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6 poems But that you will not do, for that were pardon The bodies that you pardon you replace And that you keep for those whom you will harden To suffer in the hard rule of your Grace. Christians on earth may have their bodies mended By premonition of a heavenly state But I, by grosser flesh from Grace defended, Can never see, never communicate. In London I float between the banks of Maida Vale Where half is dark and half is yellow light In creeks and catches flecks of flesh look pale And over all our grief depends the night. I turn beside the shining black canal And tree-tops close like lids upon my eyes A milk-maid laughs beside a coffee-stall I pray to heaven, favour my enterprise. But whether there is answer to my prayer When with my host at last I redescend After delicious talk the squalid stair I do not know the answer in the end. Sparrows seen from an Office Window You should not bicker while the sparrows fall In chasing pairs from underneath the eaves And yet you should not let this enraged fool Win what he will because you fear his grief. About your table three or four who beg Bully or trade because those are the passions Strong enough in them to hide all other lack Sent to corrupt your heart or try your patience.
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from The London Zoo (1961) and other early poems If you are gentle, it is because you are weak If bold, it is the courage of a clown And your smart enemies and you both seek Ratiocination without love or reason. O fell like lust, birds of morality O sparrows, sparrows, sparrows whom none regards Where men inhabit, look in here and see The fury and cupidity of the heart. 7 In Kent Although there may be treacherous men Who in the churchyard swing their mattocks Within they sing the Nunc Dimittis And villagers who find that building A place to go to of a Sunday May accidentally be absolved For on a hill, upon a gibbet … And this is Saint Augustine’s county. Maurras Young and Old 1 Est allé à Londres Monsieur Maurras jeune From a land of olives, grapes and almonds His mind full of Greek. Under the shadow of the British Museum He reflected on the many and foolish Discourses of the Athenians And on the Elgin marbles. The fog settled Chokingly around the Latin head

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6

poems

But that you will not do, for that were pardon The bodies that you pardon you replace And that you keep for those whom you will harden To suffer in the hard rule of your Grace.

Christians on earth may have their bodies mended By premonition of a heavenly state But I, by grosser flesh from Grace defended, Can never see, never communicate.

In London I float between the banks of Maida Vale Where half is dark and half is yellow light In creeks and catches flecks of flesh look pale And over all our grief depends the night.

I turn beside the shining black canal And tree-tops close like lids upon my eyes A milk-maid laughs beside a coffee-stall I pray to heaven, favour my enterprise.

But whether there is answer to my prayer When with my host at last I redescend After delicious talk the squalid stair I do not know the answer in the end.

Sparrows seen from an Office Window You should not bicker while the sparrows fall In chasing pairs from underneath the eaves And yet you should not let this enraged fool Win what he will because you fear his grief.

About your table three or four who beg Bully or trade because those are the passions Strong enough in them to hide all other lack Sent to corrupt your heart or try your patience.

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