Robert Graves

“ Love must ever yet return.
THE LADY VISITOR IN THE PAUPER WARD
Why do you break upon this old, cool peace,
This painted peace of ours,
With harsh dress hissing like a flock of geese,
With garish flowers?
Why do you churn smooth waters rough again,
Selfish old skin-and-bone?
Leave us to quiet dreaming and slow pain,
Leave us alone.
LOVE AND BLACK MAGIC
To the woods, to the woods is the wizard gone ”

“ Dreams are like a bird that mocks,
Flirting the feathers of his tail.
When you seize at the salt-box
Over the hedge you'll see him sail.
Old birds are neither caught with salt nor chaff:
They watch you from the apple bough and laugh. ”

“ Lucasta he's a Fusilier,
And his pride sends him here.
Let statesmen bluster, bark and bray,
And so decide who started
This bloody war, and who's to pay,
But he must be stout-hearted,
Must sit and stake with quiet breath,
Playing at cards with Death.
Don't plume yourself he fights for you;
It is no courage, love, or hate,
But let us do the things we do;
It's pride that makes the heart be great;
It is not anger, no, nor fear—
Lucasta he's a Fusilier,
And his pride keeps him here. ”

“ Claire has a tea-rose, but she didn't plant it;
Ben has an iris, but I don't want it.
Daisies, double red daisies for me,
The beautifulest flowers in the garden.
CAREERS
Father is quite the greatest poet
That ever lived anywhere.
You say you're going to write great music—
I chose that first: it's unfair.
Besides, now I can't be the greatest painter and
do Christ and angels, or lovely pears
and apples and grapes on a green dish,
or storms at sea, or anything lovely,
Because that's been taken by Claire.
It's stupid to be an engine-driver,
And soldiers are horrible men. ”

“ Poet, never chase the dream.
Laugh yourself and turn away.
Mask your hunger, let it seem
Small matter if he come or stay;
But when he nestles in your hand at last,
Close up your fingers tight and hold him fast. ”

“ Morphia drowsed, again I lay
In a crater by High Wood:
He was there with straddling legs,
Staring eyes as big as eggs,
Purring as he lapped my blood,
His black bulk darkening the day,
With a voice cruel and flat,
"Cat!... Cat!... Cat!..." he said,
"Cat!... Cat!..." ”

“ Children born of fairy stock
Never need for shirt or frock,
Never want for food or fire,
Always get their heart's desire:
Jingle pockets full of gold,
Marry when they're seven years old. ”

“ Another War soon gets begun,
A dirtier, a more glorious one;
Then, boys, you'll have to play, all in;
It's the cruellest team will win.
So hold your nose against the stink
And never stop too long to think.
Wars don't change except in name;
The next one must go just the same,
And new foul tricks unguessed before
Will win and justify this War. ”

“ When I'm killed, don't think of me
Buried there in Cambrin Wood,
Nor as in Zion think of me
With the Intolerable Good.
And there's one thing that I know well,
I'm damned if I'll be damned to Hell! ”

“ Says Ben to Claire.
THE CRUEL MOON
The cruel Moon hangs out of reach
Up above the shadowy beech.
Her face is stupid, but her eye
Is small and sharp and very sly.
Nurse says the Moon can drive you mad? ”

“ S. "Foaled thirteen squamous young beneath, and rid
Wales of drink, melancholy, and psalms, she did."
Said he, "Before this quaint mood fails,
We'll sit and weave a nonsense hymn,"
R. "Hanging it up with monkey tails
In a deep grove all hushed and dim...."
S. "To glorious yellow-bunched banana-trees,"
R. "Planted in dreams by pious Portuguese,"
S. "Which men are wise beyond their time,
And worship nonsense, no one more." ”

“ Through the window I can see
Rooks above the cherry-tree,
Sparrows in the violet bed,
Bramble-bush and bumble-bee,
And old red bracken smoulders still
Among boulders on the hill,
Far too bright to seem quite dead.
But old Death, who can't forget,
Waits his time and watches yet,
Waits and watches by the door. ”

“ When a dream is born in you
With a sudden clamorous pain,
When you know the dream is true
And lovely, with no flaw nor stain,
O then, be careful, or with sudden clutch
You'll hurt the delicate thing you prize so much. ”

“ Wisdom made him old and wary
Banishing the Lords of Faery.
Wisdom made a breach and battered
Babylon to bits: she scattered
To the hedges and ditches
All our nursery gnomes and witches. ”

“ "Let Cupid smile and the fiend must flee;
Hey and hither, my lad." ”

“ Robin, and Red Riding Hood
Take together to the wood,
And Sir Galahad lies hid
In a cave with Captain Kidd.
None of all the magic hosts,
None remain but a few ghosts
Of timorous heart, to linger on
Weeping for lost Babylon. ”

“ Cherries of the night are riper
Than the cherries pluckt at noon
Gather to your fairy piper
When he pipes his magic tune:
Merry, merry,
Take a cherry; ”

“ Wearing three heads—lion, and lynx, and sow.
"Quick, a revolver! But my Webley's gone,
Stolen!... No bombs ... no knife....
The crowd swarms on,
Bellows, hurls stones.... Not even a honeyed sop ...
Nothing.... Good Cerberus!... Good dog!... but stop!
Stay!... A great luminous thought ... I do believe
There's still some morphia that I bought on leave."
Then swiftly Cerberus' wide mouths I cram
With army biscuit smeared with ration jam;
And sleep lurks in the luscious plum and apple.
He crunches, swallows, stiffens, seems to grapple
With the all-powerful poppy ... ”

“ Turn away this grim spoilsport;
No fine lady's pleading eyes,
Neither love, nor hate, nor ... port.
Critics 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.
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. ”

“ 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 may grow.
Claire has a tea-rose, but she didn't plant it ”

“ You've read of sunsets rich as mine. ”

“ That rhymes were beastly things and never there.
And as I groped, the whole time I was thinking
About the tragic poem I'd been writing,...
An old man's life of beer and whisky drinking,
His years of kidnapping and wicked fighting ”

“ MR. PHILOSOPHER
Old Mr. Philosopher
Comes for Ben and Claire,
An ugly man, a tall man,
With bright-red hair.
The books that he's written
No one can read.
"In fifty years they'll understand:
Now there's no need.
"All that matters now
Is getting the fun.
Come along, Ben and Claire ”

“ E-text prepared by Ted Garvin, Sjaani, and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders
FAIRIES AND FUSILIERS BY ROBERT GRAVES 1918 TO
THE ROYAL WELCH FUSILIERS
I have to thank Mr. Harold Monro, of The
Poetry Book Shop, for permission to include
in this volume certain poems of which he
possesses the copyright; also the editor of the
"Nation" for a similar courtesy. ”