The Funeral of Shelley - Louis Edouard Fournier, 1889 (Trelawny is standing first left) Smoke hung on the sultry water, Dirty rags under black lines Lay on the horizon When the cast off. What devil Made them hoist the gaff topsail? Satan brewed mischief in the air As Williams and Shelley Slid into the haze. I drowsed in the heavy afternoon, Woke to a scrape of anchor chains And a general stir of ships. Boats scurried to and fro In the near dark. Drops of rain Rebounded from

Who has not wished, once, Twice in a lifetime, To float in yellow light and watch, Amid the ratcheting cicadas, The pomegranite tree in flame? Or wished to spend a life Beneath the morning glory On the brown-tiled roof Of a villa nesting By a limpid bay? You'd walk past olive trees on holy days Amongst the quayside restaurants And ouzo warehouses, Stand and chat to fishermen Beside a cage-filled boat. At night they might invite you To lower a cage or two, Watch them swinging

Returning with the Argonauts from Colchis, Where his lyre had quelled the wandering rocks, Lulled the waters, pacified the dragon, He married his dryad bride of universal justice Beneath the egg-shell sky which sealed out night, And tuned his song among the savage Cicones In Thrace. Unnumbered birds swarmed overhead And fishes leaped straight upward from the water Which surged from the egg-shell earth As Orpheus played. Then Death chose Eurydice. Hunted by the shepherd Arista

The resurrected towers of Ypres, Which rise on the eastern rim Of this dead-flat plain, Conjure a sepia vision Of mowings down And wipings out. Buglers sound Reveille, Cease Fire up Battle Alley, Call up the ancient hate, As every evening since, Under the cavernous gate. Centurions slump in wheelchairs, A few still stand erect, (Whisky, not beer, their elixir) Shoulder to shoulder, Jest with their neighbour. Bloody good company the lice! They nod. (Four would disappear Befor