We blew them out and took the stairs
into the night for the night’s work,
stripped off in the timbered dark,
gently hooked each other on
like aqualungs, and thundered down
to mine our lovely secret wreck.
We surfaced later, breathless, back
to back, then made our way alone
up the mined beach of the dawn.
STEPHEN CRANE
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, ‘Is it good, friend?’
‘It is bitter – bitter,’ he answered;
‘But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart.’
Finally
EMILY DICKINSON
My life closed twice before its close –
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me
So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.
THOMAS HARDY
In the Vaulted Way
In the vaulted way, where the passage turned
To the shadowy corner that none could see,
You paused for our parting, – plaintively;
Though overnight had come words that burned
My fond frail happiness out of me.
And then I kissed you, – despite my thought
That our spell must end when reflection came
On what you had deemed me, whose one long aim
Had been to serve you; that what I sought
Lay not in a heart that could breathe such blame.
But yet I kissed you; whereon you again
As of old kissed me. Why, why was it so?
Do you cleave to me after that light-tongued blow?
If you scorned me at eventide, how love then?
The thing is dark, Dear. I do not know.
KATHERINE MANSFIELD
The Meeting
We started speaking –
Looked at each other; then turned away –
The tears kept rising to my eyes
But I could not weep
I wanted to take your hand
But my hand trembled.
You kept counting the days
Before we should meet again
But both of us felt in our heart
That we parted for ever and ever.
The ticking of the little clock filled the quiet room –
Listen I said; it is so loud
Like a horse galloping on a lonely road.
As loud as that – a horse galloping past in the night.
You shut me up in your arms –
But the sound of the clock stifled our hearts’ beating.
You said ‘I cannot go: all that is living of me
Is here for ever and ever.’
Then you went.
The world changed. The sound of the clock grew fainter
Dwindled away – became a minute thing –
I whispered in the darkness: ‘If it stops, I shall die.’
JENNY JOSEPH
Dawn walkers
Anxious eyes loom down the damp-black streets
Pale staring girls who are walking away hard
From beds where love went wrong or died or turned away,
Treading their misery beneath another day
Stamping to work into another morning.
In all our youths there must have been some time
When the cold dark has stiffened up the wind
But suddenly, like a sail stiffening with wind,
Carried the vessel on, stretching the ropes, glad of it.
But listen to this now: this I saw one morning.
I saw a young man running, for a bus I thought,
Needing to catch it on this murky morning
And all heads stopped and turned to see how he ran
To see would he make it, the beautiful strong young man.
Then I noticed a girl running after, calling out ‘John’.
He must have left his sandwiches I thought.
But she screamed ‘John wait’. He heard her and ran faster,
Using his muscled legs and studded boots.
We knew she’d never reach him. ‘Listen to me John.
Only once more’ she cried. ‘For the last time, John, please wait, please listen.’
He gained the corner in a spurt and she
Sobbing and hopping with her red hair loose
(Made way for by the respectful audience)
Followed on after, but not to catch him now.
Only that there was nothing left to do.
The street closed in and went on with its day.
A worn old man standing in the heat from the baker’s
Said ‘Surely to God the bastard could have waited.’
HENRY KING
The Surrender
My once dear Love! hapless that I no more
Must call thee so; the rich affection’s store
That fed our hopes, lies now exhaust and spent,
Like sums of treasure unto bankrupts lent.
We, that did nothing study but the way
To love each other, with which thoughts the day
Rose with delight to us, and with them, set,
Must learn the hateful art, how to forget.
We, that did nothing wish that Heav’n could give,
Beyond ourselves, nor did desire to live
Beyond that wish, all these now cancel must,
As if not writ in faith, but words and dust.
Yet witness those clear vows which lovers make,
Witness the chaste desires that never brake
Into unruly heats; witness that breast
Which in thy bosom anchor’d his whole rest,
’Tis no default in us; I dare acquite
Thy maiden faith, thy purpose fair and white,
As thy pure self. Cross planets did envy
Us to each other, and Heaven did untie
Faster than vows could bind. O that the stars,
When lovers meet, should stand oppos’d in wars!
Since then some higher Destinies command,
Let us not strive nor labour to withstand
What is past help. The longest date of grief
Can never yield a hope of our relief;
And though we waste ourselves in moist laments,
Tears may drown us, but not our discontents.
Fold back our arms, take home our fruitless loves,
That must new fortunes try, like turtle-doves
Dislodged from their haunts. We must in tears
Unwind a love knit up in many years.
In this last kiss I here surrender thee
Back to thyself, so thou again art free.
Thou in another, sad as that, resend
The truest heart that lover ere did lend.
Now turn from each. So fare our sever’d hearts,
As the divorc’d soul from her body parts.
JOHN DONNE
The Expiration
So, so, break off this last lamenting kiss,
Which sucks two souls, and vapours both away,
Turn thou ghost that way, and let me turn this,
And let ourselves benight our happiest day,
We asked none leave to love; nor will we owe
Any, so cheap a death, as saying, Go;
Go; and if that word have not quite killed thee,
Ease me with death, by bidding me go too.
Oh, if it have, let my word work on me,
And a just office on a murderer do.
Except it be too late, to kill me
so,
Being double dead, going, and bidding, go.
ELIZABETH BISHOP
One Art
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
– Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
JAMES MERRILL
A Renewal
Having used every subterfuge
To shake you, lies, fatigue, or even that of passion,
Now I see no way but a clean break.
I add that I am willing to bear the guilt.
You nod assent. Autumn turns windy, huge,
A clear vase of dry leaves vibrating on and on.
We sit, watching. When I next speak
Love buries itself in me, up to the hilt.
ALICE MEYNELL
Renouncement
I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong,
I shun the thought that lurks in all delight –
The thought of thee – and in the blue Heaven’s height,
And in the sweetest passage of a song.
O just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng
This breast, the thought of thee waits, hidden yet bright;
But it must never, never come in sight;
I must stop short of thee the whole day long.
But when sleep comes to close each difficult day,
When night gives pause to the long watch I keep,
And all my bonds I needs must loose apart,
Must doff my will as raiment laid away, –
With the first dream that comes with the first sleep
I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart.
BRIAN PATTEN
I Have Changed the Numbers on My Watch
I have changed the numbers on my watch,
and now perhaps something else will change.
Now perhaps
at precisely 6 a.m.
you will not get up
and gathering your things together
go forever.
Perhaps now you will find it is
far too early to go,
or far too late,
and stay forever.
TIM LIARDET
Needle on Zero
The unexpected power cut left the clocks
in every room regurgitating nought after nought –
you are leaving. The train approaches. Things start to shake.
The number of days and of nights
and the number of hours and of minutes, rattle over at speed
like the destinations on the departure board.
Look. The old world snaps like a wishbone.
As easy as that, with hardly a protest.
It was the words you spoke, so few, which left
the marital home as rubble and a fine dust to descend
like snow onto your shoes, wiped to a half moon.
And you step out from it – while every fin
of your watch’s tiny universe begins to spin –
in new coat, high heels, your brilliant skin.
EDWARD THOMAS
‘Go now’
Like the touch of rain she was
On a man’s flesh and hair and eyes
When the joy of walking thus
Has taken him by surprise:
With the love of the storm he burns,
He sings, he laughs, well I know how,
But forgets when he returns
As I shall not forget her ‘Go now’.
Those two words shut a door
Between me and the blessed rain
That was never shut before
And will not open again.
JUDITH RODRIGUEZ
In-flight Note
Kitten, writes the mousy boy in his neat
fawn casuals sitting beside me on the flight,
neatly, I can’t give up everything just like that.
Everything, how much was it? and just like what?
Did she cool it or walk out? loosen her hand from his tight
white-knuckled hand, or not meet him, just as he thought
You mean far too much to me. I can’t forget
the four months we’ve known each other. No, he won’t eat,
finally he pays – pale, careful, distraught –
for a beer, turns over the pad on the page he wrote
and sleeps a bit. Or dreams of his Sydney cat.
The pad cost one dollar twenty. He wakes to write
It’s naive to think we could be just good friends.
Pages and pages. And so the whole world ends.
SOPHIE HANNAH
The End of Love
The end of love should be a big event.
It should involve the hiring of a hall.
Why the hell not? It happens to us all.
Why should it pass without acknowledgement?
Suits should be dry-cleaned, invitations sent.
Whatever form it takes – a tiff, a brawl –
The end of love should be a big event.
It should involve the hiring of a hall.
Better than the unquestioning descent
Into the trap of silence, than the crawl
From visible to hidden, door to wall.
Get the announcements made, the money spent.
The end of love should be a big event.
It should involve the hiring of a hall.
Forsaken
MATTHEW SWEENEY
The Bridal Suite
For Nuala Ní Dhomnaill
On the third night in the bridal suite
without the bride, he panicked.
He couldn’t handle another dream like that,
not wet, like he’d expected,
but not dry either – men digging holes
that they’d fill with water, donkeys
crossing valleys that suddenly flooded.
The alarm-call had a job to wake him,
to send him out from the huge bed,
past the corner kissing-sofa, up two steps
to the shower he hardly needed,
where he’d scrub himself clean as the baby
he’d hoped to start that night,
under the canopy like a wimple,
in that room of pinks and greens.
Naked and dripping, he’d rung Reception
to see if she’d rung, then he’d stood
looking out at the new marina,
as if he’d glimpse her on a yacht.
On the third night he could take no more –
he dressed, to the smell of her perfume,
and leaving her clothes there,
the wedding dress in a pile in the wardrobe,
he walked past the deaf night porter,
out to his car. He had no idea
where he was headed, only that she,
if she ever came back, could sample
the bridal suite on her own,
could toss in that canopied bed
and tell him about her dreams.
LADY AUGUSTA GREGORY, TRANSLATED FROM THE IRISH (ANONYMOUS)
&nb
sp; Donal Og
It is late last night the dog was speaking of you;
the snipe was speaking of you in her deep marsh.
It is you are the lonely bird through the woods;
and that you may be without a mate until you find me.
You promised me, and you said a lie to me,
that you would be before me where the sheep are flocked;
I gave a whistle and three hundred cries to you,
and I found nothing there but a bleating lamb.
You promised me a thing that was hard for you,
a ship of gold under a silver mast;
twelve towns with a market in all of them,
and a fine white court by the side of the sea.
You promised me a thing that is not possible,
that you would give me gloves of the skin of a fish;
that you would give me shoes of the skin of a bird;
and a suit of the dearest silk in Ireland.
When I go by myself to the Well of Loneliness,
I sit down and I go through my trouble;
when I see the world and do not see my boy,
he that has an amber shade in his hair.
It was on that Sunday I gave my love to you;
the Sunday that is last before Easter Sunday.
And myself on my knees reading the Passion;
and my two eyes giving love to you for ever.