Another poem salvaged from my school days. This has long been tucked inside my Wordsworth book, along with the Lucy poems – it’s about as derivative as it is possible to get, possibly to the point of litigation. Typical sixth-form clichéd approach too. By the date I can see that I had recently taken A-levels, Wordsworth being on the syllabus. But its one of the few connections I have with myself at that time.

Reflections

This was the glass she used; her eyes
Once lay where mine gaze back at me.
Her gentle fingers once caressed
This very same carved ebony.

She sat upon this very seat
Where even now in sad despair
I weep to think of those soft eyes
I knew so well; I’d learned to care.

What means it now to her? She lies
With all the world her winding sheet.
And leaves her glass to me, a friend
Until in death again we meet

Málaga, 10 November 1966