Poems

Beauty: [Notes for an unfinished poem] The beautiful, the fair, the elegant, Is that which pleases us, says Kant, Without a thought of interest or advantage. […]

But I Was Looking at the Permanent Stars Bugles sang, saddening the evening air, And bugles answered, sorrowful to hear. Voices of boys were by the […]

Conscious His fingers wake, and flutter; up the bed. His eyes come open with a pull of will, Helped by the yellow mayflowers by his head. […]

Disabled He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark, And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey, Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park […]

Dulce et Decorum Est Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned […]

Elegy in April and September Hush, thrush! Hush, missen-thrush, I listen… I heard the flush of footsteps through the loose leaves, And a low whistle by […]

Exposure I Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife us … Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent … Low […]

From My Diary, July 1914 Leaves Murmuring by miriads in the shimmering trees. Lives Wakening with wonder in the Pyrenees. Birds Cheerily chirping in the early […]

Futility Move him into the sun– Gently its touch awoke him once, At home, whispering of fields unsown. Always it awoke him, even in France, Until […]

Greater Love Red lips are not so red As the stained stones kissed by the English dead. Kindness of wooed and wooer Seems shame to their […]