|
|
|
|
Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: davie, donald Matches Found: 415 Davie, Donald Poet's Biography 415 poems available by this author 1945' First Line: A string of the scarlet rubies of ceylon Last Line: Unopened in years has suddenly brought to mind: %a string of the small pale small rubies of ceylon ABBEYFORDE' First Line: Thirty years unremembered Last Line: As if in that tender and sad %light your face were illumined ACROSS THE BAY First Line: A queer thing about those waters: there are no Last Line: We could stand the world if it were hard all over ADMIRAL TO HIS LADY First Line: With you to bideford Last Line: You have, of all eve's daughters, %the least to learn! ADVENT First Line: Some I perceive, content Last Line: One whose need meets his %prevents him everywhere AFTER AN ACCIDENT First Line: Smashed, and brought up against Last Line: You had to nearly die %for me to know I lived AFTER THE CALAMITOUS CONVOY (JULY 1942) First Line: An island cast %its shadow across Last Line: Stable terrain %that arctic one AFTER THE MATCH First Line: Hardly a one but here he is improved AGAINST CONFIDENCES First Line: Loose liops now, %callcandour friend Last Line: These mouths that now %divulge, divulge AGAVE IN THE WIND First Line: I like the sidewalks of an american city Last Line: Barber my verses, pitiless vivid city ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE; FOR KENNETH MILLAR (ROSS MACDONALD) First Line: It is said that he laughs at himself Last Line: Those days won't come again Subject(s): Alzheimer's Disease; Macdonald, Ross (1915-1983) AMAZONIAN First Line: Riparian origins - did you know Last Line: As it might be in hemingford abbotts %beside the sliding ouse AMONG ARTISAN'S HOUSES First Line: High above plymouth, not so high Last Line: By which historians may fix %the mortal shape of politics AND OUR ETERNAL HOME' First Line: Time like an ever-rolling stream Last Line: An illusion - and blissful at that, %if you can face it squarely ANGLICAN LADY; IN MEMORIAM MARGARET HINE First Line: Flattered at having no %less an authority that richard hooke Last Line: And hooker's and your own, your decorous, god! APPARITION First Line: Gina, I saw you walk Last Line: Crumble in eritrea, %dear wraith, raped by apollo ARS POETICA; IN MEMORIAM MICHAEL AYRTON, SCULPTOR First Line: Walk quietly around in %a space cleared for the purpose Last Line: Cheap chablis at his elbow ARTICULACY. HINTS FROM THE KORAN First Line: First lesson: don't %get ahead of yourself, don't gabble Last Line: The act of reciting, however, %generates faith, done rightly ARTIFEX IN EXTREMIS; IN MEMORIAM HOWARD WARSHAW First Line: Let him rehearse the gifts reserved for age Last Line: Into myself tomorrow - which one thumbs %the bedside button,and no woman comes? ASPIRANT First Line: Buy exposure if you choose AT KNARESBOROUGH First Line: Broad acres, sir.' you hear them in my talk Last Line: Surprised the poet too. But there it is, the heart is not to be solicited AT THE CAFE PARNASSE; FOR TURNER CASSITY First Line: Sealed in the cocoon Last Line: His own blue smoke aspiring and dispersing AT THE CRADLE OF GENIUS First Line: Not the least enviable of your many gifts Last Line: Some have enjoyed what here I deny to you, %a self-betrayal not betrayed in art AT THE SYNOD IN ST. PATRICK'S First Line: This head meant to be massive and therefore Last Line: Learn why such light should sadden as it charms Subject(s): Churches ATTAR OF ROSES First Line: The mind (the soul) is not Last Line: Which is not a box, but a main %sweet-smelling part of what the box encloses AUBADE First Line: I wish for you that when you wake %you emulate the leaf and Last Line: A boat that dances on the wave, %a whip that tingles in the day AUTUMN IMAGINED First Line: The shuffle and shudder of autumn Last Line: When it trembled at autumn's hue %on our wedding night BACK OF AFFLUENCE First Line: That time of the early year Last Line: Fanned across, splayed over %with a serene springing BARNSLEY AND DISTRICT First Line: Judy sugden! Judy, I made you caper Last Line: Seam crops out in prospects felt as deeply %as any of these,with as much or as little reason BARNSLEY, 1966 First Line: Wind-claps of soot and snow Last Line: Chapped lips smiling at hurt, %eyes running with dirty tears BATTERED WIFE First Line: She thinks she was hurt this summer Last Line: Prodigy and plague, and hopeless love BATTLEFIELD First Line: Red mills and farms clumped soothingly here and there Last Line: Was a peeling village with the curious name, %victory, and fast traffic passing through BEDFORDSHIRE First Line: Bunyan, of course. But potton it was, or sandy Last Line: Our swords for calvin and the winter queen, %the ancient frail collaborating marshal! BEHIND THE NORTH WIND First Line: Envisage it: the atlantic Last Line: Even the front up there %had never moved in years BEING ANGRY WITH GOD First Line: Anger, yes. But god is god,' %the impious pakistani Last Line: So is the poetry; so %(unless it is temempered) the judgement BELFAST ON A SUNDAY AFTERNOON First Line: Visiting belfast at the end of june Last Line: Yet I remembered with a sudden scorn %those 'passionate intensities' of yeats BENEDICTUS First Line: Importunately %inopportune Last Line: Modern %so long! BENT First Line: Thinking how it is %too late to undertake Last Line: In an alternative cosmos %I do not envy them BENT BACK AND UPWARDS, OVER BERKSHIRE; FOR MICHAEL HAMBURGER First Line: Don't care for it Last Line: Past the tain-window and announces reading, %I keep my head down BLACK HOYDEN First Line: Mary jane, she's after me BLANK OF THE WALL; AFTER ST-J. PERSE First Line: The blank of the wall is over against you; which Last Line: The need is lived with, that this answers to BOLYAI, THE GEOMETER First Line: Arthur allen, when he lived Last Line: Approaching comber, rolling inside out, %a roof of cream moves back through a mounting wall BOUGAINVILLE First Line: All the soft runs of it, the tin-white gashes Last Line: A paradox of noble savages %has met no need more urgent than to scoff BOWING THE HEAD First Line: Importunate for attention Last Line: Getting down on your knees, %remember it all your days BRANTOME First Line: Burly, provincial france Last Line: May be accepted, not %pounced on and misapplied BREAK; AFTER PASTERNAK First Line: Break it off? Listen! We have left a jagged edge Last Line: The narque in the ice is fixed, the bright privation grips BRIDE OF REASON First Line: Pragmatical old capulet, the head Last Line: She loves the truth he thought she must deny, %her lyric to the music of his reason BRILLIANCE First Line: Some virtue in %the ultimate Last Line: Brilliance is his preferred %supernatural way of moving BUCKINGHAMSHIRE First Line: A thin green salient aimed at the heart of london Last Line: An old white inn by a copse-side yawns and stretches BY THE ROAD TO UPPER MIDHOPE First Line: Tares make the corn to grow Last Line: The sweetest hours that e'er I spent %were spent amang the lassies o CAMBRIDGESHIRE First Line: Housman came, savage recluse Last Line: Tuneless, he growls from caius %in his despair CANNIBALS First Line: As if to take in ocean %through a needle's eye Last Line: Ram's horn of unvarying plenty! CATULLUS ON FRIENDSHIP First Line: It must make a great difference, having friends Last Line: Mean to say is I can't sing of speak %when friends and kindred can be sold downriver CHERRY RIPE; ON A PAINTING BY JAN GRIS First Line: No ripening curve can be allowed to sag Last Line: Too near to oozing to be handled well: %ripe, ripe, they cry, and perish in my heart CHESHIRE First Line: A lift to the spirit, when everything fell into place! Last Line: How it can bleakly solace. And that's true CHRISTENING First Line: What we do best is breed Last Line: What we do best is breed CHRISTIAN HERO (J.H. LEFROY, CANADA, 1843-44) First Line: Not the action of rowing Last Line: Would save the cree for christ CHRISTMAS SYLLABICS FOR A WIFE First Line: When I think of you %dying before or Last Line: So be %from now on greedy CHURCH MILITANT First Line: In the day of the mustering of thine army Last Line: They were insincere or deluded CHURCH OF IRELAND; FOR BARBARA HAYLEY First Line: Status indeed and protocol I pay Last Line: Full of phrase I need when I think of us %rain-dashed, in sligo, walking to church together COLD SPRING IN ESSEX First Line: Small boy in a black hat walks among streaky shadows Last Line: Oblique to the grey-green tree-trunks and the grasses, %all over my illimitable future COMFORTER First Line: St. Patrick bound unto himself Last Line: His strangeness for the comfort %of those not at home in the grid COMMODORE BARRY First Line: When owen roe %o'sullivan sang ho Last Line: Butters no parsnips, brails %no sail on a ship of the line COMPLINE First Line: Now I lay me down to sleep Subject(s): Religion CONDITIONED AIR First Line: A wind I know blows dirt Last Line: In its dispersed and shaking service. My %storm-window's foggy polythene claps and billows CONDITIONED AIR First Line: A wind I know blows dirt Last Line: Storm-window's foggy polythene claps and billows CORNWALL (TREASURE ISLAND) First Line: Cornwall, the unreality Last Line: Black patches on both eyes CORRIB. AN EMBLEM First Line: Hairless and worse than leathery, the skin Last Line: A nymph tok root, and here and there a laurel COUNTY DURHAM First Line: Driving up from tees-side Last Line: My lord, your lord of misrule %ruled, and rules, in goldthorpe CREATUER DAVID First Line: The disposings of the heart in man Last Line: Upon the harp CREON First Line: Creon, I think, could never kill a mouse Last Line: The will that is subject, not overthrown, %is humbled by some power not its own CUMBERLAND First Line: I tend to suppose the part I know least %of england is the n Last Line: I know you least, or best? CURTAINS! First Line: The lord is king, be the people Last Line: Show that he is there %for ever, as they are not CYPRESS AVENUE First Line: My companion kept exclaiming %at fugitive aromas Last Line: They opened up, although to %only a coarsened ear DANCING MEASURES First Line: Noah drunken, taking %his daughters in bed; a common Last Line: Shakes free and runs loose, if the dancer's %executive will dispose it, to high meadows DAVID DANCING First Line: Infrequently, dreams are heavenly Last Line: But exceptionally wakeful %in a recurrent morning DEATH IN THE WEST First Line: May's, whose mouth was %open under the gauze Last Line: By so much seaside watching %to know him for ulysses DEATH OF A PAINTER; IN MEMORIAM WILLIAM PARTRIDGE First Line: Behind the grid, the radiant Last Line: To a divine distorter %these lines that you occasion DEATH OF A VOICE; AFTER PASTERNAK AND TO HIM First Line: Here is its mark left, thumbnail of enigma Last Line: Sharply. I quail. You, bone of their contentment! DEMI-EXILE. HOWTH First Line: Daisy and dandelion, speedwell, daffodil Last Line: Pluck the shadow and not the substance, %grasp no nettle of circumstance DEMOCRATS First Line: Four close but several trees, each green, none equal Last Line: Of the leveller tarquin trembles, and advances DEPARTED First Line: They see his face! Last Line: Spokes that reach even to us, %pinned as we are to the rim DEPRAVITY; TWO SERMONS: 1. AMERICANS: FOR THEIR BICENTENNIAL First Line: The best, who could, went back - because they nursed Last Line: What ought to be DEPRAVITY; TWO SERMONS: 2. ST. PAUL'S REVISITED First Line: Anger, a white wing? No, a hoopoe's wing Last Line: Oh patriotic and indignant bird! DERBYSHIRE First Line: We never made it. Time and time again Last Line: With belvederes at intervals. I swelled %my little chest disdainfully, I 'rebelled!' DERBYSHIRE TURF First Line: That, true to the contours which round it Last Line: At the rock which lies under their joy's %elusiveness DEVIL ON ICE First Line: Called out on christmas eve for a working-party Last Line: But his antagonist, %hisses and walks on ice, as long ago DEVONSHIRE First Line: Discharged upon the body of the world %drake, hawkins, all t Last Line: This is the freedom that you sailed from shore %to save us for? DISSENTIENT VOICE: 1. A BAPTIST CHILDHOOD First Line: When some were happy as the grass was green Last Line: Arcadia's floor is not so firmly fixed %but it must tremble to a pastor's tread DISSENTIENT VOICE: 2. DISSENT. A FABLE First Line: When bradbury sang, 'the roast beef of old england' Last Line: And beastly pastors kept true shepherds out %while pike and barracuda fished for men DISSENTIENT VOICE: 3. PORTRAIT OF ARTIST AS FARMYARD FOWL First Line: Pluming himself upon a sense of sin Last Line: And seem at last not even tasteful but %a ruffled hen too apt to squawk DISSENTIENT VOICE: 4. A GATHERED CHURCH First Line: In memoriam a.E.D. Ob. 1919 %deacon, you are to recognize in Last Line: Disseminated quite at large to bless %the waste, suberb profusion of the spheres DORSET First Line: John fowle's book, the french lieutenant's woman Last Line: O golden age! Bee-mouth, and honeyed singer! DREAM FOREST First Line: These I have set up Last Line: When will a grove grow over %this mile upon mile of moor? DUBLIN GEORGIAN First Line: A room designed by orrery receives Last Line: His walls distend, the cornice is in motion ... %oliver goldsmith! Samson heaves the floor DUBLIN GEORGIAN (2) First Line: A thin brown orphan in his washed-out blue Last Line: He held forth to me how the artist's duty %is mutiny, evasion, and retreat DUDWOOD First Line: The roads getting emptier, air in a steadily purer Last Line: That very first morning - all ardent and plumed, all cockaded %with spring abandonments, lost now, b DULE OF A DEWSBURY MATRON First Line: Why should we - defer - our joys? Last Line: O whistle and I'll come to thee EDEN First Line: Adam had found what was not his to seek Last Line: Of natural wants that, once met, fell away, %chill in the evenings, gratefully exhausted EIGHT YEARS AFTER First Line: If distance lends enchantment to the view Last Line: A thought once entertained is never strange, %but who forgets the 'face beyond the pale?' ELECT; BATTLE OF BRITAIN SUNDAY, RAF GATOW, BERLIN First Line: In the conventicles %stone-built or notional Last Line: Born of a happiness in %the ghetto of the elect? EMIGRANT, TO THE RECEDING SHORE; FOR SHADE OF HERBERT READ First Line: The weather of living in an island Last Line: Spill acorns on pitcairn island. %and all of this is over ENGLAND First Line: Eight hours between us, eight Last Line: Indigenous british sea %starwort or michaelmas daisy ENGLISH REVENANT First Line: From easterly crepuscular arrivals Last Line: It is a laurel we are looking for,%or bounty of the horn we thought to fill ENLIGHTENMENT COMES, IT FALLS EPISTLE. TO ENRIQUE CARACCIOLO TREJO (ESSEX) First Line: A shrunken world Last Line: A people whose constricted idiom %cannot embrace the poets you thought to bring them EQUESTRIAN SESTINA First Line: Horse, our poor creature, we treat as if elemental Last Line: To a sorry awe. Call it the flower of norman %or saracen chivalry, this was a noble attachment ESSEX First Line: Names and things named don't match Last Line: Who have unfinished business %there, with my own failures EVANGELIST First Line: My brethren ...' and a bland, elastic smile Last Line: To be inspired, the vice in it is this: %each does us credit, and we know it too EVENING ON THE BOYNE First Line: The boyne at navan swam in light Last Line: A god's, a man's, a swan's, and - yes, %the very flags were iris-eyed! EXCEPT THE LORD BUILD THE HOUSE First Line: A song of the degrees Last Line: It is an ardous duty. %eblis was hard, not zion EXPECTING SILENCE First Line: Whatever is said to be so Last Line: Much about who we are, %nothing about the future EZRA POUND IN PISA First Line: Excellence is sparse Last Line: As sun and shade move around FARE THEE WELL First Line: Bideford! Nothing will do Last Line: This easy rehearsal: that when %the time comes, we be equipped FATHER, THE CAVALIER First Line: I have a photograph here Last Line: Of your white steed - all these %years, unnoticed mostly FEEDERS First Line: Among the servicable mills and Last Line: The hateful, insatiable feeder, %art; and the rest, play-acting FELICITY'S FOURTH ORDER First Line: Men of business, of pleasure Last Line: They understand the rest that they enjoy FOLIATE CAPITAL: ALL FOR AN AGE OF PLASTICS PLYMOUTH First Line: With the effect as of carving, almost, the hillside Last Line: He seemed to think, to what a man was, once: %something to b FOR DOREEN. A VOICE FROM THE GARDEN First Line: We have a lawn of moss Last Line: Offence at our poisoned land %and the gardens that pock her face FORESTS OF LITHUANIA, SELS. First Line: But this, so feminine? Last Line: Cry as of a child %no one ... FOUNTAIN First Line: Feathers up fast, and steeples; then in clods Last Line: We ask of fountains only that they play, %though that was not what berkeley meant at all Subject(s): Berkeley, George (1685-1753); Fountains FOUNTAIN OF ARETHUSA First Line: A boy turned to a newt! Last Line: Warm honesties of makeshift %transvalue syracuse FOUNTAIN OF CYANE First Line: Her father's brother rapes her? Last Line: Therein what might suffuse %our lives with happiness FROM THE NEW WORLD; FOR PAUL RUSSELL-GEBBETT First Line: Old glory at halfmast %for adlai stevenson Last Line: Heavens, the new is new %still, to us quizzical monsters FRONTENAC First Line: Hearing from some how the sierra answers Last Line: Birch-pole isosceles in a glad of hemlocks, %drank deafening whiskey in a written treaty G.M.B. (10.7.77) First Line: Old oak, old timber, sunk and rooted Last Line: And yet the truth is, fail we must %and be forgiven GARDEN PARTY First Line: Above a stretch of still unravaged weald Last Line: There is that sort of equalizing rule; %but theirs is all the youth we might have had GARDENS NO EMBLEMS First Line: Man with a scythe: the torrent of his swing Last Line: Say, light proceeding edgewise, like a sword GARLAND FOR IVOR GURNEY First Line: God be praised that made %gloucestershire -' the fool! Last Line: On drifting veil of rain, %and service not rewarded GARLAND FOR RONSARD First Line: Green eyes from under cornsheaf curls Last Line: From her, no favours. Cut the suffering: %as well be dead as carry on like this GEMONA-DEL-FRIULI, 1961-1976 First Line: We have written to giulia, saying Last Line: At whose hand this chastisement? GLOUCESTERSHIRE First Line: Not architecture, not %(good heavens!) city-planning Last Line: Adopting as its tribal %metropolis chipping camden GOD SAVES THE KING First Line: To the chief chanters Last Line: Religious faith; that is, %light sparseness, unconcern GOING TO ITALY First Line: Though painters sat italian light does well Last Line: Thus with the crispness of their follow-through, %I'd think GOLD OF DETAILS; AFTER PASTERNAK First Line: Come rain down words as does Last Line: But life is, as the autumn's %hush is, a minuteness GRACE IN THE FORE STREET; FOR ROY GOTTFRIED First Line: You saw the sunlight ripen upon the wall Last Line: Unearned composures have been know to enter %a place of unfirm purpose and fleet shadows GRAZIA DELEDDA, YOUNG First Line: How funny, she beat him, she Last Line: We are all of us aching to utter %more than we can say GREEN RIVER First Line: Green silk, or a shot silk, blue Last Line: This water is passing by! %it arrives, and it is leaving! Subject(s): Rivers GRIPPING SERIAL First Line: Man fought against beasts, and won Last Line: And there's the end of the series GRUDGING RESPECT First Line: As when a ruined face Last Line: Not just better than none %at all, but sweeter than any H.D. First Line: This lady was danger, this %lady was no lady Last Line: Havelock ellis %like a colossus HAMPSHIRE First Line: Our argute voices vied among the bracken' Last Line: Verses and books, 'argute' and camelot. %I could correct that hampshire, but shall not HARDNESS OF LIGHT First Line: Via portello,' I wrote Last Line: With age. It neither solves %nor even simplifies HARROW First Line: Unimaginable beings - %our own dead friends, the dead Last Line: Quicken and in moer %than our stale memories stir HAVING NO EAR First Line: Having no ear, I hear %and do not hear the piano-tuner ping Last Line: Think paradise by other light than day %sparkled in taylor'seye? HAWKSHEAD AND DACHAU IN A CHRISTMAS GLASS First Line: At home with my infirmities I fare Last Line: Where cotton-wool can simulate the snow %and coloured bulbs make bethlehem a show HEARING RUSSIAN SPOKEN First Line: Unsettled again and hearing russian spoken Last Line: And, disenchanted, I'm enamoured yet HEARING RUSSIAN SPOKEN First Line: Unsettled again and hearing russian spoken Last Line: And, disenchanted, I'm enamoured yet HEART BEATS First Line: If music be the muses' paragon Last Line: Beating to parley in a school of drums: %'I plot the passions, and endure them too' HEIGH-HO ON A WINTER AFTERNOON First Line: There is a heigh-ho in these glowing coals Last Line: The bird will call at longer intervals HELENA MORLEY First Line: In winter in diamantina %(which is brazil) Last Line: If all time is to spare, %waiting for resurrection HERE, LEFT ALONE AMONG HEREFORDSHIRE First Line: At hay, or near it, 1944 Last Line: The black mountains menacing our acres HERMES AND MR. SHAW First Line: The narrow backyard garden HERTFORDSHIRE First Line: Was it, I wondered, some freak Last Line: That, suddenly dying, we leave %our friends with something to say HILL FIELD First Line: Look, there! What a wheaten Last Line: And the miller comes with an easel %to grind the fruits of earth HIS THEMES (AFTER READING EDMOND JABES) First Line: His themes? Ah yes he had themes Last Line: We paid them no attention HOMAGE TO GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770) First Line: Born at 'the bell' in gloucester Last Line: In vain for such a pirate: %bluebeard evangelist! HOMAGE TO JOHN L. STEPHENS First Line: There has to be a hero who is not %a predator but south Last Line: Uncoverer of the maya, john l. Stephens, %blest after all those beaks and prows and horses HOMAGE TO WILLIAM COWPER First Line: Mrs. Throckmorton's bull-finch sang a song Last Line: Which was a cage, and still was no defence: %for horror stars, like charity, at home HORAW CANONICAE First Line: New every morning is the love Last Line: You are my own, you are? My own! My own? Variant Title(s): Prim Subject(s): Religion HORNET First Line: In lilac trained on the colonnade's archway, what Last Line: There no sun strides in a rapid creak of cicadas %and the green mould stains before the mortar is dr HOT HANDS First Line: Warm hands, cold heart,' they say; and vice-versa Last Line: The text of the world as they will, they are mistaken. %I ama brand you quench HOUSE-MARTIN First Line: I see the low black wherry Last Line: With martins under its eaves, %that cracks and sags in the weather HOUSEKEEPING First Line: From thirty years back my grandmother with us boys Last Line: Ask to be plucked, and attar pleases the rose. %contentment cries from the distance. How it carries! HUMANLY SPEAKING First Line: After two months, already Last Line: Who has ventured on new feeling ... %for me misgivings linger HUNTINGDONSHIRE First Line: Italian prisoners of war still haunted Last Line: That simois and mincio, like ouse, %sucked down his garden-wall HYPHENS First Line: You remember rossignano %solvay, impossible hybrid Last Line: For a coining of new compounds: %firm-transient, chemical-civic HYPOCHONDRIAC LOGIC First Line: Appendictis is his worst %obsession, mordant from the first Last Line: Unless inside a frightened mind, %which may be dazzled, but not blind I HAVE SAID, YE ARE GODS First Line: And so you might have been Last Line: And ye princes shall fall as one of the common sort IDYLL; AFTER GIORGIO BASSANI First Line: As a horn of the high moon veers in clear skies over main st Last Line: Call down to the door the maids from their odorous beds, %shine in the wine, light rapturous eyes in IF I TAKE THE WINGS OF THE MORNINGS First Line: Taking off at dawn %to circle ultima thule Last Line: And how he tempers our exile %with an undeserving planting of willows IMPLACABLE! ALAS IN CALIFORNIA First Line: Chemicals ripen the citrus Subject(s): California IN CHOPIN'S GARDEN First Line: I remember the scarlet setts Last Line: Faces stained with the sky, %supple and fluid as trees IN THE STOPPING TRAIN First Line: I have got into the slow train Last Line: He knew too few in love INDITING A GOOD MATTER First Line: I find nothing to say, %I am heavy as lead Last Line: Admit to your rock %this ready, this shriven, soul.' INTERVALS IN A BUSY LIFE First Line: Room for manoeuvre,' I say Last Line: Without propriety %itself is reverential IOWA First Line: The blanched tree livid behind Last Line: Is a man of my colour, sick, %falling down in the snow Subject(s): Iowa IRONIST First Line: Sacred? Or sacrosanct? Last Line: As on the best we can do JACOB'S LADDER First Line: It was agreed we would not nount by those Last Line: Where the breathing gets so difficult, and the will %kicks back the ground it tries to rise above JANUARY First Line: Arable acres heave Last Line: The sokens, thorpe and kirby, stands %a bare epiphany JESUITS First Line: Cure and pastor, dead at the one time Last Line: Dwells in huron lodegs %outwits the iroquois JULY, 1964 First Line: I smell a smell of death Last Line: Wrote in a review %my emotional life was meagre JUST YOU WAIT' First Line: To justify god's ways Last Line: It shall not be my affair until it comes KENT First Line: Chatham was my depot Last Line: Sonn after, in e-boat alley KILLALA First Line: Forlorn indeed hope on these shores Last Line: But a being only, able for life and action, %the same it was some time ago, in france KINGSHIP First Line: It would have been because %they smelled so bad Last Line: Enhthroned in majesty %'no sweat' LADY COCHRANE; BEFORE THE HOUSE OF LORDS, 24 JULY 1862 First Line: That honoured name! %hero of a hundred fights! Last Line: I would do it again ... ' the voice defensive and defiant LANCASHIRE First Line: My father was nborn in horton Last Line: But I pray you, remember my father - %the fault's inherited LASALLE First Line: Of this aspiring burgher who disdained Last Line: Whirled on the miry vortex of his need, %the light canoes of indian nations foundered LATE ANNIVERSARY First Line: Constant the waterman %skims the red water Last Line: It is what she would wish, %you have to think LEICESTERSHIRE First Line: From a view to kill in pursuit Last Line: Baddeley afforded %several views of yeats LETTER TO CURTIS BRADFORD First Line: Curtis, you've been american too long Last Line: Spirit of mid-america, but this, %the manifested copiousness, the bounties LEVITY First Line: What is man that you should weigh Last Line: For there he is, steadily weighing %your airy, your weightiest, saying LIFE ENCOMPASSED First Line: How often have I said, %'this will never do' Last Line: As not to my purpose, not %unknown, just unexamined LIFE OF SERVICE First Line: Service, or latin sorbus, european Last Line: All saner growth abhors it, and the bays %wither, affronted,in the poisoned plot Subject(s): Shadbush LILY AT NOON First Line: Deep-sea frost, and Last Line: To freeze, to cup, to retard - %these measures terror takes LIMITED ACHIEVEMENTS (PIRANESI, PRISONS, PLATE VI) First Line: Seeing his stale vocabulary build Last Line: Which, when unfailing, fails him most, perhaps LINCOLNSHIRE; FOR KATHLEEN WILSON First Line: Simpering sideways under a picture-hat %gainsborough lady, e Last Line: As not in grimy gainsborough or scunthorpe LIVERPOOL EPISTLE; TO J.A. STEERS First Line: Alfred, this couple here Last Line: The warmth of our children's household %for the time being persuades me LIVINGSHAYES (A TRADITION OF SILVERTON, DEVON) First Line: Live-in-ease', and then to wash Last Line: Living it up and easy needs %him hung and bleeding still LOOKING OUT FROM FERRARA; AFTER GIORGIO BASSANI First Line: It needs there to be no one Last Line: Warm in the wagons the dusky %grasses, the acrid poppies LOVE AND THE TIMES First Line: A knowledge of history fetches %love out of its recesses Last Line: We have no hope for the short run %that times can turn out so LOVE-POEMS: FOR MAIRI MACINNNES First Line: All these love poems ... ! Last Line: Still dazzled in the roasted glade, %astounded after long days in the forest LOW LANDS First Line: I could not live here, though I must and do Last Line: I imagine a hillborn sculptor suddenly thinking %one could live well in a country short of stone MACHINERIES OF SHAME First Line: Decaying teeth, before they start to ache Last Line: And jumping nerves can make a conscience twitch MAMERTINUS ON RHETORIC, A.D. 291 First Line: Personae seek provisional assent Last Line: The roman style, however, can afford %to think seven hills an all-sufficient ramp MANDELSTAM'S HOPE FOR THE BEST: 1. THE CASE AGAINST First Line: Stout and well-knit in fact Last Line: To broad parnassian fields %under enamelled blue MANDELSTAM'S HOPE FOR THE BEST: 2. SON OF ISAAC First Line: Ram caught in stalin's thicket! Last Line: Saved by dying for, %will not be reconciled MANDELSTAM'S HOPE FOR THE BEST: 3. HOPE NOT ABANDONED First Line: Hope so abstracted as Last Line: Are, and therefore our hopes, %metaphysical, like our terrors MANDELSTAM'S HOPE FOR THE BEST: 4. SONNET First Line: As massive and dispensable as sculpture Last Line: Indeterminately shapely in %helix on nebulous helix, not to be netted MANDELSTAM'S HOPE FOR THE BEST: 5. OF HIS ARMENIA First Line: Self-aggrandizing to say, and yet it is true Last Line: Before I learn from him and in part for myself %the god-given mercy and warmth of terra-cotta MANDELSTAM, ON DANTE First Line: Russian jew, for you %to re-think dante, dissolve Last Line: As well say: galilean MASTER & MAN First Line: Chaste and kind - 'a pattern' Last Line: And as the early dew it goeth away, %milord MEASURED TREAD; FOR KENNETH MILLAR DEAD First Line: Walking about the emptied house I Last Line: Such pacings of things seems all there is, sometimes, of wisdom MEETING OF CULTURES First Line: Iced with a vanilla Last Line: Russian shades out of old slow novels, %lengthened the afternoon Subject(s): Travel METALS First Line: Behind the hills, from the city of an etruscan gateway Last Line: The bowels of earth are of an unearthly weirdness METEOROLOGIST, SEPTEMBER First Line: We shall break out Last Line: And snow out of nowhere, suddenly METHOD. FOR RONALD GASKELL First Line: For such a theme (atrocities) you find Last Line: An even tenor's sensitive to shock, %and stains spread furthest where the floor's not cracked MIDDLESEX First Line: Germans, she said, were sometimes independent Last Line: Thus, home she said was middlesex, though wembley %I should have named, indifferently, as 'london' Subject(s): Middlesex, England MONMOUTHSHIRE First Line: The colonist's 'they' that needs no antecedent Last Line: To gossip with old comrades of cawnpore MONTCALM First Line: In candiac by nimes in languedoc Last Line: The public lives, the private, kent, quebec, %and candiac by nimes in languedoc MORNING First Line: Rose late: the jarring and whining Last Line: And that mob of ideas? Don't knock them. The sick pell-mell %goes by the handsome olympian name of r MOTHER First Line: Taxis were beyond us Last Line: There are who die, like her, %puzzled, their wits astray MR. SHARP IN FLORENCE First Line: Americans are innocents abroad Last Line: Saw a sharp move, and could not see it well %yet did not challenge, but himself cried, 'friend' MUSHROOM GATHERERS; AFTER MICKIEWICZ First Line: Strange walkers! See their processional Last Line: Who would have thought these shades our lively friends? %surely these acres are elysian fields MUSTERED INTO THE AVANT-GARDE First Line: I am supposed to apologize Last Line: A coterie at racedown: %coleridge and southey! Wordsworth! MY FATHER'S HONOUR First Line: Dim in the glimmering room Last Line: Indulgent now, as if %in honour bound NASHVILLE MORNINGS First Line: Saint cecilia: %between Last Line: Irks on nashville mornings NEW YEAR WISHES FOR THE ENGLISH First Line: Beware the ball-point lens Last Line: Would wish you if he could, %but the most he dares to hope for NEW YORK IN AUGUST; AFTER PASTERNAK First Line: There came, for lack of sleep Last Line: For thunder, a break in the weather NINETEEN-SEVENTEEN First Line: A glass in a liverpool drawing room cracked across Last Line: She smiled farewell to all their startled faces %and steadily outstripped the telegram NO EPITAPH First Line: No moss nor mottle stains Last Line: To raise a headstone for %you I have carved on air NONCONFORMIST First Line: X, whom society's most mild command Last Line: When to conform is easy, to dissent; %and when it is most difficult, conform? NORFOLK First Line: An arbitrary roll-call %of worthies: nelson, paine Last Line: Aspect of genius, arcing %from corsica or norfolk? NORTH & SOUTH; FOR EMILY GROSHOLZ, WHO ASKED ABOUT METRE First Line: Emily, you were sick %of artic computations Last Line: In skies over the orkneys NORTH DUBLIN First Line: St. George's, hardwicke street Last Line: The charming fanlight in this charming slum %by their lights, rightly NORTH SEA First Line: North sea, protestant sea Last Line: The vast polyp rising and beckoning, %christ, grey-green, deep in the sea off friesland NORTH SEA, IN A SNOWSTORM First Line: Dark ages, calm and merry Last Line: Transparencies, and shivers of running greens! NORTHAMPTONSHIRE First Line: King's cliffe, in the evening: that northampton stone Last Line: Some leading questions must be answered soon, %lead where they will, scared schoolboy, where they wi NORTHERN METRES; FOR TONY HARRISON IN FLORIDA First Line: Your grandad worked the signals %at haworth, mine at horton Last Line: How plant it, how impart it? NORTHUMBERLAND First Line: Johnson's pentameters, nailed by the solid ictus Last Line: The laboured mole dilapidates, surmounted %by barrel-chests,aegean or cymric NOSEGAY First Line: The roses of irony blossom Last Line: What god and what men you malign! NOTTINGHAMSHIRE First Line: Rosebay willow herb pushing Last Line: Of all the flowers %she taught me, one I remember OAK OPENINGS First Line: That 'I have' poem Last Line: Inexhaustibly, an exhausted %wavering trudge, the explorer's OBITER DICTA First Line: Trying to understand myself, I fetch Last Line: Of undeflected change. Prepare to open %all of the body's avenues but its veins ON A PROPOSED CELEBRATION OF EZRA POUND; FOR CLIVE WILMER First Line: He who proposes %assembling those Last Line: He that could %judge us, is dead ON BERTRAND RUSSELL'S PORTRAITS FROM MEMORY First Line: Those cambridge generations, russell's, keynes' Last Line: Too volatile to live among the loam, %her sheaves too heavy ON EDMUND SPENSER'S HOUSE IN IRELAND First Line: Every so often, lord, the wanton muse ON GENEROUS LINES First Line: Hanoverian silverware, this jug Last Line: It would be true; incautious curves enforce it ON NOT DESERVING First Line: Worry hedges my days Last Line: Last year the two churches of st. Francis %were piled up there, at the lowest verge of assisi ON SUTTON STRAND First Line: I saw brown corrib lean upon his urn Last Line: Where to command is hopeless, to compete %with an indifference equal to the sky's OR, SOLITUDE First Line: A farm boy lost in the snow Last Line: And yet it was for years %what I refused to credit ORDINARY GOD First Line: Do you believe in a god Last Line: From an ultimately faithful %but meanwhile preoccupied landlord ORIENTAL VISITOR First Line: To a bell in lincoln cathedral Last Line: This year's first blossom on %a foreign girl's guitar ORPHEUS First Line: Named them %and they danced Last Line: Is that how it was? One hopes so OUR LADY First Line: The sea is all that they say: it wreaks death one way only Last Line: Of spume and inconsequent waterspout, the faithless %indifferent non-god, ocean OUT OF EAST ANGLIA First Line: Pacific: in russian as %in our language Last Line: How peace might be is near OUT OF EAST ANGLIA First Line: Pacific: in russian as %in our language Last Line: How peace might be is near OWL MINERVA First Line: The muse that makes pretensions to discourse Last Line: And only speech aspires to music's state. %the owl minerva was no singing bird OX-BOW First Line: The time is at an end Last Line: Mirrored in mid-reach still %break into annual leaf OXFORD; AFTER PASTERNAK First Line: With the actual the illusory Last Line: Grass growing in advance of every doorway OXFORDSHIRE First Line: Start such a fire in england, master ridley Last Line: Any too fine for fine-toned oxford, in %the smell of roast meat and the glare of torches? PACER IN THE FRESCO. JOHN THE BAPTIST First Line: Already running, sprang from the womb; met Last Line: Himself too much the equilibrist for long %to tilt a saucer on the wading soul PASTOR ERRANTE'; FOR ROBERT PINSKY First Line: When you were explaining america, robert, you did not Last Line: That the best reason for rubbing their dear snub-noses %intoa shepherd's mishaps? PENELOPE First Line: And so, the retraction Last Line: But blessing it, is to see %at last impunity PENTECOST First Line: Up and down stairs of the inner ear Last Line: Or ape their stammerings, %I must betray myself PIETA; IN MEMORIAM DOUGLAS BROWN First Line: Snow-white ray %coal-black earth will Last Line: Fixity, being alone and %with a crone's pastimes PILATE First Line: The chief of the civil administration Last Line: Has very much more forebearance %than his accusers POEM AS ABSTRACT First Line: A poem is less an orange than a grid Last Line: With enterprise, should not a poet's gait %be countries-wide, this stride, the pylons stalking POET REDEEMED & DEAD First Line: Feeling good, green light, the earthly paradise Last Line: Forgiving itself but assured, %you knew how, of pardon PONTIAC First Line: Pontiac fires detroit! Last Line: Ranging so far: %pontiac, ottawa shade POREC First Line: Pennies of sun's fire jazzing like silver foil Last Line: Here in the shade, the file of the drifters passes, %we seem much pacified, seem so to ourselves PORTLAND; AFTER PASTERNAK First Line: Portland, the isle of portland - how I love Last Line: Like foam on all three sides at midnight lighting %up, far off, a seaward jut of stone PREOCCUPATION'S GIFT First Line: When all my hours are mine Last Line: Parsimony? No, %no vigilance PRIORY OF ST. SAVIOUR, GLENDALOUGH First Line: A carving on the jamb of an embrasure Last Line: I climbed the wall, and shivered. There flwe out %two birds affronted by my human face PROLIFIC SPELL First Line: Day by day, such rewards Last Line: Your brilliant mute concerns %neither repays nor earns PUT NOT YOUR TRUST IN PRINCES First Line: Let them give up the ghost, then there is nothing but dust Last Line: Of an unbelieved spokesman parade them; their press-men to feed worms RAIN ON SOUTH-EAST ENGLAND First Line: This place is so much %mauled, I have to think Last Line: I take no care for the rain, %soured soil, and shettered trees RECOLLECTIONS OF GEORGE ORPEN IN LETTER TO AN ENGLISH FRIEND First Line: That lime-tree - no, what is it? Mulberry? Last Line: I hope the roar of it enlivens your %west-country dell, as a whisper of it mine RED ROCK OF UTAH First Line: Surely it had some virtue, having none Last Line: Gauds of gratuitous ornament in your god, %your god depraved king utopus himself REFLECTIONS ON DEAFNESS; FOR KENNETH AND MARGARET MILLAR First Line: Making the best and most of a visitation Last Line: Redeemably tap-tapping, but the voice %that cannot hear itself we cannot hear REJOINDER TO A CRITIC Poem Text First Line: You may be right: 'how can I dare to feel?' Subject(s): Critics & Criticism REJOINDER TO A CRITIC First Line: You may be right: 'how can I dare to feel?' Last Line: Appear concerned only to make it scan! %how dare we now be anything but numb? Subject(s): Critics And Criticism REJOINDER TO A CRITIC First Line: You may be right: 'how can I dare to feel?' Last Line: How dare we now be anything but numb? REMEMBERING THE THIRTIES First Line: Hearing one saga, we enact the next Last Line: That beards the slag-heap with his hectoring, %whose green adventures is to run to seed Subject(s): Growth REMINDED OF BOUGAINVILLE; FOR HOWARD ERSKINE-HILL First Line: The rest is not our business.' come the end or Last Line: So now, and we may rest in that. It is %always our business,always RESOLUTIONS First Line: Whenever I talk of my art Last Line: In the seeway a sound of bells %from a landfall not on the cards REVENGE FOR LOVE First Line: Neither dead nor alive, neither asleep nor awake Last Line: Nothing to fear, merely a lapsing away %neither asleep nor awake REVULSION First Line: Angry and ashamed at Last Line: That can be brought against %me, or my times RIGHT LADS First Line: To re-insert it in %the yorkshire post Last Line: Acting the part assigned: %capitalism's refuse! RIGHT WING SYMPATHIES First Line: France of the poujadiste! Last Line: Arraigned in his %superb performances RODEZ First Line: Northward I came, and knocked in the coated wall Last Line: Welcome, I said. Bleak equal centuries %crowded the porch to be deflowered, crowned RODEZ First Line: Northward I came, and knocked in the coated wall Last Line: Crowded the porch to be deflowered, crowned ROUSSEAU IN HIS DAY First Line: So many nights the solitary lamp had burned Last Line: Our unchosen soil-crumbs. It was not %what he'd expected or the world supposes Subject(s): Rousseau, Jean Jacques (1712-1778) RUTLAND; FOR GEORGE DEKKER First Line: Joke county, smallest in england Last Line: How heavy that weighs, how wide the narrowest shire! SAMUEL BECKETT'S DUBLIN First Line: When it is cold it stinks, and not till then Last Line: Who barely living therefore altogether %live till they die; and sweetly smell till then Subject(s): Beckett, Samuel (1906-1989); Dublin, Ireland SAVANNAH; FOR ALEX HEARD, ADMINISTRATOR First Line: Executive speed is poetry! Whereas Last Line: Of nothing now but sweetness, %in christ the founder's week SAW I NEVER THE RIGHTEOUS FORSAKEN First Line: I have been young, and now am old Last Line: Unarguably justice follows %as certainly as noon ensues from dawn Subject(s): Blunden, Edmund (1896-1974) SCREECH-OWL First Line: I had to assure myself Last Line: Aviary of sound for %one bedridden, or blind SCULPTURE' OF RHYME First Line: Potter nor iron-founder Last Line: To chisel honey from the saxifrage, %and a mouth to graze on feldspar SCULPTURES IN HUNGARY First Line: A hun turned sculptor spoke %of the styles of etruria. Under Last Line: Adheres a little, istrian nor carraran %not of locale nor race but meaning, 'broken' SCYTHIAN CHARIOTEERS First Line: When it was found a fault Last Line: Occasion to exalt our %lost athens of the mind SEEING HER LEAVE First Line: This west! This ocean! The bare Last Line: Count, neo-classicist, %the choking back of tears SELINA, COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON First Line: Your special witness, as I recollect Last Line: As charm in you drove its schismatic wedge %between your church's beauty and its truth SEQUENCE FOR FRANCIS PARKMAN, SELS. SEUR, NEAR BLOIS First Line: That a toss of wheat-ears lapping Last Line: Or even other, a learned %historian of man's culture SHORT RUN TO CAMBORNE First Line: The hideousness of the inland spine of cornwall! Last Line: Some things are unforgiveable, even so SHROPSHIRE First Line: This has to be for my school-chum billy greaves Last Line: In what fly-haunted stream it was, we stood %in the weak light, pyjama-ed, swiping at bats SILOAM; FOR CLYDE BINFIELD First Line: Arkansaw's westernmost county %is dry; we nip back over Last Line: Feeling ptrecarious over %siloam's fateful flood SING UNTO THE LORD A NEW SONG First Line: Cheerfulness in lordly %leisure Last Line: Praise the lord upon the harp, %sing to him on the damnable steel guitar! SIX EPISTLES TO EVA HESSE: 1 First Line: Not, I keep being told, the time Last Line: Friendlier lullabies than sing %round epic cradles made of string SIX EPISTLES TO EVA HESSE: 2 First Line: I'm going on with this affair Last Line: One's word, once given, 's not unspoken SIX EPISTLES TO EVA HESSE: 3 First Line: Heroic comedy, I suggest, %fits american history best Last Line: Cripple the measure, wrench the rhyme! SIX EPISTLES TO EVA HESSE: 4 First Line: Sparkle sparkle little verse Last Line: Thereby fashioning a myth %their shipmates could be murdered with SIX EPISTLES TO EVA HESSE: 5 First Line: A thesis, though sincerely meant Last Line: Heroes are safest in the past SIX EPISTLES TO EVA HESSE: 6 First Line: The impetus, awesome! Last Line: Now reaches charted for the mind, %is solid service to mankind SKELPICK First Line: Below us all day, a mile away, in a flashing Last Line: Tristia, the beldam black chaldeans' %disastrous flocking torrent through the birch-trees SO MAKE THEM MELT AS THE DISHOUSED SNAIL' First Line: Or as the embryo, whose vital band Last Line: Or lying and betraying, %so you be born SOME FUTURE MOON; AFTER PASTERNAK First Line: Before me a far-off time arises Last Line: Away from you because %I made it for your sake SOME SHIRES REVISITED: 1. NORFOLK First Line: The scroll is defaced; the worm Last Line: I had readers who thought that I could %never in fact have been there SOME SHIRES REVISITED: 2. DEVONSHIRE First Line: Into spooner's, looking for remnants' Last Line: Tore down that future perfect in the past %of a new-planned plymouth, 1951 SOME SHIRES REVISITED: 3. LEICESTERSHIRE First Line: Cliton-baddeley, richards Last Line: Leicestershire, when it housed them, %did better than it knew SOME SHIRES REVISITED: 4. STAFFORDSHIRE First Line: As once on thracian hebrus side' to use %your own etrurian Last Line: Your love of our country has not been returned, and we won't be SOME SHIRES REVISITED: 5. BEDFORDSHIRE First Line: Crop-headed nonconformists, %cromwell's ironsides, sprang Last Line: What's due to caesar, might %die fighting the wrong good fight SOMERSET First Line: Antennae of the race Last Line: Who had sung as a young man, 'I was one of the knuts' SORTING THE PERSONAE First Line: Once the broom has started Last Line: I am only the cleaning-lady %but anxious for them, and loving SOUNDS OF A DEVON VILLAGE First Line: Many compacted summers Last Line: Woods: and to clear them, was that not his vocation; %then to restore as windbreak, and plantation? SPRING SONG First Line: Spring pricks a little. I get out the maps Last Line: High time, my love. High time and a long time yet STANDINGS First Line: One law for the lion and ox is oppression' Last Line: Hungry for judgment always STRATFORD ON AVON First Line: I look a long way back Last Line: Twentyfive summers since then., %I look a long way back STRATNAVER First Line: Dear language, english, whose Last Line: Their cornfields gone to the sheepwalks SUFFOLK First Line: Something gone, something gone out with nelson Last Line: In less glaring light a truer one SUMMER LIGHTNING; FOR SEAMUS HEANEY, IN IMITATION OF RONSARD First Line: Heaney, one can get word-perfect at Last Line: Historic england heaney should rehearse %cottage economies, curtness of good verse SUNBURST First Line: The light wheels and comes in Last Line: To the frame of nature? It %has no furious virtue? SUNDAY MORNING First Line: No point in looking. The %comanche were Last Line: Remembering, baffled but %convinced of benefits SURREY First Line: Who now reads thomson or collins? Last Line: Suspend the dashing oar SUSSEX First Line: Chiddingly, pronounced %chiddinglye: the oast-house Last Line: Another emigration: %draining away of love Subject(s): Sussex, England SYLVAE First Line: Not deerpark, royal chase Last Line: Offer, no more than nuts, %berries, and dubious roots THANKS TO INDUSTRIAL ESSEX Last Line: The scale of that deprivation %goes down in no statistics THE FOUNTAIN First Line: Feathers up fast, and steeples; then in clods Subject(s): Berkeley, George (1685-1753); Fountains THEIR RECTITUDE IS BEAUTY First Line: The angels rejoice in %the excellencies of god' Last Line: Their recititude, %their beauty THEY, TO ME First Line: Life is over and you are its %memoralist. Such peace Last Line: In a fragrance of eau-de-cologne: %mother at sea in frinton THOU ART NEAR AT HAND, O LORD' First Line: Or: they are come near me that %persecute me of malice Last Line: Any more than a page of verse does THOUGH DRY, NOT DRY First Line: Dry season. Block, so, rain Last Line: I cannot stir the will %to ask that I be stirred to! THREE BEYOND First Line: Judgement occurs, but is not Last Line: Delighted I should have reached to %him of the highest standing THREE MORAL DISCOVERIES First Line: Oh I can praise a cloistered virtue, such Last Line: Reflect how little credit falls to me, %at fault just there,in will's obduracy THROUGH BIFOCALS First Line: This you have heard before Last Line: The wider the range of manners, the more inhumane the enforcement THYESTES First Line: Brush of a raven's, not an eagle's wing Last Line: Are drowning kittens in a water-butt. %but see, a baby's finger in the plate! TIME PASSING, BELOVED First Line: Time passing, and the memories of love Subject(s): Time TIME PASSING, BELOVED First Line: Time passing, and the memories of love Last Line: This siege of a shore that no misgivings have steeled, %no doubts defend? Subject(s): Time TO A BAD POET First Line: To break the pentameter, pound's first heave Last Line: In ragged seas? %this tub? TO A BROTHER IN THE MYSTERY; CIRCA 1290 First Line: The world of god has turned its two stone faces Last Line: Thing, and not all a medium, but the stuff %of mountains; cruel, obdurate, and rough TO A TEACHER OF FRENCH First Line: Sir, you were a credit to whatever Last Line: Af fifty in the humidity of touraine, %time and again I profit by your angers TO AN AMERICAN CLASSICIST First Line: Shallow or deep, snows on socrate won't Last Line: Weave you a withering chaplet, leaves of grass! TO CERTAIN ENGLISH POETS First Line: My dears, don't I know? I esteem you more than you think Last Line: Or will you, contained, still burn with that surly pluck? Subject(s): Poetry And Poets TO HELEN KELLER First Line: Yours was the original freak-out: samuel beckett's Last Line: Month after month to grope and croak and stammer Subject(s): Beckett, Samuel (1906-1989); Keller, Helen (1880-1968) TO LONDONERS First Line: I get, surprisingly, a sense of space Last Line: Of phrases I manhandle towards what yawning %yard of what temple, what too void arena? TO SCORCH OR FREEZE; THE THIRTY-NINETH PSALM, ADAPTED First Line: I said to myself: 'that's enough' Last Line: It commits me to squawking %and running off at the mouth TO THOM GUNN IN LOS ALTOS, CALIFORNIA First Line: Conquistador! Live dangerously, my byron Last Line: What am I doing? I who am scared of edges? Subject(s): Gunn, Thom (b. 1929) TOWNSEND, 1976 First Line: When does a town become a city? This Last Line: An age of worn humility. Hereafter, %the prince of darkness and his equipage! TREVENEN: 1. HIS RETURN (CHRISTMAS, 1780) First Line: Winds from cook's straits cannot blow Last Line: Bah!' he thought, 'what has all this %to do with young men's loyalties?' TREVENEN: 2. LIFE AND CONTACTS (1784-7) First Line: The poet crabbe, with whom he shared %burke as a patron, nev Last Line: Bligh gets the bounty, and not he; %he's pledged himself to muscovy TREVENEN: 3. HIS END (THE BATTLE OF VIBORG, 21 JUNE 1790) First Line: Long, splendid shadows! Cornwall, lit Last Line: Edmund burke had cried, 'amen!' %and james king, and most other men TREVISO, THE PESCHERIA First Line: Each of us has the time Last Line: Combed green, the river's sedge %sweetens the fish-wives' island TRIP TO HUNTSVILLE First Line: To be constant through a lifetime Last Line: Night comes, however; night %has fallen on corinth also TUNSTALL FOREST First Line: Stillness! Down the dripping ride Last Line: The liquid eye and elegant head %no more than a mile away Subject(s): Forests TUSCAN BRUTUS First Line: The duke insists you stay; you could do worse Last Line: Yet for a medal yours was rather coarse TUSCAN MORNING First Line: Presences are always said to brood Last Line: To do with noon? It is the edge of light %goes cleaving, windless presence, like a ray TWILIGHT ON THE WASTE LANDS First Line: Some quickly-weathering rock, perhaps Last Line: See, there again, the sense betrayed TWO DEDICATIONS: 1. WIDE FRANCE First Line: Sunlight so blurred with clouds we couldn't tell Last Line: As we always made, as if to convince ourselves. %and now you worry about the eleven-plus TWO DEDICATIONS: 2. BARNSLEY CRICKET CLUB First Line: Now the heat comes, I am demoralized Last Line: This layabout july in another climate %ought not to prove firm turf, well-tendered, wrong TWO FROM IRELAND: 1. 1969, IRELAND OF THE BOMBERS First Line: Blackbird of derrycairn %sing no more for me Last Line: Dry eyes I pledge to thee, %and empty heart TWO FROM IRELAND: 2. 1977, NEAR MULLINGER First Line: Green leinster, never weep Last Line: The truth is, he was home %- or so he half-believes TWO WINDOWS IN TASHKENT First Line: In, of all places, tashkent %they were reading keats; and we Last Line: This is where he departs from %you, and you cannot abide it UNDER A SKYLIGHT First Line: Through a wide window all somerset might look in Last Line: My uncommitted heart, in these wide-eyed %unsleeping bodies gazing side by side UNDER ST. PAUL'S First Line: Wren and barry, rennie and mylne and dance Last Line: Across the dark face of the water %flies the white bird until nothing is left but the water UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH; FOR ANDREW LYTLE, AGED 80 First Line: That shrewd character will percy in Last Line: The veridical idyll emerges UTTERINGS First Line: To flex in the upper airs Last Line: His is welcome to it; most, %I apprehend, know less VANCOUVER First Line: Nobody's hero, george vancouver, ever Last Line: We put the best construction that we can %on an unfriendly and a friendless man VENEGEANCE IS MINE, SAITH THE LORD First Line: You that would bite the whole pie and Last Line: Though I %address the mute, he hears, will testify VIA PORTELLO First Line: Rococo compositions of decay Last Line: Around them, theirs; and want, and no word spoken - %the conscious vista closed at either end VINDICATION OF JOVAN BABIC (BOSNIA 1915) First Line: Age is a pale bird, film of ice on the sea Last Line: A flagging wing outsoars them, and the ice %stiffens the pulse with a not unmanly shudder VIPER-MAN First Line: Will it be one of those %forever summers? Last Line: Against a change in the weather, %snake whipped up in the yard VYING First Line: Vying is our trouble Last Line: Headstones, and rifle tombs, %and spill the tilted urn WARWICKSHIRE; FOR ROY FISHER First Line: Eye on the object, eye on the congeries Last Line: Small relish for your balder registrations, %intent, monocular, faithful WATERFALL AT POWERSCOURT First Line: Looping off feline through the leisured air Last Line: Its chill of wit, who knows? The end it answers, %the level it seeks, is its own WAY OUT. HOW THEY MUST HAVE WEARING OF THE GREEN First Line: Gold is not autumn's privilege Last Line: It never changes %in meath in may WELL-FOUND POEM First Line: We last of yugo-slav %air force Last Line: These brave men WEST VIRGINIA'S AUBURN First Line: Ejected indians haunt the lawns WESTMORLAND First Line: Kendal - shap fell! Is that in westmorland? Last Line: Such minds, such people, always in need of a touch %of frost, not to go pulpy WHERE DEPTHS ARE SURFACES Last Line: Whereas the lead goes down to %depths, depths endlessly WIDOWER First Line: That sneaky thomas cranmer! Last Line: Whatever the small hours' stress WIDOWERS First Line: Atheist, laodicean or Last Line: She does, although our need to think so passes WILD BOAR CLOUGH First Line: A poet's lie! Last Line: Tossed up like spume, persistently %pulsing through history and out of it WILTSHIRE First Line: A brutally sheared-off cliff Last Line: The distance: jude the obscure %approaching, on salisbury plain WIND AT PENISTONE First Line: The wind meets me at penistone Last Line: To find in art no fellow but the wind WINTER LANDSCAPE NEAR ELY First Line: It is not life being short Last Line: Over verst on verst of russia %are lime-tree avenues WINTER LANDSCAPES First Line: Danger, danger of dyiing Last Line: That likes its landscapes northern, %serener, and more hurtful WINTER TALENT First Line: Lighting a spill late in the afternoon Last Line: To dangerous glory? Better still to burn %upon that gloom wh WINTER'S TALENTS; FOR PETER SCUPHAM AND ROBERT WELLS First Line: Nebulous, freezingly moist Last Line: Scyamore, tarporley, all %intricate, cavernous splendour! WITH THE GRAIN First Line: Why, by an ingrained habit, elevate WITNESS First Line: Bearing and giving are different, it appears Last Line: Must be excavated %in the hedge-bottom or elsewhere WOE UNTO THEE! First Line: Compunction at presumtion %is a sentiment Last Line: It sings, presumption calls for %no halter of compunction WOMBWELL ON STRIKE First Line: Horace of course is not %a temporizer, but Last Line: Large policemen grapple %the large men my sons have become WOODPIGEONS AT RAHENY First Line: One simple and effective rhyme Last Line: I do not know. I know the dove %outsang me down the afternoon WORCESTERSHIRE First Line: The best way in (not that I've checked the map) Last Line: Feed you with apples, stay you with flagons, empress! %acre on acre of orchards of worcester pearmai YORKSHIRE; OF GRACES First Line: The graces, yes - and the airs! To airs and graces Last Line: Though late-come, straitened, of a northern province ZION First Line: Mired in it! Stuck in the various Last Line: For long enough, merits the name of %zion or some say eden ZIP! First Line: I'd have the silence like a heavy chock Last Line: And all be done before you've well begun. %(it is reverberations that you hear) ZODIAC First Line: It won't stand up to the light Last Line: A god-enforced decorum |
|