Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

As the slave longs for liberty,
for haven’s calm the ship at sea,
just so, as days go by, I yearn,
my darling, for your safe return.
That’s been the goal of all my pain:
the joy of seeing you again;
but, thwarted by the long delay,
my yearning’s turning to dismay.
Cruel! Who made you swear to come
back soon, in your first letter home?
Faithless already? Can I be
so little in your memory?
How can you dare to be untrue
to one who’s been so true to you?
Now possibly beside the Po,
a two-horned river, as we know,
your courage flares with some new flame:
you’ve swapped me for another dame,
and fickle and forgetful, you
betray the trust that was my due.
If so, and if your loyalty
has gone, likewise your decency,
I shouldn’t be surprised if you
by now have lost all pity too.
How pensive and how full of fear
my lovestruck heart, left lonely here!
Seeing what our love used to be,
you cannot have deserted me:
again I pledge your faith and, yes,
I value your trustworthiness
as more than human. Are you ill,
perhaps, detained against your will,
somewhere remote? I doubt it, seeing
I’ve prayed so much for your well-being:
the gods would be brute beasts, if they
allowed disease to come your way;
although your fickle waywardness
deserves some punitive redress.
The One enthroned above the sky
couldn’t, I think, this much deny:
hearing me cry and weep and pray
for you, He’d turn His wrath away.
I’ve always lived by His behest;
only this one vice I’ll attest:
not Him, but you, I’ve oft adored
– Love forced me to it – as my Lord.
Twice now the moon’s closed horn to horn
since the due date of your return,
and all this time, my love, I’ve still
no news of you, for good or ill.
Anyway, if you’re weak with love
in foreign parts, and so can’t move,
I do know this: your latest flame
will hardly have the kind of fame
for beauty, virtue, grace, and wit
that many who’ve looked into it
ascribe (I think they’re wrong) to me.
But who can guard celebrity?
Not just in France am I acclaimed,
and, much beyond my wishes, famed:
but in the land between the seas
and Pyrenees and Hercules;
and where the wide Rhine rolls his sand;
and where you rove, that lovely land:
they’ve heard (I quite believe your story)
the wise and witty grant me glory.
Taste what so many men desire:
inhabit, where the rest aspire:
you’ll find none better anywhere.
I don’t say others aren’t more fair,
but I shall love you more than these,
your honour I shall more increase.
Many great Lords pursue my love,
prepared to please me and to serve:
contests and jousts they undertake,
wear splendid favours for my sake.
I care so little, I ignore it,
and do not even thank them for it.
You are my only good and ill;
with you I’ve all, without you, nil:
I’ve nothing that can please my mind,
and there’s no pleasure I can find:
I’m wearied, far from being pleased:
by tears and sorrows I am seized:
and so discomforted am I,
a thousand times I want to die.
So while you’re far away, my lover,
not life, but death by love, I suffer:
ten thousand times a day I’m slain;
two months I’ve lingered in this pain.
So come back quickly, if you’d give
a fig to see me while I live;
and if, before you make it, death
has stilled this loving soul’s last breath,
come back in black for just a day
to see my coffin put away.
Then on white marble, if God grants a
last prayer, be inscribed this stanza:

I LIVED AND FLAMED, LOVE , IN YOUR FIRES:
I LANGUISHED AND I BURNT AWAY.
IN MY HOT ASHES THEY HOLD SWAY,
UNLESS YOU QUENCH THEM WITH YOUR TEARS.