Waterloo Bridge

1. AFTER THE LUNCH - WENDY COPE

On Waterloo Bridge, where we said our goodbyes,

The weather conditions bring tears to my eyes.

I wipe them away with a black woolly glove

And try not to notice I’ve fallen in love.

On Waterloo Bridge I am trying to think:

This isnothing.  You’re high on the charm andthe drink.

But the juke-box inside me is playing a song

That says something different.  And when was it wrong?

On Waterloo Bridge with the wind in my hair

I am tempted to skip. You’re a fool.  I don’t care.

The head does its best but the heart is the boss-

I admit it before I am halfway across.

2. EVERYONE SANG - SIEGFRIED SASSOON

Everyone suddenly burst out singing;

And I was filled with such delight

As prisoned birds must find in freedom,

Winging wildly across the white

Orchards and dark-green field; on-on-and out of sight.

Everyone’s voice was suddenly lifted;

And beauty came like the setting sun:

My heart was shaken with tears; and horror

Drifted away...O, but Everyone

Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never

    be done.

3. DEA EX MACHINA - JOHN UPDIKE

My love is like Mies van der Rohe’s

‘Machine for living’; she,

Divested of her underclothes,

Suggests efficiency.

Her supple shoulders call to mind

A set of bevelled gears;

Her lower jaw has been aligned

To hinge behind her ears.

Her hips, sweet ball-and-socket joints,

Are padded to perfection;

Each knee, with its patella, points

In just the right direction.

Her fingertips remind me of

A digital computer;

She couldn’t be, my well-tooled love,

A millimeter cuter.

4. NOMAD - CLAREPOLLARD

Bury me in desert where sand sweeps

a single magnificent gesture;

where there are no trivialities or

tangles, no sticky knots of feeling

or tear-damp patches, human things.

It is impossible to harm dunes,

or bruise winds, or burn sun.

Desert air is think with mirage,

so the Bedouin breathe dreams

and move, keep moving, not letting home,

that heavy-hooked numbness, catch them.

And the stars? The stars in the desert

are utterly indifferent to me -

so much so that I think I may fall

in love with stars, those cold-eyed

maps which guide me towards newness.

Do not need me, I need you

to leave my body untended,

my skin naked and unkissed

beneath the dry, valueless gold.

5. SYMPTOMS OF LOVE - ROBERT GRAVES

Love is a universal migraine,

A 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 grief

At any hand but hers?

6. THE CONFIRMATION - EDWIN MUIR

Yes, yours, my love, is the right human face.

I in my mind had waited for this long,

Seeing the false and searching for the true,

Then found you as a traveller finds a place

Of welcome suddenly amid the wrong

Valleys and rocks and twisting roads.  But you,

What shall I call you? A fountain in a waste,

A well of water in a country dry,

Or anything that’s honest and good, an eye

That makes the whole world bright.  Your open heart,

Simple with giving, gives the primal deed,

The first good world, the blossom, the blowing seed,

The hearth, the steadfast land, the wandering sea.

Not beautiful or rare in every part.

But like yourself, as they were meant to be.