Take shape in silence

The "going backwards through the Poets Laureate", which I thought was finished, can now continue - as I've found a Cecil Day-Lewis poem in my collection ;-)

... not only that, but I definitely have poetry by the preceding five Poets Laureate, so this series could now be going for some time yet!

So - for now; here is the only Cecil Day-Lewis poem I appear to (luckily) have in my collection - as taken from the 1973 compilation:


Do not expect again a phoenix hour

Do not expect again a phoenix hour,
The triple-towered sky, the dove complaining,
Sudden the rain of gold and heart’s first ease
Tranced under trees by the eldritch light of sundown.

By a blazed trail our joy will be returning:
One burning hour throws light a thousand ways,
And hot blood stays into familiar gestures.
The best years wait, the body’s plenitude.

Consider then, my lover, this is the end
Of the lark’s ascending, the hawk’s unearthly hover:
Spring season is over soon and first heatwave;
Grave-browed with cloud ponders the huge horizon.

Draw up the dew. Swell with pacific violence.
Take shape in silence. Grow as the clouds grew.
Beautiful brood the cornlands, and you are heavy;
Leafy the boughs – they also hide big fruit.

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Cecil Day-Lewis (1904 - 1972)

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