The hunter to the husbandman
Pays tribute since our love began,
And to love-loyalty dedicates
The phantom kills he meditates.
Let me embrace, embracing you,
Beauty of other shape and hue,
Odd glinting graces of which none
Shone more than candle to your sun;
Your well-kissed hand was beckoning me
In unfamiliar imagery.
Smile your forgiveness: each bright ghost
Dives in love’s glory and is lost
Yielding your comprehensive pride
A homage, even to suicide.
Were walking by a wheat fieldThey plucked the ears of corn.They plucked it, they rubbed it,They blew the husks away,Which grieved the pious phariseesUpon the Sabbath day.And Jesus said, ‘A riddleAnswer if you can,Was man made for the SabbathOr Sabbath made for man?’I do not love the Sabbath,The soapsuds and the starch,The troops of solemn…
A sabre sweep had hacked him deepTwixt neck and shoulderknot….The potman cannot well recall,The ostler never knew,Whether his day was Malplaquet,The Boyne or Waterloo.But there he hangs for tavern sign,With foolish bold regardFor cock and hen and loitering menAnd wagons down the yard.Raised high above the hayseed worldHe smokes his painted pipe,And now surveys the…
Hedge the flowerbed all about,Pull or stab or cut or burn,She will ever yet return.Look: the constant marigoldSprings again from hidden roots.Baffled gardener, you beholdNew beginnings and new shootsSpring again from hidden roots.Pull or stab or cut or burn,They will ever yet return.Gardener, cursing at the weed,Ere you curse it further, say:Who but you planted…
The candles a tall lightship; my two handsAre boats and barges anchored to the sands,With mighty cliffs all round;They’re full of wine and riches from far lands….I wonder what it feels like to be drowned?I can make caves,By lifting up the island and huge wavesAnd storms, and then with head and ears well underBlow bubbles…
Choose from the clouded tales of wrongAnd terror I bring to you.Of a night so torn with cries,Honest men sleepingStart awake with glaring eyes,Bone-chilled, flesh creeping.Of spirits in the web hung roomUp above the stable,Groans, knockings in the gloom,The dancing table.Of demons in the dry wellThat cheep and mutter,Clanging of an unseen bell,Blood choking the…
Every instant grow; he canClearly through a flint wall see,Or watch the startled spirit fleeFrom the throat of a dead man.Across two counties he can hearAnd catch your words before you speak.The woodlouse or the maggot’s weakClamour rings in his sad ear,And noise so slight it would surpassCredence–drinking sound of grass,Worm talk, clashing jaws of…
