'It's a writing condition'

 

“Poets don't have an 'audience'. They're talking to a single person all the time.” –  Robert Graves

 

Born in Wimbledon, England in 1895, Graves was a second generation poet (his father was celebrated Irish poet Alfred Percival Graves).  He wrote more than 140 poetic works and a number of best-selling novels, including I, Claudius.  His 1948 treatise on inspirational poetic writing, The White Goddess, has never been out of print.  

    

 "To be a poet," Graves said, "is a condition rather than a profession."  For Saturday’s Poem here are two of his poems.

 

Symptoms of Love

 

Love is universal migraine,
bright stain on the vision
Blotting out reason.

Symptoms of true love
Are leanness, jealousy,
Laggard dawns;

Are omens and nightmares -
Listening for a knock,
Waiting for a sign:

For a touch of her fingers
In a darkened room,
For a searching look.

Take courage, lover!
Could you endure such pain
At any hand but hers?

  

                             I’d Love To Be A Fairy’s Child

Children born of fairy stock
Never need for shirt or frock,
Never want for food or fire,
Always get their hearts desire:
Jingle pockets full of gold,
Marry when they're seven years old.
Every fairy child may keep
Two ponies and ten sheep;
All have houses, each his own,
Built of brick or granite stone;
They live on cherries, they run wild--
I'd love to be a Fairy's child.