Three Poems

by Niall Gildea (Edge Hill University) and Jo Waugh (York St John University).

Friends of Promise (March 1940)

This landscape is too difficult for the rigid mind.
Underneath the elm-trees walk the early gods
Their foreign books with yellow paper bindings still uncut.
They tell us they have failed but they are far too sure
Of their own lilies, their own atmosphere and their own love;
They have the perfumed mind, the broad cut tie,
The assuring chin, the faded roses and the broken wishbones.
Dandies they are and talk softly under the elm trees,
As the gramophone purrs by the rippling stream.
They are the lovers of Cytherea and watch her yacht
Leave where the blue mirror crumples into white at the edges.
Their love is faintly jaundiced and their tongues
Display blurred photographs of famous criminals.

Farther to the right sadness flowers and bitterly,
...