Careers

Father is quite the greatest poet
    That ever lived anywhere.
You say you’re going to write great music—
    I chose that first: it’s unfair.
Besides, now I can’t be the greatest painter and
        do Christ and angels, or lovely pears
        and apples and grapes on a green dish,
        or storms at sea, or anything lovely,
Because that’s been taken by Claire.

It’s stupid to be an engine-driver,
    And soldiers are horrible men.
I won’t be a tailor, I won’t be a sailor,
    And gardener’s taken by Ben.
It’s unfair if you say that you’ll write great
        music, you horrid, you unkind (I sim-
        ply loathe you, though you are my
        sister), you beast, cad, coward, cheat,
        bully, liar!
Well? Say what’s left for me then!

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poem by Robert Graves
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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 voice of cold water that runs here and there
Through rocks and lank heather growing without 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Crakeberries and heather bloom out of date,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.

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poem by Robert Graves
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Country At War

And what of home--how goes it, boys,
While we die here in stench and noise?
'The hill stands up and hedges wind
Over the crest and drop behind;
Here swallows dip and wild things go
On peaceful errands to and fro
Across the sloping meadow floor,
And make no guess at blasting war.
In woods that fledge the round hill-shoulder
Leaves shoot and open, fall and moulder,
And shoot again. Meadows yet show
Alternate white of drifted snow
And daisies. Children play at shop,
Warm days, on the flat boulder-top,
With wildflower coinage, and the wares
Are bits of glass and unripe pears.
Crows perch upon the backs of sheep,
The wheat goes yellow: women reap,
Autumn winds ruffle brook and pond,
Flutter the hedge and fly beyond.

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poem by Robert Graves
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1805

At Viscount Nelson’s lavish funeral,
While the mob milled and yelled about St Paul’s,
A General chatted with an Admiral:

“One of your colleagues, Sir, remarked today
That Nelson’s exit, though to be lamented,
Falls not inopportunely, in it’s way”

“He was a thorn in our flesh’, came the reply-
‘The mot bird-witted, unaccountable,
Odd little runt that ever I did spy”.

“One arm, one peeper, vain as Pretty Poll,
A meddler too, in foreign politics
And gave his heart in pawn to a plain moll.

“He would dare lecture us Sea Lords, and then
Would treat his ratings as though men of honour
And play leap-frog with his midshipmen!

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poem by Robert Graves
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The Poet in the Nursery

The youngest poet down the shelves was fumbling
In a dim library, just behind the chair
From which the ancient poet was mum-mumbling
A song about some Lovers at a Fair,
Pulling his long white beard and gently grumbling
That rhymes were beastly things and never there.

And as I groped, the whole time I was thinking
About the tragic poem I’d been writing,...
An old man’s life of beer and whisky drinking,
His years of kidnapping and wicked fighting;
And how at last, into a fever sinking,
Remorsefully he died, his bedclothes biting.

But suddenly I saw the bright green cover
Of a thin pretty book right down below;
I snatched it up and turned the pages over,
To find it full of poetry, and so
Put it down my neck with quick hands like a lover,
And turned to watch if the old man saw it go.

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poem by Robert Graves
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Sospan Fach

(The Little Saucepan)

Four collier lads from Ebbw Vale
Took shelter from a shower of hail,
And there beneath a spreading tree
Attuned their mouths to harmony.

With smiling joy on every face
Two warbled tenor, two sang bass,
And while the leaves above them hissed with
Rough hail, they started 'Aberystwyth.'

Old Parry's hymn, triumphant, rich,
They changed through with even pitch,
Till at the end of their grand noise
I called: 'Give us the 'Sospan' boys!'

Who knows a tune so soft, so strong,
So pitiful as that 'Saucepan' song

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poem by Robert Graves
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Star-Talk

'Are you awake, Gemelli,
This frosty night?'
'We'll be awake till reveillé,
Which is Sunrise,' say the Gemelli,
'It's no good trying to go to sleep:
If there's wine to be got we'll drink it deep,
But rest is hopeless to-night,
But rest is hopeless to-night.'

'Are you cold too, poor Pleiads,
This frosty night?'
'Yes, and so are the Hyads:
See us cuddle and hug,' say the Pleiads,
'All six in a ring: it keeps us warm:
We huddle together like birds in a storm:
It's bitter weather to-night,
It's bitter weather to-night.'

'What do you hunt, Orion,
This starry night?'

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poem by Robert Graves
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A Child's Nightmare

Through long nursery nights he stood
By my bed unwearying,
Loomed gigantic, formless, queer,
Purring in my haunted ear
That same hideous nightmare thing,
Talking, as he lapped my blood,
In a voice cruel and flat,
Saying for ever, "Cat! ... Cat! ... Cat!..."

That one word was all he said,
That one word through all my sleep,
In monotonous mock despair.
Nonsense may be light as air,
But there's Nonsense that can keep
Horror bristling round the head,
When a voice cruel and flat
Says for ever, "Cat! ... Cat! ... Cat!..."

He had faded, he was gone
Years ago with Nursery Land,

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poem by Robert Graves
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The Assault Heroic

Down in the mud I lay,
Tired out by my long day
Of five damned days and nights,
Five sleepless days and nights,…
Dream-snatched, and set me where
The dungeon of Despair
Looms over Desolate Sea,
Frowning and threatening me
With aspect high and steep—
A most malignant keep.
My foes that lay within
Shouted and made a din,
Hooted and grinned and cried:
“Today we’ve killed your pride;
Today your ardour ends
We’ve murdered all your friends;
We’ve undermined by stealth
Your happiness and your health.
We’ve taken away your hope;
Now you may droop and mope

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poem by Robert Graves
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It's A Queer Time

It's hard to know if you're alive or dead
When steel and fire go roaring through your head.

One moment you'll be crouching at your gun
Traversing, mowing heaps down half in fun:
The next, you choke and clutch at your right breast -
No time to think - leave all - and off you go…
To Treasure Island where the Spice winds blow,
To lovely groves of mango, quince and lime -
Breathe no good-bye, but ho, for the Red West!
It's a queer time.

You're charging madly at them yelling 'Fag!'
When somehow something gives and your feet drag.
You fall and strike your head; yet feel no pain
And find… you're digging tunnels through the hay
In the Big Barn, 'cause it's a rainy day.
Oh, springy hay, and lovely beams to climb!
You're back in the old sailor suit again.

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poem by Robert Graves
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