The Penguin Book of English Verse

by Paul Keegan

  with what is left. Let me disobey

  my own best instincts

  and do what I want to do, whatever that may be,

  without regretting it, or thinking I might.

  When I come home late at night from home,

  saying I have to go away,

  remind me to look out the window

  to see which house I’m in.

  Pin a smile on my face

  when I turn up two weeks later with a tan

  and presents for everyone.

  Teach me how to stand and where to look

  when I say the words

  about where I’ve been

  and what sort of time I’ve had.

  Was it good or bad or somewhere in between?

  I’d like to know how I feel about these things,

  perhaps you’d let me know?

  When it’s time to go to bed in one of my lives,

  go ahead of me up the stairs,

  shine a light in the corners of my room.

  Tell me this: do I wear pyjamas here,

  or sleep with nothing on?

  If you can’t oblige by cutting me in half,

  God give me strength to lead a double life.

  HUGO WILLIAMS Last Poem

  I have put on a grotesque mask

  to write these lines. I sit

  staring at myself

  in a mirror propped on my desk.

  I hold up my head

  like one of those Chinese lanterns

  hollowed out of a pumpkin,

  swinging from a broom.

  I peer through the eye-holes

  into that little lighted room

  where a candle burns,

  making me feel drowsy.

  I must try not to spill the flame

  wobbling in its pool of wax.

  It sheds no light on the scene,

  only shadows flickering up the walls.

  In the narrow slit of my mouth

  my tongue appears,

  darting back and forth

  behind the bars of my teeth.

  I incline my head,

  to try and catch what I am saying.

  No sound emerges, only

  the coming and going of my breath.

  EILÉAN NÍ CHUILLEANÁIN Studying the Language

  On Sundays I watch the hermits coming out of their holes

  Into the light. Their cliff is as full as a hive.

  They crowd together on warm shoulders of rock

  Where the sun has been shining, their joints crackle.

  They begin to talk after a while.

  I listen to their accents, they are not all

  From this island, not all old,

  Not even, I think, all masculine.

  They are so wise, they do not pretend to see me.

  They drink from the scattered pools of melted snow:

  I walk right by them and drink when they have done.

  I can see the marks of chains around their feet.

  I call this my work, these decades and stations –

  Because, without these, I would be a stranger here.

  CHRISTOPHER REID Stones and Bones

  SECOND GENESIS

  ‘inde genus durum sumus’

  Ovid: Metamorphoses, Book I

  Two survived the flood.

  We are not of their blood,

  springing instead from the bones

  of the Great Mother – stones,

  what have you, rocks, boulders –

  hurled over their shoulders

  by that pious pair

  and becoming people, where

  and as they hit the ground.

  Since when, we have always found

  something hard, ungracious,

  obdurate in our natures,

  a strain of the very earth

  that gave us our abrupt birth;

  but a pang, too, at the back

  of the mind: a loss… a lack…

  Acknowledgements

  I am deeply grateful to the following: Lizzy van Amerongen, Molly and Peig van Amerongen, Hugh Haughton, Peter Carson, Jon Riley, Andrew Rosenheim, Vivienne Guinness, Antony Farrell, Michael Neve, Matty Dor, Karl Miller, Lindeth Vasey, Adam Phillips, Ianthe and Malise Ruthven, Claire Reihill, Robin Robertson, Alexandra Pringle, Michael Paul, Theo Cuffe, Andrew Barker, Anna South, Ian MacKillop, Pico Harnden, Roger Gard.

  JOHN AGARD: ‘Listen Mr Oxford don’ from Mangoes and Bullets: Selected and New Poems 1972–1984 (Serpent’s Tail, 1990), reprinted by permission of the publisher; MARION ANGUS: ‘Alas! Poor Queen’ from The Turn of the Day (Porpoise Press, 1931), reprinted by permission of Faber & Faber; W. H. AUDEN: ‘Taller to-day, we remember similar evenings’, ‘This lunar beauty’, ‘Out on the lawn I lie in bed’, ‘Now the leaves are falling fast’, ‘In Memory of W. B. Yeats’, ‘Musée des Beaux Arts’, ‘Miranda’, ‘The Fall of Rome’ and ‘The Shield of Achilles’ from Collected Shorter Poems 1927–1957 (Faber & Faber, 1966), reprinted by permission of the publisher; SAMUEL BECKETT: ‘Saint-Lô’ from Collected Poems (John Calder, 1984), reprinted by permission of the publisher; HILAIRE BELLOC: ‘On a General Election’ and ‘Ballade of Hell and of Mrs Roebeck’ from Cautionary Verses (Jonathan Cape, 1993), reprinted by permission of Peters Fraser and Dunlop Group on behalf of the Estate of Hilaire Belloc; E. C. BENTLEY: ‘George the Third’ and ‘Nell’ from The Complete Clerihews of E. Clerihew Bentley (Oxford University Press, 1981), © the Estate of E. C. Bentley, reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown Ltd, London, on behalf of the Estate of E. C. Bentley; JOHN BETJEMAN: ‘The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel’, ‘Pot pourri from a Surrey Garden’ and ‘Devonshire Street W.1’ from Collected Poems (John Murray, 1958), reprinted by permission of the publisher; LAURENCE BINYON: ‘For the Fallen’ from The Times (21 September 1914), ‘Winter Sunrise’ from Collected Poems of Laurence Binyon (Macmillan, 1931) and ‘The Burning of the Leaves’ from The Burning of the Leaves (Macmillan, 1944), all reprinted by permission of The Society of Authors on behalf of the Laurence Binyon Estate; EDMUND BLUNDEN: ‘The Midnight Skaters’ (© Edmund Blunden, 1925) and ‘Report on Experience’ (© Edmund Blunden, 1929) from Poems of Many Years (Collins, 1957), reprinted by permission of Peters Fraser and Dunlop Group on behalf of the Estate of Edmund Blunden; EAVAN BOLAND: ‘Self-Portrait on a Summer Evening’ and ‘The Black Lace Fan My Mother Gave Me’ from Collected Poems (Carcanet Press, 1995), reprinted by permission of the publisher; ROBERT BRIDGES: ‘To Francis Jammes’ from The Poetical Works of Robert Bridges (The Clarendon Press, 1936), reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press; RUPERT BROOKE: ‘Peace’ and ‘Heaven’ from The Works of Rupert Brooke (Wordsworth Editions, 1994); GEORGE MACKAY BROWN: ‘Kirkyard’ from Selected Poems 1954–1983 (John Murray, 1991), reprinted by permission of the publisher; BASIL BUNTING: from ‘Villon’, from ‘Chomei at Toyama’ and from ‘Briggflatts’ from Complete Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2000), reprinted by permission of the publisher; NORMAN CAMERON: ‘Green, Green is El Aghir’ from Norman Cameron: Collected Poems and Selected Translations, edited by Warren Hope and Jonathan Barker (Anvil Press Poetry, 1990) reprinted by permission of the publisher; CIARAN CARSON: ‘Dresden’ and ‘Belfast Confetti’ from The Irish for No (The Gallery Press, 1987) reprinted by permission of the author and publisher; CHARLES CAUSLEY: ‘Eden Rock’ from Collected Poems 1951–1997 (Macmillan, 1997), reprinted by permission of David Higham Associates; EILÉAN NÍ CHUILLEANÁIN: ‘Swineherd’ and ‘The Second Voyage’ from The Second Voyage (The Gallery Press, 1986), and ‘Studying the Language’ from The Brazen Serpent (The Gallery Press, 1994); JOHN CLARE: ‘I found a ball of grass among the hay’, ‘The old pond full of flags and fenced around’ and ‘The thunder mutters louder and more loud’ from The Later Poems of John Clare, 1837–1864, edited by Eric Robinson and David Powell (Oxford University Press, 1984), © Eric Robinson, 1984, reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown Ltd, London, on behalf of Eric Robinson; AUSTIN CLARKE: ‘The Planter’s D
aughter’, ‘The Straying Student’ and ‘Martha Blake at Fifty-One’ from Collected Poems (Dolmen Press/Oxford University Press, 1974), reprinted by permission of R. Dardis Clarke, 21 Pleasants Street, Dublin 8; ELIZABETH DARYUSH: ‘Still-Life’ and ‘Children of wealth in your warm nursery’ from Collected Poems (Carcanet Press, 1976), reprinted by permission of the publisher; DONALD DAVIE: ‘The Hill Field’ and from ‘In the Stopping Train’ from Collected Poems (Carcanet Press, 1990), reprinted by permission of the publisher; W. H. DAVIES: ‘Sheep’ from Collected Poems (Jonathan Cape, 1963); WALTER DE LA MARE: ‘The Birthnight: To F.’; ‘Autumn’ and ‘Napoleon’ from Selected Poems (Faber & Faber, 1973), reprinted by permission of the Literary Trustees of Walter de la Mare, and The Society of Authors as their representative; NUALA NÍ DHOMHNAILL: ‘The Language Issue’, translated by Paul Muldoon, from Pharaoh’s Daughter (The Gallery Press, 1990), reprinted by permission of the author and publisher; PETER DIDSBURY: ‘The Hailstone’ from The Classical Farm (Bloodaxe Books, 1987) reprinted by permission of the publisher; HILDA DOOLITTLE: ‘Oread’ and from ‘The Walls Do Not Fall’ from Selected Poems (Carcanet Press, 1989), reprinted by permission of the publisher; KEITH DOUGLAS: ‘Desert Flowers’, ‘Vergissmeinnicht’ and ‘How to Kill’ from The Complete Poems of Keith Douglas, edited by Desmond Graham (Oxford University Press, 1978); DOUGLAS DUNN: ‘A Removal from Terry Street’, ‘On Roofs of Terry Street’ and ‘Modern Love’ from Selected Poems, 1964–1983 (Faber & Faber, 1986), and ‘The Sundial’ from Elegies (Faber & Faber, 1985), all reprinted by permission of the publisher; PAUL DURCAN: ‘Tullynoe: Tête-à-tête in the Parish Priest’s Parlour’ and ‘The Death by Heroin of Sid Vicious’ from A Snail in My Prime (The Harvill Press, 1993); T. S. ELIOT: ‘The winter evening settles down’, ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’, ‘Aunt Helen’, ‘Sweeney Among the Nightingales’, ‘Gerontion’, from ‘The Waste Land’, ‘Marina’ and from ‘Little Gidding’ from Collected Poems, 1909–1962 (Faber & Faber, 1974), reprinted by permission of the publisher; WILLIAM EMPSON: ‘This Last Pain’, ‘Homage to the British Museum’, ‘Missing Dates’, ‘Aubade’ and ‘Let It Go’ from Collected Poems (Chatto & Windus, 1955), reprinted by permission of The Random House Archive & Library; D. J. ENRIGHT: ‘Remembrance Sunday’ from Collected Poems, 1948–1998 (Oxford University Press, 1998), reprinted by permission of Watson, Little Ltd on behalf of the author; PADRAIC FALLON: ‘A Bit of Brass’ from Collected Poems (Carcanet Press, 1990), reprinted by permission of the publisher; JAMES FENTON: ‘In a Notebook’ and ‘A German Requiem’ from The Memory of War and Children in Exile: Poems 1968–1983 (Penguin Books, 1983), reprinted by permission of the Peters Fraser and Dunlop Group; ROY FISHER: from ‘By the Pond’, ‘Toyland’, ‘As He Came Near Death’ and ‘The Memorial Fountain’ from The Dow Low Drop: New & Selected Poems (Bloodaxe, 1996), reprinted by permission of the publisher; JOHN FULLER: ‘Wild Raspberries’ from Collected Poems (Chatto & Windus, 1996), reprinted by permission of the author; ROBERT GARIOCH: ‘Elegy’ and ‘The Maple and the Pine’ from Complete Poetical Works (Macdonald Publishers, 1983), reprinted by permission of The Saltire Society; DAVID GASCOYNE: ‘Snow in Europe’ and ‘A Wartime Dawn’ from Collected Poems (Oxford University Press, 1988), reprinted by permission of the publisher; W. S. GRAHAM: ‘Malcolm Mooney’s Land’ and ‘Lines on Roger Hilton’s Watch’ from Collected Poems 1942–1977 (Faber & Faber, 1979), © the Estate of W. S. Graham, reprinted by permission of Margaret Snow, Administrator for the Estate of W. S. Graham; ROBERT GRAVES: ‘Love Without Hope’, ‘Sick Love’, ‘Warning to Children’, ‘It Was All Very Tidy’, ‘To Evoke Posterity’ and ‘To Juan at the Winter Solstice’ from Complete Poems. Three Volumes (Carcanet Press, 1995–97), reprinted by permission of the publisher; THOMAS GUNN: ‘The Wound’, ‘In Santa Maria del Popolo’, ‘My Sad Captains’, ‘Moly’ and ‘The Idea of Trust’ from Collected Poems (Faber & Faber, 1993), and ‘The Hug’ and ‘The Reassurance’ from The Man with Night Sweats (Faber & Faber, 1992), reprinted by permission of the publisher; IVOR GURNEY: ‘To His Love’, ‘The Silent One’, ‘Possessions’ and ‘The High Hills’ from Collected Poems of Ivor Gurney (Oxford University Press, 1982), reprinted by permission of Dee & Griffin solicitors and agents for Mrs P. A. Ely, Trustee for the Estate of Ivor Gurney; IAN HAMILTON: ‘The Visit’ and ‘Newscast’ from Sixty Poems (Faber & Faber, 1999); TONY HARRISON: ‘The Earthen Lot’ and ‘Continuous’ from Selected Poems (Viking, 1984), © Tony Harrison, reprinted by permission of the author; SEAMUS HEANEY: ‘Personal Helicon’, ‘The Tollund Man’, ‘Broagh’, ‘Exposure’ from ‘Singing School’ and ‘The Stand at Lough Beg’ from New Selected Poems, 1966–1987 (Faber & Faber, 1990), ‘Widgeon’ and ‘I had come to the edge of the water’ from Station Island (Faber & Faber, 1984), from ‘Lightenings’ from Seeing Things (Faber & Faber, 1991), all reprinted by permission of the publisher; ZBIGNIEW HERBERT: ‘Elegy of Fortinbras’, translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Peter Dale Scott (Penguin Books, 1968), translation © Czeslaw Milosz and Peter Dale Scott, reprinted by permission of the publisher; GEOFFREY HILL: ‘A Pastoral’, ‘Ovid in the Third Reich’, ‘September Song’, from Mercian Hymns, and from ‘An Apology for the Revival of Christian Architecture in England’ from Collected Poems (Penguin Books, 1985), © Geoffrey Hill, 1959, 1968, 1971, 1978, 1985, reprinted by permission of the publisher; MIROSLAV HOLUB: ‘The Fly’, translated by George Theiner, from Selected Poems, translated by Ian Milner and George Theiner (Penguin Books, 1967), © Miroslav Holub, 1967, translation © Penguin Books, 1967, reprinted by permission of the publisher; A. E. HOUSMAN: ‘When I watch the living meet’, ‘Into my heart an air that kills’, ‘Far in a western brookland’, ‘The laws of God, the laws of man’, ‘When the eye of the day is shut’, ‘Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries’, and ‘Tell me not here, it needs not saying’ from Last Poems, ‘It is a fearful thing to be’, ‘Crossing alone the nighted ferry’, and ‘Because I liked you better’ from More Poems and ‘Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists?’ from Collected Poems and Selected Prose, ‘A Childish Prank’, ‘February 17th’, and ‘Telegraph Wires’ from New Selected Poems, 1957–1994 (Faber & Faber, 1995), © Ted Hughes 1995, reprinted by permission of the publisher; T. E. HULME: ‘Autumn’ and from ‘Images’ from Imagist Poetry, edited by Peter Jones (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics, 1992); DAVID JONES: from Part 3 and Part 7 of In Parenthesis (Faber & Faber, 1937), reprinted by permission of the publisher; JAMES JOYCE: ‘Bahnhofstrasse’ from Pomes Penyeach (1927), in James Joyce: Poems and Shorter Writings (Faber & Faber, 1991), © Estate of James Joyce, reprinted by permission of the Estate of James Joyce; PATRICK KAVANAGH: ‘Inniskeen Road: July Evening’, from ‘The Great Hunger’, ‘Epic’, ‘Come Dance with Kitty Stobling’ and ‘The Hospital’ from Selected Poems, edited by Antoinette Quinn (Penguin Books, 1996), reprinted by permission of the Trustees of the Estate of the late Katherine B. Kavanagh c/o Jonathan Williams Literary Agency; MAY KENDALL: ‘Lay of the Trilobite’ from Dreams to Sell (Longmans & Co., 1887): THOMAS KINSELLA: ‘Hen Woman’ and ‘Ancestor’ from ‘Notes from the Land of the Dead’ and ‘Tao and Unfitness at Inistiogue on the River Nore’ from Collected Poems 1956–1994 (Oxford University Press, 1996), reprinted by permission of Carcanet Press; RUDYARD KIPLING: ‘Danny Deever’, ‘Mandalay’, ‘Recessional’, from ‘Epitaphs of the War’, ‘Gethsemane’ and ‘The Bonfires’ from Selected Poems, edited by Peter Keating (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics, 1993), reprinted by permission of A. P. Watt Ltd on behalf of the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty; PHILIP LARKIN: ‘At Grass’, ‘Mr Bleaney’, ‘Here’, ‘Days’, ‘Afternoons’, ‘This Be the Verse’, ‘Money’, ‘Seventy feet down’ from ‘Livings’ and ‘The Explosion’ from Col- lected Poems, edited by Anthony Thwaite (Faber & Faber, 1988), reprinted by permission of the publisher; D. H. LAWRENCE: ‘Sorrow’, ‘Medlars and Sorb-Apples’, ‘The Mosquito’, ‘The Blue Jay’, ‘The Mosquito Knows’, ‘To Women, As Fa
r As I’m Concerned’, ‘Innocent England’ and ‘Bavarian Gentians’ from The Complete Poems of D. H. Lawrence (Penguin, 1994), reprinted by permission of Laurence Pollinger Ltd and the Estate of Frieda Lawrence Ravagli; TOM LEONARD: from ‘Unrelated Incidents. 3’ from Intimate Voices: Selected Works, 1965–1983 (Galloping Dog Press, 1984; Vintage, 1985), reprinted by permission of the author; ALUN LEWIS: ‘Raiders’ Dawn’ from Collected Poems (Seren, 1994), reprinted by permission of the publisher; CHRISTOPHER LOGUE: from Patrocleia (1962) in War Music (Faber & Faber, 1988), reprinted by permission of the publisher; MICHAEL LONGLEY: ‘Persephone’, ‘Wounds’, ‘Man Lying on a Wall’, ‘The Linen Workers’ from ‘Wreaths’ and ‘The Butchers’ from Selected Poems (Jonathan Cape, 1998), reprinted by permission of the Random House Archive & Library; MALCOLM LOWRY: ‘Strange Type’ from Selected Poems of Malcolm Lowry, edited by Earle Birney (City Lights Books, 1962); NORMAN MACCAIG: ‘Summer Farm’, ‘Wild Oats’, ‘Notations of Ten Summer Minutes’ and ‘Chauvinist’ from Collected Poems (Chatto & Windus, 1990), reprinted by permission of the Random House Archive & Library; HUGH MACDIARMID: ‘The Watergaw’ and ‘The Eemis Stane’ from ‘Sangschaw’, ‘Empty Vessel’, ‘O wha’s the bride that carries the bunch?’ from ‘A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle’ and from ‘On a Raised Beach’ from Complete Poems. Two Volumes (Carcanet Press, 1993–94), reprinted by permission of the publisher; SORLEY MACLEAN: ‘Hallaig’ from From Wood to Ridge: Collected Poems in Gaelic and English (Carcanet Press, 1989), reprinted by permission of the publisher; LOUIS MACNEICE: ‘Snow’, ‘The Sunlight on the Garden’, from ‘Autumn Journal’, ‘Meeting Point’, ‘Autobiography’, ‘House on a Cliff’, ‘Soap Suds’ and ‘The Taxis’ from Collected Poems (Faber & Faber, 1966), reprinted by permission of David Higham Associates; DEREK MAHON: ‘An Image from Beckett’, ‘The Snow Party’, ‘A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford’, ‘Courtyards in Delft’ and ‘Antarctica’ from Collected Poems (The Gallery Press, 1999), reprinted by permission of the author and publisher; CHARLOTTE MEW: ‘Fame’, ‘À quoi bon dire’ and ‘The Quiet House’ from Collected Poems and Selected Prose (Carcanet Press, 1987), reprinted by permission of the publisher; ELMA MITCHELL: ‘Thoughts After Ruskin’ from The Poor Man in the Flesh (Peterloo Poets, 1976), © Elma Mitchell, reprinted by permission of the publisher; JOHN MONTAGUE: from ‘A Chosen Light. I. 11 rue Daguerre’ from Collected Poems (The Gallery Press, 1995), reprinted by permission of the author and publisher; EDWIN MORGAN: ‘The Dowser’ from Collected Poems (Carcanet Press, 1990), reprinted by permission of the publisher; EDWIN MUIR: ‘Childhood’, ‘The Interrogation’ and ‘The Horses’ from Collected Poems (Faber & Faber, 1984), reprinted by permission of the publisher; PAUL MULDOON: ‘Wind and Tree’, ‘Why Brownlee Left’, ‘Anseo’, ‘The Frog’ and ‘Something Else’ from New Selected Poems, 1968–1994 (Faber & Faber, 1996), reprinted by permission of the publisher; WILFRED OWEN: ‘Futility’, ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, ‘The Send-Off’ and ‘Maundy Thursday’ from The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen, edited by C. Day Lewis (Chatto & Windus, 1963); TOM PAULIN: ‘Where Art is a Midwife’ and ‘Desertmartin’ from Selected Poems (Faber & Faber, 1993), reprinted by permission of the publisher; RUTH PITTER: ‘But for Lust’ from Collected Poems (Enitharmon Press, 1996), reprinted by permission of the publisher; SYLVIA PLATH: ‘Sheep in Fog’, ‘The Arrival of the Bee Box’ and ‘Edge’ from Collected Poems (Faber & Faber, 1981), reprinted by permission of the publisher; EZRA POUND: ‘The Return’, ‘In a Station of the Metro’, ‘The Gypsy’, ‘The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter’ and ‘Lament of the Frontier Guard’ from Cathay, from ‘Homage to Sextus Propertius’ and from ‘Hugh Selwyn Mauberley’ from Collected Shorter Poems (Faber & Faber, 1984), reprinted by permission of the publisher; CRAIG RAINE: ‘A Martian Sends a Postcard Home’ from A Martian Sends a Postcard Home (Oxford University Press, 1979); HENRY REED: ‘Judging Distances’ from Collected Poems, edited by John Stallworthy (Oxford University Press, 1991), reprinted by permission of the publisher; CHRISTOPHER REID: ‘Baldanders’ from Arcadia (Oxford University Press, 1979) and ‘Stones and Bones’ from Expanded Universes (Faber & Faber, 1996); LAURA RIDING: ‘The Wind Suffers’ from The Poems of Laura Riding (Carcanet Press, 1980), © 1938, 1980, reprinted by permission of Carcanet Press, Manchester, Persea Books, New York, and the author’s Board of Literary Management. In conformity with the late author’s wish, her Board of Literary Management asks us to record that, in 1941, Laura (Riding) Jackson renounced, on grounds of linguistic principle, the writing of poetry: she had come to hold that ‘poetry obstructs general attainment to something better in our linguistic way-of-life than we have’; DENISE RILEY: ‘A Misremembered Lyric’ from Penguin Modern Poets: Volume 10 (Penguin Books, 1996), reprinted by permission of the author; A. MARY F. ROBINSON: ‘Neurasthenia’ from Collected Poems (A & C Black, 1902), reprinted by permission of the publisher; ISAAC ROSENBERG: ‘Break of Day in the Trenches’, ‘August 1914’ and ‘A worm fed on the heart of Corinth’ from The Collected Poems of Isaac Rosenberg, edited by Gordon Bottomley and Denys Harding (Chatto & Windus, 1949); SIEGFRIED SASSOON: ‘Base Details’, ‘The General’ and ‘Everyone Sang’ from Collected Poems 1908–1956 (Faber & Faber, 1984), reprinted by permission of George Sassoon and the Barbara Levy Literary Agency; ROBERT SIDNEY, EARL OF LEICESTER: ‘Forsaken woods, trees with sharpe storms opprest’ from The Poems of Robert Sidney, edited by P. J. Croft (Oxford University Press, 1984) reprinted by permission of the publisher; IAIN CRICHTON SMITH: ‘Shall Gaelic Die?’ from Selected Poems (Carcanet Press, 1985), reprinted by permission of the publisher; KEN SMITH: ‘Writing in Prison’ from The heart, the border (Bloodaxe Books, 1990) reprinted by permission of the publisher; STEVIE SMITH: ‘Bog-Face’, ‘Dirge’, ‘Pad, Pad’, ‘Not Waving But Drowning’, ‘Magna est Veritas’ and ‘Scorpion’ from Collected Poems (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics, 1985), reprinted by permission of James MacGibbon; WILLIAM SOUTAR: ‘The Tryst’ from The Poems of William Soutar: A New Selection (Scottish Academic Press, 1988), reprinted by permission of the publisher; ARTHUR SYMONS: ‘At the Cavour’ from Silhouettes (Mathews & Lane, 1892) and ‘White Heliotrope’ from London Nights (L. Smithers, 1897), reprinted by permission of Brian Read; DYLAN THOMAS: ‘The force that through the green fuse’, ‘Poem in October’, ‘Over Sir John’s hill’ and ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’ from Collected Poems 1934–53 (Dent, 1989), reprinted by permission of David Higham Associates; EDWARD THOMAS: ‘Cock-Crow’, ‘Aspens’, ‘Old Man’, ‘Tall Nettles’, ‘Blenheim Oranges’ and ‘Rain’ from Collected Poems (Faber & Faber, 1945); R. S. THOMAS: ‘Here’, ‘On the Farm’, ‘Pietà’ and ‘Gifts’ from Collected Poems 1945–1990 (Dent, 1993), reprinted by permission of The Orion Publishing Group; CHARLES TOMLINSON: ‘The Picture of J. T. in a Prospect of Stone’ and ‘Stone Speech’ from Collected Poems (Oxford University Press, 1985), reprinted by permission of Carcanet Press; JEFFREY WAINWRIGHT: ‘1815’ from Selected Poems (Carcanet Press, 1985), reprinted by permission of the publisher; ANNA WICKHAM: ‘The Fired Pot’ from The Writings of Anna Wickham: Free Woman and Poet (Virago, 1984), reprinted by permission of George Hepburn and Margaret Hepburn; HUGO WILLIAMS: ‘Prayer’ and ‘Last Poem’ from Dock Leaves (Faber & Faber, 1994); W. B. YEATS: ‘The Sorrow of Love’, ‘Down by the Salley Gardens’, ‘The Cold Heaven’, ‘The Magi’, ‘The Wild Swans at Coole’, ‘Easter, 1916’, ‘Leda and the Swan’, ‘Sailing to Byzantium’, ‘The Road at My Door’ and ‘The Stare’s Nest by My Window’ from ‘Meditations in Time of Civil War’, ‘Among School Children’, ‘In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markievicz’ and ‘Long-legged Fly’ from Collected Poems (Picador, 1990), reprinted by permission of A. P. Watt Ltd on behalf of Michael B. Yeats.