I have been all men known to histo
Wondering at the world and at time
I have seen evil, and the light bl
Innocent love under a spring sky.
I have been Merlin wandering in t

The old man comes out on the hill
and looks down to recall earlier d
in the valley. He sees the stream
the church stand, hears the litter
children’s voices. A chill in the

She is young. Have I the right
Even to name her? Child,
It is not love I offer
Your quick limbs, your eyes;
Only the barren homage

Shelley dreamed it. Now the dream
The props crumble; the familiar wa
Are stale with tears trodden under
The heart’s flower withers at the
Bury it then, in history’s sterile

Being unwise enough to have marrie
I never knew when she was not acti
‘I love you’ she would say; I hea
Sigh. ‘I hate you’; I could never
They were still there. She was lo

With her fingers she turns paint
into flowers, with her body
flowers into a remembrance
of herself. She is at work
always, mending the garment

They see you as they see you,
A poor farmer with no name,
Ploughing cloudward, sowing the wi
With squalls of gulls at the day’s
To me you are Prytherch, the man

My father is dead.
I who am look at him
who is not, as once he
went looking for me
in the woman who was.

You go up the long track
That will take a car, but is best
On slow foot, noting the lichen
That writes history on the page
Of the grey rock. Trees are about

The idiot goes round and around
With his brother in a bumping car
At the fair. The famous idiot
Smile hangs over the car’s edge,
Illuminating nothing. This is man