‘Dockery was junior to you,
Wasn’t he?’ said the Dean. ‘His s
Death-suited, visitant, I nod. ‘A
You keep in touch with—’ Or remem
Black-gowned, unbreakfasted, and s

If hands could free you, heart,
Where would you fly?
Far, beyond every part
Of earth this running sky
Makes desolate? Would you cross

Day comes to an end.
The gas fire breathes, the trees a
Funny how hard it is to be alone.
I could spend half my evenings, if
Holding a glass of washing sherry,

Delay, well, travellers must expec
Delay. For how long? No one seems
With all the luggage weighed, the
It can’t be long... We amble too
Sit in steel chairs, buy cigarette

How distant, the departure of youn
Down valleys, or watching
The green shore past the salt—whit
Rising and falling.
Cattlemen, or carpenters, or keen

Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty—three
(which was rather late for me) —
Between the end of the Chatterley
And the Beatles’ first LP.

Light spreads darkly downwards fro
Clusters of lights over empty chai
That face each other, coloured dif
Through open doors, the dining—roo
A larger loneliness of knives and

When first we faced, and touching
How well we knew the early moves,
Behind the moonlight and the frost
The excitement and the gratitude,
There stood how much our meeting o

Always too eager for the future, w
Pick up bad habits of expectancy.
Something is always approaching; e
Till then we say,
Watching from a bluff the tiny, cl

Those long uneven lines
Standing as patiently
As if they were stretched outside
The Oval or Villa Park,
The crowns of hats, the sun