LYING DOWN ALONE

I shall never see your tired sleep
In the bed that you make beautiful,
Nor hardly ever be a dream
That plays by your dark hair;
Yet I think I know your turning sigh
And your trusting arm's abandonment,
For they are the picture of my night,
My night that does not end.

_From the Arabic of John Duncan._



OLD GREEK LOVERS

They put wild olive and acanthus up
With tufts of yellow wool above the door
When a man died in Greece and in Greek Islands,
Grey stone by the blue sea,
Or sage-green trees down to the water's edge.
How many clanging years ago
I, also withering into death, sat with him,
Old man of so white hair who only,
Only looked past me into the red fire.
At last his words were all a jumble of plum-trees
And white boys smelling of the sea's green wine