This electronic edition published 2010 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

The right of Katherine Swift to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Earlier versions of parts of this book appeared in Hortus and The Times

All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Excerpt from Tales from Ovid by Ted Hughes. Copyright © 1997 by Ted Hughes. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC, and Faber and Faber Ltd

Excerpt from ‘The Dry Salvages’ in Four Quartets, copyright 1941 by T.S. Eliot and renewed by Esme Valerie Eliot, reprinted by permission of Harcourt, Inc. and Faber and Faber Ltd.

‘Dich wundert nicht …/You are not surprised …’ from Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, copyright © 1996 by Anita Burrows and Joanna Macy. Used by permission of Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 4088 2131 2

www.bloomsbury.com/katherineswift

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