You have expressed much loving-kindness to me of late,
Bending down from your Beyondness, tender, compassionate;
A man, try as he will, can never accomplish his purpose.
Mind is a space-traveller on the back of a lame tortoise.
On the one hand I complain of the days — there is nothing to do
(For all the works of men — as well as sun-whirl and earth-spin — are done by you);
Words are effective covers over faces and things;
And from your words, Beloved, new false hope bravely springs.
Everything is good, but nothing has any sense;
And all postures except that of dust are mere pretence.
Oh, what a game! what a game! I wrote poems that win me God’s kisses of approval,
And I laugh and bow before him knowing that my verses have no existence at all.
Love is, at first, a setting out on a high adventure.
Then the troubles begin – and one is a little less sure.
We look back from our dark times to the sunlit ages of substance and ripe days
When we spoke the language of the heart and knew beast- and bird-talk; and labour was praise.
The little men, the insect brood, have got the world by its short hairs.
Everywhere the heart-highways are blocked with signs ‘Road Under Repairs’.