(Titles are printed in italics, first lines in roman.)

  1. A battle lost in the cornfields 250
  2. A bird’s nest lined with leaves and moss 211
  3. A blade 200
  4. A Buddha’s sleek tranquillity reflects 191
  5. A church about to fall 70
  6. A doctor: for the time’s disease 20
  7. A fool he is who, collapsed, rises and walks again, 243
  8. A garden after nightfall rank with the smells 198
  9. A house of good stone 91
  10. A kingfisher darting the green scum on a pool 76
  11. A King made me. Alfred turned 121
  12. A moving tableau, so to speak 107
  13. A photograph. It is a woodland place 174
  14. Adam 89
  15. The Advent Carols 31
  16. Aerial Songs 40
  17. Alkanet 84
  18. All day to gaze down into a well 14
  19. All I can do is take you to the edge 173
  20. All skin and bone, an old Jew, fit to die 252
  21. All the birds of the region in one room 74
  22. All the nobility men may know on earth 272
  23. Amores 105
  24. An angel here, there a tormented beast 191
  25. And now the wind rushes through grassy aisles 11
  26. And then 218
  27. Anthem 123
  28. Antiphonal Sonnets 52
  29. The Apple Trees 176
  30. Apples 175
  31. Apples: they clogged the brook 175
  32. Archaic Torso of Apollo (Rainer Maria Rilke) 273
  33. The Architect at his Mountain Villa 173
  34. Arthur Dead 20
  35. As it Was 191
  36. At a Friend’s Funeral 153
  37. At Great Coxwell 176
  38. At the Grave of Ezra Pound 92
  39. At the Grave of William Morris 93
  40. Autumn Begins Restlessly (Miklós Radnóti) 237
  41. An Autumn Vision 80
  1. A Baroque Concerto 155
  2. Because desire is not to be desired 207
  3. Before the end of daylight, Lord 61
  4. Behold, the Fowls of the Air 177
  5. Beside the Autobahn 39
  6. Bethel 173
  7. Beyond Recall 35
  8. Bindweed Song 79
  9. Bird Watcher 24
  10. Birdsong and Polyphony 73
  11. Blackened walls: a Gothic height 10
  12. Blínd Hómer: this is how he ‘read’ 217
  13. Blood glistens on the knife 282
  14. A Blue Tit’s Egg 211
  15. Born in India where the sun glared 9
  16. Bottom’s Dream 163
  17. Brook’s ‘Lear’ 217
  18. But the trees, Lyubomir, remember the trees 176
  1. Caedmon of Whitby 113
  2. Canticle of the Sun (St Francis of Assisi) 269
  3. Casa Natal de Borges 156
  4. Cattle browse in the meadow the sprung arch 166
  5. Cattle Market 72
  6. Cavalcanti’s Reply (Guido Cavalcanti) 272
  7. Charon’s Bark 101
  8. Chiaroscuro 5
  9. Chiaroscuro: abandoned dark 5
  10. Chinoiserie: The Porcelain Garden 60
  11. Chutney 175
  12. Cinnabar Moth 212
  13. Civitas 220
  14. The Coat of Many Colours 70
  15. Conservancy 83
  16. The Conversation 192
  17. Copper beeches, glistening poplars 278
  18. Cordelia dead, the King dead – oh, and Edmund 217
  19. A Curse 213
  20. Cut in stone 155
  1. Dante to Love’s Faithful (Dante) 272
  2. Daydreams (György Petri) 258
  3. Dear Charles 133
  4. The Dedication 17
  5. The Desert 199
  6. The Disenchanted 23
  7. Dog Rose in June 164
  8. Don’t let go yet. What was it made you cry 171
  9. Don’t look, but the sun is setting, and the leaves 148
  10. The Dream 108
  11. drove stakes in 220
  1. Each year it comes round again 226
  2. The Earth Rising 110
  3. East Anglian Churchyard 8
  4. Eighth Eclogue (Miklós Radnóti) 241
  5. Efface complexity, forget the bond 109
  6. Electra (György Petri) 256
  7. Empty, flicked by a fingernail, the bowl 60
  8. Epitaph 153
  9. Ever more frightening, ever more rapacious 251
  10. The Exile 5
  1. Fake Semblances of Odysseus (György Gömöri) 250
  2. Fake semblances of Odysseus, we wander over the planet 250
  3. The Falls 183
  4. A Farmhouse near Modena, c. 1980 214
  5. A Far-off Country 219
  6. Fernando Pessoa’s Lisbon 153
  7. Fin de Siècle 148
  8. First Eclogue (Miklós Radnóti) 233
  9. Foaming Sky (Miklós Radnóti) 236
  10. Fonte Branda in Siena 94
  11. For my Daughter’s Wedding 174
  12. For some, pagan. The dawn dimly wakes 196
  13. For the first time in months I find I can calmly survey the wreckage 208
  14. For the Fly-Leaf of a King James Bible 51
  15. Forced March (Miklós Radnóti) 243
  16. Fragment 218
  17. Freckled like the brow 211
  18. The French Prisoner (János Pilinszky) 247
  19. From a Notebook: Bon on Lake Geneva (Czesław Miłosz) 278
  20. From Bulgaria, wild and swollen, the noise of cannon rolls 244
  21. from his high perch 40
  22. From the hollowed heads of sunflowers 281
  1. The Garden 109
  2. Garden on Istenhegy (Miklós Radnóti) 231
  3. Gaudier-Brzeska in the Trenches 213
  4. Genealogy: The Portrait 9
  5. Ghostliness 189
  6. The Goldsmith 22
  7. Gothic Polyphony 53
  8. Grace 125
  9. Gratitude (György Petri) 255
  10. Great Coxwell tithe-barn (William Morris said) 176
  11. Greensleeves 165
  12. Gregoire, 60 212
  1. Hagia Sophia (Osip Mandelstam) 283
  2. Hagia Sophia – the Lord decreed that here 283
  3. Hail! How well you endure this rugged mountain walk! 241
  4. Harbach 1944 (János Pilinszky) 246
  5. Healer 198
  6. Henri Gaudier 154
  7. Her narrow life has straitened to this room 32
  8. Here for your pleasure 170
  9. here lies a man 92
  10. Here the waters converge and in their fork 124
  11. The Heron 144
  12. High over our bed, a wasp 280
  13. Holiness, not wholeness. If I touched 190
  14. The Holy of Holies 168
  15. Home 49
  16. Homecoming 50
  17. Hornets (Lyubomir Nikolov) 281
  18. Hortus Conclusus. The locked gates inspire 195
  19. House-martin 121
  20. His inlaid gold hoards light 25
  1. I am a keeper of flocks 276
  2. I am a poet and unnecessary 235
  3. I am convolvulus 79
  4. I am haunted by this memory of the falls 183
  5. I call this latest book Adversity 105
  6. I dreamed we met in Borgo Sansepolcro 197
  7. I glance down at my shoe and – there’s the lace! 256
  8. I hate and love. You may well ask why so 269
  9. I have been faithful to the text, after my own fashion 157
  10. I have come now to the long arc of shadow 270
  11. I keep on seeing them: a shaft 246
  12. I keep two journals. In the first one there’s 102
  13. I lay where I had fallen 165
  14. ‘I leave to the blind and deaf’ (Fernando Pessoa) 274
  15. I leave to the blind and deaf 274
  16. I look from afar. We stand in darkness. 31
  17. I miss you. I hate you 208
  18. I must have been just eight – it was 1953 217
  19. I think of this as of a conversation 192
  20. I threw up watchtowers taller than my need 5
  21. I walk along the corridor, my tears 261
  22. I was a weaver, and I wove 163
  23. I woke to nobody. Desire. Intent. 102
  24. I’d seen it before but had not heard it named 84
  25. If only I could forget him, the Frenchman 247
  26. Il Palazzo della Ragione 33
  27. I’m going to die, and pretty soon too 260
  28. Imprecision of the senses at midday 35
  29. IN 180
  30. In a doorway, I swear 170
  31. In dreams, in bombed-out houses 80
  32. In Hospital 218
  33. In John the Pisan’s statue, at Siena 22
  34. In Malignant Times 20
  35. In Memoriam Graham Davies, Psychotherapist 136
  36. In the Beginning 180
  37. In the Conservatory 211
  38. In the dark, the grey 214
  39. In the first place, a medieval childhood 194
  40. In the Greenwood 108
  41. In the hedgerows 41
  42. In the Library 166
  43. In the Margins of the Prophet Habakkuk (Miklós Radnóti) 232
  44. In The New Era coffee house, that’s where 149
  45. In this house lived in 1877 95
  46. In your quiet room, the flux of candlelight 207
  47. The Infinite Variety 74
  48. Into destruction I would bring 258
  49. Introitus (János Pilinszky) 249
  50. The Invalid Storyteller 6
  51. Invocation 67
  52. It is not just the sex 221
  53. It is sunk deep, this 39
  54. It returns to the same nest. The watcher lies 24
  55. It’s hard to imagine 261
  56. It’s long since we last met here. Did the song of the thrushes call you? 233
  57. It’s the being left behind 101
  58. It was your room they moved me to 17
  1. Job (Domokos Szilágyi) 252
  1. Kaspar Hauser 126
  2. The Keeper of Flocks (Fernando Pessoa/‘Alberto Caeiro’) 276
  3. King Alfred’s Book 121
  4. The Kitchen Table 97
  1. The Labour Ward (Anna T. Szabó) 261
  2. Lace, we remember, faded lace 6
  3. Ladder 171
  4. The Language of Flowers 208
  5. The Law of the House 91
  6. Learning to Read 211
  7. Letter from a Declining Empire (György Gömöri) 251
  8. Letter to J.A. Cuddon 133
  9. like the heart’s arrow 121
  10. Likeness 22
  11. Lindisfarne Sacked 121
  12. The Long Climb 12
  13. Look: snow on Helvellyn’s peak 145
  14. ‘Lop-sided,’ you once told me: more sensitive 193
  1. Making a home was 97
  2. The Manor House 122
  3. Maundy Thursday (Jenő Dsida) 231
  4. Meditation 207
  5. Message 208
  6. Migrant 39
  7. Much Ado about Nothing 167
  8. My amulet against the shocks of time 107
  9. My emblem for her – delicate wild flower 208
  10. My Great Aunt, Nearing Death 32
  1. The Names of Flowers 199
  2. Narcissus, Echo 31
  3. The Natural History of the Rook 47
  4. Near Walsingham 48
  5. The Need for Angels 200
  6. The New Era 149
  7. The Nice and the Nasty 208
  8. Night (Miklós Radnóti) 238
  9. No connection. The train would be six hours 231
  10. No moon 34
  11. Not angels these; although 69
  12. Not far from here, though hidden, is the source 182
  13. Not hate-mail: love-letters 207
  14. not that run 12
  15. Not to be known, the inconceivable 273
  16. Now, in our needy time 51
  17. Now Only (György Petri) 255
  18. now only the filthy pattering of rain 255
  19. Nū scylun hergan hefaenrīcaes Uard 113
  1. O Ancient Prisons (Miklós Radnóti) 240
  2. O my good Lord, almighty and most high 269
  3. O my love is like an 165
  4. O peace of ancient prisons, beautiful 240
  5. O Redwing 39
  6. Oasis 109
  7. ‘Odi et amo’ (Catullus) 269
  8. Olivier Messiaen 157
  9. On gleaming flagstones 34
  10. On the Demolition of the ‘Kite’ District 32
  11. On the Devil’s Dyke 41
  12. On the massive grey stone shutters (by stone rings 22
  13. On the smashed hearthstone or the fallen lintel 32
  14. One steps clear of the others, stands 249
  15. Only reflection sanctifies 31
  16. Overnight Snow 174
  1. Padre Pio 193
  2. The Parable of the Sower 57
  3. Paris (Miklós Radnóti) 239
  4. Passing the central Palace (called ‘of Reason’) 33
  5. The Passion at Ravensbrück (János Pilinszky) 249
  6. The Peaceable Kingdom 58
  7. Piero’s ‘Resurrection’ (1) 196
  8. Piero’s ‘Resurrection’ (2) 197
  9. The Pig Man 125
  10. Pink petals flare in the hedge 164
  11. Plain, square, modern, small 153
  12. A Plaque 95
  13. Plenty 175
  14. Pony and Boy 33
  15. Postcards (Miklós Radnóti) 244
  16. Post-war Childhoods 81
  17. Prayer for my Children 61
  18. Privation for the poor 18
  19. Psalm 124
  20. ‘Pure mathematics!’ That’s what you exclaimed 155
  1. A Quotation 191
  1. Ragwort and mallow, toadflax and willow-herb 79
  2. ‘Ramshackle loveliness’ was the phrase I wrote 122
  3. A Recognition (György Petri) 259
  4. Recorded Message 170
  5. The Rector 18
  6. Remembering John Heath-Stubbs 217
  7. Report from Nowhere 221
  8. Re-reading my Poem, ‘Saxon Buckle’ 107
  9. Restless the sun erupts, it’s lapped today 237
  10. Rich colour signifies deep inwardness 70
  11. Riding at anchor, ships from the New World 23
  12. The River in Springtime 122
  13. Romanus Sum (István Vas) 245
  14. Romanus sum – and I held my hand in fire 245
  15. The Ruin 166
  16. The Ruined Abbey 11
  1. St Francis Preaching to the Birds 69
  2. St George’s Day (Lyubomir Nikolov) 282
  3. Salt-bleached marble, the green stain of seaweed 54
  4. Sanctuary 22
  5. The San Damiano Crucifix 70
  6. Samphire and mare’s tail and the salt marsh 85
  7. Saxon Buckle 25
  8. ‘Say, poet, what it is you do’ (Rainer Maria Rilke) 274
  9. Say, poet, what it is you do. – I praise 274
  10. Scaling Carp (Lyubomir Nikolov) 281
  11. The Second Day 196
  12. Seely or silly? 72
  13. Sestina (Dante) 270
  14. Shakespeare 217
  15. Shakespeare: imagine him 212
  16. She betrays me, she leaves me 265
  17. She Leaves Me (Anna T. Szabó) 265
  18. The Sidney Carol 226
  19. signifying 167
  20. Slowly the knife’s grown over with blood and scales 281
  21. A Smile (György Petri) 260
  22. Soft and Hard Porn 146
  23. The Source 182
  24. Space: tall, with no horizon. Plainsong scales 53
  25. Spare me, Lord, for my days are nothing 153
  26. The Sparking of the Forge 7
  27. Spiritual Biography 194
  28. Springs rise where saints have prayed 48
  29. Stairs (György Petri) 254
  30. Stigmata 190
  31. Stiffened and shrunk by age, my grandfather 7
  32. Stone Work 155
  33. Strong drink 96
  34. Summer has fallen asleep, it drones, and a grey veil 231
  35. Suppose a man were dying and this sound 52
  36. Suppose him to be a person 123
  37. Symmetry 193
  1. The Temple of Aphrodite 102
  2. Terror stalks this land where once King Arthur 20
  3. ‘That fucking whore-madonna…’ and a fart 193
  4. The birds in this illuminated manuscript 73
  5. The cameras flash and he lurches into light 125
  6. The country you have come to 219
  7. The day’s magnificent: the sky brushed clear 213
  8. The dragon prows. Dragons’ tongues 121
  9. The heart is asleep and, in the heart, anxiety 238
  10. The heron nests in the mountains 144
  11. The host 189
  12. The idiotic silence of state holidays 255
  13. The land low-lying – the fen drained 8
  14. The lone man harkens to the calm voice 49
  15. The man of sorrows sleeps, his blood congealed 196
  16. The men who first set foot on the bleached waste 110
  17. The moon bobs on the sky’s foam 236
  18. The pony presses 33
  19. The river seems alive 122
  20. The rooks are Gothick which have brought to mind 47
  21. The secret adventures of order 156
  22. The sower goes out to sow. His sense and form 57
  23. The sun was going down and in low spirits 218
  24. The terms of the analogy are strained 109
  25. The time’s demons had all but quelled 21
  26. The weather-beaten captain of a small riverboat 259
  27. The world is sunk in darkness 177
  28. The year goes out in wrath. And through the winter 50
  29. then broke in and found nothing 168
  30. There are star-crystals shining white on the blank earth 174
  31. There was a rhythm in my sleep 275
  32. ‘There was a rhythm in my sleep’ (Fernando Pessoa) 275
  33. These were the buds that tipped desire 83
  34. Thirst 76
  35. This is my curse 213
  36. This is the world (the painter says) 68
  37. This is your poem of fields and flocks and flowers 76
  38. This morning, as I watch my son 58
  39. Though our affair is over, it does seem 208
  40. Three Brueghel Paintings 68
  41. Time and again I turn to you, to poems 182
  42. To a Buddhist 207
  43. To a Poet from Eastern Europe, 1988 96
  44. To Be Said Over and Over Again (György Petri) 256
  45. To every noble heart these words may move 272
  46. To George Herbert 182
  47. To Haydn and Mozart 96
  48. To his Muse 208
  49. To Imre Nagy (György Petri) 257
  50. To Nicholas Hawksmoor 54
  51. To One who Accused him of Writing Hate-mail 207
  52. To Paint a Salt Marsh 85
  53. To Pyrrha 146
  54. To Robert Wells 76
  55. To stay anxiety I engrave this gold 22
  56. To Thom Gunn, on his Sixtieth Birthday 131
  57. Transference 107
  58. The Translator’s Apology 157
  59. Two Cambridge Images 34
  60. Two Journals 102
  1. Unanswering voice 67
  2. Under those heads, an argument of coils 108
  3. Vacations 145
  4. A Valedictory Ode 225
  5. Van Gogh’s Prayer (János Pilinszky) 250
  6. Venice 54
  7. Victorian Gothic 10
  8. A Vision 170
  9. The Visit to La Verna 190
  10. Visitation 143
  1. Walled Garden 195
  2. A Wasp (Lyubomir Nikolov) 280
  3. We think we detect a date 55
  4. What a Shame (György Petri) 259
  5. What a shame to die this way 259
  6. What is it this cacophony 157
  7. What skinny lad, sweet-smelling, rubbed with oil 146
  8. What they think is it’s the twists and turns of politics 256
  9. What time is there 212
  10. When, as at Beverley Minster or All Souls 54
  11. When Jacob in the desert stopped 173
  12. When Michael Ryan in that forest glade 108
  13. When you spoke, after dinner 125
  14. Where the pavement of the Boulevard Saint Michel 239
  15. where you lie 93
  16. Who are you that have stepped into the light 143
  17. Who wanted to be a horseman 126
  18. Who was it invented 254
  19. Who will open the book which is now closed? 249
  20. Whole cities 232
  21. Why do the robin and the butterfly 153
  22. Wild Flowers 79
  23. Wild garlic, bugloss, toadflax – how you relished 199
  24. Wisdom must be a Lady, Saint Sophia, 225
  25. Without (György Petri) 261
  26. Wonderwoman 165
  27. Wood Work 154
  28. A Woodland Scene 55
  29. Word drunk they called him. Well 182
  30. Work 89
  31. Written in a Copy of ‘Steep Path’ (Miklós Radnóti) 235
  32. W.S. Graham Reading 182
  1. You are knackered, my Catullus (György Petri) 254
  2. You are knackered, my Catullus, you wake with a skull 254
  3. You at your book. Me unable to read 166
  4. You, born in Tokyo 81
  5. You, invisible, once again, I address 136
  6. You lead me to the desert. As we go 199
  7. You turn the page 146
  8. You were both endowed with flair and with, no doubt 96
  9. You were impersonal, too, like the other leaders 257
  10. You were the man who named the birds 211
  11. ‘You who, believing in your Christs and Marys’ (Fernando Pessoa/‘Ricardo Reis’) 277
  12. You who, believing in your Christs and Marys 277
  13. You won’t recall them now – ‘The Burial Mound’ 131