RECOGNITION
When on the cliffs we met, by chance,
I startled at your quiet voice
And watched the swallows round you dance
Like children that had made a choice.
Simple it was, as I stood there,
To penetrate the mask you wore,
Your secret lineage to declare
And your lost dignities restore.
Yet thus I earned a poet's fee
So far out-distancing desire
That swallows yell in rage at me
As who would set their world on fire.
--Robert Graves
THE GIFT OF SIGHT
I had long known the diverse tastes of the wood,
Each leaf, each bark, rank earth from every hollow;
Knew the smells of bird's breath and of bat's wing;
Yet sight I lacked; until you stole upon me,
Touching my eyelids with light finger-tips,
The trees blazed out, their colours whirled together,
Nor ever before had I been aware of sky.
--Robert Graves
Magic is tangled in a woman's hair
For the enlightenment of male pride.
To slide a comb uxoriously
Through an even swell of tresses undisturbed
By their cascade from an exact parting
Could never hearten or enlighten me--
Not though her eyes were bluer than blue sea.
Magic rules an irreducible jungle
Dark as eclipse and scented with despair,
A stubborn snap-comb wilderness of hair,
Each strand a singular, wild, curling tree.
--Robert Graves
