Winning Words Read online

  Lest you should think he never could recapture

  The first fine careless rapture!

  And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,

  All will be gay when noontide wakes anew

  The buttercups, the little children’s dower,

  – Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

  ANN SANSOM

  Voice

  Call, by all means, but just once

  don’t use the broken heart again voice;

  the I’m sick to death of life and women

  and romance voice but with a little help

  I’ll try to struggle on voice

  Spare me the promise and the curse

  voice, the ansafoney Call me, please

  when you get in voice, the nobody knows

  the trouble I’ve seen voice; the I’d value

  your advice voice.

  I want the how it was voice;

  the call me irresponsible but aren’t I nice voice;

  the such a bastard but I warn them in advance voice.

  The We all have weaknesses

  and mine is being wicked voice

  the life’s short and wasting time’s

  the only vice voice, the stay in touch,

  but out of reach voice. I want to hear

  the things it’s better not to broach voice

  the things it’s wiser not to voice voice.

  ROBERT HERRICK

  His Desire

  Give me a man that is not dull,

  When all the world with rifts is full:

  But unamaz’d dares clearely sing,

  When as the roof’s a tottering:

  And, though it falls, continues still

  Tickling the Citterne with his quill.

  WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

  Iris

  a burst of iris so that

  come down for

  breakfast

  we searched through the

  rooms for

  that

  sweetest odor and at

  first could not

  find its

  source then a blue as

  of the sea

  struck

  startling us from among

  those trumpeting

  petals

  PAT BORAN

  Waving

  As a child I waved to people I didn’t know.

  I waved from passing cars, school buses,

  second-floor windows, or from the street

  to secretaries trapped in offices above.

  When policemen motioned my father on

  past the scene of the crime or an army checkpoint,

  I waved back from the back seat. I loved to wave.

  I saw the world disappear into a funnel

  of perspective, like the reflection in a bath

  sucked into a single point when the water

  drains. I waved in greeting at things that vanished

  into points. I waved to say, ‘I see you: can you see me?’

  I loved ‘the notion of an ocean’ that could wave,

  of a sea that rose up to see the onlooker

  standing on the beach. And though the sea

  came towards the beach, it was a different sea

  when it arrived; the onlooker too had changed.

  They disappeared, both of them, into points in time.

  So that was why they waved to one another.

  On the beach I waved until my arms hurt.

  My mother waved her hair sometimes. This,

  I know, seems to be something else. But,

  when she came up the street, bright and radiant,

  her white hair like a jewel-cap on her head,

  it was a signal I could not fail to answer.

  I waved and she approached me, smiling shyly.

  Sometimes someone walking beside her

  might wave back, wondering where they knew me from.

  Hands itched in pockets, muscles twitched

  when I waved. ‘There’s someone who sees me!’

  But in general people took no risk with strangers.

  And when they saw who I was – or wasn’t –

  they felt relief, saved from terrible disgrace.

  Now it turns out that light itself’s a wave

  (as well as a point, or points), so though the waving’s

  done, it’s really only just beginning. Whole humans –

  arms, legs, backs, bellies – are waving away,

  flickering on and off, in and out of time

  and space, pushing through streets with heads down,

  smiling up at office windows, lying in gutters

  with their kneecaps broken and their hopes dashed,

  driving, loving, hiding, growing old, and always

  waving, waving as if to say: ‘Can you see me?

  I can see you – still … still … still …’

  RUPERT BROOKE

  The Soldier

  If I should die, think only this of me:

  That there’s some corner of a foreign field

  That is for ever England. There shall be

  In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

  A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,

  Gave, once her flowers to love, her ways to roam,

  A body of England’s, breathing English air,

  Washed by the rivers, blessed by the suns of home.

  And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

  A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

  Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

  Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

  And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

  In hearts a peace, under an English heaven.

  WENDY COPE

  Being Boring

  ‘May you live in interesting times.’ – Chinese curse

  If you ask me ‘What’s new?’, I have nothing to say

  Except that the garden is growing.

  I had a slight cold but it’s better today.

  I’m content with the way things are going.

  Yes, he is the same as he usually is,

  Still eating and sleeping and snoring.

  I get on with my work. He gets on with his.

  I know this is all very boring.

  There was drama enough in my turbulent past:

  Tears and passion – I’ve used up a tankful.

  No news is good news, and long may it last.

  If nothing much happens, I’m thankful.

  A happier cabbage you never did see,

  My vegetable spirits are soaring.

  If you’re after excitement, steer well clear of me.

  I want to go on being boring.

  I don’t go to parties. Well, what are they for,

  If you don’t need to find a new lover?

  You drink and you listen and drink a bit more

  And you take the next day to recover.

  Someone to stay home with was all my desire

  And, now that I’ve found a safe mooring,

  I’ve just one ambition in life: I aspire

  To go on and on being boring.

  ROBERT BURNS

  Auld Lang Syne

  Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

  And never brought to min’?

  Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

  And auld lang syne?

  For auld lang syne, my dear.

  For auld lang syne,

  We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,

  For auld lang syne.

  We twa hae run about the braes,

  And pu’d the gowans fine;

  But we’ve wandered mony a weary foot

  Sin’ auld lang syne.

  We twa hae paidled i’ the burn,

  From morning sun till dine;

  But seas between us braid hae roared

  Sin’ auld lang syne.

  And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere,

  And gie�
�s a hand o’ thine;

  And we’ll tak a right guid-willie waught,

  For auld lang syne.

  And surely ye’ll be your pint-stowp,

  And surely I’ll be mine;

  And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet

  For auld lang syne.

  MICHAEL DONAGHY

  Machines

  Dearest, note how these two are alike:

  This harpsichord pavane by Purcell

  And the racer’s twelve-speed bike.

  The machinery of grace is always simple.

  This chrome trapezoid, one wheel connected

  To another of concentric gears,

  Which Ptolemy dreamt of and Schwinn perfected,

  Is gone. The cyclist, not the cycle, steers.

  And in the playing, Purcell’s chords are played away.

  So this talk, or touch if I were there,

  Should work its effortless gadgetry of love,

  Like Dante’s heaven, and melt into the air.

  If it doesn’t, of course, I’ve fallen. So much is chance,

  So much agility, desire, and feverish care,

  As bicyclists and harpsichordists prove

  Who only by moving can balance,

  Only by balancing move.

  CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

  from Ovid’s Elegies, Book I: Elegia V

  Corinnae concubitus

  In summer’s heat, and mid-time of the day,

  To rest my limbs upon a bed I lay;

  One window shut, the other open stood,

  Which gave such light as twinkles in a wood,

  Like twilight glimpse at setting of the sun,

  Or night being past, and yet not day begun.

  Such light to shamefast maidens must be shown,

  Where they may sport and seem to be unknown.

  Then came Corinna in a long loose gown,

  Her white neck hid with tresses hanging down,

  Resembling fair Semiramis going to bed,

  Or Lais of a thousand wooers sped.

  I snatched her gown; being thin, the harm was small,

  Yet strived she to be covered therewithal,

  And striving thus as one that would be cast,

  Betrayed herself, and yielded at the last.

  Stark naked as she stood before mine eye,

  Not one wen in her body could I spy.

  What arms and shoulders did I touch and see,

  How apt her breasts were to be pressed by me!

  How smooth a belly under her waist saw I,

  How large a leg, and what a lusty thigh!

  To leave the rest, all liked me passing well;

  I clinged her naked body, down she fell.

  Judge you the rest: being tired she bade me kiss;

  Jove send me more such afternoons as this.

  HAFEZ

  My Brilliant Image

  I wish I could show you

  When you are lonely or in darkness,

  The Astonishing Light

  Of your own Being!

  T. S. ELIOT

  The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

  S’io credessi che mia risposta fosse

  a persona che mai tornasse al mondo,

  questa fiamma staria senza più scosse.

  Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo

  non tornò vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,

  senza terna d’infamia ti rispondo.

  Let us go then, you and I,

  When the evening is spread out against the sky

  Like a patient etherised upon a table;

  Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

  The muttering retreats

  Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

  And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

  Streets that follow like a tedious argument

  Of insidious intent

  To lead you to an overwhelming question …

  Oh, do not ask, ‘What is it?’

  Let us go and make our visit.

  In the room the women come and go

  Talking of Michelangelo.

  The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,

  The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,

  Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,

  Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,

  Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,

  Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,

  And seeing that it was a soft October night,

  Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

  And indeed there will be time

  For the yellow smoke that slides along the street

  Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;

  There will be time, there will be time

  To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

  There will be time to murder and create,

  And time for all the works and days of hands

  That lift and drop a question on your plate;

  Time for you and time for me,

  And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

  And for a hundred visions and revisions,

  Before the taking of a toast and tea.

  In the room the women come and go

  Talking of Michelangelo.

  And indeed there will be time

  To wonder, ‘Do I dare?’ and, ‘Do I dare?’

  Time to turn back and descend the stair,

  With a bald spot in the middle of my hair –

  (They will say: ‘How his hair is growing thin!’)

  My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,

  My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin –

  (They will say: ‘But how his arms and legs are thin!’)

  Do I dare

  Disturb the universe?

  In a minute there is time

  For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

  For I have known them all already, known them all –

  Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

  I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

  I know the voices dying with a dying fall

  Beneath the music from a farther room.

  So how should I presume?

  And I have known the eyes already, known them all –

  The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

  And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

  When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

  Then how should I begin

  To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

  And how should I presume?

  And I have known the arms already, known them all –

  Arms that are braceleted and white and bare

  (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)

  Is it perfume from a dress

  That makes me so digress?

  Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.

  And should I then presume?

  And how should I begin?

  . . . . .

  Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets

  And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes

  Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? …

  I should have been a pair of ragged claws

  Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

  . . . . .

  And the afternoons, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

  Smoothed by long fingers,

  Asleep … tired … or it malingers,

  Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.

  Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,

  Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

  But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

  Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,

  I am no prophet – and here’s no great matter;<
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  I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

  and I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

  And in short, I was afraid.

  And would it have been worth it, after all,

  After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

  Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,

  Would it have been worth while,

  To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

  To have squeezed the universe into a ball

  To roll it towards some overwhelming question,

  To say: ‘I am Lazarus, come from the dead,

  Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all’ –

  If one, settling a pillow by her head,

  Should say: ‘That is not what I meant at all.

  That is not it, at all.’

  And would it have been worth it, after all,

  Would it have been worth while,

  After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,

  After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor –

  And this, and so much more? –

  It is impossible to say just what I mean!

  But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:

  Would it have been worth while

  If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,

  And turning toward the window, should say: