NEW POEMS ON THE UNDERGROUND EDITED BY Gerard Benson • Judith Chernaik • Cicely Herbert CASSELL J CONTENTS List of Illustrations 10 Introduction 11 THE POEMS Song: 'Whenas the rye reach to the chin' 17 George Peele (1556-96) from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner 18 Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) They Are Not Long 20 Ernest Dowson (1867-1900) Should You Die First 21 Annabelle Despard (b. 1943) New Gravity 22 Robin Robertson (b. 1955) Commonwealth Poems on the Underground giovanni caboto/john cabot 23 Earle Birney (1904-95) Greek Antiquities: First Floor 24 Lauris Edrhond (1924-2000) Ibadan 2 5 J. P. Clark-Bekederemo (b. 1935) Architecture 26 DomMoraes (1938-2004) The Palm Trees at Chigawe 27 JackMapanje (b. 1944) Viv 28 Faustin Charles (b. 1944) Free 29 Merle Collins (b. 1950) Indian Cooking 30 'Let a place be made' ('Qu'une place soit faite') 48 Moniza AM (b. 1954) Yves Bonnefoy (b. 1923), translatedby Anthony Rudolf The Aegean (Egeo) 49 A Tune 31 Maria Luisa Spaziani (b. 1924), translatedby Arthur Symons (1865-1945) Beverly Allen Fine Knacks for Ladies 33 Bonnard 50 Anon, (before 1600) Elizabeth Jennings (1926-2001) Sonnet on Chillon 34 Almost without Noticing (Melkein huomaamatta) 51 George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) Eira Stenberg (b. 1943), translatedby Herbert Lomas Accordionist 36 Optimistic Little Poem (Optimistiches Liedchen) 52 George Szirtes (b. 1948) Hans Magnus Enzensberger (b. 1929), translatedby Notes from a Tunisian Journal 37 David Constantine Rita Dove (b. 1952) August 1914 39 from The Anniversary 54 Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918) John Donne (1572-1631) The Negro Speaks of Rivers 55 Young Poets on the Underground Langston Hughes (1902-67) Under the Stairs 40 Homage to The British Museum 56 Caitlin McLeod William Empson (1906-84) Dockside 41 Coda 58 Amna Ahmed Louis MacNeice (1907-63) The End of Every Field 42 Poetry 59 Qian Xi Teng Saadi Youssef (b. 1934) translatedby Khaled Mattawa European Poems on the Underground The London Eye 60 from Inferno 43 Patience Agbabi (b. 1965) Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), translated by Sonnet 65 61 Seamus Heaney ('Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea') 'The waves, blue walls' ('Murallas azules, olas') 44 William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Rafael Alberti (1902-99), translated by Mark Strand 'I have a young sister' 63 Miracle (Ocn5|xa) 46 Anon, (early 15th century) Yannis Ritsos (1909-90), translatedby Rae Dalven Infant Joy 64 In the Poem (No Poema) 47 William Blake (1757-1827) Sophia de Mello Breyner (b. 1919), translatedby Dream 65 Ruth Fainlight Kathleen Raine (1908-2003) Exodus 66 On Lake Nicaragua 84 Lotte Kramer (b. 1923) Ernesto Cardenal (b. 1925) translatedby Ernesto Cardenal The bee dance 67 and Robert Pring-Mill Ken Smith (1938-2003) Poem on the Underground 85 D. J. Enright (1920-2002) Emmonsails Heath in Winter 69 Anti-Slavery Movements 86 John Clare (1793-1864) Benjamin Zephaniah (b. 1958) The Lake Isle of Innisfree 70 Content 87 W.B.Yeats (1865-1939) Kate Clanchy (b. 1965) I May, I Might, I Must 71 Marianne Moore (1887-1972) Young Poets on the Underground Separation 72 Rhapsody 88 W. S. Merwin (b. 1927) Ben Ziman-Bright N.W.2: Spring 73 Stitching the Bayeux Tapestry 89 A. C.Jacobs (1937-94) Rebecca Hawkes Pigeon Patterns 90 Roundel ('Since I from Love escaped am so fat') 74 L. E. Harris Geoffrey Chaucer (13407-1400) 'I saw a man pursuing the horizon' 76 ... and finally Stephen Crane (1871-1900) And Yet the Books 91 Cut Grass 77 CzeslawMilosz (b. 1911) translatedby Czeslaw Milosz Philip Larkin (1922-85) and Robert Hass The Two Apes of Brueghel 78 Wislawa Szymborska (b. 1923) translatedby Grazyna Drabik Notes to the Poems 93 with Sharon Olds Acknowledgements 103 Once after Pushkin 79 Carol Rumens (b. 1944) Index of Poets and Translators 106 Web ., 80 Index of First Lines 108 DonPaterson (b. 1963) A Note of Thanks 111 The Long War 81 Laurie Lee (1914-97) The Editors 112 'Autumn evening' 82 Matsuo Basho( 1644-94) translatedby Kenneth Rexroth.