“But we are gifted, even in NovemberRawest of seasons, with so huge a senseOf her nakedly worn magnificenceWe forget cruelty and past betrayal,Careless of where the next bright bolt may fall.”

“The White GoddessAll saints revile her, and all sober menRuled by the God Apollo's golden mean -In scorn of which we sailed to find herIn distant regions likeliest to hold herWhom we desired above all things to know,Sister of the mirage and echo.It was a virtue not to stay,To go our headstrong and heroic waySeeking her out at the volcano's head,Among pack ice, or where the track had fadedBeyond the cavern of the seven sleepers:Whose broad high brow was white as any leper's,Whose eyes were blue, with rowan-berry lips,With hair curled honey-coloured to white hips.The sap of Spring in the young wood a-stirWill celebrate with green the Mother,And every song-bird shout awhile for her;But we are gifted, even in NovemberRawest of seasons, with so huge a senseOf her nakedly worn magnificenceWe forget cruelty and past betrayal,Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall.”

“Why have such scores of lovely, gifted girlsMarried impossible men?Simple self-sacrifice may be ruled out,And missionary endeavour, nine times out of ten.Repeat 'impossible men': not merely rustic,Foul-tempered or depraved(Dramatic foils chosen to show the worldHow well women behave, and always have behaved).Impossible men: idle, illiterate,Self-pitying, dirty, sly,For whose appearance even in City parksExcuses must be made to casual passers-by.Has God's supply of tolerable husbandsFallen, in fact, so low?Or do I always over-value womanAt the expense of man?Do I?It might be so.”

“To Juan at the Winter Solstice There is one story and one story onlyThat will prove worth your telling,Whether as learned bard or gifted child;To it all lines or lesser gauds belongThat startle with their shiningSuch common stories as they stray into.Is it of trees you tell, their months and virtues,Or strange beasts that beset you,Of birds that croak at you the Triple will?Or of the Zodiac and how slow it turnsBelow the Boreal Crown,Prison to all true kings that ever reigned?Water to water, ark again to ark,From woman back to woman:So each new victim treads unfalteringlyThe never altered circuit of his fate,Bringing twelve peers as witnessBoth to his starry rise and starry fall.Or is it of the Virgin's silver beauty,All fish below the thighs?She in her left hand bears a leafy quince;When, with her right hand she crooks a finger, smiling,How many the King hold back?Royally then he barters life for love.Or of the undying snake from chaos hatched,Whose coils contain the ocean,Into whose chops with naked sword he springs,Then in black water, tangled by the reeds,Battles three days and nights,To be spewed up beside her scalloped shore?Much snow if falling, winds roar hollowly,The owl hoots from the elder,Fear in your heart cries to the loving-cup:Sorrow to sorrow as the sparks fly upward.The log groans and confesses:There is one story and one story only.Dwell on her graciousness, dwell on her smiling,Do not forget what flowersThe great boar trampled down in ivy time.Her brow was creamy as the crested wave,Her sea-blue eyes were wildBut nothing promised that is not performed.”

“The Cabbage WhiteThe butterfly, a cabbage-white, (His honest idiocy of flight) Will never now, it is too late, Master the art of flying straight, Yet has- who knows so well as I?- A just sense of how not to fly: He lurches here and here by guess And God and hope and hopelessness. Even the acrobatic swift Has not his flying-crooked gift.”

“Love is universal migraine,A bright stain on the visionBlotting out reason.Symptoms of true loveAre leanness, jealousy,Laggard dawns;Are omens and nightmares -Listening for a knock,Waiting for a sign:For a touch of her fingersIn a darkened room,For a searching look.Take courage, lover!Could you endure such painAt any hand but hers?”

“On PortentsIf strange things happen where she is,So that men say that graves openAnd the dead walk, or that futurityBecomes a womb and the unborn are shed,Such portents are not to be wondered at,Being tourbillions in Time madeBy the strong pulling of her bladed mindThrough that ever-reluctant element.”