out as he came near.  / / “Oh what a moon,” he said. 
The Black-out
king / / to greys, to silver, white.  A
light wind makes / / the flat sea wrinkle, / / suddenly kindles / /
September Cruise
/ engulfed it—then the triumph of the
light , / / yet blackness not annulled.  Must that long night / / divi
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
l.  / / Then—music of the spheres, / /
light —your Lady broke the spell / / of eternity in Hell.  / / I had p
Virgil’s Farewell to Dante
e for you somehow to tread it / / with
lightened feet.  / / Hewn from the rock / / huge he lies, / / relaxe
September Cruise
not how.”  / / Quieted now I moved with
lighter feet.  / / Past Camden Town we took the Chalk Farm Road, / /
The Black-out
ng / / and hope,” I answered, “made me
lighter -hearted / / —orange blinds, fountains, chestnuts flowering, /
The Black-out
a nearing storm, silver / / out under
lighter sky beyond the cloud, / / sun-struck sometimes, but slate aga
Varangian in Mickelgard
isher’s lamp, recurring flashes / / of
lighthouse beam.  The path is always / / there, and your own.  / / Tre
September Cruise
hora, from the sanctuary / / below the
lighthouse on the rocky promontory / / looks over blue gulf-water to
Bury My Heart
a winter night, / / a round high moon
lighting the field path home.  / / Cold…colder…then, a matter of momen
Magic
form / / thins into smoke, thence into
lightless air; / / the soul in the blackness of uncentred space, / /
That Way Madness Lies
ant of anything to keep them up, / / a
lightless cave whose emptiness takes all in / / and remains empty.  /
Where?
pty; and the opposite rooms / / showed
lightless windows, uninvolved as tombs.  / / The night, she thought, a
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Divinity /
Lightly blows / / the hedge-rose, / / sways, clings, / / white, pin
Divinity
him, extension of muscle and bone, / /
lightly responding to his lean, or thrown / / his whole weight’s stre
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / white, pink, / / and I think / /
lightly sings / / “Beauty is.  / / Accept this.  / / God is not / /
Divinity
Summer / From every hedge
lightly the rose / / scentless, ephemeral and wild / / prodigal to a
Summer
absolute value of each hour / / where
lightly , thinly lie / / the veils of memory, of hope and fear.  / / L
The Lilies of the Field
and not need making, / / light bodies
lightly touching.  Waking, / / the dream gone you shall keep the sweet
Otherworld
ness of the night / / under the bright
lights , against gold and white, / / he watched entranced the colour-s
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
there beside us slowed / / with muted
lights but a familiar air / / a car.  “Hullo; get in.”  Familiar too /
The Black-out
Beautiful / / but not unravaged.  / /
Lights fade.  Darkness blots all, / / the ravage and the face.  Faintly
In the Audience
out feeling mind.  / / We bring our own
lights / / into this dark, / / and in the glance, dance of / / the
Music is Landscape
etween Orion and the Bear / / the buoy-
lights of the planets float / / marking the charted darkness where /
Night
rk flash off, flash on, / / the signal-
lights repassed, of tears / / and happiness, while upward rears / /
Anniversaries
eir mutations done, / / their spectral
light’s a lesson to the sun / / on what attends an incandescent day. 
Macrocosm
veils of memory, of hope and fear.  / /
Like a bird, like the wind / / they take their certain, incalculable
The Lilies of the Field
taught itself to fly, / / fly properly
like a bird.  / / Twittering light-scared thing, / / blind but unfalt
Bat
he light fresh day / / my spirit moves
like a black beetle.  No, / / the beetle is black by nature, and no do
Black
wrong / / dispelled, happiness spreads
like a bright spring / / unsummoned, unreasoned, secreted long / / f
Happiness
eeting moment stays / / pinned on time
like a butterfly on a board, / / dead.  / / But passing moments do no
Moment and Memory
way, / / hungry for bed, home, mother,
like a child.  / / Hungry too for the sight of the princess.  / / But
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
utterly free / / from any mark, almost
like a child’s.  / /
Two Serenities
catch the fading moment / / to hold it
like a dead leaf in the hand.  / /
Moment and Memory
ge the scene—clear as a dream / / and,
like a dream, framed in obscurity.  / / Out of the positive blackness
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ and street gone from the fresh earth
like a dream; / / freshness and silence of the country night.  / / I
The Black-out
ing in spirit and in face / / momently
like a flower / / they touch the absolute value of each hour / / whe
The Lilies of the Field
Riven temper runs along the table / /
like a ladder down a stocking, like flame / / along dry wood.  But fla
Back Room, 1944
he worse than dull, / / whose laughter
like a leper’s bell / / falls in its own silence; and silent some /
The Party
at Mary’s was the better part.  / / How
like a man.  Martha of course deserved / / better than such a knife-tw
The Two Ways
the artist’s captured moment / / lives
like a memory / / and, would we live, we must let moments pass / / t
Moment and Memory
our will to virtue.  / / Life is split
like a migraine: / / love it like that and let it hurt you.  / /
Responsibility
/ / skin, bone and scared eyes, moving
like a mouse / / in the dusk of walls, craved scraps of food and love
Law Report
alls,” he said, “the war / / recurring
like a nightmare or a fever.  / / Yet while our personal intellects en
The Black-out
ul of Nijinsky / / in fifty-two pieces
like a pack of cards; / / and the faces whirled in intersecting circl
Nijinsky
ood, / / feeling its foredoomed beauty
like a pain.  / / And there of course against a dark trunk stood / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
n and on / / irresistibly leading / /
like a path in a ballad or a story / / leading the wandering travelle
Los Altos Hills
trees / / of a well-ordered park.  / /
Like a poem by Yeats.  / / Well, this park was the campus / / of a sm
Grace
l’s, and before it tall and still, / /
Like a poplar or a cypress, Humfry Payne.  / / After loved unknown dea
The Black-out
iff, a frozen silence settled down / /
like a sea-mist.  A minute or an hour, / / a hundred years…  Time, it s
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
l to live / / (which yet loves nothing
like a sedative) / / traps us in self-despising misery, / / Age take
Age
the splendour of the power; / / glows
like a star their mould, but in an hour / / burns out.  / /
Lamps
lit on the bridge the statues were / /
like a wood-cut; and there beside us slowed / / with muted lights but
The Black-out
d dark.  / / Beyond forgets its meaning
like above, / / nor any place remains for God but love.  / /
Cosmology
that wiped out the dinosaurs and their
like / / after lording it so long / / (far longer than man has done)
What goes up must come down
her own rope.  / / We shall not see her
like again?  / / Well, that’s too much, I think, to hope.  / / And yet
Great Britain
accept that in death / / all failures,
like all losses / / are irrecoverable.  / / On the radio / / Schuber
For Cecil
d trees, green and dark.  / / Something
like an English parkland / / but bigger, wilder, stronger, / / unear
Los Altos Hills
darkness where that fish is moving / /
like an escaped thought.  / /
Water in a Wood
/ / or steady in a handstand / / —ran
like another though / / barefoot along the bare / / ripple-ridged be
Climacteric by the Sea
year we saw a shining being enter, / /
like any other year, the darkening winter; / / but unlike any other y
Winter Solstice
ing to be old?  / / After all, I didn’t
like being young too much / / (not after I was younger / / than this
Climacteric by the Sea
hose far base disappears / / in cloud (
like Brueghel’s Babylon / / reversed) when first we’re launched.  But
Anniversaries
moon darkness—Carabosse!  / / And words
like cave-drips from her cold mouth dropped:  / / “All remembered but
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
for life’s path, where fate / / takes
like cloud unpredictable shapes.  / /
Uncertain
like strands of hair under a comb, / /
like currents traced in foam / / on fast water.  / / My thoughts / /
How not to listen to music
t like death on the uneven ground.  / /
Like death, but in the dawn touched by a dream / / half apprehended a
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ —this monochrome stillness looks / /
like death but is something else.  / / Venus is burning / / big and l
For Cecil
pped flat where he stood / / and slept
like death on the uneven ground.  / / Like death, but in the dawn touc
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
enching sweat / / stood on my forehead
like dew and trickled down.  / / I couldn’t utter, no more than a baby
Spells and Love
ins, / / how did they and the princess
like each other?…  / / Lived happy ever after?…  Children?…  Dozens / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
n / / we knew before, could not with a
like eye / / view a like world.  And incidentally / / the prince’s ch
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
it spread / / flat as the sea, and sea-
like fed / / on hopes that sought (but found the quag) / / the path
Lost
ble / / like a ladder down a stocking,
like flame / / along dry wood.  But flame is beautiful / / —more like
Back Room, 1944
’s end.  / / Among those sparklers, set
like frozen spray, / / are some as cold: all their mutations done, /
Macrocosm
/ / he knew at last the tracked woods
like his hand.  / / Later he learned the fords of the broad flow / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
quarried rock drops to the slums, / /
like looking from a train into backyards / / of English slums, but wo
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
Thoughts on the Lavatory /
Like Luther (whom I do not love) / / I think too much about my bowels
Thoughts on the Lavatory
of boom and slump / / disaster closed,
like madness on a dancer.  / /
The Twenties
Shelved / That dream,
like many another dream, / / is now no longer a what-might-still- /
Shelved
Lopped /
Like music heard in / / the mindless wind / / nerve-ends murmur / /
Lopped
of gold across the water-meadows.  / /
Like other things this year (may, daisies, roses) / / late coming but
Buttercups
anderer, not pretending / / to stay us
like our daily bread.  / / She’s the wild gleam of heaven’s sending.  /
Dance of the Seasons
/ framed laws for shadow-men.  Does He (
like Plato?) / / hope that, though cheating Him, our serving Caesar /
The Betrayal
ever break out again?  / / Wait.  If you
like , pray.  / / Though you do not know what to, / / some words, some
Winter Recalled
er at Iken looks / / from a low cliff,
like Saunton’s but topped with oaks, / / out over grey shining water,
Bury My Heart
es almost, the sanded children / / dot
like sea-birds, sea-shells, the beach, that empty / / accepts their c
For Rachel
rain on all, / / the holding dissipate
like sea-spray to thin air.  / /
The West of Ireland
sphorus sparkles in the foam below / /
like sequins on a dress—where have I seen / / shining sequins on a wh
Wind
e saddle me with that.  / / With a wife
like she is I shouldn’t half / / give the nice neighbours a belly-lau
Love Scene
competence.  / / Marble in sun burning
like snow.  / / Green, violet, scarlet, scattered free, / / and blue,
Delos in Spring
/ planning and changing as we go, / /
like some cathedral, centuries / / a-building.  But that image, as /
Cedar
rer the bone / / was the moorhen.  / /
Like something not known to be remembered (dream, / / unremarked word
Yeats and Water-Birds
darkness seeped up out of the sea / /
like something palpable, veiling the meeting / / of sea and sky, thic
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
me…  Things I don’t believe / / I still
like sometimes to pretend— / / that life doesn’t come to a ragged end
Dreams
a peacock sea.  / / And here and there
like stalks of asphodel, / / few and broken but straight, gold in the
Greece
/ The music parts and joins, parts / /
like strands of hair under a comb, / / like currents traced in foam /
How not to listen to music
ps, between two thoughts, breaking / /
like sunlight in the breast, the unnamed wrong / / dispelled, happine
Happiness
ther things (beauty, / / truth), most,
like Sydney / / dying, to care for others.  / / The image of Sydney's
Caring
is split like a migraine: / / love it
like that and let it hurt you.  / /
Responsibility
and not go all the way / / —something
like that will do.  As for marrying, / / we’ll talk about that again w
Love Scene
I married her / / my children would be
like the bitch’s litter / / —born blind, and several months too early
Love Scene
, form the phases of our life, / / not
like the camera catch the fading moment / / to hold it like a dead le
Moment and Memory
vapours away / / to deep heaven, which
like the deep ocean / / takes everything to itself and remains pure. 
Relax
/ wakes your heart.  / / A pang that’s
like the joy / / of being together, / / its double, its true counter
[The clouds that pressed the air]
wood.  But flame is beautiful / / —more
like the ladder in the stocking, wrecking / / the firm silk.  He’s a f
Back Room, 1944
t on to a track…  / / But thorn-crossed
like the last.  He looked again.  / / A pine…  Oh, fool—full-circle fool
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ing now our anger and despair, / / and
like the nephews of a poisoned Pope / / relinquish every hope.  / / O
Scheme
formed but plain, / / the sixth (small
like the others) a masterpiece / / of shaping and drawing.  / / These
Label
l.  / / A chain of predators / / looks
like the primal curse, / / yet should he cease to prey / / the scale
Ecology
two, / / are guilty with the rest, and
like the rest / / without power, / / can only love and hope—and pray
May Day, 1986
and turned to Emily, ready to / / move
like the river to my certain goal.  / / She smiled: “this is no loss,”
The Black-out
him at her side?  / / The story shifted
like the shifting mist.  / / Robbers and dragons make an easy dream.  /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ry, of hope and fear.  / / Like a bird,
like the wind / / they take their certain, incalculable way, / / and
The Lilies of the Field
r of these.  But these and anything / /
like these lie outside / / my sense of what might be.  / / No, alone
Balance Sheet
built / / with loving skill, / / not,
like this, to be silent.  / / She lives behind a wall of glass / / wh
Nadia
hings in is short at most; / / why sit
like those who listen for the phone, / / expecting nothing, listen fo
The Black-out
rn / / all about despair.”  / / He ran
like those who race for the cloth-of-green / / through the fields out
Two Glimpses from Dante’s Hell
o run / / or four or six; is your tale
like to be / / equal to ours?—oh, feed and fan your flame.”  / / I be
The Black-out
/ I feel so dirty though, / / I should
like to believe God / / will have me on the mat / / to tell Him and
A Hot Bath at Bedtime
perhaps the master potter-painter / /
like to have known his handiwork seen, / / shown, loved again?  / /
Label
t has gleamed first (star-fall).  / / I
like to lay up my harvest in the wind.  / / Smug, you forget the other
Treasure
.  And I thought I heard / / “Would you
like to see the planet Mercury?”  / / I was tired, jet-lagged, half dr
A Hoard
(my age) and the man again  “Would you
like to see / / the planet Mercury?”  / / “I would” I said.  “I’ve wan
A Hoard
A poem you may
like to see / Watching the children shouting in the pool / / a powerf
A poem you may like to see
pavement stand / / abstracted, still,
like trees.  / /
Country and Town
/ / world, where bird and child exist
like water / / and today is yesterday and is tomorrow.  / / Unaware,
For Rachel
the rain falling / / softly.  It seemed
like weeping.  / / The bright morning glistens on the night’s tears.  /
News of a Death
face, weary, / / and through my limbs
like wine through water came / / my father pulling his hand across hi
The Black-out
, could not with a like eye / / view a
like world.  And incidentally / / the prince’s child-world was a diffe
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / I felt the presence of grace / /
like Yeats at Lissadell.  / /
Grace
h so late.  / / She liked his love.  She
liked him well.  / / After long cold she liked the warm.  / / A few te
Ballad
p out of its way?  / / The young prince
liked his cousins well enough, / / but never had the sea and the far
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
seemed at best a second-best.  / / She
liked his love (no word of love was said / / by either) but she felt
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ved her dearly though so late.  / / She
liked his love.  She liked him well.  / / After long cold she liked the
Ballad
en, sometimes paused to speak— / / she
liked his thinking (none of those she knew / / were given to thought)
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
of the semi-final.  You / / would have
liked that, though / / Hurricane Higgins would have / / pleased you
For Cecil
iked him well.  / / After long cold she
liked the warm.  / / A few tears formed but scarcely fell.  / / She bo
Ballad
/ All of which may be so, / / but the
likelihood seems thin / / and in any case we go / / sure only of our
Living and Dying
?  / / Wasn’t I a lad too once, / / as
likely as they come?  / / Hadn’t I my ten-palm sword / / and my fatho
A Ballad
lm sword / / and my fathom gun?  / / A
likely lad, a bonny fighter / / by nights without a moon.  / / Three
A Ballad
k Song / All the girls get married, and
likely lads they wed, / / but for me, pretty Janet, the sick man on h
Greek Folk Song
mprehending, lost, / / illiterate most
likely , no resources / / but a dull hope.  / / Once each month / / p
War-time Anecdote
the genuine scar / / under some other
likely -seeming thing; / / you know not even abortive love can be / /
The Black-out
] / Why do I dream this pause / / more
likely than another / / to be the end?  Because / / the human heart o
[Why do I dream this pause]
o set me free / / am neither great nor
likely to be great.  / / “For happiness a still more doubtful season: 
The Black-out
while I’m here.  / / And if, as is most
likely , you / / live on after me, please / / keep me with you that w
A poem you may like to see
ung.  His dull mind played / / with its
likeness to a sea-urchin shell.  / / Traditional ornament and lucky ch
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Timategus’s place / / (that’s where he
likes to practise and lounge about)”— / / These are the springs of my
Spells and Love
ed down at a page / / which sang to me
likewise in letters of gold / / “If it’s hell to be young it’s the en
[The municipal building stood square in my dream]
); / / two jointed dolls of clay; / /
likewise of fired clay, half a dozen crocks, / / five of them black,
Label
and go.  / / Do I make too much of not
liking to be old?  / / After all, I didn’t like being young too much /
Climacteric by the Sea
The
Lilies of the Field / They think as they take breath, bearing no trace
The Lilies of the Field
d / / nerve-ends murmur / / of a lost
limb … / / fingers supple / / to caress or grasp, / / unravel muddle
Lopped
ly / / tried his fresh-water-swimmer’s
limbs again / / in this new element to master.  Then / / glowing pick
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
oss my face, weary, / / and through my
limbs like wine through water came / / my father pulling his hand acr
The Black-out
s.  / / But while he dreamed senses and
limbs were learning.  / / The other way the rare-pathed hills spread o
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
suck and clog / / and to our vision’s
limit spread / / flat as the sea, and sea-like fed / / on hopes that
Lost
love.  / / This is the bond / / which
limits Liberty, / / the give-and-take / / more real than Equality.  /
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
than twelve remain.  / / Granted, that
limit’s set / / loosely—perhaps there wait / / twenty or twenty-five
[Now of threescore and ten]
caressed / / him still, even while he
limped mechanically / / into the night of his third waterless day.  /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
uld not trace again / / each feature’s
line , and scarcely tried; such peace / / flowed over me to have her t
The Black-out
.  / / If I could plummet down a radial
line …  / / But between me and mine / / the surface curves away, away
Antipodes
against the shore, and the curved surf-
line closed / / in cliffs and a rock-naked promontory.  / / That way
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
companioned only / / by the long sharp
line dividing (dun green from black) / / rough immemorial pasture fro
A Dream
mpsed them, clumped low under the water-
line .  / / He waded in and took one in his hand / / and knifed it fro
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
his seat and ran / / straight for the
line .  / / I could step between, / / stopped him, smiled / / over hi
Ten Seconds on a Tube Platform
es? / (for Tom) / Planted along the old
line of the railway / / a formal row, filament-flowers, / / radio te
Two Cultures?
eir rhythm fairly true, / / snaking in
line or circle, hand in hand / / between temple and altar and the cro
Pelopia and Thyestes
g neglect / / had left it more a guide-
line than a road.  / / And then, perhaps a quarter of a mile / / with
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / but on the back still, delicately
lined , / / a leaf-fan on whorled stalks, above the tang / / which he
Label
the sea is milk, milky blue / / hardly
lined off from the milky sky / / except where islands lie / / hardly
September Cruise
orrow / / did go, wearing my best long
linen dress / / and Cleurista’s wrap borrowed to set it off.  / / The
Spells and Love
fter they caught me behind their desert
lines / / I was in gaol, a women’s prison it had been / / under the
War-time Anecdote
/ / stretch to snapping communication-
lines / / of light, / / are lost.  Night wins.  / / Swirling vastness
Holes in Space
n two points as Time disposes.  / / The
lines recur, the poem closes.  / /
Man’s Seasons
Man’s Seasons / The
lines recur, the poem closes.  / / Once more the still-miraculous spri
Man’s Seasons
/ nostalgic autumn beckoning / / —the
lines recur, the poem closes.  / / Once more the still miraculous spri
Man’s Seasons
here sometimes—we?— / / at dusk, would
linger … we?… they?… / / later, each separately, / / found the night-
From the Air
, / / awake netted in human / / care,
lingers among / / down, under spread wing; / / growing, never grows
Parenthood
ucked beards and brows for their nests’
lining .  / / We can’t sit down for a brief breathing, / / ceaselessly
Villon’s Epitaph
, how sing…  / / Man’s seasons, though,
link in no ring / / but join two points as Time disposes.  / / The li
Man’s Seasons
pledge our lifeblood to renew / / the
link , when choice can muster strength and chance.  / / Yet, while the
Sur le Pont d’Avignon
/ that the drive to dominance / / is
linked by more than chance / / with a lemming counterwish, / / that
What goes up must come down
ever grows / / wholly away, stays / /
linked still to parents / / by fibres, filaments / / charged with su
Parenthood
esar…  / / Perhaps there’s some thought
links steward to Caesar / / which glimpsed might both throw light on
The Betrayal
/ (for Tom, Les, Cecil) / Aegean / Kea
Lion / Leaving Kea / Syros to Naxos / Occultation of Jupiter / (Naxos
September Cruise
corn, / / inescapable stone.  / / The
lion lies, is as he always was.  / / High on the precipitous promontor
September Cruise
n / / (they’d a lot of animals, even a
lioness )— / / These are the springs of my love.  Mark them, lady Moon.
Spells and Love
necessary word awakes / / nor stir the
lips , / / but helpless till pass by this long eclipse / / the spirit
Waiting
The Rift / for Matthew / The scar-
lips of the wounded wood / / watch the sleek sweep of the road.  / /
The Rift
/ had she to offer?  Not these hands and
lips / / to take my love, but others formed beyond / / the grave.  ‘A
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
n / / “You fool” fluted “you fool” the
liquid song / / “you fool, you had the love / / of her whose gift, a
Hebona
/ A loaded image: birds of Coole, / /
Lir’s three children, Elsa’s brothers, / / and the white godhead, Led
Bicycle Ride
he presence of grace / / like Yeats at
Lissadell .  / /
Grace
e and by the shopkeeper shouting / / a
list of his crimes.  And then the shopkeeper’s voice / / was the voice
A Dream
rt at most; / / why sit like those who
listen for the phone, / / expecting nothing, listen for the post, /
The Black-out
for the phone, / / expecting nothing,
listen for the post, / / when mind and hand hold so much to be done?”
The Black-out
hing else as stubborn…  / / —Thestylis,
listen !  The dogs in the town are howling.  / / Hecate’s come to the cr
Spells and Love
How not to
listen to music / The music parts and joins, parts / / like strands o
How not to listen to music
little faith; but we are here.”  / / I
listened , and his footsteps left no sound.  / / The light wind faded o
The Black-out
st the song / / of siren autumn?—which
listened to, I’m done, / / caught in the cycle again of seasonal long
Sixtieth Summer
more than in a dream / / surprised, I
listened to the faint guitar.  / / Down to the quay below Westminster
The Black-out
eet / / on the midnight Acropolis / /
listening / / among marble and moonlight.  / /
Homage
ep / / of downs, walking, sitting, now
listening , / / looking, hours where the power of quiet is strong, /
Happiness
g / / to secrets of the universe…  / /
Listening ?  These have ears / / tuned to another sound-range, eyes whi
Two Cultures?
radio telescopes with lifted faces / /
listening / / to secrets of the universe…  / / Listening?  These have
Two Cultures?
Stephen.  I wish I thought you / / were
listening together.  / / Always returns the / / image of your face as
For Cecil
feet laps to eternity.  / / Alone each
listens , holding to an ear / / an empty shell which whispers of the s
Parted
ll, you’ve guessed.  / / His lust, once
lit , burned on.  So, did they find / / relief?  No.  His fastidiousness
Beyond Measure
arm still burning bright / / as though
lit by the inner flame / / which sears his spirit day and night / /
Ballad
pangled.  / / And clear, still, diamond-
lit / / by washed stars is now the night.  / / Again night’s vaulting
Exchange
slow / / familiar way / / home to the
lit farmsteads…  Who?  / /
From the Air
/ The cliffs.  And under them a fire was
lit .  / / He staggered, crawled, dragged himself to the fire.  / / A h
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
leaf-mould / / uncaring, when his eye
lit on the shell / / dropped there unharmed.  Vaguely he touched it—le
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
To left the plane-trees stood / / part
lit ; to right the shadowed parapet / / where leaned a man against the
The Black-out
/ The bodily earth about us, loud and
lit , / / touches the senses, nothing further; form / / thins into sm
That Way Madness Lies
e should leave in June, / / the hedges
lit with roses.  / / The years of the rose are done.  / / Each year th
Epoch
Gunnar of
Lithend / Riding down to the ship of exile waiting / / in the firth b
Gunnar of Lithend
/ my children would be like the bitch’s
litter / / —born blind, and several months too early.”  / / But I’d t
Love Scene
times later, / / visions half-realised
littering his wake, / / his sublimated loves corroding in him, / / t
Pietà
/ even for a heron’s wings, lifts it a
little .  / / Accept the omen, heart.  / / Rejoice in beauty, rejoice i
Omens
oughtn’t / / soon to go back, I saw a
little ahead / / a single dogrose bush by the river’s edge / / pushi
Omens
now, but it’s far from / / nothing, or
little .  And I offer too / / what may seem nothing or seem all to you
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
t Pride and Dignity / / had touched so
little at Love’s hand / / they did not care to make a stand / / agai
Masque
eavenly qualities / / shall die into a
little bead of blood.”  / / Silence and darkness.  Darkness, silence an
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
off / / with one of the two sisters.  ‘
Little bores’ / / he thought.  And suddenly laid plans to go.  / / His
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
p walk at Cap Martin / / with a clever
little boy, Kenneth Clark, / / how many lifetimes earlier, / / a fou
Time’s Reach
d look down at the gifted bud.  / / The
little boy, wrapped to a kind of heaven, / / loves the whole lot.  So
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
oolth in May, / / hands seek a pair of
little breasts, two lemons on a tree.”  / /
Greek Folk Song
elve-year-old Louise adored / / wicked
little Carly Gancher, / / and did just that.  / /
Vignette
Haiku:  Paedophilia / Suffer the
little / / children to come unto me.  / / I come.  They suffer.  / /
Haiku:  Paedophilia
/ but a church in a churchyard?  / / A
little church, with few graves / / lying close together / / —brother
A Ballad
d moon in the new moon’s arms, / / the
little daughter dead in the sea.  / / Lays of Ancient Rome on my seven
Poetry
/ dying as the tree dies.  / / Autumn’s
little death, / / winter’s image of / / the unresponding grave, / /
The Difference
: “why / / worshipping us, have you so
little done? / / at thirty-two I died, at thirty she, / / Humfry Pay
The Black-out
oved / / and thought about my life and
little done / / —sensibility dumb and strength unproved, / / the tre
The Black-out
came / / to tell you this.  It may seem
little enough / / or nothing to you now, but it’s far from / / nothi
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
talking, sleeping sound, / / O thou of
little faith; but we are here.”  / / I listened, and his footsteps lef
The Black-out
braided lock.  / / The scissors left a
little gap / / filled long ago by growth, and now / / the threads sh
Ballad
d scraps of food and love / / —a sweet
little girl—hanging’s not bad enough— / / But who can know the darkne
Law Report
his mistresses loved him, / / even the
little girls she had got for him, / / loved him and understood him, s
A Dream
hought / / achieves with heart; / / a
little known, / / world on world gone.  / / Spare a small grief / /
Fossils
som, Hopkins, the rest / / of Donne, a
little Langland, a lot of Chaucer, / / other Milton (flawed glory of
Poetry
fear to the Tuscan market-place.  / / A
little later came Kipling’s ballads: / / two men riding through a dea
Poetry
Border Ballads, / / Campion, Wyatt.  A
little later on / / Lycidas draws ahead of L’Allegro / / as The Anci
Poetry
lanet, tiny speck / / circling an only
little less tiny spark, / / one of uncounted millions in a galaxy /
Credo
her slighted slave.  / / How could such
little liberty send his mind / / on such an insolent flight?—the para
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
risoned will / / the heart become, and
little matters where / / the body walks—loved places round us then /
The Black-out
her, / / and made a pass; but left her
little moved.  / / Next day she slept late, but late afternoon / / dr
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ourite toy / / for you to enjoy / / a
little , not keep.  / / He’ll take it back again / / but then / / you
[Time is a child]
/ first opened to him.  But he told them
little / / of who he was or where he had come from, / / except that
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
y had no footing in his dream.  / / The
little one perhaps was prettier, / / certainly sharper, and inclined
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
for this old / / body.  I yield, / / a
little sad.  / / Not very.  I’ve had / / a good day; now at evening aw
[The track up the wild stream]
/ River and tap will always run.  / / A
little shift in earth and air’s / / metabolism.  Bareness, / / water
Drought
phoning the police to fetch him in the
little shop / / in the narrow alley.  / / But he escaped from the all
A Dream
ever came again to her.  / / She wept a
little time alone, / / alone much longer moved and sat.  / / In time
Ballad
tion to a moment’s rest / / he saw the
little tunnel he had made / / in the vast mass.  It was impossible.  /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
nce flickers in that void / / with the
little ugly flame of temper.  / /
Back Room, 1944
outhern mountains, steep and bare, with
little / / water or vegetation and less game, / / footsore and starv
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Is it a dream?  / / I turned and saw a
little way off a bench, / / a man and a woman sitting on it, elderly,
A Hoard
ess to be still there.  / / He walked a
little way upstream to get / / his bottles full of the near-brackish
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ay.  / / Do not interfere.  / / After a
little while / / (or longer) perhaps / / he’ll come, and lay / / ge
[Time is a child]
will not go.”  / / And stayed, and in a
little while was dead.  / / On marble and gilded bronze the sun is bur
Gunnar of Lithend
/ dead.  But it might help them / / a
little who loved you, love / / you, love me, love both of us.  / / Yo
For Cecil
ny other way of living on / / I can as
little wish for as conceive.  / /
Survival
leaves us our fee to Death, the will to
live .  / /
Age
H.A.R.P.  / How could this traitor
live a lie? / / watching his step, watching his speech, / / watching
H.A.R.P.
, and our keep and pay.  / / A man must
live .  A soldier must obey.  / / “Bombers, proceed to London, to Berlin
Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank
, and our keep and pay.  / / A man must
live .  A soldier must obey.  / / Strontium 90 we need perhaps, to clear
Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank
, and our keep and pay.  / / A man must
live .  A soldier must obey.  / / “That not the present only (child, wom
Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank
, and our keep and pay.  / / A man must
live .  A soldier must obey.  / / “You to gas-chamber duty at Auschwitz.
Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank
e makes loss more keen: / / in us they
live , and thus more living we / / …  But what for them?  A sleep withou
Dulce et Decorum
a passport to eternity.  / / No, let me
live as now, and leave / / life as it’s been—disorderly, / / half-fi
A Prayer
fall / / and died, and grandpa came to
live at our / / house here”—it was a long time getting started, / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ng within the sea’s reach.  / / Easy to
live below the built wall, / / forget the exiled sea.  / / I am the w
The Wave
the exact, unreal scheme, / / no more
live by the dream, / / the light that lies and blinds.  / / Open your
Scheme
eaves us (our fee to Death) the will to
live .  / / Condemned we snatch at every short reprieve, / / disguisin
Age
be sloughed in the new / / relation?  (
live —dead).  / / In car, bus, train I / / want the journey not to end
For Cecil
We must, if we would have our children
live , / / do more than understand, more than forgive, / / more than
Against Deterrents
d I think it may) for you.  / / May you
live free / / (as far as love allows) from jealousy, / / his meanest
Epithalamium
lost and missed torment, nor those who
live / / haunt as cold ghosts the memory of the dead / / but warmly
Prayer to Truth
ne.  / / Would he, from lack of will to
live , have let / / death take him there under the thorns?  Who knows? 
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
sitic clutter.  But do not think / / to
live in peace.  The angry sea-god / / is not assuaged.  / / This you s
Odysseus
/ / between the long walls, learnt to
live in slums, / / and watched the Spartan soldiers burn their fields
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
The Wave / Easy to
live in the lands above the sea, / / claim nothing within the sea’s r
The Wave
r vision.  While we live / / we know we
live , know nature.  I believe / / our game was worth her candle after
The Reckoning
e one thing that counts.  / / But as we
live ‘No man / / is an island’ or, if / / brine-girt by circumstance
Touch
his border, that border, these kingdoms
live on.  / /
[The bare, beautiful borders]
/ And if, as is most likely, you / /
live on after me, please / / keep me with you that way.  / / I don’t
A poem you may like to see
loving and thieving, passion and blood,
live on / / in song.  / / And there’s a further border.  The world of
[The bare, beautiful borders]
hich you yet may come.  / / If you dare
live on, while the princess sleeps / / in timeless youth, love on thr
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
all.  / / This riven world in which we
live / / one moment shows as whole and healed.  / / Accept the vision
Hymn
eaves us.  Our fee to Death, the will to
live , / / outlasts this tarnished thing, worn to a sieve, / / once t
Age
r twenty-five / / —but I’d as soon not
live / / (sooner) as long as that, / / if living’s the word for it. 
[Now of threescore and ten]
es—as well / / she did—“The Queen—Long
live the King—The King / / and Queen—Long live the Queen.”  So, this w
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
an the sap rise?  / / How does the tree
live ?  / / The living spirit, as beautiful and strong / / as the livi
Five Poems for Roni
e the King—The King / / and Queen—Long
live the Queen.”  So, this was it.  / / The horses swerved as the skill
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
tle.  / / His arm along the tiller, the
live thing / / moving with him, extension of muscle and bone, / / li
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
rliest summer.  This is / / life, which
live things by nature / / (their nature, its own) forsake.  / / Does
Seasons
love what she had and was, is, / / and
live this for her while I’m here.  / / And if, as is most likely, you
A poem you may like to see
eaves turn / / and things we shall not
live to cherish / / others are born to burn.  / / Fire-raising autumn
Cassandra’s Song
ing / / this clear brilliance, it will
live unlost / / sealed in the amber past.  / / The ugly duckling flow
Joy
e forced, have had our vision.  While we
live / / we know we live, know nature.  I believe / / our game was wo
The Reckoning
lives like a memory / / and, would we
live , we must let moments pass / / to memory, form the phases of our
Moment and Memory
ess than the girl.  / / The boy did not
live , / / went down where they came from / / through the pit of the
The Green Children of Woolpit
leaves us our fee to Death.  The will to
live / / (which yet loves nothing like a sedative) / / traps us in s
Age
here in the blank of loss / / ways to
live with it, / / a path towards peace.  / / Sought, and sometimes fo
Villevieille
e pride / / of deeper skill.  He almost
lived afloat.  / / Gurgle and clop and slap and hiss, water / / movin
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
most felt he was the forester, / / had
lived all this inside that heart and head, / / and lived (or died) to
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
r / / flesh won and brought me home.  I
lived and died / / in the wide air, behind a bolted door.  / / From m
The Black-out
[We lived and sang, my brother] / We
lived and sang, my brother, / / and watched the days go by, / / and
[We lived and sang, my brother]
[We
lived and sang, my brother] / We lived and sang, my brother, / / and
[We lived and sang, my brother]
/ a home.  / / It had to end / / but,
lived fully, still is.  / / Time, this time, / / shows himself a frie
Two Poems from a New Life
and the princess like each other?…  / /
Lived happy ever after?…  Children?…  Dozens / / of questions where a s
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
pon a time, in some demesne, / / there
lived , in service to a King and Queen, / / a poor young widow with an
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
p, / / content that those we love have
lived , knowing / / our narrow length of time eternal deep.  / /
Happiness
racian nurse (she’s dead now), / / who
lived next door, came and kept begging me / / to come to the show wit
Spells and Love
is inside that heart and head, / / and
lived (or died) too that last horrible / / reach, among naked, spiny,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
strange and not good— / / her parents
lived out in the country, down / / beside the river where it starts t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
bind / / his arm in whom her soul had
lived , / / she gave it now to be a sign / / that all she had and was
Ballad
about the forest-land / / where he had
lived —that’s why he was so good / / at all that craft—there wasn’t tr
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ The loved, the long worked-over, the
lived through, / / the too good to be true, / / is nothing, and we b
Scheme
uch do not pass.  / / But what she sees
lives .  A flat illustration / / jumps off the page— / / the rider rei
Nadia
d through the sand and rich soil of our
lives , / / and all those lives of others / / the silt of whose brief
Becoming
[Our
lives are in other hands] / Our lives are in other hands.  So are the l
[Our lives are in other hands]
[Our lives are in other hands] / Our
lives are in other hands.  So are the lives / / of those we love.  Our
[Our lives are in other hands]
e.  Our love though is our own.  / / Our
lives are subject to wickedness and folly / / in others.  Harder to be
[Our lives are in other hands]
others.  Harder to bear, our children’s
lives / / are subject too.  And sadly we know ourselves / / foolish o
[Our lives are in other hands]
not, like this, to be silent.  / / She
lives behind a wall of glass / / which speech, touch do not pass.  /
Nadia
spells are taken off / / and happy now
lives ever after.  / / All spells but this?  Must this spell too / / b
End of Fairy-Story
spells are taken off / / and happy now
lives ever after.  / / Beyond sound of Time’s warning cough / / all t
End of Fairy-Story
ve it power.  / / “Consider those whose
lives have kindled your life / / and bring your torch out of the ivor
The Black-out
channelled stone / / speeds gather as
lives hurtle down.  / /
Anniversaries
Anniversaries / Speeds gather as
lives hurtle down / / the helter-skelter of the years— / / a tower w
Anniversaries
one almost hears / / speeds gather as
lives hurtle down / / the helter-skelter.  Of the year’s / / pattern
Anniversaries
hirteen.  / / And now the loved brother
lives in Babylon, / / Paris, leagues away.  And further.  / / He has l
Eugénie de Guérin
life; the artist’s captured moment / /
lives like a memory / / and, would we live, we must let moments pass
Moment and Memory
h soil of our lives, / / and all those
lives of others / / the silt of whose brief or eternal loves / / now
Becoming
ur lives are in other hands.  So are the
lives / / of those we love.  Our love though is our own.  / / Our live
[Our lives are in other hands]
r-quenched.  / / Life goes on, finished
lives recede / / and remain.  / / New lives we love do not know, / /
Anniversary
/ And so, mutatis mutandis, through our
lives .  / / The natural good state is anarchy / / —would be, if human
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
found him—“The leaves die but the tree
lives / / to leaf again.  Trees fall but not the wood.  / / And though
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
lives recede / / and remain.  / / New
lives we love do not know, / / do not need.  / / Is it a tangled or a
Anniversary
bleak and harsh / / night here; whose
lives , which life has tried to quench, / / seem shrunk now to their e
The Embankment
[Living alone is lonely] / Yes, / /
living alone is lonely, but loneliness / / itself’s not hard to accep
[Living alone is lonely]
[
Living alone is lonely] / Yes, / / living alone is lonely, but loneli
[Living alone is lonely]
Living and Dying / We all go under earth / / but not, God help us, be
Living and Dying
does understand me.”  / / I failed you
living / / and what I do can’t help you / / dead.  But it might help
For Cecil
it, as beautiful and strong / / as the
living body, has bravery to transcend / / the dying body, till the bo
Five Poems for Roni
ther in his sleep.  / / I lay there, my
living body stiff as a doll.  / / These are the springs of my love.  Ma
Spells and Love
have—look? rather, dip / / deep in the
living breath / / of this warm, beautiful / / —and cold, and horribl
[Now of threescore and ten]
/ Would not God be in His world / / of
living day?  / / She laid the thing in her apron, / / slipped away.  /
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
melts / / the ice-cap on that love—its
living force / / shifts into proportion resentments, guilts.  / / And
[White foam sweeps]
e wooded plain / / and, lying hard and
living hard for once, / / to make his way there and for once be free…
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ is mythical, someone says.  / / But
living he earned this / / beautiful crown of myth, / / this parable
Caring
belong, / / our love, keeps happiness
living in pain’s teeth.  / / …  But only the real presence brings us th
[My grandchildren are stamping the ice-puddles]
han our dreams.  / / In the business of
living , its failures and gains, / / let us never lose touch with the
Hymn
sweet, / / as you did not forget / /
living , never let / / fear or horror deny it; / / so now, dead, can
Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank
ve and leave.  / / And any other way of
living on / / I can as little wish for as conceive.  / /
Survival
the features of the god / / and of the
living precinct made / / this beauty of scattered skeleton, / / deso
Delos in Spring
?  / / How does the tree live?  / / The
living spirit, as beautiful and strong / / as the living body, has br
Five Poems for Roni
fter loved unknown dead and loved known
living / / the loved known dead.  How much does memory wane? / / figu
The Black-out
kling fall / / show that the stream is
living too.  / /
[High boughs arch over the half-dry creek]
ntments, / / is easier accepted than a
living trouble.  / / I don’t know how to help you, but our intent / /
[White foam sweeps]
en: / / in us they live, and thus more
living we / / …  But what for them?  A sleep without a dream?  / / Rath
Dulce et Decorum
love: love / / of the expressive, the
living word, of / / poetry.  She made / / —of sewing, cooking, corres
Eugénie de Guérin
/ / (sooner) as long as that, / / if
living’s the word for it.  / / Contrariwise of course / / death may c
[Now of threescore and ten]
now who) to my house.  / / I’ll pound a
lizard and mix an ill drink for him / / tomorrow.  But now, Thestylis,
Spells and Love
oss / / too easily out of your natural
load ” / / and added gentler:  “Come.”  We passed across / / under Quee
The Black-out
good, / / as he moved outwards in his
loaded boat.  / / Most of the morning he stood out to sea / / against
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
No swan, though, is just a swan.  / / A
loaded image: birds of Coole, / / Lir’s three children, Elsa’s brothe
Bicycle Ride
o give / / as though it were a braided
lock .  / / The scissors left a little gap / / filled long ago by grow
Ballad
ass and many miss, / / but sensibility
locked behind a door / / is lost—is power betrayed by cowardice.  / /
The Black-out
man carved by candlelight / / behind a
locked door, hitting / / recalcitrant marble, whittling / / the brut
Pietà
Winter Recalled / for Dominick / Wrist
locked over wrist, / / wrung hands between knees, / / hunched should
Winter Recalled
he rivers of Barnstaple.  / / Later one
lodged at Perachora, from the sanctuary / / below the lighthouse on t
Bury My Heart
t moment empty.  / / Look on the walls,
lofty and from no empty / / moat upmounting, but straight from shinin
For Rachel
he fog / / giving the lie to chart and
log .) / / We must be careful where we tread: / / the path across the
Lost
orched poverty is better / / than rain-
logged poverty).  The sun burns / / on the quarry-face.  The other way,
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
/ Neglect the planned return / / from
logical pursuit.  / / Let the moment burn.  / /
Glimpse
t of the roped truck / / cutting naked
loins .  / / But that was long ago, / / long before naked Jews / / we
Causes
him, / / but—princesse insufficiently
lointaine — / / she simply had no footing in his dream.  / / The littl
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
boy, his gaze intent on her again— / /
loitering , spying on her high griefs—coarse, rude— / / crossly she tu
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
The hunting being poor / / the princes
lolled about the draughty hall / / shouting for more wood on the fire
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ris and Berlin, / / Rome and Carthage,
London and Edinburgh.  / / The world goes round and the words come rou
On the Border
The Black-out /
London , Autumn 1939 / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /
The Black-out
my raw knuckles / / in the rough black
London grime.  / / I’ve fallen before / / (my feet almost as clumsy a
The Fall
Pavements / Dog-shit in
London ; / / New York, chewed gum.  / / To each culture-surface / / i
Pavements
of it? / / thin-legged and mocked, in
London or in Lyme / / timelessly scraping gay unheeded time / / to g
La Fontaine et le Déluge
er must obey.  / / “Bombers, proceed to
London , to Berlin.  / / Sentries, patrol with dog and tommy-gun / / w
Two Poems in Memory of Anne Frank
’s woes.  / / In Guildford Place, where
London’s nicest statue / / kneels with her pitcher and her broken nos
The Black-out
he shuttered heart’s despair.  / / From
London’s prison now you turn again / / to Dorset, Devon, Berkshire, G
The Black-out
/ / “We know this shining stream bears
London’s refuse / / from railway, gasworks, factory and drain / / pa
The Black-out
a stone / / humped in the tides, gull-
lone , / / gull-tenanted, and soon / / gull-dropping-white / / on th
The Sea
air, behind a bolted door.  / / From my
lone way I could not turn aside, / / yet wrote of love, and what I wr
The Black-out
she: “you know me well.  / / The moor’s
loneliness and the wind’s vigour / / bred me secret and strong.  The w
The Black-out
door, / / for we may hate the tower of
loneliness / / but still cleave to the tower of peace.  / /
The Party
what I wrote was true.  / / Passion and
loneliness , despair and pride / / peopled my moor and heart—that worl
The Black-out
/ Yes, / / living alone is lonely, but
loneliness / / itself’s not hard to accept.  / / I found I could adap
[Living alone is lonely]
is lonely] / Yes, / / living alone is
lonely , but loneliness / / itself’s not hard to accept.  / / I found
[Living alone is lonely]
father) / / beloved and loving, but a
lonely child, / / timid, he walked his long dreams with a friend / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
what the true sufferer knows: / / the
lonely deaf, the blind / / who fumbling in the paralytic dark / / aw
Waiting
d.  / / Learning from rangers, lost for
lonely miles, / / he knew at last the tracked woods like his hand.  /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ at moments a companion.  More?  Well,
lonely / / she sometimes was; hardly aware, and yet / / glad in the
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
and in the grey / / of dawn met on the
lonely way / / a man I knew but could not name.  / / He said “Good mo
Quo Vadis
[Living alone is
lonely ] / Yes, / / living alone is lonely, but loneliness / / itself
[Living alone is lonely]
/ Enemy indeed he tends to seem:  / /
longed -for hours, almost as soon / / as entered, gone; / / yet drags
Two Poems from a New Life
already made.  / / Freedom he’d half so
longed for was now his / / total and dead.  The world before him laid
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
blue, and knew it for the sea— / / and
longed to lose for once the wooded plain / / and, lying hard and livi
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
like many another dream, / / is now no
longer a what-might-still- / / be (though you know it never will) /
Shelved
t, miles to his left, a second / / and
longer cape, almost sunk in the blue, / / reached out from a remoter
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ and she’s hysterical / / and one no
longer cares / / to put a rough thought into kinder words / / or kee
Back Room, 1944
pt a little time alone, / / alone much
longer moved and sat.  / / In time there came another one / / who lov
Ballad
ere.  / / After a little while / / (or
longer ) perhaps / / he’ll come, and lay / / gently in your lap / /
[Time is a child]
/ One morning you couldn’t bear it any
longer , / / razored it away, / / and looking out into the dawn sky /
[Fall rainbows the forest-acred mountains]
ral hurly-burly / / the solid truth no
longer stands alone, / / and anyone may one day come / / to see the
That Way Madness Lies
/ / after lording it so long / / (far
longer than man has done).  / / Whatever it was it was irreparable.  /
What goes up must come down
as we love her; / / but need not in a
longer view, I fancy, / / worry that we have hurt her.  / /
Buttercups
eam to Ocean / / now, and I’ll bear my
longing as I have borne it.  / / Good-bye, Moon on your shining throne
Spells and Love
scription for a Convent / Here must the
longing blood allay its heat, / / flesh cast its bloom and shapely ha
Inscription for a Convent
nse of proportion; / / an unforgetting
longing for innocence.  / /
Judgement
ty, delight, love, pain.  / / A violent
longing for the hills again / / hustled him to the ford—be hanged the
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
towards the sea, / / and once again a
longing heaved in him / / to kick over the traces and be free.  / / T
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
We do not know / / —can only dress our
longing thought in dream, / / weak tissue woven / / of past and hope
Separation
grieving’s not there / / but piercing
longing to be where / / whatever day / / wakes your heart.  / / A pa
[The clouds that pressed the air]
east our better side / / has long been
longing to have died, / / do not be too sad / / for those whose flam
Whom the Gods Love
ime.  / / Let not our flesh and spirit,
longing -torn, / / grow bitter with the burden of the years.  / / Make
Prayer to Time
/ caught in the cycle again of seasonal
longing , / / winter’s bare truths, soft, sweet strength of spring, /
Sixtieth Summer
do not think it odd / / to frame some
longings in a form of prayer / / addressed to something which may not
Prayer
e that’s always in that happiness.  / /
Longing’s back at once with a quick pang.  / / But the constant consci
[My grandchildren are stamping the ice-puddles]
s of rice.  / / Far away, far…  / / But
look across / / the street, or two or three streets.  Know / / featur
Dinner
flesh, / / this hour and place.  / / I
look across through my old face / / at the sleeper on the other seat.
Meeting
ter at the wedding-feast / / endured a
look and glowed to wine, / / our two humanities, increased / / by lo
Hymn
arse, rude— / / crossly she turned her
look and step aside.  / / But felt at once her natural kindness chide
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ossible ways / / and taking it did not
look back again.  / / Behind him walked his brother, and I called him:
The Black-out
, / / teasing the plaintive self:  / /
Look backward down your life / / for the constellated roses.  / /
Epoch
fall wide in open ocean / / —harmless? 
Look —circles of desert spread: / / seas and rivers, all water, sap, b
Stones
atisfied, the five / / stand round and
look down at the gifted bud.  / / The little boy, wrapped to a kind of
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
one another in the widening black.  / /
Look down into your life and know the night.  / /
Macrocosm
aight on sea.  / / Stepping further on,
look down / / where a church sits small, alone / / on a small promon
September Cruise
The deadly knife-edge of his tongue and
look , / / feared by so many, he concealed from her.  / / (He turned t
Change Places…
her for a story—‘just one more’— / / a
look he didn’t know came in her eyes, / / and then she told him, to h
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
-kingdom, his conquered being.  / / Her
look , her walk, her laugh, her voice, the whole / / informed by her w
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ion, led by one / / whose fierce, dark
look I knew; who never was / / weak to regret, but followed his few d
The Black-out
/ / it’s a moment to take a cool / /
look in the face, or / / rather at the fact, of death.  / / What do I
[Now of threescore and ten]
t / / death.  But have I learnt / / to
look it in the face, / / the disfigured face?  / /
Another Summer
lp being? rather, I deeply am.  / / Yet
look just now: / / water in patterns under the wind’s touch, / / fas
Tristi Fummo
n image, will not fix / / the shifting
look .  / / Lift it again.  / / Naked under brutal lamps, / / fine Jew
Stray Thoughts at a Wedding
n / / of an ash-tree, / / catches the
look , / / lifts the heart / / to a still starburst / / in the night
Summer Vision
to gull across the sand and water.  / /
Look , on the sand a small way from the water / / a child is building,
For Rachel
bird leaves the next moment empty.  / /
Look on the walls, lofty and from no empty / / moat upmounting, but s
For Rachel
eir base, / / or climb them, sit, / /
look out to sea, / / ships sliding by…  / / Rooted and green / / the
A Wreck
for triumphant humankind, / / it does
look probable / / that the drive to dominance / / is linked by more
What goes up must come down
d long, with all the warmth / / I have—
look ? rather, dip / / deep in the living breath / / of this warm, be
[Now of threescore and ten]
/ pair of sets of teeth so even…?) / /
Look round.  His black is thin behind, / / her blonde is mousy at the
On the Towpath
through the shadow of action, word and
look , / / seen through our shifting mood, / / a double wall of smoke
A Window
keep.  / / At the white alley’s end you
look / / straight on sea.  / / Stepping further on, look down / / wh
September Cruise
ck / / cloud mounting blue sky.  / / I
look through my own eyes and others too, / / the dead who see nothing
[Released from cloud the low sun at my back]
runs by walls.  / / I sought my guide’s
look : “uncorrupted lover / / of earth and air,” I said, “the grime th
The Black-out
/ Nears the top.  Turn.  TherE / / Now,
look , under clear aiR / / Is the wide world, waitinG / / Everything
[A long steep road to climb]
Macrocosm /
Look up into the night, but not to extend / / divine order spun from
Macrocosm
e my body, through my feet / / while I
look up, points home, / / clean through the stable-seeming spinning g
Antipodes
man against the light and drew.  / / I
looked across his arm, and having set / / eyes on the work, the worsh
The Black-out
/ But thorn-crossed like the last.  He
looked again.  / / A pine…  Oh, fool—full-circle fool.  He wept, / / kn
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
d knew that all was said.  / / Before I
looked again I knew her gone; / / then looked, and shivering left the
The Black-out
might be beached?  / / Probably not.  He
looked along the plain.  / / South from the southern cape lay mystery.
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
urself”, she nodded at the sea.  / / He
looked along the rock, and presently / / glimpsed them, clumped low u
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
one / / showed the cleft now.  / / He
looked along the sand / / for something for his love—a love-gift and
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e golden carriage.  / / The young queen
looked , and a curve suddenly / / gave her the sea-lapped city where t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
oung forester.  Utterly worn out / / he
looked , and foreign in his strange-cut green.”  / / The image of the s
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ce and did not think to answer / / but
looked and looked; and then I was alone / / with Emily.  The noble mou
The Black-out
looked again I knew her gone; / / then
looked , and shivering left the deeper shade, / / and tired and cold m
The Black-out
not think to answer / / but looked and
looked ; and then I was alone / / with Emily.  The noble mountain stood
The Black-out
/ / the shell “And this is yours.”  She
looked at it / / wondering.  He, lifting the half-worked stuff, / / r
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
my love.  Mark them, lady Moon.  / / He
looked at me, the rake, then lowered his eyes, / / sat down on the be
Spells and Love
thern sunset / / over the ocean rim.  I
looked at the moon, / / looked up searching stars.  And I thought I he
A Hoard
hed heart / / caught fire.  I must have
looked awful.  I don’t remember / / a thing about the procession or ho
Spells and Love
before he made the top / / he turned,
looked back, and glimpsed, miles to the east, / / the sea.  He suddenl
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
tanding above all appears, / / until I
looked beyond the lands of my language / / and Homer and Dante joined
Poetry
the afternoon of the fifth day / / he
looked down a broad valley from a col / / higher than any hill which
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ of gall.  From such a still height I
looked down / / and watched detached my weary body go / / with Emily
The Black-out
ing gleam.  / / Within, book in hand, I
looked down at a page / / which sang to me likewise in letters of gol
[The municipal building stood square in my dream]
ide’…  That was a fevered dream.  / / He
looked down at the flasks, the bow, the quiver / / and the cold ash. 
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
and grinding wheels awoke him.  / / He
looked down on the yard, straight from above: / / carriage-top, horse
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ wandered the woods, or from the hill
looked down / / over dank green dissolving into grey, / / dreamed of
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e nurse said, / / not in the tears she
looked for but in laughter.  / / Later, the boy walked on the sounding
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ure, make contact with, the child.  / /
Looked into Down’s / / Syndrome features.  / / A happening.  / / Why
Ten Seconds on a Tube Platform
e with it.  / / Out of her thoughts she
looked into the wood, / / feeling its foredoomed beauty like a pain. 
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
elow / / his horse threw him.  He rose,
looked round, and said / / “Beautiful are the cornfields, white to re
Gunnar of Lithend
g, stammering, he blurted out / / “You
looked sad as you walked.  If I could do…”  / / He stopped; and she flu
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e knowledge of a hopeless dream / / he
looked the other way, towards the sea, / / and once again a longing h
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
and a prince’s wife.’  / / He stumbled,
looked up, did not know the place.  / / Turning bewildered, the old we
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ith girl or boy.  Boy or girl lying / /
looked up into that eye, eye without sight / / whose circle gathered
Block 21
e ocean rim.  I looked at the moon, / /
looked up searching stars.  And I thought I heard / / “Would you like
A Hoard
ck.  One arrow gone.  / / Be careful.  He
looked where the two flasks lay.  / / A bow, eleven arrows.  And the wa
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
till here, / / breathing the air, / /
looking across the light, / / planning, doing, aware.  / / But after
Leap Year
nd chips under the pines at Manly, / /
looking across the small-boat anchorage / / to the sail-flecked harbo
Content
a sweet thing to have knowledge of / /
looking back from our love.  / /
Leap Year
kes our life, for all we said; / / and
looking back on it we see / / less what we made than what we’re made,
Cedar
as a solitary / / prisoner / / she is
looking blindly through those lost eyes / / for her brown hair.  / /
Song
starred with beauty.  / / I leaned out,
looking down at the dark reflection— / / bush in the smooth water, pr
Omens
ious effort to take / / the fact that,
looking down / / on me from this balcony, / / a watcher would see me
Climacteric by the Sea
s / / fixed and lost.  / / What is she
looking for?  What is gone?  Why / / this black frost / / on a spring
Song
ried rock drops to the slums, / / like
looking from a train into backyards / / of English slums, but worse (
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
/ learns a composure in the end / / no
looking -glass can lend.  / /
Blind
which never was / / composed before a
looking -glass, / / learns a composure in the end / / no looking-glas
Blind
Through the
Looking -Glass / Towards the hill would Alice go / / it slipped away f
Through the Looking-Glass
, walking, sitting, now listening, / /
looking , hours where the power of quiet is strong, / / hours when the
Happiness
d standing in a wilderness of snow / /
looking in at my door: / / a face I was in love with long ago, / / a
Vision Between Waking and Sleep
longer, / / razored it away, / / and
looking out into the dawn sky / / saw in the broken, brightening west
[Fall rainbows the forest-acred mountains]
I see?  / / Chiefly the urgency / / of
looking , rather, deep / / and long, with all the warmth / / I have—l
[Now of threescore and ten]
igh day, / / cramped and cold he stood
looking up along / / the two valleys, each climbing its own way.  / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / to give her, if not all, / / much—
looks , a quick mind, / / a feeling heart, and one / / thing which do
“Gale is Dead”
s, / / sinks in dark stuffs and secret
looks , and shows / / the simple to the curious.  / / And all are here
The Party
press feelings, release words.  / / She
looks away from them, down, towards / / hands sometimes, more often l
Nadia
es gather, and the white monastery / /
looks east over the sea.  / / East we fare, and the rock-bound dreamin
September Cruise
e shining broom-slopes.  Another at Iken
looks / / from a low cliff, like Saunton’s but topped with oaks, / /
Bury My Heart
g frost / / —this monochrome stillness
looks / / like death but is something else.  / / Venus is burning /
For Cecil
to kill.  / / A chain of predators / /
looks like the primal curse, / / yet should he cease to prey / / the
Ecology
/ anywhere wilful thought may lead.  She
looks / / out from the green shade / / passionately fearing for his
Eugénie de Guérin
de, fencing / / the cowrie beach— / /
looks out to Lundy or along the long sands which reach / / with their
Bury My Heart
ner of Weymouth Bay, at Ringstead, / /
looks out to Portland or up to Whitenothe’s / / high chalk head.  / /
Bury My Heart
ng / for Thomas / The girl in the train
looks out with brown eyes / / fixed and lost.  / / What is she lookin
Song
lighthouse on the rocky promontory / /
looks over blue gulf-water to the blue / / mountains of Achaea, and t
Bury My Heart
/ sometimes.  Do not speak / / when he
looks your way.  / / Do not interfere.  / / After a little while / /
[Time is a child]
e’.  / / His light should dissipate the
looming dark, / / while the embodiment of his jealousy, / / the brig
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ the path wound under trees / / a big
loop , and then / / out into a space of powerful slopes, / / grass lo
Los Altos Hills
/ and saw a few faint stars across the
loose / / network of twigs, and knew that all was said.  / / Before I
The Black-out
hes.  / / Day by day, as the leaves are
loosed and shed / / and the stillness of the far solstice approaches,
Dance of the Seasons
perched on the cliff.  / / He aimed and
loosed , but the shaft passed above / / and shattered on the rock.  One
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
s but this?  Must this spell too / / be
loosed by Time, the timeless victor?  / /
End of Fairy-Story
s but this?  Must this spell too / / be
loosed by Time, the timeless victor?  / / We loved Time, watching him
End of Fairy-Story
/ / for lovely shell or leaf / / that
loosed or crushed before its hour / / left unfulfilled its being, nor
Fossils
and, / / getting quite close before he
loosed the string, / / the only thing that mattered—not to miss.  / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
in.  / / Granted, that limit’s set / /
loosely —perhaps there wait / / twenty or twenty-five / / —but I’d as
[Now of threescore and ten]
en, red, brown— / / when they begin to
loosen and come down / / I hear my mother say / / “Each caught leaf
[Golden, red, brown]
ve makes us.  / / Yet endeavour / / to
loosen the child’s tether / / and to leave soon enough.  / /
Parenthood
white tree at the full; / / whiteness
loosening , falling, / / drifting on partial wind / / petal from whit
[What words are there for Spring?]
armth new-quickening his straining / /
loosens the bindings and the close walls burst, / / but if the strong
Chrysalis
moment, intolerably taut, / / suddenly
loosens to a blessed light: / / a figure by the cradle, white by whit
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
her one?  / / He washed and patched and
looted .  Clean and clad, / / his bow restrung, his quiver once more fu
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Lopped / Like music heard in / / the mindless wind / / nerve-ends mu
Lopped
gone with the white rose / / horribly
lopped , / / the manner of the loss / / and all that’s in them lost /
Die Weisse Rose
/ / the girls who kept your sovereign
lord amused?  / / They hurl at you unmerited abuse / / because you me
To Hera
ncleansed his stain) / / crying on the
Lord of Light / / not to be purified / / but to be shown the way /
Pelopia and Thyestes
the dinosaurs and their like / / after
lording it so long / / (far longer than man has done).  / / Whatever
What goes up must come down
Los Altos Hills / On the high hill, in sun-bright scrub, / / the path
Los Altos Hills
, / / a grace, a blessing we can never
lose .  / /
[Our lives are in other hands]
t to your right.”  / / “Thanks.  Did you
lose a lamb the other day?  / / I found a dead one this side, not far
On the Border
ble cry, / / and “What have you got to
lose but chains?”  So why / / slave-camps, torture (body, mind) to com
Betrayals
knew it for the sea— / / and longed to
lose for once the wooded plain / / and, lying hard and living hard fo
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
is loving.  / / You fool, how could you
lose / / her love, unless because, / / you fool, you fool, of having
Hebona
the bond that holds me without hope.  To
lose / / my prison and my peace by going away…  / / Could I?…  But onl
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
bough / / and drowsing I began / / to
lose my thoughts, and then / / “You fool” fluted “you fool” the liqui
Hebona
ension’s imperceptible boundaries, / /
lose one another in the widening black.  / / Look down into your life
Macrocosm
/ / he might, when all seemed won, yet
lose the day, / / defeated with the fairy who had blessed him.  / / A
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / I set my feet to climb.  Let me not
lose / / the flame, whose power I feel of work and love, / / in ashe
The Black-out
lower hills.  As we mount higher / / we
lose the illusory fire— / / grey rocks; bushes green, many-coloured,
Makherás
love and hope / / grow dim to her and
lose their power, / / but on his arm still burning bright / / as tho
Ballad
grow smaller on the wide / / water—so
lose them too?  But the shrammed soul / / shrinking contracts against
The Black-out
waves move on uncharted courses / / to
lose themselves, or break on sand, / / rock, shingle—continent or isl
Shipwreck
s failures and gains, / / let us never
lose touch with the joys and the pains / / of this deeper existence w
Hymn
ers he seemed / / not to be one of the
losers , but the winner.  / /
Two Glimpses from Dante’s Hell
se might sink us even deeper.  Yet, / /
losing or winning, keep us from the pit / / of a complacent hate.  /
Prayer to Truth
/ for less than half a year.  / / Such
loss .  A life that might / / have filled so many four-year cycles more
Leap Year
: / / “countless the hours trouble and
loss allow, / / harsh in its lasting though their pain must be, / /
The Black-out
horribly lopped, / / the manner of the
loss / / and all that’s in them lost / / (incalculable theirs, / /
Die Weisse Rose
Among these words the bleak fact of his
loss , / / dropped sharp as new, contorted him with pain, / / its bla
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
olled back across my heart the gain and
loss .  / / I swallowed, but the tears blotted my gaze.  / / “You know,
The Black-out
ing been; yet, having been, / / being. 
Loss love as love makes loss more keen: / / in us they live, and thus
Dulce et Decorum
en, / / being.  Loss love as love makes
loss more keen: / / in us they live, and thus more living we / / …  B
Dulce et Decorum
/ / as stood against the starry donors—
loss , / / negation, new-moon darkness—Carabosse!  / / And words like
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
destroyed it as Byron’s friend: / / my
loss , not Byron’s, I can’t forgive him for.  / /
[I find it difficult to forgive Tom Moore]
un / / another being.  / / And love in
loss , not understanding, / / wept—and love blessed sang—and both were
Winter Solstice
/ / a young man journeying.  A sense of
loss , / / pain deeply felt.  And yet, this was a story.  / / A story. 
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
tain goal.  / / She smiled: “this is no
loss ,” she said.  “If you / / had stepped in too, you would have lost
The Black-out
eparable errors, / / the irreplaceable
loss , / / the truth of love, somehow, / / is here and never lost.  /
Credo
/ / which moves the tides of gain and
loss .  / / This year we saw a shining being enter, / / like any other
Winter Solstice
ground by gross / / poverty, in common
loss / / unsingular.  / / Here a pittance- / / pension gives the ail
Dinner
y have sought / / here in the blank of
loss / / ways to live with it, / / a path towards peace.  / / Sought
Villevieille
is another country.  / / The waste, the
loss we said.  / / Yes, but how bright and brave / / the flag at the
Five Poems for Roni
, the seasons offer / / no analogy for
loss .  / / Yet, this untamed recurring / / of brave, ephemeral beauty
Five Poems for Roni
at in death / / all failures, like all
losses / / are irrecoverable.  / / On the radio / / Schubert’s Sheph
For Cecil
f love, somehow, / / is here and never
lost .  / /
Credo
/ / What ugly villain commits / / so
lost a crime?  / / But someone saw the girl / / with her apron-full. 
The Shepherdess of Cahuzac
ommonness, muddy? / / shimmering light
lost again / / in grey reversion of rain?  / / Rain and sun, snow, wi
Exchange
eded; crossing slope and stream / / we
lost all trace of habitation—house / / and street gone from the fresh
The Black-out
we claim to do waits to begin; / / or
lost , an acreage to our hands is laid / / heavier if not so wide.  /
Prayer to Truth
/ This fringe from Delphis’s cloak he
lost , and I / / now shred it and toss the shreds on the savage fire. 
Spells and Love
t die, let not the spectres of / / the
lost and missed torment, nor those who live / / haunt as cold ghosts
Prayer to Truth
ss, windless noon, he followed it, / /
lost and recovered, up steep valleys and down, / / until, five days’
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
where along the road, / / find the way
lost and the dark wood / / a fear.  / / I, already old, / / successf
[Most of us, somewhere along the road]
ence he had embarked / / withdrawn and
lost as where he would be stopping.  / / The wind at evening veered in
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
incess, and you think your love / / is
lost , but love is never lost.  I came / / to tell you this.  It may see
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
I made; and much I dreamed is mine and
lost , / / but some waits others, and of those are you; / / the time
The Black-out
s in speed-gathering flight / / from a
lost centre: seeming to press back / / dimension’s imperceptible boun
Macrocosm
drag.  Day and night and day / / (time
lost ) closed in fever’s bewildering storm.  / / His arrows one by one
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
tiller’s kick / / hurled him aside.  He
lost control.  Then he / / was fighting water.  Nothing he could do /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
hingle—continent or island, / / coasts
lost down bare horizons.  / / In widening intervals the wind / / drow
Shipwreck
870.  / / Sedan, Paris besieged, France
lost , / / exile, chilled in English Chislehurst, / / widowhood, soon
Time’s Reach
/ she is looking blindly through those
lost eyes / / for her brown hair.  / /
Song
ng wide over the water, / / dwindling,
lost .  / / Fledged presently, son, daughter, / / circle, take flight
Out from the Cliff
/ / has no laughing shadow / / —poor
lost fool.  / /
Catharsis
ent, Giles leading.  Soon the song, / /
lost for a while, came loud.  The gondola / / shot from beneath the br
The Black-out
empty land.  / / Learning from rangers,
lost for lonely miles, / / he knew at last the tracked woods like his
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
r sky round your birth.  / / Anne Frank
lost her breath into that air / / just when your innocent steps were
Two Poems for G
ld die / / in high summer, this autumn
lost .  / / Her own summer already past / / but winter not yet come, /
Death
/ the sea.  He suddenly felt alone and
lost , / / homesick, afraid; but turned back, pressed on up.  / / And
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ur love / / is lost, but love is never
lost .  I came / / to tell you this.  It may seem little enough / / or
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
orld into a cell, / / uncomprehending,
lost , / / illiterate most likely, no resources / / but a dull hope. 
War-time Anecdote
once more.  / / Her laughter’s end was
lost in a gull’s cry, / / repeated, dropped, picked up, interminably
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
a faint trouble in a moment gone, / /
lost in a smile as warm as sunlight—“You.”  / / “Ah, you” his heart in
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
and their trilling is mostly scattered,
lost in / / defeating gusts, but comes in bright bursts as if / / to
Two Poems from a New Life
of water heaved and hurled on rock was
lost / / in general clamour and din.  But he was sure / / though he p
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / incorruptible.  / / All confusion
lost in light / / it is ours.  Rejoice in it.  / / Hush.  Do you not se
Exchange
p, a flurry, and a choked-down cry / /
lost in the cheers of the domestic mass / / as they drew still, and o
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
n the sun / / against the black earth;
lost in / / the storm now; now here / / too the sleet-wind darkens d
For Cecil
ay—a mountainous barrier / / of thorn,
lost in the woods each side.  ‘Go through’ / / he heard his heart.  But
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
of the loss / / and all that’s in them
lost / / (incalculable theirs, / / ours much) miraculous gain, / /
Die Weisse Rose
ensibility locked behind a door / / is
lost —is power betrayed by cowardice.  / / “Your delicate task to keep
The Black-out
s wind / / nerve-ends murmur / / of a
lost limb… / / fingers supple / / to caress or grasp, / / unravel m
Lopped
unication-lines / / of light, / / are
lost .  Night wins.  / / Swirling vastness a lost speck.  In each speck /
Holes in Space
Probst, Willi Graf / / —so many years
lost / / (none more than twenty-five, / / Sophie twenty-one.  / / Ku
Die Weisse Rose
ering storm.  / / His arrows one by one
lost on missed kills, / / memory or instinct somehow kept his way.  /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
oth,” I answered, “long.  My way / / is
lost or never found.  Life, that should fill / / my days with action,
The Black-out
y night my second day in Greece / / we
lost our way about the twentieth mile / / where hills broke to the se
The Black-out
y if that’s the better gift / / or the
lost sleep among the bush and bracken?”  / / Silent the throng watched
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / with raw husk and stalk / / they
lost some of their wildness, / / learned to talk— / / the boy less t
The Green Children of Woolpit
n each other: / / for life, which that
lost spark has shown as spoiled.  / / This darkness then was visited o
Law Report
t.  Night wins.  / / Swirling vastness a
lost speck.  In each speck / / sparks without number spin, / / suns. 
Holes in Space
kes for a minute / / contact, perhaps;
lost that, sinks choked and chilled, / / changes to hate—for much mor
Law Report
ovely, inhospitable.  In the lee / / he
lost the breeze, and on a quiet sea / / the boat drifted from the las
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
el of prophecy / / are lost to Apollo,
lost the chatter of water.  / / His chattering fountain’s dry.  / /
The Last Oracle
footsore and starving, worn out, nearly
lost .  / / The girl grew up and married a young groom / / in the King
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Lost / The path across the quaking bog / / lies not quite where the o
Lost
glad in the woods to be with one friend
lost .  / / The weather worsened and the Queen got better / / or bored
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
other Milton (flawed glory of Paradise
Lost ) / / The White Devil and the Duchess of Malfi, / / Byron’s Juan
Poetry
/ / alike in his foreshortened vision
lost .  / / Their sweep enclosed the harbour-city’s bay— / / rock risi
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
las, honest and warm and brave / / she
lost them both by one mistake.  / / Oneself is not one’s own to give /
Ballad
l over for this man who’s made me, / /
lost thing, no wife and now no maiden either.  / / Draw him, bird-whee
Spells and Love
weighed anchor, set sail.  Many days are
lost / / through which they dreamed their way along that stream, / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ve hut, his laurel of prophecy / / are
lost to Apollo, lost the chatter of water.  / / His chattering fountai
The Last Oracle
out to the old / / infinitely distant
lost warm hum and glow.  / / The long-drawn moment, intolerably taut,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ooks out with brown eyes / / fixed and
lost .  / / What is she looking for?  What is gone?  Why / / this black
Song
he worse than poor, / / the driven and
lost , / / who cast or crushed out of the casual world, / / drawn to
The Embankment
e stolen that lamb—too many of them get
lost .”  / / “Why does he keep his flock so far this way?  / / Or has h
On the Border
in a burst of blood.  / / Yet, against
lost years / / gone with the white rose / / horribly lopped, / / th
Die Weisse Rose
/ / had stepped in too, you would have
lost your way; / / their course your drifting—and that brings no true
The Black-out
had to pick on me / / to fetch another
lot .  / / I didn’t know the way, though / / —a stranger in these part
A Ballad
the feast-day procession / / (they’d a
lot of animals, even a lioness)— / / These are the springs of my love
Spells and Love
est / / of Donne, a little Langland, a
lot of Chaucer, / / other Milton (flawed glory of Paradise Lost) / /
Poetry
a kind of heaven, / / loves the whole
lot .  So long as he’s alive / / this vision is the image of his good. 
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
andruff in.  / / You name it, we’ve the
lot .  / / Yet there are those / / who almost seem immune from all, /
Gratitude
early, Dawn pink in the sky, / / with
lots of stories—and that Delphis is in love.  / / She wasn't sure, she
Spells and Love
uture, present, past.  / / Beach on our
lotus -strand, and be / / happy.”  The wily hero, bound / / tight by h
The Sirens
there.  / / The bodily earth about us,
loud and lit, / / touches the senses, nothing further; form / / thin
That Way Madness Lies
ome.  / / Dazzle of sun out of the sea,
loud cries / / of fierce white birds circling, fish-plunging, woke hi
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
n the song, / / lost for a while, came
loud .  The gondola / / shot from beneath the bridge and drew along.  /
The Black-out
red on a steamed-up pane, / / can that
loud trumpeter charge again?) / /
Nadia
his silence / / out of the outer world
loud voices calling.  / / Authority breaks, calling, the world of chil
For Rachel
se, / / save me”.  / / Twelve-year-old
Louise adored / / wicked little Carly Gancher, / / and did just that
Vignette
e camp-site, flat / / out, crying out “
Louise , Louise, / / save me”.  / / Twelve-year-old Louise adored / /
Vignette
ite, flat / / out, crying out “Louise,
Louise , / / save me”.  / / Twelve-year-old Louise adored / / wicked
Vignette
(that’s where he likes to practise and
lounge about)”— / / These are the springs of my love.  Mark them, lady
Spells and Love
ove more this year’s delight.  / / Cows
lounge among buttercups and dew / / while coolly counterpointed by th
Two Summer Songs
sh and shout / / in the sea.  Grown-ups
lounge out / / from the pub to drink on the wall / / or sit on the b
Climacteric by the Sea
/ one in time—pain and joy are one in
love ”?  / /
Winter Solstice
led to die / / on the dry tree, failed
love .  / /
Stray Thoughts at a Wedding
/ / nor any place remains for God but
love .  / /
Cosmology
/ / Be content with its being and your
love .  / /
Two Summer Songs
knowledge of / / looking back from our
love .  / /
Leap Year
eserve / / this total, this untroubled
love ?  / /
[I have you always in my mind]
iss, love in grief.  Love is God.  God is
Love / /
Hymn
are / / (even believe), to be a god of
love .  / /
Betrayals
of all / / that we ever shall.  / / We
love a landscape or / / a picture or a face / / —person, thing and p
Fair Exchange
ong the sand / / for something for his
love —a love-gift and / / a proof that this new world was truly won.  /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ is work and breeding and the spark of
love .  / / A sphere the earth is and the sky a sphere / / —no, many s
Cosmology
usk of walls, craved scraps of food and
love / / —a sweet little girl—hanging’s not bad enough— / / But who
Law Report
ee, rejoice / / in a new land in a new
love , a wife / / perhaps, children.  For him it was not so.  / / He ma
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
rs of dream / / and doing, thought and
love , / / all sheared by a fall / / of slanting steel, / / gone in
Die Weisse Rose
gave / / this child was love.  Without
love / / all those happy things are mockery.  / / She had to spoil he
“Gale is Dead”
/ / May you live free / / (as far as
love allows) from jealousy, / / his meanest avatar.  / / Love keep yo
Epithalamium
easoned gloom?  / / This way and that I
love and am loved; happy / / I—could not help being? rather, I deeply
Tristi Fummo
y this Myndian, this Delphis waste with
love , / / and as I whirl Aphrodite’s brazen hummer / / so may he tur
Spells and Love
des / / sits the empty place of absent
love .  / / And at all our backs / / (our comfortable backs) thunders
Back Room, 1944
y, / / the bright saviour whom he must
love and hate, / / would sail perforce upon some other mark— / / her
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ere wasn’t tree or track / / he didn’t
love and have mapped in his mind, / / pine for in what he smiled at a
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ng / / for unmixed wine for a toast to
Love , and he went off / / in a tearing hurry, to garland that house,
Spells and Love
rest / / without power, / / can only
love and hope—and pray?  / / Well, perhaps loving hope’s a kind of pra
May Day, 1986
h, and now / / the threads she wove in
love and hope / / grow dim to her and lose their power, / / but on h
Ballad
st, to grieve / / and joy with those I
love and leave.  / / And any other way of living on / / I can as litt
Survival
out your eyes?  / / Surely life is only
love / / and love is paradise.”  / / Ophelia to Miranda:  / / “Life a
Dialogue
ms: / / love—love of God, since God is
love ; / / and love of man, since that we are; / / and most, to make
Hymn
there for me to do, / / work I owe to
love / / and might achieve.  / / Not much, not enough, / / but make
Villevieille
e, / / but after all / / centuries of
love / / and misery have sought / / here in the blank of loss / / w
Villevieille
u love, the fitted words / / you love. 
Love and mourn, / / but the world must turn.  / /
Change
, and said good night…  / / How can one
love and not be understood?  / / He brooded long, there on the darkeni
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
you, but our intent / / is firm as our
love , and perhaps we shall be able.  / /
[White foam sweeps]
he absolute being of / / good, beauty,
love , / / and that beyond the irreparable errors, / / the irreplacea
Credo
nce we know, at whose heart / / is our
love , and the love of which ours is a part.  / / God is Love.  Love is
Hymn
some things remain.  / / We believe in
love and truth / / though not knowing what they mean.  / / If our lov
Winter Recalled
our plea: / / our judges of appeal are
Love and Truth / / whose jurisdiction is eternity.  / /
Prayer to Time
brave thought in the pain of powerless
love , / / and was silent and sad.  The princess sighed / / and a smal
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
could not turn aside, / / yet wrote of
love , and what I wrote was true.  / / Passion and loneliness, despair
The Black-out
p was not all I gave.  / / “My gift was
love .  And where love is, I am.  / / You love the princess, and you thi
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
his beauty, as well / / as for those I
love and who love me.  / /
Gratitude
heart / / where natural beauty, mutual
love are free.  / / Ointments you have to soothe the personal smart, /
The Black-out
/ / Ophelia to Miranda:  / / “Life and
love are hell.  / / But the heart’s misery / / only the heart can tel
Dialogue
/ a bet I’d hardly care to take, / /
love as I do humanity.  / /
Mother’s Malison
ng riches: peace and happiness / / and
love —as love comes to a happy child: / / mother and nurse and father,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
een; yet, having been, / / being.  Loss
love as love makes loss more keen: / / in us they live, and thus more
Dulce et Decorum
e with time you will, he will.  / / But
love be with you still.  / / Love may be, I suppose, / / as some have
Epithalamium
accept / / with a crooked neighbour’s
love / / before Struwwelpeter and straw-gold vanish / / in a silky p
Another Summer
t they were knitted together in lasting
love / / before their mother / / died, when he was eight, she was th
Eugénie de Guérin
.  / / Now I’m alone.  / / How did this
love begin?  / / Where shall I start?  / / Eubulus’s girl, Anaxo, / /
Spells and Love
).  None chose to give her power / / to
love .  Better, they thought, keep fancy free?  / / Or thought, that’s i
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
loss, not understanding, / / wept—and
love blessed sang—and both were love.  / / Was there an end?  / / Or a
Winter Solstice
who loved you, love / / you, love me,
love both of us.  / / You were there, and I / / hugged you.  You didn’
For Cecil
ipetality / / (Dante’s and Aristotle’s
love ) / / briefly clusters these specks which we / / have briefer oc
Entropy
/ I was almost burnt up already.  Surely
Love / / builds a hotter fire than Hephaestus under Etna.”— / / Thes
Spells and Love
s remain / / —the heaven which Blake’s
love / / builds in Hell’s despair, / / hope in despairing hell / /
Die Weisse Rose
llet and tomato sauce, and sun; / / my
love burned high then, but the answering / / flicker died soon.”  “Wha
The Black-out
not above / / God—God for her is truly
Love — / / but above all others: / / the baby brother she first was j
Eugénie de Guérin
enough.  / / One can’t do better for a
love , / / but each of us to bless him / / has, in whatever season, /
[Housman was old beyond his years]
braided from her hair / / to give her
love , but he was dead / / and never came again to her.  / / She wept
Ballad
d / / out of the wave / / a monstrous
love / / —but her wind-wooer struck him to a stone / / humped in the
The Sea
hich is bound to fray / / the bonds of
love ; but in your own strength now / / they will be stronger.  Come, w
The Black-out
/ We are ruining the nature we know and
love , / / but nature is not ready to go under.  / / How strong she is
Buttercups
ot these hands and lips / / to take my
love , but others formed beyond / / the grave.  ‘A sacrifice, my love,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ of warm companionship, friendship and
love , / / but when some actual company’s offered, move / / heaven an
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
thing; / / you know not even abortive
love can be / / called the first cause, however sharp its sting.  / /
The Black-out
not knowing what they mean.  / / If our
love can keep its faith / / there is a chance (chance?) / / the fros
Winter Recalled
trous game?  / / Love’s grand illusion ‘
Love can master Fate’.  / / His light should dissipate the looming dar
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
s: peace and happiness / / and love—as
love comes to a happy child: / / mother and nurse and father, near an
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Whom the Gods
Love / Considering our mortality / / and that most of us will not die
Whom the Gods Love
ies the other at its core) / / pollute
love , discolour grief.  / / But from my old long love now and its grie
[Feelings of guilt]
cede / / and remain.  / / New lives we
love do not know, / / do not need.  / / Is it a tangled or an infinit
Anniversary
, ephemeral / / —childhood, innocence,
love , / / dream; passing, perishing / / —passing, perishing all / /
[What words are there for Spring?]
loving me, letting me love you.  / / We
love each other.  Whatever happens now / / our love is pure, is absolu
[Our lives are in other hands]
, who moves them all, moves us, through
love .  / / Earth is a speck whirling about a spark / / that dying tra
Cosmology
tever way / / this endlessly absorbing
love , earth.  / / Observe, absorb her faces of night and day / / befo
[Now of threescore and ten]
I’m going to bind my man to me, my hard
love .  / / Eleven days, and he hasn’t come to me, / / doesn’t know ev
Spells and Love
/ / for causing irritation to those I
love / / even though they love me.  / / You have (you tell me, what I
[I have (what seemingly you do not see)]
would follow the others presently, / /
love felt for her, when the pink bud should flower / / (even before).
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
eapt—‘She loves…’—then dropped again: a
love / / for here, not him.  The hind could only scorn / / the badger
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
s country, so / / at least there was a
love for them to share.  / / He gazed to the blue rim.  Then turned his
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ne.  You’ve guessed it: cannot true / /
love fore-defeat the devil’s monstrous game?  / / Love’s grand illusio
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
consequently ranging / / from lunch to
love , from the future (which seems / / so full and so eternal, so unk
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
you brought us to the promised land of
love / / (garden more sweet than childhood’s happy valley) / / and h
Prayer to Time
sand / / for something for his love—a
love -gift and / / a proof that this new world was truly won.  / / Nor
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
the shreds on the savage fire.  / / …O
Love , harsh Eros, why do you cling so hard? / / —pond-leech, sucking
Spells and Love
ught asleep, / / content that those we
love have lived, knowing / / our narrow length of time eternal deep. 
Happiness
Why do you eye me so?  / / All loves in
love have place.  / / Come in from the cold moor.  / /
Vision Between Waking and Sleep
might somehow sprout / / in love.  His
love he dare not venture from.  / / Feeling his neck jerk on the taute
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / what we are doing to nature as we
love her; / / but need not in a longer view, I fancy, / / worry that
Buttercups
, seeing her from the outside, can / /
love her.  Natural things in nature are / / blind to her beauty, dumb
The Reckoning
am: / / some deep unknown knowledge of
love , her rare / / spirit made in the cradle one with it.  / / Out of
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
rvant and she is my queen.  / / I am to
love her, serve her, all my life / / in what I can.  I am her forester
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ the dark forest.  And now he knew the
love / / he’d been made captive by the image of / / was true, and hi
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e hurt by one he loves hurts those that
love him, / / spreading (circles from stone dropped in water) / / pa
Stones
a glowing tree / / hating himself, his
love , his hopelessness.  / / And suddenly that vision of the sea / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
the wind, might somehow sprout / / in
love .  His love he dare not venture from.  / / Feeling his neck jerk on
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ength, to his imperative / / obedient,
love , hope—each successively / / leaves us.  Our fee to Death, the wil
Age
ce of / / this encompassing untroubled
love , / / I don’t see how we ever could / / renege on such suffusing
[Yes, you’re right]
/ is lifted, whirled up in the wind of
love ; / / I open my arms and close them on the wind.  / /
Wind
e Lavatory / Like Luther (whom I do not
love ) / / I think too much about my bowels.  / / But Luther broke the
Thoughts on the Lavatory
/ / one hundred years—until her fated
love / / (if, when he come, he’s brave and true enough) / / shall fo
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e flame, whose power I feel of work and
love , / / in ashes of self-pity and abuse.  / / Just now, sunk in the
The Black-out
love is here, not beyond or above, / /
love in bliss, love in grief.  Love is God.  God is Love / /
Hymn
ot beyond or above, / / love in bliss,
love in grief.  Love is God.  God is Love / /
Hymn
ren; your sea, your land; / / our good
love in its best time, here, now is / / with me warmly; and in that g
[White foam sweeps]
urning sun / / another being.  / / And
love in loss, not understanding, / / wept—and love blessed sang—and b
Winter Solstice
or gods.  / / Paul’s song of charity I
love , in Plato / / the passionate search.  Great spirits, Paul and Pla
The Betrayal
in love—the only adequate phrase:  / /
Love in the Valley, Phoebus with Admetus, / / colour luminous through
Poetry
that he / / took passively the fact of
love , instead / / of making it a life or breaking free.  / / One day
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ove, / / love in bliss, love in grief. 
Love is God.  God is Love / /
Hymn
which ours is a part.  / / God is Love. 
Love is God.  In that creed or in this / / or in none, here’s a truth
Hymn
re’s a truth which unfailingly is.  / /
Love is hard, love is here, not beyond or above, / / love in bliss, l
Hymn
hich unfailingly is.  / / Love is hard,
love is here, not beyond or above, / / love in bliss, love in grief. 
Hymn
gave.  / / “My gift was love.  And where
love is, I am.  / / You love the princess, and you think your love /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
u love the princess, and you think your
love / / is lost, but love is never lost.  I came / / to tell you thi
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
d you think your love / / is lost, but
love is never lost.  I came / / to tell you this.  It may seem little e
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / Surely life is only love / / and
love is paradise.”  / / Ophelia to Miranda:  / / “Life and love are he
Dialogue
ch other.  Whatever happens now / / our
love is pure, is absolute, is ours, / / a grace, a blessing we can ne
[Our lives are in other hands]
ve that, wakened so, she’ll waken:  / /
love is the gift I brought.  I give it now, / / and who can say if tha
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e / / in another woman, for love.  / /
Love is the heart’s flower / / not only in these lovers’ / / cries—i
Fossils
on, thing and place, / / though we may
love it for / / (it seems) its own unique / / self—yet they partake
Fair Exchange
/ Life is split like a migraine:  / /
love it like that and let it hurt you.  / /
Responsibility
ove that melts / / the ice-cap on that
love —its living force / / shifts into proportion resentments, guilts.
[White foam sweeps]
jealousy, / / his meanest avatar.  / /
Love keep you kind to others and each other.  / / Love make you presen
Epithalamium
consciousness that we belong, / / our
love , keeps happiness living in pain’s teeth.  / / …  But only the real
[My grandchildren are stamping the ice-puddles]
urself, the presence of / / our shared
love / / keeps me company.  / / And that is not but has to be / / an
[Living alone is lonely]
k (all unaware) control / / of her new
love -kingdom, his conquered being.  / / Her look, her walk, her laugh,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ learning to know each other and their
love .  / / Later, in a swift gorge, rough cliffs above, / / shared to
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
d.  The capital / / grows year by year. 
Love / / lies in the current account.  We spend it piecemeal.  / / We
Choice
/ you love, the fitted words / / you
love .  Love and mourn, / / but the world must turn.  / /
Change
ve of which ours is a part.  / / God is
Love .  Love is God.  In that creed or in this / / or in none, here’s a
Hymn
e image, Eve / / in another woman, for
love .  / / Love is the heart’s flower / / not only in these lovers’ /
Fossils
ledge of others.  / / Knowledge compels
love .  / / Love makes us.  / / Yet endeavour / / to loosen the child’
Parenthood
eat can forge a world from dreams:  / /
love —love of God, since God is love; / / and love of man, since that
Hymn
/ For this they share, as well as their
love : love / / of the expressive, the living word, of / / poetry.  Sh
Eugénie de Guérin
rm; and a true heart.  They did not give
love .  / / Love would follow the others presently, / / love felt for
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
island then.  / / …  Yes, there is still
love .  / / Loving, being loved, save / / from total withering.  / / B
Touch
you kind to others and each other.  / /
Love make you presently / / to those who call you father, mother, /
Epithalamium
t moving in it / / a blindworm urge to
love makes for a minute / / contact, perhaps; lost that, sinks choked
Law Report
, having been, / / being.  Loss love as
love makes loss more keen: / / in us they live, and thus more living
Dulce et Decorum
hers.  / / Knowledge compels love.  / /
Love makes us.  / / Yet endeavour / / to loosen the child’s tether /
Parenthood
us laziness of hand and brain, / / and
love making no contact with the loved.  / / We had turned North, for w
The Black-out
seem / / equally dreadful, yet / / I
love man and his dream.  / /
Question
t off.  / / These are the springs of my
love .  Mark them, lady Moon.  / / About half way, near Lycon’s, who sho
Spells and Love
bon.”— / / These are the springs of my
love .  Mark them, lady Moon.  / / —“And if you had let me in (and they
Spells and Love
ness)— / / These are the springs of my
love .  Mark them, lady Moon. / / —and Theumaridas’ old Thracian nurse
Spells and Love
out)”— / / These are the springs of my
love .  Mark them, lady Moon. / / —“and when you see he’s alone, give h
Spells and Love
t all.  / / These are the springs of my
love .  Mark them, lady Moon.  / / At last I made my mind up.  I said to
Spells and Love
axe.”— / / These are the springs of my
love .  Mark them, lady Moon.  / / —“But as it is, I owe thanks first to
Spells and Love
doll.  / / These are the springs of my
love .  Mark them, lady Moon.  / / He looked at me, the rake, then lower
Spells and Love
tna.”— / / These are the springs of my
love .  Mark them, lady Moon.  / / —“He wantonly crazes the maiden out o
Spells and Love
chool.  / / These are the springs of my
love .  Mark them, lady Moon.  / / I saw him, and my wits left me.  My wr
Spells and Love
ace.”— / / These are the springs of my
love .  Mark them, lady Moon.  / / —“I was coming, by sweet Love’s self
Spells and Love
door— / / These are the springs of my
love .  Mark them, lady Moon.  / / —I went colder than snow all over.  A
Spells and Love
f bed.  / / These are the springs of my
love .  Mark them, lady Moon.  / / My colour faded—sallow as a dead leaf
Spells and Love
above her quivering pool.  / / It was a
love -match (though most suitable) / / yet he was frightening too—yet
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
.  / / But love be with you still.  / /
Love may be, I suppose, / / as some have said, born blind, / / but w
Epithalamium
at is your form, your nature, / / that
love may know the object of its thought? / / what secret force could
Becoming
s well / / as for those I love and who
love me.  / /
Gratitude
to see.  / / Never doubting that you do
love me / / and long for me as I do / / long for you, love you.  / /
[Age’s bony knuckle]
a little who loved you, love / / you,
love me, love both of us.  / / You were there, and I / / hugged you. 
For Cecil
n to those I love / / even though they
love me.  / / You have (you tell me, what I’ve no inkling of) / / a t
[I have (what seemingly you do not see)]
rk / / seemed the blackness of war and
love misfired, / / the concentration of my brooded wrong.  / / No bus
The Black-out
account.  We spend it piecemeal.  / / We
love more easily (mostly) than we hate / / people we know.  We hate in
Choice
up).  / / Knowing this will be so / /
love more this year’s delight.  / / Cows lounge among buttercups and d
Two Summer Songs
beyond / / the grave.  ‘A sacrifice, my
love , my youth.’  / / Among these words the bleak fact of his loss, /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
he slums, Athenian poor / / climb, for
love no doubt, demonstrably / / for another purpose.  / / Marvellous
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
Love …  No / (for L) / Love… no, for this that word won’t do, / / alike
Love…  No
Love…  No / (for L) /
Love … no, for this that word won’t do, / / alike too wide and too con
Love…  No
best a second-best.  / / She liked his
love (no word of love was said / / by either) but she felt there too
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
rm rock, rose circling and alit / / on
love —not the half-child’s romantic dream: / / some deep unknown knowl
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ aren’t who we are, / / hate whom we
love .  / / Nothing, truly, / / to be ashamed of, / / frightened by,
Against Anorexia:  For Cathy
colour grief.  / / But from my old long
love now and its grief / / these stains are being washed away / / by
[Feelings of guilt]
tent, though, / / later to flower, the
love .  Now, from that day, / / nine years went on without the boy once
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
n and more peace.  / / And you, my warm
love now, it’s our love that melts / / the ice-cap on that love—its l
[White foam sweeps]
/ Would have been bride, with greater
love , of Christ, / / but stays with her father / / who needs her, lo
Eugénie de Guérin
an forge a world from dreams: / / love—
love of God, since God is love; / / and love of man, since that we ar
Hymn
liquid song / / “you fool, you had the
love / / of her whose gift, above / / all her warm gifts, is loving.
Hebona
ove of God, since God is love; / / and
love of man, since that we are; / / and most, to make those love-tide
Hymn
this they share, as well as their love: 
love / / of the expressive, the living word, of / / poetry.  She made
Eugénie de Guérin
t whose heart / / is our love, and the
love of which ours is a part.  / / God is Love.  Love is God.  In that c
Hymn
fe / / but those who take with joy the
love of Zeus / / should scarce expect affection from his wife.  / /
To Hera
princess sleeps / / in timeless youth,
love on through ageing time / / till with your hundredth year your li
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
tand, more than forgive, / / more than
love our enemies.  Trust them.  / / “Put up your bright swords, for the
Against Deterrents
ands.  So are the lives / / of those we
love .  Our love though is our own.  / / Our lives are subject to wicked
[Our lives are in other hands]
e fairy’s word was bond, / / should he
love out his life.  Yet what, in truth, / / had she to offer?  Not thes
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ glade—smote him.  O beauty, delight,
love , pain.  / / A violent longing for the hills again / / hustled hi
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / Winter beauty’s in tune / / with
love parted, which is in no way less / / itself for that, but can’t s
[Bare trees black]
ghed (gull’s cry) “To buy and sell / /
love -presents is unlucky” (that laugh again).  / / “Get one yourself”,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Fair Exchange / Everything we
love / / puts on features of / / all that we loved before, / / and
Fair Exchange
/ his dying mouth.  He died.  Or did her
love / / raise him to life and set him at her side?  / / The story sh
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
of the wind?  / / Is it the wind, is it
love , saying / / “The year’s end is the year’s beginning, / / one in
Winter Solstice
Love Scene / from the Greek of Archilochus / “… but if you’re in a hur
Love Scene
Love.  / / Then, almost fore-defeated,
Love / / sensed at his shoulder something move… / / so whisper-faint
Masque
arly though so late.  / / She liked his
love .  She liked him well.  / / After long cold she liked the warm.  /
Ballad
lots of stories—and that Delphis is in
love .  / / She wasn't sure, she said, whether it was a woman / / or a
Spells and Love
The unbelievable gift / / of our late
love should not be, cannot be / / rejected or even made less perfect
May Day, 1986
e irreplaceable loss, / / the truth of
love , somehow, / / is here and never lost.  / /
Credo
and I’m forgotten.  / / Now with these
love -spells I’ll bind him.  But if he hurts me / / it’s the door of De
Spells and Love
Parted / Together,
love spreads bright under the clear / / sky, from our feet laps to et
Parted
Letters / The pool of
love standing in / / my heart deep and clear / / turns the dull thou
Letters
hem, / / is that shared guilt.  But our
love stands free. / / thank you for loving me, letting me love you.  /
[Our lives are in other hands]
Cornered in the bewildering night / /
Love summoned Dignity to fight, / / and Pride, against Despair; / /
Masque
those love-tides move, / / the sharper
love that lovers share.  / / As water at the wedding-feast / / endure
Hymn
/ And you, my warm love now, it’s our
love that melts / / the ice-cap on that love—its living force / / sh
[White foam sweeps]
ver shown, / / no bright spark in your
love that might have started / / an answering flame in me.”  “The Pari
The Black-out
has, in whatever season, / / a flower-
love that seems his own.  / / I love white spring, love the colours /
[Housman was old beyond his years]
wake her with a kiss.  / / And it’s to
love that, wakened so, she’ll waken: / / love is the gift I brought. 
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
d ploughed for the seed to fall / / of
love , that was his life and is our theme.  / / It fell in his fourth y
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ once more a child asleep, took him in
love / / that would not leave him till he died, nor then.  / / Awake
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
eems his own.  / / I love white spring,
love the colours / / of autumn, but / / my sweetheart-flower these h
[Housman was old beyond his years]
urn the smooth hill, the woods / / you
love , the fitted words / / you love.  Love and mourn, / / but the wor
Change
even, I think, or twelve / / I fell in
love —the only adequate phrase:  / / Love in the Valley, Phoebus with A
Poetry
love.  And where love is, I am.  / / You
love the princess, and you think your love / / is lost, but love is n
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
d white, / / daisy and buttercup.  / /
Love the revolving years / / knowing they will defeat us / / (one re
Two Summer Songs
re we meet the other side—pity / / and
love :  “The spell is cast which must unbless, / / but I can half uncur
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
rled between two boulders he dreamed of
love .  / / The sun still mountain-hidden in high day, / / cramped and
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ The wind blows in my face and shouts “
Love ”, / / the wild fresh wind; the rest / / is lifted, whirled up i
Wind
rk / / against them, sole and shaking,
Love .  / / Then, almost fore-defeated, Love / / sensed at his shoulde
Masque
Spells and
Love / (Theocritus’s second Idyll) / My bay-leaves, where are they?  Br
Spells and Love
/ / so many years my constant star and
love ?  / / There must too be many darlings of a season, / / more of r
Poetry
I have found / / a sounder spell.  Our
love .  / / There will be days, not enough— / / rather, not many, but
[Golden, red, brown]
is not for spilling; / / learn mutual
love .  / / This is the bond / / which limits Liberty, / / the give-a
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
ld, that’s yet our dear / / mother and
love .  This paradox / / (a rift in the firm-seeming rocks) / / rives
The Rift
re the lives / / of those we love.  Our
love though is our own.  / / Our lives are subject to wickedness and f
[Our lives are in other hands]
land / / I move through in your words,
love through your eyes, / / I’ve known before.  / / Under that free s
Two Poems for G
at we are; / / and most, to make those
love -tides move, / / the sharper love that lovers share.  / / As wate
Hymn
let on his arm.  / / Plaited in smiling
love to bind / / his arm in whom her soul had lived, / / she gave it
Ballad
twist and waste) / / transmutation of
love to cruelty.  / / I see / / the final bomb fall wide in open ocea
Stones
/ our two humanities, increased / / by
love to one, burn half-divine.  / / Behind the gold and frankincense /
Hymn
/ You fool, how could you lose / / her
love , unless because, / / you fool, you fool, of having / / simply b
Hebona
/ / Towards that half-seen enemy / /
Love walked alone, and presently / / found—not indeed Despair / / bu
Masque
ss; and felt, too, gratitude.  / / This
love was not that dredged from her deep dream, / / but any love’s a w
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
st.  / / She liked his love (no word of
love was said / / by either) but she felt there too that he / / took
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ept—and love blessed sang—and both were
love .  / / Was there an end?  / / Or a beginning?  Can you cut flowing
Winter Solstice
More than grieve for her / / missing,
love what she had and was, is, / / and live this for her while I’m he
A poem you may like to see
s warm together.  / / …  Yes, in the end
love , / / when we’re really put to it, / / brought to the final crun
Touch
d away / / by the strong stream of our
love , which flows / / clean of those.  / / A further bliss to bless y
[Feelings of guilt]
al wealth, / / the small-change of our
love / / which passes hand to hand, / / powerless to out-buy that po
Choice
flower-love that seems his own.  / / I
love white spring, love the colours / / of autumn, but / / my sweeth
[Housman was old beyond his years]
riendships, which had always so much of
love ?  / / Why narrow, cerebral, unhappy Annabel? / / the last person
“Tell Lady Byron…”
gh season and through circumstance / /
love will be changed but does remain, / / may bear from wounds of spi
Hymn
ight as the air our hair our feed.  / /
Love will be there and not need making, / / light bodies lightly touc
Otherworld
ing in at my door: / / a face I was in
love with long ago, / / a dancer’s face.  / / Why do you eye me so?  /
Vision Between Waking and Sleep
oodwarm, / / lay quick with life, with
love , with mansoul.  / / Now we pump back poison from our panic deathw
Full Circle
and I, young, / / walked together, in
love with one another.  / / Our children, grandchildren; your sea, you
[White foam sweeps]
s, what no one gave / / this child was
love .  Without love / / all those happy things are mockery.  / / She h
“Gale is Dead”
rue heart.  They did not give love.  / /
Love would follow the others presently, / / love felt for her, when t
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
layed as a child / / growing the you I
love .  Yet that land / / I move through in your words, love through yo
Two Poems for G
cht— / / I find it in my heart / / to
love you after all.  / /
Hermes of Olympia
long for me as I do / / long for you,
love you. / / … but toothless old?  / / Hard not to be repelled.  / /
[Age’s bony knuckle]
Epithalamium / Stephen and Judith /
Love you have.  May he stay / / with you all the way, / / though not
Epithalamium
help them / / a little who loved you,
love / / you, love me, love both of us.  / / You were there, and I /
For Cecil
/ thank you for loving me, letting me
love you.  / / We love each other.  Whatever happens now / / our love
[Our lives are in other hands]
bring back some token of my labour and
love .’  / / It was her birthday soon.  The court would come.  / / He’d
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ / clouded her rosy thought of being
loved — / / a new thought almost; though a smoother prince / / had pr
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
e known his handiwork seen, / / shown,
loved again?  / /
Label
s the dead.  / / “What else?”  / / Have
loved and been loved, two in one, / / yet sometimes been at board and
Interrogation
/ puts on features of / / all that we
loved before, / / and perhaps of all / / that we ever shall.  / / We
Fair Exchange
ght, she was thirteen.  / / And now the
loved brother lives in Babylon, / / Paris, leagues away.  And further.
Eugénie de Guérin
and I / / “many have I honoured, many
loved , but none, / / not my guide, more than you.”  He answered: “why
The Black-out
Desert Island?  /
Loved England, / / green land skeletal with dead elms and beeches /
Desert Island?
as taken as a forester, and ever / / a
loved friend in the household by the river / / and favourite uncle to
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
m?  / / This way and that I love and am
loved ; happy / / I—could not help being? rather, I deeply am.  / / Ye
Tristi Fummo
played with her and taught her / / and
loved her as his own.  And as she grew / / he talked to her, more than
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
In time there came another one / / who
loved her dearly though so late.  / / She liked his love.  She liked hi
Ballad
g hand away.  More punishment.  / / They
loved her though (as she loved them) and meant / / well.  She grew up
Eugénie de Guérin
kingdom, standing by its Queen.  / / He
loved her, yes.  What did she think of him?  / / What could she think,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
little girls she had got for him, / /
loved him and understood him, she loved him herself, / / but he loved
A Dream
ying her sorrow that all his mistresses
loved him, / / even the little girls she had got for him, / / loved
A Dream
/ / loved him and understood him, she
loved him herself, / / but he loved only himself… voice failing in te
A Dream
wn dead and loved known living / / the
loved known dead.  How much does memory wane? / / figure and face and
The Black-out
ayne.  / / After loved unknown dead and
loved known living / / the loved known dead.  How much does memory wan
The Black-out
turned—with dreadful pain, for what he
loved / / lay on, away from her, and yet was she.  / / Waking, he kne
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
is here and lovely, / / the season she
loved most.  / / An extra twist that she should die / / in high summe
Death
ngled tent, / / an unmoved mover, / /
loved not lover, / / indifferent.”  / /
Divinity
him, she loved him herself, / / but he
loved only himself… voice failing in tears.  / / And now, alone on the
A Dream
ittle matters where / / the body walks—
loved places round us then / / intensify the shuttered heart’s despai
The Black-out
d off from it, plant themselves / / in
loved places.  / / Two such buds swelled, / / Dropped from my child-h
Bury My Heart
there is still love.  / / Loving, being
loved , save / / from total withering.  / / But this distortion of /
Touch
you now, what have you done?”  / / Have
loved .  Say that, and all is said.  / / “Not all.  What else?”  / / Have
Interrogation
is climbing on my sky.  / / Star after
loved star vanishes, / / and these no breeze shall by and by / / unc
Night
d our delightful plan is dust.  / / The
loved , the long worked-over, the lived through, / / the too good to b
Scheme
ent.  / / They loved her though (as she
loved them) and meant / / well.  She grew up dévote / / but kind and
Eugénie de Guérin
shores, / / flower-wooded hills, which
loved them once.  / /
[Some exiles know]
re and black, / / she’d see again.  She
loved this country, so / / at least there was a love for them to shar
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
d by Time, the timeless victor?  / / We
loved Time, watching him undo / / all spells but this.  Must this spel
End of Fairy-Story
he sounding beach / / miles, hours.  He
loved to swim, and learned the tide, / / coaxed from his parents earl
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ “What else?”  / / Have loved and been
loved , two in one, / / yet sometimes been at board and bed / / sulle
Interrogation
or a cypress, Humfry Payne.  / / After
loved unknown dead and loved known living / / the loved known dead.  H
The Black-out
/ and love making no contact with the
loved .  / / We had turned North, for when I rose again / / out of the
The Black-out
ut it might help them / / a little who
loved you, love / / you, love me, love both of us.  / / You were ther
For Cecil
o not fear to regret / / what best and
loveliest / / is disposed of with the waste.  / /
Progress
does bring us something / / beyond its
loveliness : / / a resharpening, reshining / / of an ache into the pa
Five Poems for Roni
aca lay lovely in the moonlight.”  / / “
Lovely —an exile to desire,” I said.  / / “So stands the moon over Vath
The Black-out
as any young man) that would have been
lovely .  / / And if I’d got a kiss of your pretty mouth / / I’d have
Spells and Love
, / / formed for a man’s delight, / /
lovely and unaware, / / he watched her kneel and bend.  / / She turne
Pelopia and Thyestes
ughs beneath the perished leaf / / are
lovely as spring-green, red fall.  / / Time’s spiral course through jo
Hymn
aces / / no more expressive than their
lovely bottoms).  / / Now the sun goes down.  Parthenon glows / / abov
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
e, where now welcomed I admire / / the
lovely Cyprus hills, raised that sacrificial fire.  / /
Makherás
ir / / mortal contaminations, today is
lovely .  / / Enjoy today’s beauty and forget care.  / /
Relax
te petal: / / image of everything / /
lovely , ephemeral / / —childhood, innocence, love, / / dream; passin
[What words are there for Spring?]
ptiness.  / / Clothe again / / in your
lovely flesh / / this poor skeleton.  / / Between waking and sleep /
Against Anorexia:  For Cathy
/ / bright in the sun.  Her slight and
lovely form / / was all his dream.  He stood and fought his heart / /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
here you chose stone to raise / / your
lovely garden round.  / / Did you suffer much?  / / Would to know the
For Cecil
ines / / the Parthenon lifts again its
lovely head / / or rather (here is west) its lovely tail / / (the gr
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
he misery of exile when / / Ithaca lay
lovely in the moonlight.”  / / “Lovely—an exile to desire,” I said.  /
The Black-out
to surf, golden against the noon, / /
lovely , inhospitable.  In the lee / / he lost the breeze, and on a qui
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
soner has time to think, and learn / /
lovely precisions for all future practice / / when time comes to be f
Chrysalis
s half-ringed by hills, / / a distant,
lovely , rough and empty land.  / / Learning from rangers, lost for lon
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
gone.  / / Spare a small grief / / for
lovely shell or leaf / / that loosed or crushed before its hour / /
Fossils
head / / or rather (here is west) its
lovely tail / / (the greeks gave temples fronts and backs alike, / /
Athens, Hill of the Muses; Evening
I do not share?  / / Autumn is here and
lovely , / / the season she loved most.  / / An extra twist that she s
Death
her, / / saw with surprise that it was
lovely weather, / / felt with surprise gladness to be still there.  /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
, / / an unmoved mover, / / loved not
lover , / / indifferent.”  / /
Divinity
I sought my guide’s look: “uncorrupted
lover / / of earth and air,” I said, “the grime that palls / / this
The Black-out
ers, / / and the white godhead, Leda’s
lover .  / / That long-stretched neck, those purposeful / / pinions, l
Bicycle Ride
of drink, food / / begin to fade.  / /
Lovers close, held together, feud / / against wind.  / / I stand alon
[Wind is chilly on shoulders]
necessarily / / intimate friends, not
lovers —old friends / / who have known each other well, quite well, fr
What Do They Feel?
-tides move, / / the sharper love that
lovers share.  / / As water at the wedding-feast / / endured a look a
Hymn
nd play / / couched where they can the
lovers .  This is May.  / /
May Day
e heart’s flower / / not only in these
lovers ’ / / cries—in all that sprang / / from Michelangelo’s hand or
Fossils
ds there.  And the singular glow / / of
lovers ’ meeting was a thing it knew.  / / On days of merrymaking they
Sur le Pont d’Avignon
/ / but not with the brother / / she
loves above all the world, though not above / / God—God for her is tr
Eugénie de Guérin
own.  When we fold / / fond revisiting
loves , cheek will be cold, / / salt from sea-wind.  / /
Out from the Cliff
tion, / / her narrow barren road.  / /
Loves children, could have been a loving wife.  / / Would have been br
Eugénie de Guérin
he was not there.) / / And kind he is,
loves children, keeps his hate / / all for the hateful, is just what
Change Places…
littering his wake, / / his sublimated
loves corroding in him, / / the world of his religion riven by hate,
Pietà
as light falls on the blind.  / / Paris
loves Helen in all tongues of the world, / / Gorgias Tamynis on a she
Fossils
ays with her father / / who needs her,
loves her, whom she loves too; stays / / with sister and brother she
Eugénie de Guérin
Stones / One hurt by one he
loves hurts those that love him, / / spreading (circles from stone dr
Stones
ce.  / / Why do you eye me so?  / / All
loves in love have place.  / / Come in from the cold moor.  / /
Vision Between Waking and Sleep
ore, / / don’t you think? than of most
loves ) is the way / / it’s rooted in a deep determination / / never
[Yes, you’re right]
our years back—and understood.  / / ‘He
loves me.  That boy loves me’ and she smiled / / alone between the cur
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
understood.  / / ‘He loves me.  That boy
loves me’ and she smiled / / alone between the curtain and the moon,
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
Death.  The will to live / / (which yet
loves nothing like a sedative) / / traps us in self-despising misery,
Age
/ / the silt of whose brief or eternal
loves / / now beds the wood where ours are now the leaves.  / /
Becoming
boy, wrapped to a kind of heaven, / /
loves the whole lot.  So long as he’s alive / / this vision is the ima
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
stays / / with sister and brother she
loves too in their ways / / but not with the brother / / she loves a
Eugénie de Guérin
/ / who needs her, loves her, whom she
loves too; stays / / with sister and brother she loves too in their w
Eugénie de Guérin
it so.  The boy’s / / heart leapt—‘She
loves …’—then dropped again: a love / / for here, not him.  The hind co
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
nd cried / / ‘My knight, my prince, my
love ’, and leaning kissed / / his dying mouth.  He died.  Or did her lo
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
questions begged, / / undefined terms—‘
love ’.  / / I fall silent.  / / Death one would think is / / a fact o
Another Summer
edged from her deep dream, / / but any
love’s a wind-break when gales bend / / the unseasoned heart.  Sidelon
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
fenced edge, / / meaningless life; and
love’s affirming faith.  / /
Wedding Night
hese gales, miles, months cannot defeat
love’s existence.  / /
Two Poems from a New Life
Love’s Eyes and Hands /
Love’s eyes and hands and all his senses flower / / in speechless spe
Love’s Eyes and Hands
Love’s Eyes and Hands / Love’s eyes and hands and all his senses flowe
Love’s Eyes and Hands
s inexplicably away / / leaving behind
love’s garden fresh and green.  / / She is not here; yet here, and on
The Black-out
knock at my door…  There’s someone else. 
Love’s gods / / have drawn his wandering fancy away from me.  / / I’l
Spells and Love
defeat the devil’s monstrous game?  / /
Love’s grand illusion ‘Love can master Fate’.  / / His light should di
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
d Dignity / / had touched so little at
Love’s hand / / they did not care to make a stand / / against so hug
Masque
hat to care.  / / A central part of our
love’s nature (more, / / don’t you think? than of most loves) is the
[Yes, you’re right]
ady Moon.  / / —“I was coming, by sweet
Love’s self I swear I was coming / / for a proper serenade, with two
Spells and Love
n this drop, mingled straight / / from
love’s well and the fountain of delight?  / / Waters distilled, secret
Becoming
, cruel borders / / where thieving and
loving alike are things of passion / / and every passion, or nearly,
[The bare, beautiful borders]
ling.  / / Only, it’s not the end:  / /
loving and thieving, passion and blood, live on / / in song.  / / And
[The bare, beautiful borders]
.  / / …  Yes, there is still love.  / /
Loving , being loved, save / / from total withering.  / / But this dis
Touch
never knew his father) / / beloved and
loving , but a lonely child, / / timid, he walked his long dreams with
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
nurture of the young, / / yet in that
loving care / / yield themselves to no / / oneness, will not even co
Woodpeckers
and Juliet, / / Leila and Majnun, / /
loving children / / cheated by a feud, / / sundered, bewildered, dea
What Hope?
ty gown / / a vixen to the gorse.  / /
Loving from loving hands / / inexorably drawn / / moves mastered by
Lady into Fox
a vixen to the gorse.  / / Loving from
loving hands / / inexorably drawn / / moves mastered by an inner law
Lady into Fox
e and hope—and pray?  / / Well, perhaps
loving hope’s a kind of prayer.  / / The unbelievable gift / / of our
May Day, 1986
/ / reaches out into the thieving and
loving , / / into the killing, / / into the song.  / / This border, t
[The bare, beautiful borders]
ance.  Destined the steady glow / / our
loving knows.  / /
[Wind is chilly on shoulders]
ur love stands free. / / thank you for
loving me, letting me love you.  / / We love each other.  Whatever happ
[Our lives are in other hands]
ache / / attendant on the lack / / of
loving , mutual touch.  / /
Touch
ever to hurt / / the other—a thing our
loving natures learned / / each in an earlier day, / / something whi
[Yes, you’re right]
sick) yet sharing / / still with warm
loving pride / / his thoughts and hopes, sharing with him her hopes /
Eugénie de Guérin
/ Instrument evolved, built / / with
loving skill, / / not, like this, to be silent.  / / She lives behind
Nadia
/ / Loves children, could have been a
loving wife.  / / Would have been bride, with greater love, of Christ,
Eugénie de Guérin
gift, above / / all her warm gifts, is
loving .  / / You fool, how could you lose / / her love, unless becaus
Hebona
/ / while time passed and the sun went
low behind / / levelling the light across the circled space.  / / Slo
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
rass on low sandstone cliffs, / / long
low black rocks enclosing / / clear pools and foaming / / firths of
Bury My Heart
which I stood.  / / She sat there on a
low bough, her legs hanging, / / swinging a wide hat, not as in the w
The Black-out
y-green sea under a grey-blue sky, / /
Low bright sun in the south, and from the north / / a steady wind blo
[White foam sweeps]
rminus, / / Hampstead Heath, which now
low but clear of cloud / / the eleven day moon whitened in front of u
The Black-out
opes.  Another at Iken looks / / from a
low cliff, like Saunton’s but topped with oaks, / / out over grey shi
Bury My Heart
the sun is low] / Noon.  But the sun is
low , / / coldly bright in light blue sky.  / / Everywhere a thin beau
[Noon.  But the sun is low]
y or two only, tilted on its back, / /
low down in the quick-faded southern sunset / / over the ocean rim.  I
A Hoard
From the Air / Flying high / Flying
low / (for L) / Far down past melting drifts of cloud / / remote and
From the Air
s hedges, between trees, / / away to a
low hill.  / / Other times it can be / / forest, mountain, sea.  / /
Gratitude
oor somehow missed led to a stair, / /
low , narrow, black, and twisting to its end / / his fingers groping f
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
[Noon.  But the sun is
low ] / Noon.  But the sun is low, / / coldly bright in light blue sky.
[Noon.  But the sun is low]
e the sun is climbing from cloud to its
low noon.  / / The wind-swept flat horizon / / under the high-cloud-m
[Bare trees black]
nd more food.  The castle store / / was
low , replenishment impossible.  / / The boy went shivering, his belt d
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
y will defeat us / / (one revolution’s
low / / roll on without us up).  / / Knowing this will be so / / lov
Two Summer Songs
shed pink thrift / / in short grass on
low sandstone cliffs, / / long low black rocks enclosing / / clear p
Bury My Heart
n at my back] / Released from cloud the
low sun at my back / / brightens suddenly / / across the greenness o
[Released from cloud the low sun at my back]
[Released from cloud the
low sun at my back] / Released from cloud the low sun at my back / /
[Released from cloud the low sun at my back]
Buttercups /
Low to the grass—tall, branching—massed together, / / a wash of gold
Buttercups
d presently / / glimpsed them, clumped
low under the water-line.  / / He waded in and took one in his hand /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
lse.  / / Venus is burning / / big and
low , yellow through the / / haze which hides the rest.  / / A young m
For Cecil
with yellow flame / / which licks the
lower hills.  As we mount higher / / we lose the illusory fire— / / g
Makherás
owards / / hands sometimes, more often
lower / / to legs, feet, which unaware / / betray so much.  / / Thes
Nadia
n.  / / He looked at me, the rake, then
lowered his eyes, / / sat down on the bed beside me, and began / / “
Spells and Love
Despair / / is judged by some / / the
lowest sin.  And they are right.  / /
Upward Turn
unjustified, / / unsummoned, Hope, the
loyal fool.  / /
Masque
thousand years.  / / “Good-bye.”  “Good
luck .”  “But you can’t trust them.  He may / / have stolen that lamb—to
On the Border
lucky.”  “What about dowries?  Call that
luck ?”  / / “Everything’s arse-up, blast it.  Blast them!  Wars!”  / / B
On the Border
th empty hands, / / harvests a mint of
luck in distant lands, / / returns…  The youngest, not the only son.  /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
mist.  / / There is nothing else.  / /
Luckily I am / / too often too silly to / / be a wise old man.  / /
For Cecil
words.  / / It takes long plotting or a
lucky chance / / for two to leave their towers at once.  / / One, hea
The Party
in shell.  / / Traditional ornament and
lucky charm / / in every house…  A sea-people…  The sea— / / oh for th
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
sisters can manage ours.”  / / “You’re
lucky .”  “What about dowries?  Call that luck?”  / / “Everything’s arse-
On the Border
Hymn / for the wedding of
Lucy and Garth / To make a world all kinds aspire, / / all kinds are
Hymn
The Sea / for
Lucy , by request / The land stoops to the sea.  / / Cliff, rock, sand,
The Sea
ys.  But not for long.  / / They soar to
Lucy in the sky / / with diamonds and a new song.  / / I think the Si
The Sirens
Delos in Spring / for
Lucy / Time threw the columned temples down / / and broke the feature
Delos in Spring
none the more / / to sit and wait and
lull your powers asleep.  / / You have a sensitive mind and heart, and
The Black-out
lley, Phoebus with Admetus, / / colour
luminous through sun-drenched days, / / cold dew, shelly horns, bulls
Poetry
ed soon, / / leaving a dusty cavernous
lump gaping / / at the sun, at the dead moon, dead as the moon.  / /
Stones
feel harden / / here in my chest that
lump of childish lead / / (and a man’s framework croaks towards death
Revisited
gh / / don’t you clearly see / / this
lump the faithful image of your soul?  / / Is it a prison?  / / Rememb
Body
.  At her side / / a heap of the spined
lumps , by it another / / of rainbow-varied domes which, he saw now, /
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
ought, inconsequently ranging / / from
lunch to love, from the future (which seems / / so full and so eterna
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ the cowrie beach— / / looks out to
Lundy or along the long sands which reach / / with their spread of so
Bury My Heart
Two Poems for G / Tender and Merry /
Lüneburg Heath / Tender and merry.  Other things of course too, / / Bu
Two Poems for G
ght, seduced / / to serve that violent
lust , / / crack.  Drifts over sky, / / drops over all at last, / / c
Headline
ard by more than the immediate dry / /
lust for the river.  Far beyond it lay / / the fairy-promised girl.  Th
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
had by… well, you’ve guessed.  / / His
lust , once lit, burned on.  So, did they find / / relief?  No.  His fast
Beyond Measure
e turned her face.  It all / / —horror,
lust , oracle— / / flared to one hideous end.  / / She fought the hard
Pelopia and Thyestes
hink too much about my bowels.  / / But
Luther broke the world in half.  / / And whether, as some think, he ho
Thoughts on the Lavatory
judgements are untrue) / / this Martin
Luther , dead and gone, / / alive saw something he must do / / and le
Thoughts on the Lavatory
Thoughts on the Lavatory / Like
Luther (whom I do not love) / / I think too much about my bowels.  /
Thoughts on the Lavatory
Campion, Wyatt.  A little later on / /
Lycidas draws ahead of L’Allegro / / as The Ancient Mariner of Kubla
Poetry
m, lady Moon.  / / About half way, near
Lycon’s , who should pass us / / but Delphis, strolling along with Eud
Spells and Love
ild was thrashed to death for thieving,
lying / / and filthy habits which, the father said, / / were driving
Law Report
/ A little church, with few graves / /
lying close together / / —brothers and cousins, I suppose, / / stick
A Ballad
ose for once the wooded plain / / and,
lying hard and living hard for once, / / to make his way there and fo
The Sleeping Beauty’s Prince
/ sixty years ago I suppose it was / /
lying in long grass, eyes shut, sun on face, / / imagining—no, preten
Summers
Summers / This afternoon
lying in the long grass / / sun on my face, eyes shut, remembering /
Summers
d in / / with girl or boy.  Boy or girl
lying / / looked up into that eye, eye without sight / / whose circl
Block 21
and clear / / turns the dull thoughts
lying there / / to shining jewels.  But when / / I pick them out to s
Letters
thin-legged and mocked, in London or in
Lyme / / timelessly scraping gay unheeded time / / to guide in draug
La Fontaine et le Déluge
he grew up, and married / / a man from
Lynn .  / / But whether with the green / / the memory / / of that cou
The Green Children of Woolpit
le later on / / Lycidas draws ahead of
L’Allegro / / as The Ancient Mariner of Kubla Khan.  / / Soon Yeats—m
Poetry
s running:  Keats, Housman, / / Milton (
L’Allegro ), Marvell, Donne / / (Go and catch a falling star), Border
Poetry