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Best Poems From
ERIC RATCLIFFE
(Aug 8,1918)
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1.
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A Veil is Useful
The Veil, the Veil, efface the Look beneath!
For once the Mufti's Law is fair and right.
So let it be the rule until the night,
That I gaze not on the absence of her Teeth
Eric Ratcliffe
Read more: night poems
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2.
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The Gentle Raider v1
The Viking crouched once;
he saw his rovers darting like death fairies
from the black oars of his long dragon boat.
hiding hip low in the dry beach cave;
he was the metal cage of the walking Northland
waiting where life was pure as an air mirror,
where the English birds were breaking the eastern morning,
watching sun trails with an iron stare,
looking for careless lovers on the lean south lands,
his face a flame, his mind a valley burning
as walking women under travelling skies
gathered green spices from the wide sea tors,
laughing like villages of giant-eyed children.
Eric Ratcliffe
Read more: beach poems, mirror poems, women poems, children poems, green poems, sea poems, death poems, sun poems, life poems, fairy poems, child poems, sky poems, woman poems
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3.
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Century House
The five-age walls feel the wind from blue waters
overhung in the cool witch-chimney,
and the ghost heart of a summer wife, waking,
has recalled the sleepy fables
told all to the sun and her cradled daughters,
and how there was gold on the breast of a swanbird
whn she sang to the river children.
She remembers the Easter firefly kisses
dancing from his dear lips,
and the two of them in the early shadows,
waiting bold as Welsh fairies
for moonlight over the dark home hills.
She has replaced the growing thorns
with roses of yesterday;
white as the leading phantom petals
she smiles through palace years,
and the wind from blue waters steals
to the thrush for her homely garden voice
- to the sundial for her tears.
Eric Ratcliffe
Read more: river poems, wind poems, summer poems, children poems, home poems, dark poems, sun poems, house poems, heart poems, water poems, kiss poems, remember poems, daughter poems, fairy poems, dance poems, child poems, rose poems, smile poems
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4.
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Death Was No Empty Hat
Death was no empty hat, but a swung trapeze
swept through a hall of song.
Hung on a silver wire, the winging bar
leaped in a singing breeze.
Riding with woe, the sweet violins of home
grieved in the high wall-lilac
and the cadences of a shadowless piper called
piteously from old pavements.
I heard, with the sighs of centuries, pagan notes
whispering in the cupola,
and saw in the flare of thunderhooks, scarecrow skies
with wondering savage moons,
and a horn with flag-ribbons blown by a coloured bird
flying before my eyes.
Eric Ratcliffe
Read more: silver poems, song poems, home poems, death poems, sky poems
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