by Peter Miles
In the suntime came love, with the spray
of the wind in her hair and a song
in her eyes.
Out of love issued life.
In the suntime came love, immortally gay,
serene, undefiled; immortally strong.
In the suntime....she did not stay long.
In the Twentieth Century came Love, the gramophone
playing self-satisfied song hits, insistently playing
and saying
that life is built up on the archetype feelings,
that they are the core and the rest is the peelings.
In the Twentieth Century came Love, not alone
in her glory but with dancing nerve-endings
and a music of flexing and bendings.
In the Twentieth Century came Love, with a bang
and a whimper both, and the tang
of a heaven
of 4711.
Peter Miles (1945)