Groping back to bed after a piss I part thick curtains, and am startled by The rapid clouds, the moon’s cleanliness. Four…

Down on the boulevards the crowds went by, The shouting and the singing died away, And in the quiet we rose to…

And you, Helen, what should I give you? So many things I would give you Had I an infinite great store Offered…

Perhaps some day the sun will shine again, And I shall see that still the skies are blue, And feel once more…

Will the train never start? God, make the train start. She cannot bear it, keeping up so long; and he, he no…

At last you yielded up the album, which Once open, sent me distracted. All your ages Matt and glossy on the thick…

Giant whispering and coughing from Vast Sunday-full and organ-frowned-on spaces Precede a sudden scuttle on the drum, ‘The Queen’, and huge resettling….

She kept her songs, they kept so little space, The covers pleased her: One bleached from lying in a sunny place, One…

About twenty years ago Two girls came in where I worked – A bosomy English rose And her friend in specs I…

That Whitsun, I was late getting away:     Not till about One-twenty on the sunlit Saturday Did my three-quarters-empty train pull out, All…

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with…

[excerpts] from Book I What though the field be lost? All is not lost; the unconquerable will, And study of revenge, immortal…