Ovid in the Third Reich
non peccat, quaecumque potest peccasse negare,
solaque famosam culpa professa facit.
Amores, III, xiv
I love my work and my children. God
Is distant, difficult. Things happen.
Too near the ancient troughs of blood
Innocence is no earthly weapon.
I have learned one thing: not to look down
So much upon the damned. They, in their sphere,
Harmonize strangely with the divine
Love. I, in mine, celebrate the love-choir.
poem by Geoffrey Hill
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
![Share](http://www.citatepedia.com/g/32share.png)
Respublica
The strident high
civic trumpeting
of misrule. It is
what we stand for.
Wild insolence,
aggregates without
distinction. Courage
of common men:
spent in the ruck
their remnant witness
after centuries
is granted them
like a pardon.
And other fealties
other fortitudes
broken as named—
[...] Read more
poem by Geoffrey Hill
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
![Share](http://www.citatepedia.com/g/32share.png)
September Song
born 19.6.32 - deported 24.9.42
Undesirable you may have been, untouchable
you were not. Not forgotten
or passed over at the proper time.
As estimated, you died. Things marched,
sufficient, to that end.
Just so much Zyklon and leather, patented
terror, so many routine cries.
(I have made
an elegy for myself it
is true)
September fattens on vines. Roses
flake from the wall. The smoke
of harmless fires drifts to my eyes.
This is plenty. This is more than enough.
poem by Geoffrey Hill
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
![Share](http://www.citatepedia.com/g/32share.png)
In Piam Memoriam
1
Created purely from glass the saint stands,
Exposing his gifted quite empty hands
Like a conjurer about to begin,
A righteous man begging of righteous men.
2
In the sun lily-and-gold-coloured,
Filtering the cruder light, he has endured,
A feature for our regard; and will keep;
Of worldly purity the stained archetype.
3
The scummed pond twitches. The great holly-tree,
Emptied and shut, blows clear of wasting snow,
[...] Read more
poem by Geoffrey Hill
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
![Share](http://www.citatepedia.com/g/32share.png)
Picture of a Nativity
Sea-preserved, heaped with sea-spoils,
Ribs, keels, coral sores,
Detached faces, ephemeral oils,
Discharged on the world’s outer shores,
A dumb child-king
Arrives at his right place; rests,
Undisturbed, among slack serpents; beasts
With claws flesh-buttered. In the gathering
Of bestial and common hardship
Artistic men appear to worship
And fall down; to recognize
Familiar tokens; believe their own eyes.
Above the marvel, each rigid head,
Angels, their unnatural wings displayed,
Freeze into an attitude
Recalling the dead.
poem by Geoffrey Hill
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
![Share](http://www.citatepedia.com/g/32share.png)
On Seeing the Wind at Hope Mansell
Whether or not shadows are of the substance
such is the expectation I can
wait to surprise my vision as a wind
enters the valley: sudden and silent
in its arrival, drawing to full cry
the whorled invisibilities, glassen towers
freighted with sky-chaff; that, as barnstorming
powers, rammack the small
orchard; that well-steaded oaks
ride stolidly, that rake the light-leafed ash,
that glowing yew trees, cumbrous, heave aside.
Amidst and abroad tumultuous lumina,
regents, reagents, cloud-fêted, sun-ordained,
fly tally over hedgerows, across fields.
poem by Geoffrey Hill
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
![Share](http://www.citatepedia.com/g/32share.png)
In Memory of Jane Fraser
When snow like sheep lay in the fold
And wind went begging at each door,
And the far hills were blue with cold,
And a cloud shroud lay on the moor,
She kept the siege. And every day
We watched her brooding over death
Like a strong bird above its prey.
The room filled with the kettle's breath.
Damp curtains glued against the pane
Sealed time away. Her body froze
As if to freeze us all, and chain
Creation to a stunned repose.
She died before the world could stir.
In March the ice unloosed the brook
And water ruffled the sun's hair.
Dead cones upon the alder shook.
poem by Geoffrey Hill
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
![Share](http://www.citatepedia.com/g/32share.png)
Requiem for the Plantagenet Kings
For whom the possessed sea littered, on both shores,
Ruinous arms; being fired, and for good,
To sound the constitution of just wards,
Men, in their eloquent fashion, understood.
Relieved of soul, the dropping-back of dust,
Their usage, pride, admitted within doors;
At home, under caved chantries, set in trust,
With well-dressed alabaster and proved spurs
They lie; they lie; secure in the decay
Of blood, blood-marks, crowns hacked and coveted,
Before the scouring fires of trial-day
Alight on men; before sleeked groin, gored head,
Budge through the clay and gravel, and the sea
Across daubed rock evacuates its dead.
poem by Geoffrey Hill
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
![Share](http://www.citatepedia.com/g/32share.png)
On Reading Crowds and Power
1
Cloven, we are incorporate, our wounds
simple but mysterious. We have
some wherewithal to bide our time on earth.
Endurance is fantastic; ambulances
battling at intersections, the city
intolerably en fête. My reflexes
are words themselves rather than standard
flexures of civil power. In all of this
Cassiopeia's a blessing
as is steady Orion beloved of poets.
Quotidian natures ours for the time being
I do not know
how we should be absolved or what is fate.
2
Fame is not fastidious about the lips
which spread it. So long as there are mouths
[...] Read more
poem by Geoffrey Hill
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
![Share](http://www.citatepedia.com/g/32share.png)
Tenebrae
He was so tired that he was scarcely able to hear a note of the songs: he felt imprisoned in a cold region where his brain was numb and his spirit was isolated.
1
Requite this angel whose
flushed and thirsting face
stoops to the sacrifice
out of which it arose.
This is the lord Eros
of grief who pities
no one; it is
Lazarus with his sores.
2
And you, who with your soft but searching voice
drew me out of the sleep where I was lost,
who held me near your heart that I might rest
confiding in the darkness of your choice:
[...] Read more
poem by Geoffrey Hill
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
![Share](http://www.citatepedia.com/g/32share.png)