Jan Struther Poems

NOT much longer now
Will the eye see
Bonework of bole and bough,
The beautiful, austere
Essentials of the tree.
Intricate tracery
...

She said, 'I have no need for treasure,
For brooches and for jewelled rings.'
Proudly she said, 'I take my pleasure
In truer, kindlier things.'
She said, 'I have a dear lover,
...

Earth has borne a little son;
He is a very little one.
He has a head of golden hair
And a grave, unwinking stare.
...

Saint Valentine looked down from heaven
Upon his own especial day,
And scanned the broad face of the earth
Below him as it lay.
...

She was too lovely for remembrance-
Let us forget her like a dream,
Lest all our days and all our nights hereafter
Empty should seem.
...

TO grow older is this:
To feel on the first rose
The breath malign and fell
Of the first icicle,
And in the earliest kiss
...

PASTICHE
MAID, would you keep your heart
Smooth as unprinted snow?
Are you afraid to know
The turmoil and the smart,
...

YOU ask me, What is love? It is a craving
To spin the dawdling globe with a flicked finger
Till meeting come, and then
To slow it down again
...

I HATE to watch them reaping the Five Acre,
The field at the hill's foot, steeply sloping.
One sees the pattern too clearly, with a God's-eye view:
Sees how Time, with soothing quotidian clatter,
...

Country lovers play at love
In a scene all laid for loving.
Marriage-making stars above
Gossip and wink and look approving,
...