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
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
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