A Pinch of Salt

WHEN a dream is born in you

With a sudden clamorous pain,

When you know the dream is true

And lovely, with no flaw nor strain,

O then, be careful, or with sudden clutch

You'll hurt the delicate thing you prize so much.

Dreams are like a bird that mocks,

Flirting the feathers of his tail.

When you sieze at the salt box,

Over the hedge you'll see him sail.

Old birds are neither caught with salt nor chaff:

They watch you from the apple bough and laugh.

Poet, never chase the dream.

Laugh yourself and turn away.

Mask your hunger; let it seem

Small matter if he come or stay;

But when he nestles in your hand at last,

Close up your fingers tight and hold him fast.

Robert Graves

Rocky Acres

THIS is a wild land, country of my choice,

With harsh craggy mountain, moor ample and bare.

Seldom in these acres is heard any voice

But the voice of cold water that runs here and there

Through rocks and lank heather growing without any care.

No mice in the heath run nor no birds cry

For fear of the dark speck that floats in the sky.

He soars and he hovers, rocking on his wings,

He scans his wide parish with a sharp eye,

He catches the trembling of small hidden things,

He tears them in pieces, dropping from the sky:

Tenderness and pity the land will deny

Where life is but nourished from water and rock,

A hardy adventure, full of fear and shock.

Time has never journeyed to this lost land,

Crakeberries and heather bloom out of date,

The rocks jut, the streams flow singing on either hand,

Careless if the season be early or late.

The skies wander overhead, now blue, now slate:

Winter would be known by his cold, cutting snow

If June did not borrow his armor also.

Yet this is my country beloved by me best,

The very first land that rose from Chaos and the Flood,

Nursing no fat valleys for comfort and rest,

Trampled by no hard hooves, stained with no blood.

Bold immortal country whose hill-tops have stood

Strongholds for the proud gods when on earth they go,

Terror for fat burghers in far plains below.

Robert Graves

Lost Love

HIS eyes are quickened so with grief,

He can watch a grass or leaf

Every instant grow; he can

Clearly through a flint wall see,

Or watch the startled spirit flee

From the throat of a dead man.

Across two counties he can hear

And catch your words before you speak.

The woodlouse or the maggot's weak

Clamour rings in his sad ear,

And noise so slight it would surpass

Credence--drinking sound of grass,

Worm talk, clashing jaws of moth

Chumbling holes in cloth;

The groan of ants who undertake

Gigantic loads for honour's sake

(Their sinews creak, their breath comes thin);

Whir of spiders when they spin,

And minute whispering, mumbling, sighs

Of idle grubs and flies.

This man is quickened so with grief,

He wanders god-like or like thief

Inside and out, below, above,

Without relief seeking lost love.

Robert Graves