Robert Graves
The Assault Heroic
Down in the mud I lay, Tired out by my long day Of five damned days and nights, Five sleepless days and nights,… Dream-snatched, and set me where The dungeon of Despair Looms over
The Cool Web
Children are dumb to say how hot the day is, How hot the scent is of the summer rose, How dreadful the black wastes of evening sky, How dreadful the tall soldiers drumming by.
Warning to Children
Children, if you dare to think Of the greatness, rareness, muchness Fewness of this precious only Endless world in which you say You live, you think of things like this: Blocks of slate enclosing
An English Wood
This valley wood is pledged To the set shape of things, And reasonably hedged: Here are no harpies fledged, No rocs may clap their wings, Nor gryphons wave their stings. Here, poised in quietude,
To Juan at the Winter Solstice
There is one story and one story only That will prove worth your telling, Whether as learned bard or gifted child; To it all lines or lesser gauds belong That startle with their shining
To Robert Nichols
(From Frise on the Somme in February, 1917, in answer to a letter saying: “I am just finishing my ‘Faun’s Holiday.’ I wish you were here to feed him with cherries.”) Here by a
To an Ungentle Critic
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
Smoke-Rings
BOY Most venerable and learned sir, Tall and true Philosopher, These rings of smoke you blow all day With such deep thought, what sense have they? PHILOSOPHER Small friend, with prayer and meditation I
Goliath and David
(For D. C. T., Killed at Fricourt, March, 1916) Yet once an earlier David took Smooth pebbles from the brook: Out between the lines he went To that one-sided tournament, A shepherd boy who
Corporal Stare
Back from the line one night in June, I gave a dinner at Bethune – Seven courses, the most gorgeous meal Money could buy or batman steal. Five hungry lads welcomed the fish With
Babylon
The child alone a poet is: Spring and Fairyland are his. Truth and Reason show but dim, And all’s poetry with him. Rhyme and music flow in plenty For the lad of one-and-twenty, But
The Poet in the Nursery
The youngest poet down the shelves was fumbling In a dim library, just behind the chair From which the ancient poet was mum-mumbling A song about some Lovers at a Fair, Pulling his long
Double Red Daisies
Double red daisies, they’re my flowers, Which nobody else may grow. In a big quarrelsome house like ours They try it sometimes-but no, I root them up because they’re my flowers, Which nobody else
Down, Wanton, Down!
Down, wanton, down! Have you no shame That at the whisper of Love’s name, Or Beauty’s, presto! up you raise Your angry head and stand at gaze? Poor bombard-captain, sworn to reach The ravelin
The Shivering Beggar
NEAR Clapham village, where fields began, Saint Edward met a beggar man. It was Christmas morning, the church bells tolled, The old man trembled for the fierce cold. Saint Edward cried, “It is monstrous