Words of stern moral advice to a besotted young man are delivered with a brisk and even sunny touch
Words of stern moral advice to a besotted young man are delivered with a brisk and even sunny touch
Song
Why, Damon, why, why, why so pressing?
The Heart you beg’s not worth possessing:
Each Look, each Word, each Smile’s affected,
From an almost whimsical beginning, these verses on wishing to overcome mortality grow lyrical and deeply moving
The radical young poet’s backhanded tribute to the older writer is a stern judgment on his lapsed political idealism
A single missing word in the 1902 poem sparks a deeper look at rhythm, dialect and longing
An exploration of what constitutes the literary arts – plus all the ‘troubled hearts’ and demons that accompany it – through the…
A landscape of illusory peace is depicted just before the guns of battle reach it in the first world war
A sharply satirical attack on unevenly applied 19th-century laws to enforce religious observance still bites today
