The Complete Poems

Which to repay is wise:

  Who will not yet his distance know

  For his own folly fries.

  IN THE LION HOUSE

  That chance what traveller would not bless

  In midday glare to see

  Lion and tawny lioness

  At lust beneath a tree?

  Here, superannuated bones

  Of leathery bull or horse,

  An ailing panther’s muffled moans

  And Monday’s dismal course –

  Who would not turn his head aside

  From this connubial show

  Of Felis Leo and his bride,

  Half-hearted, smug and slow?

  AN APPEAL

  Though I may seem a fool with money, Lord,

  To spend and lend more than I can afford,

  Why should my creditors and debtors scoff

  When tearfully I urge them to pair off,

  Yet booze together at one bar; and why

  Should all sport newer coats and hats than I?

  A GHOST FROM ARAKAN

  He was not killed. The dream surprise

  Sets tears of joy pricking your eyes.

  So cheated, you awake:

  A castigation to accept

  After twelve years in which you’ve kept

  Dry-eyed, for honour’s sake.

  His ghost, be sure, is watching here

  To count each liberated tear

  And smile a crooked smile:

  Still proud, still only twenty-four,

  Stranded in his green jungle-war

  That’s lasted all this while.

  1960s–1970s

  ROBIN AND MARIAN

  He has one bowstring, and from the quiver takes

  An only shaft. Should Robin miss his aim

  He cannot care whether that bowstring breaks,

  Being then undone and Sherwood put to shame.

  Smile, Marian, smile: resolve all doubt,

  Speed Robin’s goosequill to the clout.

  NEVER YET

  For History’s disagreeable sake

  I could review the year and make

  A long list of your cruelties

  As they appear in the world’s eyes

  (And even, maybe, in your own),

  Until it shamed me to have grown,

  By culling so much strength therefrom,

  The sagest fool in Christendom.

  But what would the world think if I

  Declared your love for me a lie,

  Courting renown in my old age

  As Christendom’s least foolish sage?

  Or if in anger, close to hate,

  Your truth you dared repudiate –

  A truth long fastened with a fine

  Unbreakable red thread of mine –

  And called what seemed a final curse

  Upon the tottering universe?

  Nothing can change us; you know this.

  The never-yet of our first kiss

  Prognosticated such intense

  Perfection of coincidence.

  TANKA

  Apricot petals on the dark pool fallen

  Tassel both flanks of a broken cane:

  Our Poet Emperor himself extols them

  In five brief lines confounding

  All foolish commentary.

  HOUSE ON FIRE

  The crowd’s heart is in the right place:

  Everyone secretly backs a fire

  Against massed murderous jets of water

  Trained on a burning house by the city’s hoses –

  While he still swears it cannot spread to his.

  THE LILAC FROCK

  How I saw her last, let me tell you. I heard screams

  In a dream, four times repeated. It was Grimaut Castle.

  She wore a lilac frock, her diamond ring,

  Gold beads and the dove brooch.

  ‘Escape!’ she whispered.

  ‘Emilio’s mad again.’

  He came from behind her

  Flourishing a sharp Mexican machete.

  Nonchalantly, I turned my back on him

  And asked her: ‘Could a young witch, taking the veil,

  Count on the Mother Superior’s connivance

  If she kept a toad-familiar in her cell?’

  She faltered: ‘Yesterday I tried to join you –

  I had even bought my ticket and packed my bags

  But seeing a mist of sorrow cloud his eyes

  How could I desert him? He had a painful boil.

  I decided to eat beans with Emilio

  Rather than suffer happiness with you…

  So keep my paint box and my paint brushes,

  I shall never have occasion to use them now:

  Women born under Cancer lead hard lives.’

  Sun blotted out sun, dogs howled, and a silver coffin

  Went sailing past over the woods and hedges

  With a dead girl inside. The man who saw it

  Pointed in which direction the coffin flew,

  Should I ever be drawn to pilgrimage.

  DEPARTURE

  With a hatchet, a clasp-knife and a bag of nails

  He walked out boldly to meet the rising sun.

  His step was resolute and his hair white.

  Granted, death was lurking under that roof

  And his funeral planned, down to the last speech.

  But why not face it honourably, in comfort?

  Neighbours looked glum, grandchildren whimpered.

  ‘He has no right to leave us,’ everyone said,

  ‘He belongs here, our most familiar landmark.’

  Visitors had flocked from a great distance

  To inspect the forge and watch him tirelessly

  Beating red-hot iron on his anvil.

  It was hoped to keep it up, when he had died,

  As a museum, with a small entrance fee,

  And the grave, of course, would be refreshed with flowers.

  Why did he defy them? And yet his bearing

  Suggested no defiance – on the contrary,

  He wore an innocent and engaging smile.

  ‘I have given your own town back to you,’

  Said he, ‘though I had not thought myself the thief,

  And with no choice but to start work elsewhere.’

  NORTH SIDE

  On the north side of every tree

  Snow clings and moss thrives;

  The Sun himself can never see

  So much of women’s lives;

  But we who in this knowledge steer

  Through pathless woods find the way clear.

  A-

  va Gardner brought me á

  One winged angel yesterday

  To kneel beside me when I pray

  And guide me through the U.S.A. –

  With one wing she won’t fly away

  Thank you, dearest Ava!

  SONG: JOHN TRUELOVE

  The surnames from our parents had

  Are seldom a close fit:

  There’s Matthew Good who’s truly bad,

  And Dicky Dull’s a wit.

  There’s Colonel Staid who’s far from staid,

  There’s glum old Farmer Bright

  And Parson Bold who’s much afraid

  Of burglars in the night.

  So though my name be John Truelove,

  Take warning, maidens all,

  I shall keep true to none of you

  Unless the worst befall.

  REQUIREMENTS FOR A POEM†

  Terse, Magyar, proud, all on its own,

  Competing with itself alone,

  Guiltless of greed

  And winged by its own need.

  THE ATOM

  Within each atom lurks a sun,

  Which if its host releases,

  Opening a foolish mouth for fun,

  The world must fly in pieces.

  THE CUPID

  A cupid with a crooked face

  Peered into Laura’s jewel-case:

  �
��Emerald, diamond, ruby, moonstone,

  Jacinth, agate, pearl, cornelian,

  Red and black garnet, sapphire, beryl,

  Topaz, amethyst and opal,

  Pure rock-crystal.’

  ‘These are hers, Cupid, for instruction

  In love’s variety, to have and hold.

  No common glass intrudes among them

  And all are set in gold.’

  ‘But if she fails you?’ asks the mannerless cupid.

  ‘Will she return them? Will she sell them?

  Will they be mine when sold?’

  Dear God, how stupid can a cupid be,

  Asking such mercenary questions of me?

  OLIVES OF MARCH

  Olives of March are large and blue, but few,

  Peering like sapphires from the thick grass,

  Yet none has ever known them to take root.

  Pallas Athene sent an owl to wrench

  A grey-green sprig from the sole Nubian stock:

  Grafting it on an ancient oleaster

  At her Acropolis, for distribution

  Of olive-grafts by the Archimorius

  To every city of Greece. Who dares neglect

  An olive harvest must incur despair,

  Starvation, haplessness and rootlessness.

  THE UNDYING WORM

  ‘The damned in their long drop from Earth to Hell,

  Meaning no fewer than ten thousand miles

  At headlong speed – Hell may be nowhere

  Yet friction of the fall causes rope-burns –

  Take only a few hours,’ our verger smiles.

  Return by Act of Mercy takes far longer

  And though an angel’s kiss is often praised

  As balm for penitents, you may be sure

  That those red scars will glow again in sullen

  Resentment of their cure.

  The damned are rendered down eventually

  To clinker or a fine white ash. Yet what

  Of throats from which no cry of guilt is wrenched?

  Can it be there that the worm dieth not

  And the fire is not quenched?

  SONG: THOUGH TIME CONCEALS MUCH

  Though time conceals much,

  Though distance alters much,

  Neither will ever part me

  From you, or you from me,

  However far we be.

  So let your dreaming body

  Naked, proud and lovely –

  There is no other such,

  So wholesome or so holy –

  Accept my dream touch.

  One kiss from you will surely

  Amend and restore me

  To what I still can be –

  Though distance alters much,

  Though time conceals much.

  ALWAYS AND FOR EVER

  Come, share this love again

  Without question or pain,

  Not only for a while

  With quick hug and sweet smile

  But always and for ever

  In unabated fever

  Without guess, without guile.

  ACROSS THE GULF (1992)

  THE SNAPPED ROPE†

  When the rope snaps, when the long story’s done

  Not for you only but for everyone,

  These praises will continue fresh and true

  As ever, cruelly though the Goddess tricked you,

  And lovers (it may be) will bless you for

  Your blindness, grieved that you could praise no more.

  THE GOLDSMITHS†

  And yet the incommunicable sea

  Proves less mysterious to you and me

  Than how, through dream, we run together nightly

  And hammer out gold cups in a dancing fury

  Patterned with birds of prey, with tangled trees,

  Lions, acanthus, wild anemones;

  And that these cups are master-works is proved

  By the deep furrows on our foreheads grooved;

  And to sip wine from them is to be drunk

  With powers of destiny, this mad world shrunk

  To bean or walnut size, its ages flown

  To enlarge the love-hour that remains our own.

  ADAM IN HELL†

  From the pit of Hell a whisper of pure love

  Rises through crooked smoking crannies

  To the lawns of Paradise.

  Adam lies fettered by his basalt pillar:

  A lodestone of male honour,

  A moral for the damned.

  So proud a lover, suffering no woman

  To endure the torments that are his:

  It was not Eve who sinned but the bright Serpent

  Conspiring against man –

  Tomorrow she will bruise her enemy’s head

  And raise up Adam from the loveless dead.

  THE CARDS ARE WILD†

  Tell me, how do you see me? Ring the changes

  On father, lover, brother, friend and child –

  A hand is dealt you, but the cards are wild.

  You spoil me with a doubled span of years;

  Having already overspent my due

  Should I, or should I not, be grateful to you?

  This cruel world grows crueller day by day,

  And you more silent, more withdrawn and wise.

  I watch its torments mirrored in your eyes –

  Sweetheart, what must I say?

  With you still here I dare not move away.

  UNLESS†

  Ink, pen, a random sheet of writing paper,

  A falling inescapably in love

  With you who long since fell in love with me…

  But where is the poem, where my moving hand?

  And if I am flung full length on a bed of thorns

  How can I hope to retrieve lost memory,

  Lost pride and lost motion,

  Unless, defying the curse long laid upon me,

  You prove the unmatchable courage of your kind?

  THE POISED PENT†

  Love, to be sure, endures for ever,

  Scorning the hour

  That ends untimely in a hurried kiss

  And a breach of power.

  Must I then sit here still, my pen poised

  As though in disgrace,

  Plotting to draw strength from the single grief

  That we still dare face?

  Or must I set my song of gratitude

  In a minor key,

  To confess that you and I compound a truth

  That is yet to be?

  [FRAGMENT]†

  A smoothly rolling distant sea,

  A broad well-laden olive tree,

  A summer sky, gulls wheeling by

  With raucous noise, and here sit I

  For seven years, not yet set free.

  [HOW IS IT A MAN DIES?]†

  How is it a man dies

  Before his natural death?

  He dies from telling lies

  To those who trusted him.

  He dies from telling lies –

  With closed ears and shut eyes.

  Or what prolongs men’s lives

  Beyond their natural death?

  It is their truth survives

  Treading remembered streets

  Rallying frightened hearts

  In hordes of fugitives.

  GREEN FLASH†

  Watch now for a green flash, for the last moment

  When the Sun plunges into sea;

  And breathe no wish (most wishes are of weakness)

  When green, Love’s own heraldic tincture,

  Leads in the mystagogues of Mother Night:

  Owls, planets, dark oracular dreams.

  Nightfall is not mere failure of daylight.

  PEISINOˆ

  So too the Siren

  Under her newly rounded moon

  Metamorphoses naked men

  To narwhale or to dolphin:

  Fodder for long Leviathan

  Or for his children

 
; Deep in the caves of Ocean.

  ACROSS THE GULF†

  Beggars had starved at Dives’ door

  But Lazarus his friend

  Watched him lose hope, belayed a rope

  And flung him the loose end,

  Sighing: ‘Poor sinner, born to be

  Proud, loveless, rich and Sadducee!’

  TO HIS TEMPERATE MISTRESS†

  You could not hope to love me more,

  Nor could I hope to love you less,

  Both having often found before

  That I was cursed with such excess,

  Even the cuckold’s tragic part

  Would never satisfy my heart.

  FOOT-HOLDER-ROYAL†

  As Court foot-holder to the Queen of Fishes

  I claim prescriptive right

  To press the royal instep when she wishes

  And count her toes all night.

  Some find me too assiduous in my task.

  That is for her to say; they need but ask.

  THE PRESSURE GAUGE†

  Quoth the King of Poland

  To his gipsy Roland:

  ‘Wretch, go fetch my idle pages –

  Ask them where my pressure-gauge is!’

  Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!

  ‘Sire,’ replied the gipsy,

  ‘Thou art wondrous tipsy,

  In these Polish Middle Ages

  No one’s heard of pressure-gauges –’

  Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!

  Acknowledgements

  The editors wish to thank the following individuals and institutions for enabling us to examine materials, and for permission to quote from them: the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University; the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection, New York Public Library, Astor, Lennox and Tilden Foundations; the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the Poetry/Rare Books Collection, University Libraries, State University of New York at Buffalo; Ms Lorna Knight, Curator of Manuscripts, and the Carl A. Kroch Library, Cornell University; Mr George Newkey-Burden, and the staff of the Daily Telegraph Library; Mr Michael Meredith, Curator, and the College Library, Eton College; the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin; Ms Lori N. Curtis, Associate Curator of Special Collections, and the McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa, Oklahoma; Ms Shelley Cox, Rare Books Librarian, and the Morris Library, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale; Mr D.M. Bownes, Assistant Curator, Royal Welch Fusiliers Regimental Museum, Caernarvon; the St John’s College Robert Graves Trust, Oxford; the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh; Mr Christopher G. Fetter, Special Collections Librarian, and the University Library, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada; Mr William S. Reese, and Mr Terry Halliday, Literary Manager, William Reese Company, New Haven, Connecticut. Special thanks are due to the Curator of the Poetry/Rare Books Collection, SUNY at Buffalo, Professor Robert J. Bertholf, for his aid and encouragement, and to Dr Michael Basinski, Assistant Curator.