A Valentine

By Robert Graves 1895–1985 Robert Graves

The hunter to the husbandman

Pays tribute since our love began,

And to love-loyalty dedicates

The phantom kills he meditates.

Let me embrace, embracing you,

Beauty of other shape and hue,

Odd glinting graces of which none

Shone more than candle to your sun;

Your well-kissed hand was beckoning me

In unfamiliar imagery.

Smile your forgiveness: each bright ghost

Dives in love’s glory and is lost

Yielding your comprehensive pride

A homage, even to suicide.

from The Fugitive, 1922

Biography

Robert Graves often stirred controversy in his endeavors as a poet, novelist, critic, mythographer, translator, and editor. Stephen Spender in the New York Times Book Review characterized Graves as a free thinker: "All of his life Graves has been indifferent to fashion, and the great and deserved reputation he has is based on his individuality as a poet who is both intensely idiosyncratic and unlike any other contemporary poet . . .

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