'It's a writing condition'

 

“Poets don't havean 'audience'. They're talking to a single person all the time.” –  Robert Graves

 

Born in Wimbledon, England in 1895, Graves was a secondgeneration poet (his father was celebrated Irish poet Alfred PercivalGraves).  He wrote more than 140 poeticworks and a number of best-selling novels, including I, Claudius.  His 1948 treatise on inspirational poetic writing, The White Goddess, has never been out ofprint.  

    

 "To be a poet," Graves said, "is acondition rather than a profession."  For Saturday’s Poem hereare two of his poems.

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Symptomsof Love

 

Love is universal migraine,
bright stain on the vision
Blotting out reason.

Symptoms of true love
Are leanness, jealousy,
Laggard dawns;

Are omens and nightmares -
Listening for a knock,
Waiting for a sign:

For a touch of her fingers
In a darkened room,
For a searching look.

Take courage, lover!
Could you endure such pain
At any hand but hers?

  

                             I’dLove To Be A Fairy’s Child

Children born of fairy stock
Never need for shirt or frock,
Never want for food or fire,
Always get their hearts desire:
Jingle pockets full of gold,
Marry when they're seven years old.
Every fairy child may keep
Two ponies and ten sheep;
All have houses, each his own,
Built of brick or granite stone;
They live on cherries, they run wild--
I'd love to be a Fairy's child.

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