Penguin's Poems for Love

by Laura Barber

  My mother said to me not to be talking with you today,

  or tomorrow, or on the Sunday;

  it was a bad time she took for telling me that;

  it was shutting the door after the house was robbed.

  My heart is as black as the blackness of the sloe,

  or as the black coal that is on the smith’s forge;

  or as the sole of a shoe left in white halls;

  it was you put that darkness over my life.

  You have taken the east from me; you have taken the west from me;

  you have taken what is before me and what is behind me;

  you have taken the moon, you have taken the sun from me;

  and my fear is great that you have taken God from me!

  SIR WALTER RALEGH

  As you came from the holy land

  Of Walsingham,

  Met you not with my true love

  By the way as you came?

  How shall I know your true love,

  That have met many one

  As I went to the holy land,

  That have come, that have gone?

  She is neither white nor brown

  But as the heavens fair,

  There is none hath a form so divine

  In the earth or the air.

  Such an one did I meet, good sir,

  Such an angelic face,

  Who like a queen, like a nymph, did appear

  By her gait, by her grace.

  She hath left me here all alone,

  All alone as unknown,

  Who sometimes did me lead with herself,

  And me loved as her own.

  What’s the cause that she leaves you alone

  And a new way doth take,

  Who loved you once as her own

  And her joy did you make?

  I have loved her all my youth,

  But now old, as you see,

  Love likes not the falling fruit

  From the withered tree.

  Know that love is a careless child

  And forgets promise past,

  He is blind, he is deaf when he list,

  And in faith never fast.

  His desire is a dureless content

  And a trustless joy,

  He is won with a world of despair

  And is lost with a toy.

  Of women kind such indeed is the love,

  Or the word Love abused,

  Under which many childish desires

  And conceits are excused.

  But true love is a durable fire

  In the mind ever burning;

  Never sick, never old, never dead,

  From itself never turning.

  WILLIAM SOUTAR

  The Tryst

  O luely, luely cam she in

  And luely she lay doun:

  I kent her by her caller lips

  And her breists sae sma’ and roun’.

  A’ thru the nicht we spak nae word

  Nor sinder’d bane frae bane:

  A’ thru the nicht I heard her hert

  Gang soundin’ wi’ my ain.

  It was about the waukrife hour

  Whan cocks begin to craw

  That she smool’d saftly thru the mirk

  Afore the day wud daw.

  Sae luely, luely, cam she in

  Sae luely was she gaen

  And wi’ her a’ my simmer days

  Like they had never been.

  FLEUR ADCOCK

  Incident

  When you were lying on the white sand,

  a rock under your head, and smiling,

  (circled by dead shells), I came to you

  and you said, reaching to take my hand,

  ‘Lie down.’ So for a time we lay

  warm on the sand, talking and smoking,

  easy; while the grovelling sea behind

  sucked at the rocks and measured the day.

  Lightly I fell asleep then, and fell

  into a cavernous dream of falling.

  It was all the cave-myths, it was all

  the myths of tunnel or tower or well –

  Alice’s rabbit-hole into the ground,

  or the path of Orpheus: a spiral staircase

  to hell, furnished with danger and doubt.

  Stumbling, I suddenly woke; and found

  water about me. My hair was wet,

  and you were lying on the grey sand

  waiting for the lapping tide to take me:

  watching, and lighting a cigarette.

  ANONYMOUS

  The Water is Wide

  The water is wide, I can’t swim o’er

  Nor do I have wings to fly

  Give me a boat that can carry two

  And both shall row, my love and I

  A ship there is and she sails the sea

  She’s loaded deep as deep can be

  But not so deep as the love I’m in

  I know not if I sink or swim

  I leaned my back against an oak

  Thinking it was a trusty tree

  But first it swayed and then it broke

  So did my love prove false to me

  Oh love is handsome and love is kind

  Sweet as flower when first it is new

  But love grows old and waxes cold

  And fades away like the morning dew

  Must I go bound while you go free

  Must I love a man who doesn’t love me

  Must I be born with so little art

  As to love a man who’ll break my heart

  A. E. HOUSMAN

  He would not stay for me; and who can wonder?

  He would not stay for me to stand and gaze.

  I shook his hand and tore my heart in sunder

  And went with half my life about my ways.

  JACKIE KAY

  Her

  I had been told about her.

  How she would always, always.

  How she would never, never.

  I’d watched and listened

  but I still fell for her,

  how she always, always.

  How she never, never.

  In the small brave night,

  her lips, butterfly moments.

  I tried to catch her and she laughed

  a loud laugh that cracked me in two,

  but then I had been told about her,

  how she would always, always.

  How she would never, never.

  We two listened to the wind.

  We two galloped a pace.

  We two, up and away, away, away.

  And now she’s gone,

  like she said she would go.

  But then I had been told about her –

  how she would always, always.

  Regretfully

  EDNA ST VINCENT MILLAY

  When I too long have looked upon your face,

  Wherein for me a brightness unobscured

  Save by the mists of brightness has its place,

  And terrible beauty not to be endured,

  I turn away reluctant from your light,

  And stand irresolute, a mind undone,

  A silly, dazzled thing deprived of sight

  From having looked too long upon the sun.

  Then is my daily life a narrow room

  In which a little while, uncertainly,

  Surrounded by impenetrable gloom,

  Among familiar things grown strange to me

  Making my way, I pause, and feel, and hark,

  Till I become accustomed to the dark.

  MATTHEW SWEENEY

  Cacti

  After she left he bought another cactus

  just like the one she’d bought him

  in the airport in Marrakesh. He had to hunt

  through London, and then, in Camden,

  among hordes of hand-holding kids

  who clog the market, he found it,

  bought it, and brought it home to hers.

  Next week he was back for another,

&n
bsp; then another. He was coaxed into trying

  different breeds, bright ones flashing red –

  like the smile of the shop-girl

  he hadn’t noticed. He bought a rug, too,

  sand-coloured, for the living-room,

  and spent a weekend repainting

  the walls beige, the ceiling pale blue.

  He had the worn, black suite re-upholstered

  in tan, and took to lying on the sofa

  in a brown djellaba, with the cacti all around,

  and Arab music on. If she should come back,

  he thought, she might feel at home.

  DORA SIGERSON SHORTER

  I want to talk to thee of many things

  Or sit in silence when the robin sings

  His little song, when comes the winter bleak

  I want to sit beside thee, cheek to cheek.

  I want to hear thy voice my name repeat,

  To fill my heart with echoes ever sweet;

  I want to hear thy love come calling me

  I want to seek and find but thee, but thee.

  I want to talk to thee of little things

  So fond, so frail, so foolish that one clings

  To keep them ours – who could but understand

  A joy in speaking them, thus hand in hand

  Beside the fire; our joys, our hopes, our fears,

  Our secret laughter, or unchidden tears;

  Each day old dreams come back with beating wings,

  I want to speak of these forgotten things.

  I want to feel thy arms around me pressed,

  To hide my weeping eyes upon thy breast;

  I want thy strength to hold and comfort me

  For all the grief I had in losing thee.

  JOHN CLARE

  How Can I Forget

  That farewell voice of love is never heard again,

  Yet I remember it and think on it with pain:

  I see the place she spoke when passing by,

  The flowers were blooming as her form drew nigh,

  That voice is gone, with every pleasing tone –

  Loved but one moment and the next alone.

  ‘Farewell’ the winds repeated as she went

  Walking in silence through the grassy bent;

  The wild flowers – they ne’er looked so sweet before –

  Bowed in farewells to her they’ll see no more.

  In this same spot the wild flowers bloom the same

  In scent and hue and shape, ay, even name.

  ’Twas here she said farewell and no one yet

  Has so sweet spoken – How can I forget?

  LINTON KWESI JOHNSON

  Hurricane Blues

  langtime lovah

  mi mine run pan yu all di while

  an mi membah how fus time

  di two a wi come een – it did seem

  like two shallow likkle snakin stream

  mawchin mapless hapless a galang

  tru di ruggid lanscape a di awt sang

  an a soh wi did a gwaan

  sohtil dat fateful day

  awftah di pashan a di hurricane

  furdah dan imaginaeshan ar dream

  wi fine wiself lay-dung pan di same bedrack

  flowin now togedah as wan stream

  ridin sublime tru love lavish terrain

  lush an green an brite awftah di rain

  shimmarin wid glittahrin eyes

  glowin in di glare a di smilin sun

  langtime lovah

  mi feel blue fi true wen mi tink bout yu

  blue like di sky lingahrin pramis af rain

  in di leakin lite in di hush af a evenin twilite

  wen mi membah how fus time

  di two wi come een – it did seem

  like a lang lang rivah dat is wide an deep

  somtime wi woz silent like di langwidge a rackstone

  somtime wi woodah sing wi rivah sang as wi a wine a galang

  somtime wi jus cool an caam andah plenty shady tree

  somtime sawfly lappin bamboo root as dem swing an sway

  somtime cascadin carefree doun a steep gully bank

  somtime turbulent in tempament wi flood wi bank

  but weddah ebb ar flow tru rain tru drout

  wi nevah stray far fram love rigid route

  ole-time sweet-awt

  up til now mi still cyaan andastan

  ow wi get bag doun inna somuch silt an san

  rackstone debri lag-jam

  sohtil wi ad woz fi flow wi separet pawt

  now traversin di tarrid terrain a love lanscape

  runnin fram di polueshan af a cantrite awt

  mi lang fi di marvelous miracle a hurricane

  fi carry mi goh a meet in stream agen

  lamentin mi saltid fate

  sohmizin seh it too late

  T. S. ELIOT

  La Figlia Che Piange

  O quam te memorem virgo…

  Stand on the highest pavement of the stair –

  Lean on a garden urn –

  Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair –

  Clasp your flowers to you with a pained surprise –

  Fling them to the ground and turn

  With a fugitive resentment in your eyes:

  But weave, weave the sunlight in your hair.

  So I would have had him leave,

  So I would have had her stand and grieve,

  So he would have left

  As the soul leaves the body torn and bruised,

  As the mind deserts the body it has used.

  I should find

  Some way incomparably light and deft,

  Some way we both should understand,

  Simple and faithless as a smile and shake of the hand.

  She turned away, but with the autumn weather

  Compelled my imagination many days,

  Many days and many hours:

  Her hair over her arms and her arms full of flowers.

  And I wonder how they should have been together!

  I should have lost a gesture and a pose.

  Sometimes these cogitations still amaze

  The troubled midnight and the noon’s repose.

  WILLIAM EMPSON

  Villanelle

  It is the pain, it is the pain, endures.

  Your chemic beauty burned my muscles through.

  Poise of my hands reminded me of yours.

  What later purge from this deep toxin cures?

  What kindness now could the old salve renew?

  It is the pain, it is the pain, endures.

  The infection slept (custom or change inures)

  And when pain’s secondary phase was due

  Poise of my hands reminded me of yours.

  How safe I felt, whom memory assures,

  Rich that your grace safely by heart I knew.

  It is the pain, it is the pain, endures.

  My stare drank deep beauty that still allures.

  My heart pumps yet the poison draught of you.

  Poise of my hands reminded me of yours.

  You are still kind whom the same shape immures.

  Kind and beyond adieu. We miss our cue.

  It is the pain, it is the pain, endures.

  Poise of my hands reminded me of yours.

  THOMAS HARDY

  At Castle Boterel

  As I drive to the junction of lane and highway,

  And the drizzle bedrenches the waggonette,

  I look behind at the fading byway,

  And see on its slope, now glistening wet,

  Distinctly yet

  Myself and a girlish form benighted

  In dry March weather. We climb the road

  Beside a chaise. We had just alighted

  To ease the sturdy pony’s load

  When he sighed and slowed.

  What we did as we climbed, and what we talked of

  Matters not much, nor to what it led, –

  Something that life will not be balked of


  Without rude reason till hope is dead,

  And feeling fled.

  It filled but a minute. But was there ever

  A time of such quality, since or before,

  In that hill’s story? To one mind never,

  Though it has been climbed, foot-swift, foot-sore,

  By thousands more.

  Primaeval rocks form the road’s steep border,

  And much have they faced there, first and last,

  Of the transitory in Earth’s long order;

  But what they record in colour and cast

  Is – that we two passed.

  And to me, though Time’s unflinching rigour,

  In mindless rote, has ruled from sight

  The substance now, one phantom figure

  Remains on the slope, as when that night

  Saw us alight.

  I look and see it there, shrinking, shrinking,

  I look back at it amid the rain

  For the very last time; for my sand is sinking,

  And I shall traverse old love’s domain

  Never again.

  VIKRAM SETH

  Progress Report

  My need has frayed with time; you said it would.

  It has; I can walk again across the flood

  Of gold silk poppies on the straw-gold hills

  Under a deep Californian sky that expels

  All truant clouds; watch squads of cattle graze

  By the radio-telescope; blue-battered jays