Robert Graves

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.

Lady, lovely lady, Careless and gay! Once when a beggar called She gave her child away. The beggar took the baby, Wrapped it in a shawl, “Bring her back,” the lady said, “Next time you call.” Hard by lived a vain man, So vain and so proud, He walked on stilts To be seen by the crowd. Up above the chimney pots, Tall as a mast, And all the people ran about Shouting till he passed. “A splendid match surely,” Neighbours saw it plain, “Although she is so careless, Although he is so vain.” But the lady played bobcherry, Did not see or care, As the vain man went by her Aloft in the air. This gentle-born couple Lived and died apart. Water will not mix with oil, Nor vain with careless heart.

And have we done with War at last? Well, we've been lucky devils both, And there's no need of pledge or oath To bind our lovely friendship fast, By firmer stuff Close bound enough. By wire and wood and stake we're bound, By Fricourt and by Festubert, By whipping rain, by the sun's glare, By all the misery and loud sound, By a Spring day, By Picard clay. Show me the two so closely bound As we, by the wet bond of blood, By friendship blossoming from mud, By Death: we faced him, and we found Beauty in Death, In dead men, breath.

The great sun sinks behind the town Through a red mist of Volnay wine . . . . But what’s the use of setting down That glorious blaze behind the town? You’ll only skip the page, you’ll look For newer pictures in this book; You’ve read of sunsets rich as mine. A fresh wind fills the evening air With horrid crying of night birds . . . . But what reads new or curious there When cold winds fly across the air? You’ll only frown; you’ll turn the page, But find no glimpse of your ‘New Age Of Poetry’ in my worn-out words. Must winds that cut like blades of steel And sunsets swimming in Volnay, The holiest, cruellest pains I feel, Die stillborn, because old men squeal For something new: ‘Write something new: We’ve read this poem – that one too, And twelve more like ’em yesterday’? No, no! my chicken, I shall scrawl Just what I fancy as I strike it, Fairies and Fusiliers, and all. Old broken knock-kneed thought will crawl Across my verse in the classic way. And, sir, be careful what you say; There are old-fashioned folk still like it.

My familiar ghost again Comes to see what he can see, Critic, son of Conscious Brain, Spying on our privacy. Slam the window, bolt the door, Yet he’ll enter in and stay; In to-morrow’s book he’ll score Indiscretions of to-day. Whispered love and muttered fears, How their echoes fly about! None escape his watchful ears, Every sigh might be a shout. No kind words nor angry cries Turn away this grim spoilsport; No fine lady’s pleading eyes, Neither love, nor hate, nor . . . port. Critic wears no smile of fun, Speaks no word of blame nor praise, Counts our kisses one by one, Notes each gesture, every phrase. My familiar ghost again Stands or squats where suits him best; Critic, son of Conscious Brain, Listens, watches, takes no rest.

It wasn't our battalion, but we lay alongside it, So the story is as true as the telling is frank. They hadn't one Line-officer left, after Arras, Except a batty major and the Colonel, who drank. 'B' Company Commander was fresh from the Depot, An expert on gas drill, otherwise a dud; So Sergeant-Major Money carried on, as instructed, And that's where the swaddies began to sweat blood. His Old Army humour was so well-spiced and hearty That one poor sod shot himself, and one lost his wits; But discipline's maintained, and back in rest-billets The Colonel congratulates 'B' Company on their kits. The subalterns went easy, as was only natural With a terror like Money driving the machine, Till finally two Welshmen, butties from the Rhondda, Bayoneted their bugbear in a field-canteen. Well, we couldn't blame the officers, they relied on Money; We couldn't blame the pitboys, their courage was grand; Or, least of all, blame Money, an old stiff surviving In a New (bloody) Army he couldn't understand.

White flabbiness goes brown and lean, Dumpling arms are now brass bars, They’ve learnt to suffer and live clean, And to think below the stars. They’ve steeled a tender, girlish heart, Tempered it with a man’s pride, Learning to play the butcher’s part Though the woman screams inside— Learning to leap the parapet, Face the open rush, and then To stab with the stark bayonet, Side by side with fighting men. On Achi Baba’s rock their bones Whiten, and on Flanders’ plain, But of their travailings and groans Poetry is born again.

A page, a huntsman and a priest of God Her lovers, met in jealous contrariety Equally claiming the sole parenthood Of him the perfect crown of their variety. Then, whom to admit, herself she could not tell: That always was her fate, she loved too well. “But many-fathered little one,” she said, “Whether of high or low, of smooth or rough, Here is your mother whom you brought to bed; Acknowledge only me; be this enough; For such as worship after shall be told A white dove sired you or a rain of gold.”

I. –THE FIRST FUNERAL (The first corpse I saw was on the German wires, and couldn’t be buried) The whole field was so smelly; We smelt the poor dog first: His horrid swollen belly Looked just like going burst. His fur was most untidy; He hadn’t any eyes. It happened on Good Friday And there was lots of flies. And then I felt the coldest I’d ever felt, and sick, But Rose, ’cause she’s the oldest, Dared poke him with her stick. He felt quite soft and horrid: The flies buzzed round his head And settled on his forehead: Rose whispered: ‘That dog’s dead. ‘You bury all dead people, When they’re quite really dead, Round churches with a steeple: Let’s bury this,’ Rose said. ‘And let’s put mint all round it To hide the nasty smell.’ I went to look and found it— Lots, growing near the well. We poked him through the clover Into a hole, and then We threw brown earth right over And said: ‘Poor dog, Amen!’

Are you shaken, are you stirred By a whisper of love, Spellbound to a word Does Time cease to move, Till her calm grey eye Expands to a sky And the clouds of her hair Like storms go by? Then the lips that you have kissed Turn to frost and fire, And a white-steaming mist Obscures desire: So back to their birth Fade water, air, earth, And the First Power moves Over void and dearth. Is that Love? no, but Death, A passion, a shout, The deep in-breath, The breath roaring out, And once that is flown, You must lie alone, Without hope, without life, Poor flesh, sad bone.