Stephen Spender Poems

I think continually of those who were truly great.
Who, from the womb, remembered the soul's history
Through corridors of light where the hours are suns
Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition
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On the first summer day I lay in the valley.
Above rocks the sky sealed my eyes with a leaf
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At Dawn she lay with her profile at that angle
Which, when she sleeps, seems the carved face of an angel.
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Far far from gusty waves these children's faces.
Like rootless weeds, the hair torn around their pallor.
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O night O trembling night O night of sighs
O night when my body was a rod O night
When my mouth was a vague animal cry
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The secret of these hills was stone, and cottages
Of that stone made,
And crumbling roads
That turned on sudden hidden villages
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I stood on a roof top and they wove their cage
Their murmuring throbbing cage, in the air of blue crystal.
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A stopwatch and an ordnance map.
At five a man fell to the ground
And the watch flew off his wrist
Like a moon struck from the earth
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I am glad I met you on the edge
Of your barbarous childhood
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He will watch the hawk with an indifferent eye
Or pitifully;
Nor on those eagles that so feared him, now
Will strain his brow;
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