101 Exiles

In among the silver birches, Winding ways of tarmac wander And the signs to Bussock Bottom, Tussock Wood and Windy Break. Gabled lodges, tile-hung churches Catch the lights of our Lagonda As we drive to Wendy’s party, Lemon curd and Christmas cake Rich the makes of motor whirring Past the pine plantation purring Come up Hupmobile Delage. Short the way our chauffeurs travel Crunching over private g...

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.    Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.    In time the curtain-edges will grow light.    Till then I see what’s really always there:    Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,    Making all thought impossible but how    And where and when I shall myself die.    Arid interrogation: yet the dread Of dying, and being dead, Flashes afresh to hold and...

Just because we've torn their statues down, and cast them from their temples, doesn't for a moment mean the gods are dead. Land of Ionia, they love you yet, their spirits still remember you. When an August morning breaks upon you a vigour from their lives stabs through your air; and sometimes an ethereal and youthful form in swiftest passage, indistinct,                 passes up above your hills.

I thought it would last my time— The sense that, beyond the town, There would always be fields and farms, Where the village louts could climb Such trees as were not cut down; I knew there’d be false alarms   In the papers about old streets And split level shopping, but some Have always been left so far; And when the old part retreats As the bleak high-risers come We can always escape in the car.  ...

Let me take this other glove off As the vox humana swells, And the beauteous fields of Eden Bask beneath the Abbey bells. Here, where England's statesmen lie, Listen to a lady's cry. Gracious Lord, oh bomb the Germans, Spare their women for Thy Sake, And if that is not too easy We will pardon Thy Mistake. But, gracious Lord, whate'er shall be, Don't let anyone bomb me. Keep our Empire undismembere...

The trees are coming into leaf Like something almost being said; The recent buds relax and spread, Their greenness is a kind of grief. Is it that they are born again And we grow old? No, they die too, Their yearly trick of looking new Is written down in rings of grain. Yet still the unresting castles thresh In fullgrown thickness every May. Last year is dead, they seem to say, Begin afresh, afresh...

Encase your legs in nylons, Bestride your hills with pylons O age without a soul; Away with gentle willows And all the elmy billows That through your valleys roll. Let's say goodbye to hedges And roads with grassy edges And winding country lanes; Let all things travel faster Where motor car is master Till only Speed remains. Destroy the ancient inn-signs But strew the roads with tin signs 'Keep Le...

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?       The barbarians are due here today. Why isn’t anything going on in the senate? Why are the senators sitting there without legislating?       Because the barbarians are coming today.       What’s the point of senators making laws now?       Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating. Why did our emperor get up so early, and why is...

Tightly-folded bud, I have wished you something None of the others would: Not the usual stuff About being beautiful, Or running off a spring Of innocence and love — They will all wish you that, And should it prove possible, Well, you’re a lucky girl. But if it shouldn’t, then May you be ordinary; Have, like other women, An average of talents: Not ugly, not good-looking, Nothing uncustomary To pull...

Breathless, we flung us on the windy hill, Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass. You said, "Through glory and ecstasy we pass; Wind, sun, and earth remain, the birds sing still, When we are old, are old. . . ." "And when we die All's over that is ours; and life burns on Through other lovers, other lips," said I, -- "Heart of my heart, our heaven is now, is won!" "We are Earth's best, th...

John Vavasour de Quentin Jones was very fond of throwing stones like many of the upper class he loved the sound of breaking glass ( a line I stole with subtle daring from Wing Commander Maurice Baring)

Talking in bed ought to be easiest, Lying together there goes back so far, An emblem of two people being honest. Yet more and more time passes silently. Outside, the wind's incomplete unrest Builds and disperses clouds in the sky, And dark towns heap up on the horizon. None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why At this unique distance from isolation It becomes still more difficult to find Words...

Up the ash tree climbs the ivy, Up the ivy climbs the sun, With a twenty-thousand pattering, Has a valley breeze begun, Feathery ash, neglected elder, Shift the shade and make it run - Shift the shade toward the nettles, And the nettles set it free, To streak the stained Carrara headstone, Where, in nineteen-twenty-three, He who trained a hundred winners, Paid the Final Entrance Fee. Leathery limb...

Side by side, their faces blurred,    The earl and countess lie in stone,    Their proper habits vaguely shown    As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,    And that faint hint of the absurd—    The little dogs under their feet. Such plainness of the pre-baroque     Hardly involves the eye, until It meets his left-hand gauntlet, still    Clasped empty in the other; and    One sees, with a sharp tender...

When suddenly, at midnight, you hear an invisible procession going by with exquisite music, voices, don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now, work gone wrong, your plans all proving deceptive—don’t mourn them uselessly. As one long prepared, and graced with courage, say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving. Above all, don’t fool yourself, don’t say it was a dream, your ears deceived you:...

I saw three ships go sailing by, Over the sea, the lifting sea, And the wind rose in the morning sky, And one was rigged for a long journey. The first ship turned towards the west, Over the sea, the running sea, And by the wind was all possessed And carried to a rich country. The second ship turned towards the east, Over the sea, the quaking sea, And the wind hunted it like a beast To anchor in ca...

My head is bald, my breath is bad,     Unshaven is my chin, I have not now the joys I had     When I was young in sin. I run my fingers down your dress     With brandy-certain aim And you respond to my caress     And maybe feel the same. But I've a picture of my own     On this reunion night, Wherein two skeletons are shewn     To hold each other tight; Dark sockets look on emptiness     Which onc...

 I never found them again—all lost so quickly... the poetic eyes, the pale face... in the darkening street...  I never found them again—mine entirely by chance, and so easily given up, then longed for so painfully. The poetic eyes, the pale face, those lips—I never found them again.

There was a Boy whose name was Jim; His Friends were very good to him. They gave him Tea, and Cakes, and Jam, And slices of delicious Ham, And Chocolate with pink inside And little Tricycles to ride, And read him Stories through and through, And even took him to the Zoo-- But there it was the dreadful Fate Befell him, which I now relate. You know--or at least you ought to know, For I have often to...

To step over the low wall that divides Road from concrete walk above the shore Brings sharply back something known long before – The miniature gaiety of seasides. Everything crowds under the low horizon: Steep beach, blue water, towels, red bathing caps, The small hushed waves’ repeated fresh collapse Up the warm yellow sand, and further off A white steamer stuck in the afternoon – Still going on,...

Body, remember not only how much you were loved,  not only the beds on which you lay,  but also those desires which for you  plainly glowed in the eyes,  and trembled in the voice -- and some  chance obstacle made them futile.  Now that all belongs to the past,  it is almost as if you had yielded  to those desires too -- remember,  how they glowed, in the eyes looking at you;  how they trembled in...

If I should die, think only this of me:       That there’s some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be       In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,       Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam; A body of England’s, breathing English air,       Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home. And think, this heart...

I live in you, you live in me; We are two gardens haunted by each other. Sometimes I cannot find you there, There is only the swing creaking, that you have just left, Or your favourite book beside the sundial.

And did those feet in ancient time      Walk upon England’s mountains green?   And was the holy Lamb of God      On England’s pleasant pastures seen?      And did the Countenance Divine         Shine forth upon our clouded hills?   And was Jerusalem builded here      Among these dark Satanic Mills?      Bring me my bow of burning gold!      Bring me my arrows of desire!   Bring me my spear! O clou...

When I see a couple of kids And guess he’s fucking her and she’s    Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm,    I know this is paradise Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives—    Bonds and gestures pushed to one side Like an outdated combine harvester, And everyone young going down the long slide To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if    Anyone looked at me, forty years back,    And thought, That’l...