Collected Poems, page 31
*
The lamps lit; all Bethlehem
full;
every cave stabled with beasts, jostling for hay
in the fusty gloom;
every room
peopled and packed from rafter to floor;
barley bread in the ovens rising . . .
and a girl’s hands
at an open door,
her blade halving a pomegranate,
its blood on her pale palms . . .
a voice from an alleyway chanting a psalm.
The moon rose; the shepherds sprawled,
shawled,
a rough ring on sparse grass, passing
a leather flask.
From the town,
a swelling human sound; cooking smells braiding the hour
as lambs and fishes spat in the fires.
A hundred suppers –
honey, fig, olive, grape,
set before stone-cutter, potter, tent-maker, maid,
nurse, farmer, child.
Young wine in the old jars, yellow and cold.
*
The Inn bulged; travellers boozed,
bawled,
bragged, swapping their caravan tales; money-lenders
biting their gold coins; painted women
dancing on tables; mules brayed
outside in the stable;
a youth in the courtyard strummed on a harp.
The sweating Innkeeper shouted and served;
his wife counting the heads,
then making up beds on the flat roof,
in the vine-covered yard.
Above, bright news in the sky, arrived, a star.
The small hours; all living souls
slept
or half-slept; the night fires smouldering low
out in the scrub;
the olive oil cooling in clay lamps;
a goatherd snored in the straw
between two goats.
Silent night;
a soft breeze from the desert
laying a dusting of sand on the dark road,
blessing the homes.
A donkey’s slow, deliberate hooves on the stones.
*
Afterwards, the witnesses
spoke
of a singing boy, an angel,
walking the fields in the hour before dawn,
winged in his own light;
of how the shepherds fled from the sight,
lambs in their arms.
And some swore, on their lives,
on their children’s lives,
that they saw an olive tree
turning to pure gold . . .
that the moon stooped low to gape at the world.
What’s certain – the time and place:
heard,
three crows from the cockerel;
seen,
the stable behind the Inn; present,
animals, goatherd, shepherds, Innkeeper, wife . . .
then the small, raw cry of a new life.
And one wept at a miracle; another
was hoping it might be so;
others ran,
daft, shouting, to boast in the waking streets.
Wise men swayed on camels out of the East.
Dorothy Wordsworth’s Christmas Birthday
First, frost at midnight –
Moon, Venus and Jupiter
named in their places.
Ice, like a cold key,
turning its lock on the lake;
nervous stars trapped there.
Darkness, a hand poised
over the chord of the hills;
the strange word moveless.
The landscape muted;
soft apprehension of snow,
a holding of breath.
Up, rapt at her gate,
Dorothy Wordsworth ages
one year in an hour;
her Christmas birthday
inventoried by an owl,
clock-eyed, time-keeper.
Indoors, the thrilled fire
unwraps itself; sprightly hands
opening the coal.
For she cannot sleep,
Dorothy, primed with herself,
waiting for morning . . .
gradual sure light,
like the start of a poem,
its local accent.
Striding towards dawn,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
swigs at his port wine,
sings a nonsense rhyme,
which Helm Crag learns and echoes
at the speed of sound.
The rock formations –
old lady at piano,
a lion, a lamb.
And, out on a limb,
he skids down a silvered lane
into a sunburst;
a delight of bells,
the exact mood of his heart,
from St. Oswald’s Church.
New rime on the grass
where the Wordsworths’ graves will be
at another time.
Not there, then; here, now,
Dorothy’s form on the road
coming to meet him,
in her claret frock,
in her boots, bonnet and shawl,
her visible breath.
Then her arm through his
on the stroll to Dove Cottage;
spiced apples baking.
Wordsworth lies a-bed
in his nightshirt and nightcap,
rhyming cloud with crowd.
The cat at his feet
licks at her black-and-white fur,
rhyming purr with purr.
The kitchen table,
set for this festive breakfast,
an unseen still-life:
cream in a brown jug,
the calmness of bowls and spoons,
one small round white loaf.
And a tame robin,
aflame on the windowsill,
its name in its song.
They walk to the lake,
where Wordsworth skates like a boy,
in heaven on earth;
a tangerine sun
illuminating the hour
into manuscript;
so Dorothy’s gifts
are the gold outlines of hills,
are emblazoned trees;
Coleridge on a rock,
lighting his pipe, votive smoke
ascending the air . . .
Nowt to show more fair –
ecstatic, therefore, her stare,
seeing it all in.
Later, the lamps lit
in the parlour, hot punch fumes
in a copper pan.
The feast: mutton pie,
buttered parsnips, potatoes,
a Halifax goose.
Coleridge’s flushed face,
never so vivid again
in Dorothy’s mind.
Loud boots at the porch
and a stout thump on the door
as the Minstrels come,
dangling their tin cans
for a free ladle of ale
after caroling . . .
Bring us in good ale,
for that goes down at once-oh!
Bring us in good ale . . .
All in each other,
Miss Wordsworth and the poets,
bawling the chorus;
their voices drifting,
in 1799,
to nowhen, nowhere . . .
but Winter’s slow turn,
and snow in Dorothy’s hair
and on her warm tongue.
Index of titles
$ ref1
A Clear Note ref1
A Dreaming Week ref1
A Goldfish ref1
A Healthy Meal ref1
A Provincial Party, 1956 ref1
A Rare Bee ref1
A Shilling for the Sea ref1
Absence ref1
Absolutely ref1
Achilles ref1
Adultery ref1
All Days Lost Days ref1
Alliance ref1
Alphabet for Auden ref1
An Old Atheist Places His Last Bet ref1
An Unseen ref1
And How Are We Today? ref1
And Then What ref1
Anne Hathaway ref1
Anon ref1
Answer ref1
Ape ref1
Ariel ref1
Art ref1
Ash Wednesday, 1984 ref1
At Ballynahinch ref1
At Jerez ref1
Atlas ref1
Away and See ref1
Away from Home ref1
Back Desk ref1
Beachcomber ref1
Beautiful ref1
Bees ref1
Before You Jump ref1
Before You Were Mine ref1
Bethlehem ref1
Betrothal ref1
Big Ask ref1
Big Sue and Now, Voyager ref1
Birmingham ref1
Borrowed Memory ref1
Boy ref1
Bridgewater Hall ref1
Brothers ref1
By Heart ref1
Café Royal ref1
Caul ref1
Chaucer’s Valentine ref1
Chinatown ref1
Christmas Eve ref1
Circe ref1
Close ref1
Cockermouth and Workington ref1
Cold ref1
Colours by Someone Else ref1
Comprehensive ref1
Confession ref1
Correspondents ref1
Crunch ref1
Crush ref1
Cuba ref1
Dear Norman ref1
Death and the Moon ref1
Debt ref1
December ref1
Decembers ref1
Delilah ref1
Demeter ref1
Deportation ref1
Descendants ref1
Dies Natalis ref1
Disgrace ref1
Dorothy Wordsworth Is Dead ref1
Dorothy Wordsworth’s Christmas Birthday ref1
Drams ref1
Dream of a Lost Friend ref1
Dreaming of Somewhere Else ref1
Drone ref1
Drunk ref1
Echo ref1
Education for Leisure ref1
Elegy ref1
Eley’s Bullet ref1
Elvis’s Twin Sister ref1
Epiphany ref1
Eurydice ref1
Every Good Boy ref1
Fall ref1
Finding the Words ref1
First Love ref1
Following Francis ref1
Foreign ref1
Forest ref1
Frau Freud ref1
Fraud ref1
Free Will ref1
from Mrs Tiresias ref1
Funeral ref1
Gambler ref1
Gesture ref1
Girl Talking ref1
Girlfriends ref1
Give ref1
Grace ref1
Grief ref1
Hand ref1
Hard to Say ref1
Havisham ref1
Haworth ref1
Head of English ref1
History ref1
Hive ref1
Homesick ref1
Hometown ref1
Hour ref1
Human Interest ref1
I Live Here Now ref1
I Remember Me ref1
If I Was Dead ref1
In Mrs Tilscher’s Class ref1
In Your Mind ref1
Ink on Paper ref1
Invisible Ink ref1
Ithaca ref1
Jealous as Hell ref1
Job Creation ref1
John Barleycorn ref1
Land ref1
Last Post ref1
Leda ref1
Lessons in the Orchard ref1
Letters from Deadmen ref1
Liar ref1
Like Earning a Living ref1
Like This ref1
Lineage ref1
Litany ref1
Little Red-Cap ref1
Liverpool ref1
Liverpool Echo ref1
Lizzie, Six ref1
Losers ref1
Loud ref1
Love ref1
Lovebirds ref1
Lovesick ref1
Luke Howard, Namer of Clouds ref1
Making Money ref1
Mean Time ref1
Medusa ref1
Midsummer Night ref1
Miles Away ref1
Missile ref1
M-M-Memory ref1
Model Village ref1
Moments of Grace ref1
Money Talks ref1
Moniack Mhor ref1
Mouth, With Soap ref1
Mrs Aesop ref1
Mrs Beast ref1
Mrs Darwin ref1
Mrs Faust ref1
Mrs Icarus ref1
Mrs Lazarus ref1
Mrs Midas ref1
Mrs Quasimodo ref1
Mrs Rip Van Winkle ref1
Mrs Schofield’s GCSE ref1
Mrs Scrooge ref1
Mrs Sisyphus ref1
Mrs Skinner, North Street ref1
Music ref1
Name ref1
Naming Parts ref1
Never Go Back ref1
New Vows ref1
New Year ref1
Night Marriage ref1
Nile ref1
North-West ref1
Nostalgia ref1
November ref1
Only Dreaming ref1
Oppenheim’s Cup and Saucer ref1
Originally ref1
Orta St Giulio ref1
Oslo ref1
Over ref1
Oxfam ref1
Parliament ref1
Passing-Bells ref1
Pathway ref1
Penelope ref1
Père Lachaise ref1
Philharmonic ref1
Pilate’s Wife ref1
Plainsong ref1
Pluto ref1
Poem in Oils ref1
Poet for Our Times ref1
Poetry ref1
Poker in the Falklands with Henry & Jim ref1
Politico ref1
Politics ref1
Pope Joan ref1
Postcards ref1
Practising Being Dead ref1
Premonitions ref1
Presents ref1
Psychopath ref1
Pygmalion’s Bride ref1
Queen Herod ref1
Queen Kong ref1
Quickdraw ref1
Rain ref1
Rapture ref1
Recognition ref1
Rings ref1
River (The Other Country) ref1
River (Rapture) ref1
Room ref1
Row ref1
Salome ref1
Sanctuary ref1
Saying Something ref1
Scheherazade ref1
Scraps ref1
Selling Manhattan ref1
Shakespeare ref1
Ship ref1
Shooting Stars ref1
Silver Lining ref1
Simon Powell ref1
Sit at Peace ref1
Sleeping ref1
Small Female Skull ref1
Snow (Rapture) ref1
Snow (The Bees) ref1
Someone Else’s Daughter ref1
Somewhere Someone’s Eyes ref1
Space, Space ref1
Spell ref1
Spring ref1
Stafford Afternoons ref1
Standing Female Nude ref1
Statement ref1
Stealing ref1
Steam ref1
Strange Language in Night Fog ref1
Strange Place ref1
Stuffed ref1
Sub ref1
Sung ref1
Survivor ref1
Swing ref1
Syntax ref1
Talent ref1
Talent Contest ref1
Tall ref1
Tea ref1
Telegrams ref1
Telephoning Home ref1
Telling the Bees ref1
Terza Rima SW19 ref1
Text ref1
The Act of Imagination ref1
The B Movie ref1
The Bee Carol ref1
The Beauty of the Church ref1
The Biographer ref1
The Brink of Shrieks ref1
The Captain of the 1964 Top of the Form Team ref1
The Christmas Truce ref1
The Cliché Kid ref1
The Cord ref1
The Counties ref1
The Crown ref1
The Darling Letters ref1
The Dead ref1
The Devil’s Wife ref1
The Diet ref1
The Dolphins ref1
The Dummy ref1
The English Elms ref1
The Falling Soldier ref1
The Female Husband ref1
The Good Teachers ref1
The Grammar of Light ref1
The Human Bee ref1
The Kissing Gate ref1
The Kray Sisters ref1
The Laughter of Stafford Girls’ High ref1
The Legend ref1
The Light Gatherer ref1
The Literature Act ref1
The Long Queen ref1
The Love Poem ref1
The Lovers ref1
The Map-Woman ref1
The Pendle Witches ref1
The Shirt ref1
The Suicide ref1
The Virgin’s Memo ref1
The Way My Mother Speaks ref1
The White Horses ref1
The Windows ref1
The Woman in the Moon ref1
The Woman Who Shopped ref1
Thetis ref1
This Shape ref1
Three Paintings ref1
Till Our Face ref1
Translating the English, 1989 ref1
Translation ref1
Treasure ref1
Two Small Poems of Desire ref1
Unloving ref1
Valentine ref1
Valentine’s ref1
Venus ref1
Virgil’s Bees ref1
War Photographer ref1
Warming Her Pearls ref1
Water ref1
We Remember Your Childhood Well ref1
Weasel Words ref1
Welltread ref1
Wenceslas ref1
What Price? ref1
Whatever ref1
Where We Came in ref1
White Cliffs ref1
White Writing ref1
Who Loves You ref1
Whoever She Was ref1
Wintering ref1
Winter’s Tale ref1
Wish ref1
Woman Seated in the Underground, 1941 ref1
Words of Absolution ref1
Words, Wide Night ref1
Work ref1
World ref1
Write ref1
Yes, Officer ref1
You ref1
You Jane ref1
Your Move ref1
Index of first lines
7 April 1852. ref1
A body has been discussed between them. ref1
A chemical inside you secretes the ingredients of fear. ref1
A flop back for a kip in the sun, ref1
A ghost loves you, has got inside you in the dark. ref1
A mild dusk; the little town ref1
A one a two a one two three four – ref1
A silvery, pale-blue satin tie, freshwater in sunlight, 50p. ref1
The lamps lit; all Bethlehem
full;
every cave stabled with beasts, jostling for hay
in the fusty gloom;
every room
peopled and packed from rafter to floor;
barley bread in the ovens rising . . .
and a girl’s hands
at an open door,
her blade halving a pomegranate,
its blood on her pale palms . . .
a voice from an alleyway chanting a psalm.
The moon rose; the shepherds sprawled,
shawled,
a rough ring on sparse grass, passing
a leather flask.
From the town,
a swelling human sound; cooking smells braiding the hour
as lambs and fishes spat in the fires.
A hundred suppers –
honey, fig, olive, grape,
set before stone-cutter, potter, tent-maker, maid,
nurse, farmer, child.
Young wine in the old jars, yellow and cold.
*
The Inn bulged; travellers boozed,
bawled,
bragged, swapping their caravan tales; money-lenders
biting their gold coins; painted women
dancing on tables; mules brayed
outside in the stable;
a youth in the courtyard strummed on a harp.
The sweating Innkeeper shouted and served;
his wife counting the heads,
then making up beds on the flat roof,
in the vine-covered yard.
Above, bright news in the sky, arrived, a star.
The small hours; all living souls
slept
or half-slept; the night fires smouldering low
out in the scrub;
the olive oil cooling in clay lamps;
a goatherd snored in the straw
between two goats.
Silent night;
a soft breeze from the desert
laying a dusting of sand on the dark road,
blessing the homes.
A donkey’s slow, deliberate hooves on the stones.
*
Afterwards, the witnesses
spoke
of a singing boy, an angel,
walking the fields in the hour before dawn,
winged in his own light;
of how the shepherds fled from the sight,
lambs in their arms.
And some swore, on their lives,
on their children’s lives,
that they saw an olive tree
turning to pure gold . . .
that the moon stooped low to gape at the world.
What’s certain – the time and place:
heard,
three crows from the cockerel;
seen,
the stable behind the Inn; present,
animals, goatherd, shepherds, Innkeeper, wife . . .
then the small, raw cry of a new life.
And one wept at a miracle; another
was hoping it might be so;
others ran,
daft, shouting, to boast in the waking streets.
Wise men swayed on camels out of the East.
Dorothy Wordsworth’s Christmas Birthday
First, frost at midnight –
Moon, Venus and Jupiter
named in their places.
Ice, like a cold key,
turning its lock on the lake;
nervous stars trapped there.
Darkness, a hand poised
over the chord of the hills;
the strange word moveless.
The landscape muted;
soft apprehension of snow,
a holding of breath.
Up, rapt at her gate,
Dorothy Wordsworth ages
one year in an hour;
her Christmas birthday
inventoried by an owl,
clock-eyed, time-keeper.
Indoors, the thrilled fire
unwraps itself; sprightly hands
opening the coal.
For she cannot sleep,
Dorothy, primed with herself,
waiting for morning . . .
gradual sure light,
like the start of a poem,
its local accent.
Striding towards dawn,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
swigs at his port wine,
sings a nonsense rhyme,
which Helm Crag learns and echoes
at the speed of sound.
The rock formations –
old lady at piano,
a lion, a lamb.
And, out on a limb,
he skids down a silvered lane
into a sunburst;
a delight of bells,
the exact mood of his heart,
from St. Oswald’s Church.
New rime on the grass
where the Wordsworths’ graves will be
at another time.
Not there, then; here, now,
Dorothy’s form on the road
coming to meet him,
in her claret frock,
in her boots, bonnet and shawl,
her visible breath.
Then her arm through his
on the stroll to Dove Cottage;
spiced apples baking.
Wordsworth lies a-bed
in his nightshirt and nightcap,
rhyming cloud with crowd.
The cat at his feet
licks at her black-and-white fur,
rhyming purr with purr.
The kitchen table,
set for this festive breakfast,
an unseen still-life:
cream in a brown jug,
the calmness of bowls and spoons,
one small round white loaf.
And a tame robin,
aflame on the windowsill,
its name in its song.
They walk to the lake,
where Wordsworth skates like a boy,
in heaven on earth;
a tangerine sun
illuminating the hour
into manuscript;
so Dorothy’s gifts
are the gold outlines of hills,
are emblazoned trees;
Coleridge on a rock,
lighting his pipe, votive smoke
ascending the air . . .
Nowt to show more fair –
ecstatic, therefore, her stare,
seeing it all in.
Later, the lamps lit
in the parlour, hot punch fumes
in a copper pan.
The feast: mutton pie,
buttered parsnips, potatoes,
a Halifax goose.
Coleridge’s flushed face,
never so vivid again
in Dorothy’s mind.
Loud boots at the porch
and a stout thump on the door
as the Minstrels come,
dangling their tin cans
for a free ladle of ale
after caroling . . .
Bring us in good ale,
for that goes down at once-oh!
Bring us in good ale . . .
All in each other,
Miss Wordsworth and the poets,
bawling the chorus;
their voices drifting,
in 1799,
to nowhen, nowhere . . .
but Winter’s slow turn,
and snow in Dorothy’s hair
and on her warm tongue.
Index of titles
$ ref1
A Clear Note ref1
A Dreaming Week ref1
A Goldfish ref1
A Healthy Meal ref1
A Provincial Party, 1956 ref1
A Rare Bee ref1
A Shilling for the Sea ref1
Absence ref1
Absolutely ref1
Achilles ref1
Adultery ref1
All Days Lost Days ref1
Alliance ref1
Alphabet for Auden ref1
An Old Atheist Places His Last Bet ref1
An Unseen ref1
And How Are We Today? ref1
And Then What ref1
Anne Hathaway ref1
Anon ref1
Answer ref1
Ape ref1
Ariel ref1
Art ref1
Ash Wednesday, 1984 ref1
At Ballynahinch ref1
At Jerez ref1
Atlas ref1
Away and See ref1
Away from Home ref1
Back Desk ref1
Beachcomber ref1
Beautiful ref1
Bees ref1
Before You Jump ref1
Before You Were Mine ref1
Bethlehem ref1
Betrothal ref1
Big Ask ref1
Big Sue and Now, Voyager ref1
Birmingham ref1
Borrowed Memory ref1
Boy ref1
Bridgewater Hall ref1
Brothers ref1
By Heart ref1
Café Royal ref1
Caul ref1
Chaucer’s Valentine ref1
Chinatown ref1
Christmas Eve ref1
Circe ref1
Close ref1
Cockermouth and Workington ref1
Cold ref1
Colours by Someone Else ref1
Comprehensive ref1
Confession ref1
Correspondents ref1
Crunch ref1
Crush ref1
Cuba ref1
Dear Norman ref1
Death and the Moon ref1
Debt ref1
December ref1
Decembers ref1
Delilah ref1
Demeter ref1
Deportation ref1
Descendants ref1
Dies Natalis ref1
Disgrace ref1
Dorothy Wordsworth Is Dead ref1
Dorothy Wordsworth’s Christmas Birthday ref1
Drams ref1
Dream of a Lost Friend ref1
Dreaming of Somewhere Else ref1
Drone ref1
Drunk ref1
Echo ref1
Education for Leisure ref1
Elegy ref1
Eley’s Bullet ref1
Elvis’s Twin Sister ref1
Epiphany ref1
Eurydice ref1
Every Good Boy ref1
Fall ref1
Finding the Words ref1
First Love ref1
Following Francis ref1
Foreign ref1
Forest ref1
Frau Freud ref1
Fraud ref1
Free Will ref1
from Mrs Tiresias ref1
Funeral ref1
Gambler ref1
Gesture ref1
Girl Talking ref1
Girlfriends ref1
Give ref1
Grace ref1
Grief ref1
Hand ref1
Hard to Say ref1
Havisham ref1
Haworth ref1
Head of English ref1
History ref1
Hive ref1
Homesick ref1
Hometown ref1
Hour ref1
Human Interest ref1
I Live Here Now ref1
I Remember Me ref1
If I Was Dead ref1
In Mrs Tilscher’s Class ref1
In Your Mind ref1
Ink on Paper ref1
Invisible Ink ref1
Ithaca ref1
Jealous as Hell ref1
Job Creation ref1
John Barleycorn ref1
Land ref1
Last Post ref1
Leda ref1
Lessons in the Orchard ref1
Letters from Deadmen ref1
Liar ref1
Like Earning a Living ref1
Like This ref1
Lineage ref1
Litany ref1
Little Red-Cap ref1
Liverpool ref1
Liverpool Echo ref1
Lizzie, Six ref1
Losers ref1
Loud ref1
Love ref1
Lovebirds ref1
Lovesick ref1
Luke Howard, Namer of Clouds ref1
Making Money ref1
Mean Time ref1
Medusa ref1
Midsummer Night ref1
Miles Away ref1
Missile ref1
M-M-Memory ref1
Model Village ref1
Moments of Grace ref1
Money Talks ref1
Moniack Mhor ref1
Mouth, With Soap ref1
Mrs Aesop ref1
Mrs Beast ref1
Mrs Darwin ref1
Mrs Faust ref1
Mrs Icarus ref1
Mrs Lazarus ref1
Mrs Midas ref1
Mrs Quasimodo ref1
Mrs Rip Van Winkle ref1
Mrs Schofield’s GCSE ref1
Mrs Scrooge ref1
Mrs Sisyphus ref1
Mrs Skinner, North Street ref1
Music ref1
Name ref1
Naming Parts ref1
Never Go Back ref1
New Vows ref1
New Year ref1
Night Marriage ref1
Nile ref1
North-West ref1
Nostalgia ref1
November ref1
Only Dreaming ref1
Oppenheim’s Cup and Saucer ref1
Originally ref1
Orta St Giulio ref1
Oslo ref1
Over ref1
Oxfam ref1
Parliament ref1
Passing-Bells ref1
Pathway ref1
Penelope ref1
Père Lachaise ref1
Philharmonic ref1
Pilate’s Wife ref1
Plainsong ref1
Pluto ref1
Poem in Oils ref1
Poet for Our Times ref1
Poetry ref1
Poker in the Falklands with Henry & Jim ref1
Politico ref1
Politics ref1
Pope Joan ref1
Postcards ref1
Practising Being Dead ref1
Premonitions ref1
Presents ref1
Psychopath ref1
Pygmalion’s Bride ref1
Queen Herod ref1
Queen Kong ref1
Quickdraw ref1
Rain ref1
Rapture ref1
Recognition ref1
Rings ref1
River (The Other Country) ref1
River (Rapture) ref1
Room ref1
Row ref1
Salome ref1
Sanctuary ref1
Saying Something ref1
Scheherazade ref1
Scraps ref1
Selling Manhattan ref1
Shakespeare ref1
Ship ref1
Shooting Stars ref1
Silver Lining ref1
Simon Powell ref1
Sit at Peace ref1
Sleeping ref1
Small Female Skull ref1
Snow (Rapture) ref1
Snow (The Bees) ref1
Someone Else’s Daughter ref1
Somewhere Someone’s Eyes ref1
Space, Space ref1
Spell ref1
Spring ref1
Stafford Afternoons ref1
Standing Female Nude ref1
Statement ref1
Stealing ref1
Steam ref1
Strange Language in Night Fog ref1
Strange Place ref1
Stuffed ref1
Sub ref1
Sung ref1
Survivor ref1
Swing ref1
Syntax ref1
Talent ref1
Talent Contest ref1
Tall ref1
Tea ref1
Telegrams ref1
Telephoning Home ref1
Telling the Bees ref1
Terza Rima SW19 ref1
Text ref1
The Act of Imagination ref1
The B Movie ref1
The Bee Carol ref1
The Beauty of the Church ref1
The Biographer ref1
The Brink of Shrieks ref1
The Captain of the 1964 Top of the Form Team ref1
The Christmas Truce ref1
The Cliché Kid ref1
The Cord ref1
The Counties ref1
The Crown ref1
The Darling Letters ref1
The Dead ref1
The Devil’s Wife ref1
The Diet ref1
The Dolphins ref1
The Dummy ref1
The English Elms ref1
The Falling Soldier ref1
The Female Husband ref1
The Good Teachers ref1
The Grammar of Light ref1
The Human Bee ref1
The Kissing Gate ref1
The Kray Sisters ref1
The Laughter of Stafford Girls’ High ref1
The Legend ref1
The Light Gatherer ref1
The Literature Act ref1
The Long Queen ref1
The Love Poem ref1
The Lovers ref1
The Map-Woman ref1
The Pendle Witches ref1
The Shirt ref1
The Suicide ref1
The Virgin’s Memo ref1
The Way My Mother Speaks ref1
The White Horses ref1
The Windows ref1
The Woman in the Moon ref1
The Woman Who Shopped ref1
Thetis ref1
This Shape ref1
Three Paintings ref1
Till Our Face ref1
Translating the English, 1989 ref1
Translation ref1
Treasure ref1
Two Small Poems of Desire ref1
Unloving ref1
Valentine ref1
Valentine’s ref1
Venus ref1
Virgil’s Bees ref1
War Photographer ref1
Warming Her Pearls ref1
Water ref1
We Remember Your Childhood Well ref1
Weasel Words ref1
Welltread ref1
Wenceslas ref1
What Price? ref1
Whatever ref1
Where We Came in ref1
White Cliffs ref1
White Writing ref1
Who Loves You ref1
Whoever She Was ref1
Wintering ref1
Winter’s Tale ref1
Wish ref1
Woman Seated in the Underground, 1941 ref1
Words of Absolution ref1
Words, Wide Night ref1
Work ref1
World ref1
Write ref1
Yes, Officer ref1
You ref1
You Jane ref1
Your Move ref1
Index of first lines
7 April 1852. ref1
A body has been discussed between them. ref1
A chemical inside you secretes the ingredients of fear. ref1
A flop back for a kip in the sun, ref1
A ghost loves you, has got inside you in the dark. ref1
A mild dusk; the little town ref1
A one a two a one two three four – ref1
A silvery, pale-blue satin tie, freshwater in sunlight, 50p. ref1
