The Penguin Book of English Verse: 1970 Edition

The Penguin Book of English Verse: 1970 Edition

I hold here in my hands
a book of English verse
collected over years
from English speaking lands.
The centuries traverse
this plenitude of peers.

All speak of love or death,
those two commanding states,
urgency of desire,
the quickening of breath
to which desire relates;
the all consuming fire

which all pervades our living
with the knowledge of our fate,
inevitable decline,
compassion and forgiving,
the struggle against hate
are subjects they define.

In one small volume here
the power of poetry
enraptures and enrages.
Contained is sage and seer;
our frail humanity
is written in these pages.

All speak of love and death,
the aching void of parting,
that rapture of desire
which overtakes the breath;
and of love departing
to the waiting funeral pyre.