LOVE’S  QUICKENING 

Today my breath comes fast and cold, 
I am shot with guns and a little mad. 

I put my thumb in a wren’s nest 
and a thrill of sweetness pours forth. 

Cawing rooks bless me with sticks 
and blackbirds and thrushes line me soft. 

Trout and roach snook in my belly 
and swim near my window for gnats and flies. 

A butterfly comes with my eyes agleam 
and adder and toad take up their seats. 

Black ant warn my teening nipples 
and creep to my knees in even rows. 

A hedgehog uncurls within my skull 
and a dormouse breasts the hill of my brow. 

A ruddy squirrel brushes my cheek 
and cracks my nails with his little white teeth. 

And now comes my lover in his red waistcoat 
to scatter his grain upon the land: 

(a fox is shouldered on the hill 
and the fox is looking for a hole.) 

O, my lover, do you not know me? 
Look how the honeysuckle has strung me to the earth! 

The doves of my heart are purring, curling, 
where the cries of little children are heard 
         on the lea.


                              (1945)