The Complete Poems Read online

  Robert Graves

  * * *

  THE COMPLETE POEMS

  In One Volume

  Edited by Beryl Graves and Dunstan Ward

  Contents

  Introduction

  I

  OVER THE BRAZIER (1916)

  The Poet in the Nursery

  PART I. – POEMS MOSTLY WRITTEN AT CHARTERHOUSE – 1910–1914

  Star-Talk

  The Dying Knight and the Fauns

  Willaree

  The Face of the Heavens

  Jolly Yellow Moon

  Youth and Folly

  Ghost Music

  In Spite [Free Verse]

  In the Wilderness

  Oh, and Oh!

  Cherry-Time

  PART II. – POEMS WRITTEN BEFORE LA BASSÉE –1915

  On Finding Myself a Soldier

  The Shadow of Death

  A Renascence

  The Morning Before the Battle

  Limbo

  The Trenches

  Nursery Memories:

  I The First Funeral

  II The Adventure

  III I Hate the Moon

  Big Words

  The Dead Fox Hunter

  It’s a Queer Time

  1915

  Over the Brazier

  GOLIATH AND DAVID (1916)

  The Bough of Nonsense

  Goliath and David

  A Pinch of Salt

  Babylon

  Careers

  The Lady Visitor in the Pauper Ward

  The Last Post

  A Dead Boche

  Escape

  Not Dead

  From FAIRIES AND FUSILIERS (1917)

  To an Ungentle Critic

  The Legion

  To Lucasta on Going to the Wars – for the Fourth Time

  Two Fusiliers

  To R.N. [To Robert Nichols]

  Dead Cow Farm

  Mr. Philosopher

  The Cruel Moon

  Finland

  The Caterpillar

  Sorley’s Weather

  The Cottage

  When I’m Killed

  Familiar Letter to Siegfried Sassoon [Letter to S.S. from Mametz Wood]

  Faun

  The Spoilsport

  The Shivering Beggar

  Jonah

  John Skelton

  I Wonder What It Feels Like to be Drowned?

  Double Red Daisies

  I’d Love to Be a Fairy’s Child

  The Next War

  Strong Beer

  Marigolds

  Love and Black Magic

  Smoke-Rings

  A Child’s Nightmare

  A Boy in Church

  Corporal Stare

  ‘The Assault Heroic’

  From TREASURE BOX (1919)

  Song: A Phoenix Flame [Morning Phoenix]

  Catherine Drury

  The Treasure Box

  The Kiss

  Lost Love

  Fox’s Dingle

  Mirror, Mirror!

  COUNTRY SENTIMENT (1920)

  A Frosty Night

  A Song for Two Children

  Dicky

  The Three Drinkers

  The Boy out of Church

  After the Play [The Forbidden Play]

  One Hard Look

  True Johnny

  The Voice of Beauty Drowned

  The God Called Poetry

  Rocky Acres

  Advice to Lovers

  Nebuchadnezzar’s Fall

  Give Us Rain

  Allie

  Loving Henry

  Brittle Bones

  Apples and Water

  Manticor in Arabia

  Outlaws

  Baloo Loo for Jenny

  Hawk and Buckle

  The Alice Jean

  The Cupboard

  The Beacon

  Pot and Kettle

  The Haunted House [Ghost Raddled]

  Neglectful Edward

  The Well-Dressed Children

  Thunder at Night

  Wild Strawberries [To E.M. – A Ballad of Nursery Rhyme]

  Jane

  Vain and Careless

  Nine o’Clock

  The Picture Book

  The Promised Lullaby

  RETROSPECT

  Haunted

  Retrospect: The Jests of the Clock

  Here They Lie

  Tom Taylor

  Country at War

  Sospan Fach

  The Leveller

  Hate Not, Fear Not

  A Rhyme of Friends

  A First Review

  From THE PIER-GLASS (1921)

  The Stake

  The Troll’s Nosegay

  The Pier-Glass

  The Finding of Love

  Reproach

  The Magical Picture

  Distant Smoke

  Raising the Stone

  The Gnat

  The Patchwork Bonnet

  Kit Logan and Lady Helen

  Down

  Saul of Tarsus

  Storm: At the Farm Window

  Black Horse Lane

  Return

  Incubus

  The Hills of May

  The Coronation Murder

  WHIPPERGINNY (1923)

  Whipperginny

  The Bedpost

  A Lover Since Childhood

  Song of Contrariety

  Love in Barrenness [The Ridge-Top]

  Song in Winter

  Unicorn and the White Doe

  Song: Sullen Moods

  Angry Samson [A False Report]

  Children of Darkness

  Richard Roe and John Doe

  The Dialecticians [The Philosophers]

  The Land of Whipperginny

  ‘The General Eliott’

  A Fight to the Death

  Mermaid, Dragon, Fiend [Old Wives’ Tales]

  Christmas Eve

  The Snake and the Bull

  The Red Ribbon Dream

  In Procession

  Henry and Mary

  An English Wood

  What Did I Dream? [The Dream]

  Interlude: On Preserving a Poetical Formula

  Epitaph on an Unfortunate Artist

  A History of Peace

  The Rock Below

  An Idyll of Old Age

  The Lord Chamberlain Tells of a Famous Meeting

  The Sewing Basket

  Against Clock and Compasses

  The Avengers

  The Poet’s Birth

  The Technique of Perfection

  The Sibyl

  A Crusader

  A New Portrait of Judith of Bethulia

  A Reversal

  The Martyred Decadents: A Sympathetic Satire

  Epigrams:

  On Christopher Marlowe

  A Village Feud [A Village Conflict]

  Dedicatory

  To R. Graves, Senior

  ‘A Vehicle, to Wit, A Bicycle’

  Motto to a Book of Emblems

  The Bowl and Rim

  A Forced Music

  The Turn of a Page

  The Manifestation in the Temple

  To Any Saint

  A Dewdrop

  A Valentine

  THE FEATHER BED (1923)

  The Witches’ Cauldron [Prologue]

  The Feather Bed

  I Am the Star of Morning [Epilogue]

  MOCK BEGGAR HALL (1924)

  Diplomatic Relations [George II and the Chinese Emperor]

  Hemlock

  Full Moon

  Myrrhina

  Twin Souls

  The North Window

  Attercop: The All-Wise Spider

  Antinomies

  Northward from Oxford

  Witches


  Antigonus: An Eclogue

  Essay on Continuity

  Knowledge of God

  Mock Beggar Hall: A Progression

  The Rainbow and the Sceptic

  WELCHMAN’S HOSE (1925)

  Alice

  Burrs and Brambles

  From Our Ghostly Enemy

  Death of the Farmer [The Figure-Head]

  Ovid in Defeat

  Diversions:

  To an Editor

  The Kingfisher’s Return

  Love Without Hope

  Traveller’s Curse After Misdirection

  Tilly Kettle

  The College Debate

  Sergeant-Major Money

  A Letter from Wales

  The Presence

  The Clipped Stater

  The Poetic State

  Vanity [Essay on Knowledge]

  At the Games

  THE MARMOSITE’S MISCELLANY (1925)

  To M. in India

  The Marmosite’s Miscellany

  The Moment of Weakness

  From POEMS (1914–26) (1927)

  The Country Dance

  The Rose and the Lily

  An Occasion

  A Dedication of Three Hats

  Ancestors

  The Corner Knot

  Virgil the Sorcerer

  RECENT POEMS: 1925–26

  Pygmalion to Galatea

  In Committee

  A Letter to a Friend

  In Single Syllables [This Is Noon]

  The Time of Day

  Blonde or Dark?

  Boots and Bed

  The Taint

  Dumplings’ Address to Gourmets

  Sorrow

  The Nape of the Neck

  A Visit to Stratford

  Pure Death

  The Cool Web

  II

  From POEMS (1914–27) (1927)

  The Progress

  Hell

  The Furious Voyage [The Dead Ship; Ship Master]

  O Jorrocks, I Have Promised

  Lost Acres

  Gardener [The Awkward Gardener]

  To a Charge of Didacticism

  The Philatelist-Royal

  Song: To Be Less Philosophical

  POEMS 1929 (1929)

  Sick Love [Between Dark and Dark; O Love in Me]

  In No Direction

  In Broken Images

  Thief [To the Galleys]

  Warning to Children

  Dismissal

  Guessing Black or White

  Hector

  Against Kind

  Midway

  Cabbage Patch [Green Cabbage Wit]

  The Castle

  Welsh Incident [Railway Carriage]

  Back Door

  Front Door Soliloquy [Front Door]

  Anagrammagic [The Tow-Path]

  Vision in the Repair-Shop [Repair Shop]

  Nature’s Lineaments [Landscape]

  Sea Side [Sandhills]

  Wm. Brazier [Pavement]

  A Former Attachment [Quayside]

  Return Fare

  Single Fare

  It Was All Very Tidy

  A Sheet of Paper

  TEN POEMS MORE (1930)

  The Reader Over My Shoulder

  History of the Word

  Interruption

  Survival of Love

  New Legends [The Age of Certainty]

  Saint [The Beast]

  Tap Room [Cracking the Nut Against the Hammer]

  The Terraced Valley

  Oak, Poplar, Pine

  Act V, Scene 5

  Song: Lift-Boy [Tail Piece: A Song to Make You and Me Laugh]

  From POEMS 1926–1930 (1931)

  Brother

  Bay of Naples

  Flying Crooked

  Reassurance to the Satyr

  Synthetic Such

  Dragons

  The Next Time

  TO WHOM ELSE? (1931)

  Largesse to the Poor

  The Felloe’d Year

  Time

  On Rising Early

  On Dwelling

  On Necessity

  The Foolish Senses

  Devilishly Provoked [Devilishly Disturbed]

  The Legs

  Ogres and Pygmies

  To Whom Else?

  As It Were Poems, i, ii, iii

  On Portents

  From POEMS 1930–1933 (1933)

  The Bards [Lust in Song]

  Ulysses

  Down, Wanton, Down!

  The Philosopher [The Cell]

  The Succubus

  Nobody

  Danegeld

  Trudge, Body!

  Music at Night

  Without Pause

  The Clock Man [The Clock Men]

  The Commons of Sleep

  What Times Are These?

  From COLLECTED POEMS (1938)

  The Christmas Robin [Wanderings of Christmas]

  Certain Mercies

  The Cuirassiers of the Frontier

  Callow Captain

  The Stranger

  The Smoky House

  Variables of Green [Green Loving]

  The Goblet

  Fiend, Dragon, Mermaid

  Fragment of a Lost Poem

  Galatea and Pygmalion

  The Devil’s Advice to Story-Tellers

  Lunch-Hour Blues

  Hotel Bed at Lugano [Hotel Bed]

  Progressive Housing

  Leda

  The Florist Rose

  Being Tall

  At First Sight

  Recalling War

  X

  Parent to Children

  To Challenge Delight

  To Walk on Hills

  To Bring the Dead to Life

  To Evoke Posterity

  Any Honest Housewife [The Poets]

  Defeat of the Rebels

  The Grudge

  Never Such Love

  The Halfpenny

  The Fallen Signpost

  The China Plate

  Idle Hands

  The Laureate

  A Jealous Man

  The Cloak

  The Halls of Bedlam

  Or to Perish Before Day

  A Country Mansion

  The Eremites

  Advocates

  Self-Praise

  The Challenge

  To the Sovereign Muse

  The Ages of Oath

  Like Snow

  The Climate of Thought

  End of Play

  The Fallen Tower of Siloam

  The Great-Grandmother

  No More Ghosts

  Leaving the Rest Unsaid

  From NO MORE GHOSTS (1940)

  The Glutton [The Beast]

  A Love Story

  The Thieves

  To Sleep

  From WORK IN HAND (1942)

  Dawn Bombardment

  The Worms of History

  A Withering Herb

  The Shot

  Dream of a Climber

  Lollocks

  Despite and Still

  The Suicide in the Copse

  Frightened Men

  A Stranger at the Party

  The Oath

  Language of the Seasons

  Mid-Winter Waking

  The Rock at the Corner

  From POEMS 1938–1945 (1945)

  The Beach

  The Villagers and Death

  The Door

  Under the Pot

  Through Nightmare

  To Lucia at Birth

  Death by Drums

  She Tells Her Love While Half Asleep

  Instructions to the Orphic Adept

  Theseus and Ariadne

  Lament for Pasiphaë

  The Twelve Days of Christmas

  Cold Weather Proverb

  To Juan at the Winter Solstice

  SATIRES AND GROTESQUES

  The Persian Version

  The Weather of Olympus

  Apollo of the Physiologists

 
; The Oldest Soldier

  Grotesques, i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi

  The Eugenist

  1805

  At the Savoy Chapel

  From COLLECTED POEMS (1914–1947) (1948)

  To Poets Under Pisces

  June

  The Last Day of Leave

  To Be Called a Bear [To Be Named a Bear]

  A Civil Servant

  Gulls and Men

  MAGICAL POEMS

  The Allansford Pursuit

  Amergin’s Charm [The Alphabet Calendar of Amergin]

  The Sirens’ Welcome to Cronos

  Dichetal do Chennaib

  The Battle of the Trees

  The Song of Blodeuwedd

  Intercession in Late October

  The Tetragrammaton

  Nuns and Fish

  The Destroyer

  Return of the Goddess

  From POEMS AND SATIRES 1951 (1951)

  The White Goddess

  The Chink

  Counting the Beats

  The Jackals’ Address to Isis

  The Death Room

  The Young Cordwainer

  Your Private Way

  My Name and I

  Conversation Piece

  The Ghost and the Clock

  Advice on May Day

  For the Rain It Raineth Every Day

  Questions in a Wood

  The Portrait

  Darien

  The Survivor

  Prometheus

  SATIRES

  Queen-Mother to New Queen

  Secession of the Drones

  Damocles

  Homage to Texas

  The Dilemma

  General Bloodstock’s Lament for England

  ‘¡Wellcome, to the Caves of Artá!’

  To a Poet in Trouble

  From POEMS 1953 (1953)

  To Calliope

  The Straw

  The Foreboding

  Cry Faugh!

  Hercules at Nemea

  Dialogue on the Headland

  Lovers in Winter

  Esau and Judith

  The Mark

  With the Gift of a Ring

  Liadan and Curithir

  The Sea Horse

  The Devil at Berry Pomeroy

  Reproach to Julia

  Dethronement

  Cat-Goddesses

  The Blue-Fly

  Rhea

  The Hero

  Marginal Warning

  The Encounter

  I’m Through with You For Ever

  With Her Lips Only

  The Blotted Copy-Book

  The Sacred Mission

  From the Embassy

  Sirocco at Deyá

  From COLLECTED POEMS 1955 (1955)

  Penthesileia

  Poets’ Corner

  Coronation Address

  Beauty in Trouble

  A Lost Jewel

  The Window Sill

  Spoils

  From THE CROWNING PRIVILEGE (1955)

  The Clearing

  The Three Pebbles

  Possibly [The Question]

  End of the World

  To a Pebble in My Shoe

  The Tenants

  My Moral Forces

  Interview

  From 5 PENS IN HAND (1958)

  The Face in the Mirror

  Forbidden Words

  Song for New Year’s Eve

  Alexander and Queen Janet [A Ballad of Alexander and Queen Janet]

  The Coral Pool

  Gratitude for a Nightmare

  Friday Night

  The Naked and the Nude

  Woman and Tree

  Destruction of Evidence