Complete Poems 3 (Robert Graves Programme) by Robert Graves
As you lie stretched on the familiar slab
Comfort yourself by swearing to live on
In bloody vengeance on all bulls. It is
The heifer’s horns that defy surgery.
CONFITEOR UT FAS
Alienae civitates
Quas inspexit voster vates,
Etsi tanto procul jacent,
Non tantum regresso placent
Quam (confiteor, ut fas)
Mitis Universitas
De qua nusquam linguae tacent,
Qua dicendi libertas.
NEW MOON THROUGH GLASS
I shall wrap myself in a many-coloured cloak
Where the moon shines new on Castle Crystal,
But make no boast of a passage forced
Through red flames, choking blizzard and black fog.
The extremes! courtesy of love is silence.
DYNAMITE BARBEE
Dynamite Barbee, no clo’es on,
Rode on a lion whose name was John –
Dynamite Barbee, no! man, no!
She’ll make trouble wherever she go.
‘Short life only and a long time dead,
Got to be practical,’ Barbee said.
Judged old lion was nigh to death,
Changed to a jackal, corpse on his breath –
Stink of corpse on her hands and hair,
Dynamite Barbee, she don’t care:
‘Short life only and a long time dead,
Got to be practical,’ Barbee said.
Dynamite Barbee never got rich –
Things she done for that son of a bitch!
Pawned her ear-rings, pawned her fur,
And big gold watch that Lion gave her:
‘Short life only and a long time dead,
Got to be practical,’ Barbee said.
Sunk to the bottom, we guessed she would:
Three times down and she’s gone for good.
Dynamite Barbee, no! man, no!
That mean jackal never let her go –
‘Short life only and a long time dead,
Got to be practical,’ Barbee said.
WHEN A NECKLACE BREAKS
Two lovers sat together under a tree
When suddenly he spoke in a loveless voice –
She answered him as a true woman should,
And the dog howled at their feet.
When a necklace breaks and the beads spill,
Bouncing and rolling across the parquet floor
That is no fatal sign, only a warning
To gather, count, rethread.
Common danger can knit together in love
Almost any desperate human pair;
But the danger gone, they will part silently,
To forget each other’s names.
You are good, you are indeed a good sword,
True steel welded and tempered without flaw,
Fit only for a King at his coronation –
Must my scabbard wear a worse?
Up rose the sun, blazing in at the window:
If you honour me as you say, why do you spend
All night in talk and, at my first appearance
Sleep almost till I set?
A QUEEN
Let other women wrangle with their dooms,
A queen is doomed to self-sufficiency;
Shown herself at whatever age she will,
Tempestuous child, grand lady, gruesome hag,
Shifting her mask and dress continually;
Scatters benignant smiles on common folk
Who neither envy or impugn her powers;
Scoffs at all vauntings of nobility;
Summons to table jugglers, cardinals,
Assassins, dancing women, generals,
From whom she learns resource of policy;
And scars her chosen lover’s innocent breast
With wounds that testify her royalty.
IF LOVE BECOMES A GAME
If love becomes a game the sweet young fool,
Now both player and prize,
Learns to resist a gentlemanly rule,
Against unsporting lies,
That draws her far-from-ladylike attack
When, as a last resort,
She’s kicked the table down, scattered the pack
And turned to other sport –
To sport, alas, with some gay gambling boy
Who, judging it no sin
Her sweet, young, foolish licence to enjoy,
Can never help but win.
QUEEN SILVER AND KING GOLD
Queen Silver and King Gold for untold years
Held planetary sway
Over such common clay
As led its life in eulogy of theirs –
And are still fawned upon even today,
By Voucher, most astute of Ministers
With Town, Court, Bourse and Army in his pay,
Who, if he had his way…
LEARN THAT BY HEART
If there’s a poem in this book
To which I’ve put my name
And Teacher growls: ‘Learn that by heart!’,
Don’t let me bear the blame.
Tell Teacher there are certain things
No one should ever do –
Say that I write to please myself,
Not just to torture you.
Press Teacher’s nose against the wall,
Try not to seem unkind,
But say: ‘Stop there till he forgives
The deed you had in mind.’
SONG: ONE IN MANY
To be loved by many and to love many
Is never to die, is to live purely,
Never to lack for noble company;
But to be loved by many, and to love many
Is to be singled out by one only,
Of all those many, who can love truly.
‘My doors are barred, my blinds are drawn; for surely
This is the end of love. I loved her wholly –
Now she is lost to me among the many.’
What! In despair for one whom you loved wholly,
You who love many and are loved by many,
Have you no eyes for her who lives purely,
With eyes unhooded, with no hate nor envy,
Singling you out to love wholly and surely
Nor ever lacks for noble company?
A LATE DAFFODIL FOR THE PRINCE OF GWYNEDD
Thrice fortunate is he who winneth
As heir to Maelgwyn Pendragon
Grand welcome at the heart of Gwynedd:
Setting his princely feet upon
Those golden streets of Sinadon
And guarded against evil will
By Dewi Sant’s own daffodil.
1999
These are the good old days: appreciate them!
Hope has been lost, of course, but don’t forget
We’re still three to a bunk, beer is still drunk,
And ten bob buys a genuine cigarette.
ANGRY GARDENER
Gentle wild flowers, each with its own strange, twisting,
Graceful habit of growth and innocent aspect,
Find careless welcome to waste garden-corners.
Yet should some honey-gathering go-between
Dare to inaugurate miscegenation
On your parterres or even in waste-corners,
With what blind rage you tear the bastards out!
SONG: WEATHER
What rules the weather for your lover
Is neither wind nor rain nor mist;
Nor does his private climate alter,
Since the proud night when first you kissed;
For still the pulsing of his blood –
Young manhood awed by womanhood –
Makes love his weather-vane and weather
With neither wind, nor rain, nor mist.
FIERY ORCHARD
Will she ever need to fetch him home again
To man’s beginnings, to that fiery orchard<
Where frantic Adam lost himself in Eve?
Once in distress they drew together there,
Gasping, confused and blind,
Clasping and clasped in desperate make-believe;
Yet rose entire, each with a whole mind.
DEFEAT OF TIME
The omens being less than sympathetic,
Love had recourse to its own magic
For the defeat of time.
This consummation (Love ruled briefly)
Lies beyond all denial where both hearts burn
As in a single body.
Whether in distant past or future
Who cares? Together sealed
Beyond all temporal favour.
SIX BLANKETS
How long is love, or how short is love,
And what’s the length of a string?
Nothing to something and back to nothing
And around a small gold ring.
But to you I shall never, alas, be wed
Though long I may mourn for you:
Across your bed six blankets are spread
And I choke under more than two.
THE NOTE
And though your hasty note be bare
But for the secret sign you use,
I need no more – the essential news
Being instantly deciphered there:
That still you laugh, dance, dream and live,
That all you gave me you still give.
THE HEDGEPIG
The letter that you wrote me in your head,
Last week, arrived at last by pigeon post,
Crumpled and smudged, but legible. It read:
‘Of all my countless worries I hate most
Pretending that your tickly-prickly foe
Sends you his love…He died three weeks ago.’
The nightmare flew me to you. First I hovered
Over your bed, then I dropped into the shed
Where, with a smile of triumph, I discovered
That you were wrong. Your hedgepig was not dead,
But hibernating in that cosy ball
Which all fat hedgepigs use when the leaves fall.
WHEN HE SAT WRITING
(Song for Shakespeare’s Birthday, 1972)
When Will sat forging plays with busy friends
He wrote no worse than they;
When he sat writing for his loves, and us,
Such play outshone all play –
And still it does today.
Comparisons are foolish: love alone
Established Shakespeare’s fame.
There’s many a poet, laurelled on a throne,
For whom the critics claim
A like poetic flame.
Reject all rivals, even those richly blessed
With histrionic art…
For groundlings he might jest, like all the rest,
But suffered grief apart
Mourning with his whole heart.
FOUR POEMS FROM DEYA: A PORTFOLIO (1972)
[OURS HAS NO BEARING ON QUOTIDIAN LOVE]
Ours has no bearing on quotidian love
And indeed how could it, while we live above
Quotidian circumstance, fitfully meeting,
Communing fitfully? Nor is ours bound
Like other loves to any common ground.
This is no marriage, nor must ever be –
We were both born more than free,
But our discovery of togetherness
Earned us a weight of silence, our charmed eyes
Lost in astonishment at such excess.
Silence, love’s discipline by night or day –
Each time we meet, the occasion calls for silence
As at some unbelievable coincidence,
And, unbelievably, tomorrow will be Sunday:
Silence all but mistakable for absence.
[LOVE MAKES POOR SENSE IN EITHER SPEECH OR LETTERS]
Love makes poor sense in either speech or letters:
Its final truth cannot be told with words,
Only with grave and lengthening silences –
Such as might greet discoveries of truth.
Why then should I fall sick if weeks elapse
Without even a hasty scrawl from you?
Does this denote some fault in me, or merely
A woman’s freedom from the snares of time?
And if I ceased to write, would you still love me?
[IS THERE ANOTHER MAM?]
Is there another man
Can claim what you deny me?
Is there another man?
The letters that you write me
Come seldom and invite me
To love you while I can –
Is there another man?
If there’s another man
For whom you guard your beauty,
If there’s another man,
Send no more letters to me
With kisses to renew me –
What kisses ever can,
If there’s another man?
Yet where’s the other man
Who loves you for your virtue,
Or where’s the other man
Whose kiss of life can cure you?
Then let your pulse assure you
That there’s no other woman
With me for other man.
[CONFESS, SWEETHEART, CONFESS]
Confess, sweetheart, confess
You cannot marry me:
Ours is no wedlock nor could ever be,
Though both live more than free –
Our childish greeting of togetherness
Grown to this weight of magic: our charmed eyes
Lost in bewilderment at love’s excess.
Nor can we ever become otherwise
Than what love on the hillside made of us:
We scanned each other with close eyes,
We read fateful togetherness:
The door, the key, the power,
The unfolding flower.
And still we brood, our fingers twitch,
Nor can we yet prognosticate
The climax of our fate –
The occasion when, the country which –
Determined only that this brooding season
Of timeless love, this tremulous obsession,
Has its own fateful reason.
THE NOOSE
This is my own clear voice:
Sweetheart, keep faith with me.
A noose hangs from the rope;
I do not bring blind hope
But love in certainty.
Choose, for you have no choice:
Sweetheart, stand fast by me.
THE MORAL LAW
The moral law, being male, need not apply
To a true-hearted woman, though its breach
By such a woman wounds the male pride
Even of a lover loyal and wise enough
To condone her innocence –
Then proudly let him differentiate
Between tormented flesh and troubled spirit,
Resigned to nothingness in her defence.
BODIES ENTRANCED
Where poems, love also;
Where love, likewise magic
With powers indomitable,
Powers inexpendable,
Seasoned in love.
Whence come all true poems,
Their power and their magic
Of two souls as one?
From slow recognition
Of bodies entranced.
Which entrancement of bodies
Will rise from no impulse
To blind propagation,
But claim recognition
Of truth beyond love.
WHO MUST IT BE?
And if I suddenly die, will she have killed me,
And must the wide world know it,
Gasping at mention of her name,
My fellow poet,
Therefore the first to blame?
The child who years ago had mer
Dragging me from the briars,
Thrusting this pen back in my hand,
Hugging me close
For Love to understand?
And if I live will it be she who saved me
From the tiger and the bear,
A reckless child among tall trees
Balm on her fingers,
Her warm heart at ease?
THIS IS THE SEASON
This is the season
Of useless hunger,
Of strengthened reason,
Of more than danger,
Of endless drought,
Which Death, the stranger,
Has brought about.
This is the ending
Of promised plenty,
Of docile standing
Before God’s throne,
The Goddess hidden
Beyond man’s midden,
Proud and alone.
UNCO
The unco-guid and unco-ordinated
Walk hand in hand, closely related,
Being from birth so fated.
Unpublished and Posthumously Published Poems
A Selection
JUVENILIA: 1910-1914
THE FIRST POEM
No, not for me the lute or lyre!
A knight, I’ll ride my thoughts of fire
And fly on wings for ever and aye
Through an unresisting starry sky,
Where the gleaming aether turns and sings
Its strange slow song of the Birth of Things.
And I cry: ‘Oh, if I had never known
The cares of this petty world! Alone,
Alone I’d fly, unfettered, free,
Through the Garden of God, Infinity.’
And there lie paths that none have trod
And none again shall tread,
But I alone, with Rapture shod
With Triumph garlanded –
NIGHTMARE
Oh, some warlock’s spell has bound me,
Myriad torches flare around me.
The warlock’s shroud,
A misty cloud,
Swims before me. Sudden, loud,
In my ear some creature cries,