Poem by Robert Graves

Cynics and Romantics

In club and messroom let them sit
At skirmish of ingenious wit;
Deriding Love, yet not with hearts
Accorded to those healthier parts
Of grim self-mockery, but with mean
And burrowing search for things unclean,
Pretended deafness, twisted sense,
Sharp innuendoes rising thence,
And affectation of prude-shame
That shrinks from using the short name.
We are not envious of their sour
Disintegrations of Love’s power,
Their swift analysis of the stabs
Devised by virgins and by drabs
(Powder or lace or scent) to excite
A none-too-jaded appetite.
They never guess of Love as we
Have found the amazing Art to be,
Pursuit of dazzling flame, or flight
From web-hung blackness of night,
With laughter only to express
Care overborne by carelessness;
They never bridge from small to great,
From nod or glance to ideal Fate,
From clouded forehead or slow sigh
To doubt and agony looming by,
From shining gaze and hair flung free
To infinity and to eternity--
They sneer and poke a treacherous joke
With scorn for our rusticity.

1. Unicorn and the White Doe
2. Henry and Mary
3. Sullen Moods
4. In the Wilderness
5. The Cool Web

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