World War Two Poems

TEMPUS FUGIT NON COMBAKEBUS 1942

For my wartime desk partner, Frances Ollerton, whose Monday morning sigh was “The desirable is unattainable and the attainable is undesirable”

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Love is life

And being in love is Living;

Just for a little while we live; then say,

Where goes the rapturous joy of yesterday”

So easy to fall in love -

And easier to fall out.

And leaves the lover more bewildered

Than the once-loved one.

What makes us love one day,

The next despise - or if not quite,

At least behold with cold and critical eyes

from which the wonder-laden scales have drop’t

And the day has leaden aspect

And all the music’s stop’t?

 

And what then can we say

To him who only yesterday

We said “I love you so”

And really meant it -- there’s the rub

Can we say “I love you not

For nought that you have done -

For nought I know the reason of -

But changed I truly am -

And as the weather”?

Yes as the weather were bright and sweet

And today is cold and dim;

The reason I no more can guess

Than the squirrel on the hill -

But he gathers his nuts, and squeaks with joy

Out neath the beautiful sun --

Then he shivers and shakes his feathery tail,

And creeps in his tree when it’s dull.

... Well the day is dull, and love has flown

And I’m sad, and almost regret

That you loved me too, for if you’d scorned,

I might be in love with you yet.

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