Vera Brittain

Or from the cross men found the stars were hung

One moment. Hearken, taut and tense, In the vast Silence beyond sense

Through your arched ears are only this, Tick-tock down blank eternities,

Where still the sallow death’s-head ticks As stars burn down like candle-wicks

ROBERT GRAVES
(ST. JOHN’S)
MORNING PHŒNIX
IN my body lives a flame, Flame that burns me all the day, When a fierce sun does the same, I am charred away.

Who could keep a smiling wit, Roasted so in heart and hide, Turning on the sun’s red spit, Scorched by love inside?

Caves I long for and cold rocks, Minnow-peopled country brooks, Blundering gales of Equinox, Sunless valley-nooks.

Daily so I might restore Calcined heart and shrivelled skin, A morning phœnix with proud roar Kindled new within.

WINIFRED HOLTBY
(SOMERVILLE)
THE DEAD MAN
I SEE men walk wild ways with love, Along the wind their laughter blown Strikes up against the singing stars; But I lie all alone. When love has stricken laughter dead And tears their silly hearts in twain, They long for easeful death, but I Am hungry for their pain.

“But when you’d crossed the sky-line, And knew you were alone?” —I’d cast away the hollow sham, I’d kick the ground, and groan, And tear my coloured handkerchief And snap my staff; and then I’d curse the God that built me up To break me down again.

MAN—you who think you really know The beast you gaze on in the show, Nor see with what consummate art Each animal enacts its part— How different do they all appear The moment that you are not there! Then, fawns with liquid eyes a-flame Pursue the bear, their nightly game; Wolves shiver as the rabbit roars And stretches his terrific claws; While trembling tigers dare not sleep For passionate, relentless sheep, And frantic eagles through the skies Are chased by angry butterflies. —But beasts would suffer all confusions Before they shattered man’s illusions.

THE MAGNANIMITY OF BEASTS

SINCE I have seen you do those intimate things That other men but dream of; lull asleep The sinister dark forest of your hair, And tie the bows that stir on your calm breast Faintly as leaves that shudder in their sleep. Since I have seen your stocking swallow up, A swift black wind, the pale flame of your foot, And deemed your slender limbs so meshed in silk Sweet mermaid sisters drowned in their dark hair; I have not troubled overmuch with food, And wine has seemed like water from a well; Pavements are built of fire, grass of thin flames. All other girls grow dull as painted flowers Or flutter harmlessly like coloured flies Whose wings are tangled in the net of leaves Spread by frail trees that grow behind the eyes.