You, love, and I,

(He whispers) you and I,

And if no more than only you and I

What care you or I?

Counting the beats,

Counting the slow heart beats,

The bleeding to death of time in slow heart beats,

Wakeful they lie.

Cloudless day,

Night, and a cloudless day,

Yet the huge storm will burst upon their heads one day

From a bitter sky.

Where shall we be,

(She whispers) where shall we be,

When death strikes home, O where then shall we be

Who were you and I?

Not there but here,

(He whispers) only here,

As we are, here, together, now and here,

Always you and I.

Counting the beats,

Counting the slow heart beats,

The bleeding to death of time in slow heart beats,

Wakeful they lie.

(Robert Graves)

Now – now, as low I stooped, thought I,

I will see what this snowdrop is;

So shall I put much argument by,

And solve a lifetime’s mysteries.

A northen wind had frozen the grass;

Its blades were hoar wuth crystal rime,

Aglint like light-dissecting glass

At beam of morning-prime.

From hidden bulb the flower reared up

Its angled, slender, cold, dark stem,

Whence dangled an inverted cup

For tri-leaved diadem.

Beneath these ice-pure crystals lay

A triplet of green-pencilled snow,

Which in the chill-aired gloom of day

Stirred softly to and fro.

Mind fixed, but else made vacant, I,

Lost to my body, called my soul

To don that frail solemnity,

Its inmost self my goal.

And though in vain – no mortal mind

Across that threshold yet hath fared! -

In this collusion I divined

Some consciousness we shared.

Strange roads – while suns, a myriad, set -

Had led us through infinity;

And where they crossed, there then had met

Not two of us, but three.

(Walter de la Mare)

How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean

Are thy returns! ev’n as the flowers in spring;

To which, besides their own demean,

The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring.

Grief melts away

Like snow in May,

As if there were no such cold thing.

*

Who would have thought my shrivelled heart

Could have recovered greenness? It was gone

Quite underground; as flowers depart

To see their mother-root, when they have blown;

Where they together

All the hard weather,

Dead to the world, keep house unknown.

*****

And now in age I bud again,

After so many deaths I live and write;

I once more smell the dew and rain,

And relish versing: O my only light,

It cannot be

That I am he

On whom thy tempests fell all night.

*

These are thy wonders, Lord of love,

To make us see we are but flowers that glide:

Which when we once can find and prove,

Thou hast a garden for us, where to bide.

Who would be more,

Swelling through store,

Forfeit their Paradise by their pride.

(George Herbert)

Seal on a shore

lying as a seal

lies, long and unshapely

watching the tide go

the water no more

the sea’s sound dying

the knock, the suck on shore

the plucked ties gone;

unmoving now, to lie

now without litheness

in limb or spring in muscle

now without quick

in breath or glint

the eager catch of light

of love’s pride, love of life

love of limb, or mutability

of mind, of passion … all gone:

dejected and rejected

in the gallops fallen

among the frolics forgotten

on the shore

lying listless here

not living and not dying

watching the thighs move off

along the sands

the ankle sea line

and the hair

all gold in sun and light

gleaming

strands reaching out to air,

watching this

the eyes their last wakening

watching … watching her go

too dry for tears

(Gilbert Horobin)

Go. I cannot bear

To look at you,

So perfect I must throw

The book at you.

Stay. I do not dare

To berate you,

Couched, naked, free, the way

I create you.

(Sebastian Barker)

Strike the lovely dumb, be curt with praise.

This lady is no incident so vain.

She wears the long-time miracle, she stays,

For in my heart I feel dissolving pain.

Wonders of love, raptures of love, dear God,

Queue at the shop where I barter words for her;

For she, Christ’s child, has brains no brain has made

Approving commerce Godly words concur.

In California now dark streets appraise

Her lone eyes looking from a window there

Screening a dream no Hollywood would dare.

For on the Pacific moonlight softly strays

Trembling with language on her parting lips

As out of clothes into these words she slips.

(Sebastian Barker)

‘In our time the destiny of man presents its meaning

in political terms.’ (Thomas Mann)

How can I, that girl standing there,

My attention fix

On Roman or on Russian

Or on Spanish politics?

Yet here’s a travelled man that knows

What he talks about,

And there’s a politician

That has read and thought,

And maybe what they say is true

Of war and war’s alarms,

But O that I was young again

And held her in my arms!

(W B Yeats)

‘Come as my doctor,

Come as my lawyer,

Or come as my agent

(First practise your lies)

For Bristol is a small town

Full of silly gossip

And a girl gets abashed by

Ten thousand staring eyes.’

‘Yes, I’ll come as your lawyer

Or as your god-father,

Or even as Father Christmas? -

Not half a bad disguise -

With a jingle of sleigh bells,

A sack full of crackers

And a big bunch of mistletoe

For you to recognize.’

(Robert Graves)

The sweet ship Carbonek, with all her crew,

seen through the lines of light,

glimmers now green, now blue,

and spins from sight.

A jewelled ship, the Carbonek flies by,

now in, now out of Time.

Within all glows celestially.

The sounding chime

of every chord that fills Broceliande

marks the coincidence of joy

and stellar destiny. She finds

the marker buoy

that points her path along the starry plane

and caracoles in mirth,

sweeping the mile-long flames in train

around the Earth.

The Carbonek has golden hosts on board:

some feast, some laugh, some weep.

Circling the Earth she turns again toward

the outer deep.

(K V Bailey)

All saints revile her, and all sober men

Ruled by the God Apollo’s golden mean -

In scorn of which we sailed to find her

In distant regions likeliest to hold her

Whom we desired above all things to know,

Sister of the mirage and echo.

It was a virtue not to stay,

To go our headstrong and heroic way

Seeking her out at the volcano’s head,

Among pack ice or where the track had faded

Beyond the cavern of the seven sleepers:

Whose broad high brow was white as any leper’s,

Whose eyes were blue, with rowan-berry lips,

With hair curled honey-coloured to white hips.

Green sap of spring in the young wood a-stir

Will celebrate the Mountain Mother,

And every song-bird shout awhile for her;

But we are gifted, even in November

Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense

Of her nakedly worn magnificence

We forget cruelty and past betrayal,

Heedless of where the next bright bolt might fall.

(Robert Graves)