An older woman sings:

Love breaks all rules and spoils our little game,
Enthrones the humble, scorning rank and fame:
The virtuous maid with lurid passion mars;
Exalts the wanton far above the stars;
Flames once across our path and then is gone –
And we like shadows tread the years alone.

A younger woman sings:

Love makes the rules and always wins the game,
The dice are loaded, who is then to blame?
In vain our wits we set against his art,
‘Tis love each time that sings the higher part!
Love’s fools are we – what more can there be said?
So will it be till lovers all are dead!

Evelyn Sharp

From the libretto of Vaughan Williams The Poisoned Kiss

In fact I have only heard it with RVW's ravishing music, but I think it stands up on it own as a poem.  Sharp's words have been much criticized, but in this song she really comes up trumps.

If I squint, it's Chaucer's Prologue to CT, Baz. 

Ted Hughes
Chaucer from Birthday Letters

'Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote...'
At the top of your voice, where you swayed on the top of a stile,
Your arms raised - somewhat for balance, somewhat
To hold the reins of the straining attention
Of your imagined audience - you declaimed Chaucer
To a field of cows. And the Spring sky had done it
With its flying laundry, and the new emerald
Of the thorns, the hawthorn, the blackthorn,
And one of those bumpers of champagne
You snatched unpredictably from pure spirit.
Your voice went over the fields towards Grantchester.
It must have sounded lost. But the cows
Watched, then approached: they appreciated Chaucer.
You went on and on. Here were reasons
To recite Chaucer. The came the Wyf of Bath,
Your favourite character in all literature.
You were rapt. And the cows were enthralled.
They shoved and jostled shoulders, making a ring,
To gaze into your face, with occasional snorts
Of exclamation, renewed their astounded attention,
Ears angling to catch every inflection,
Keeping their awed six feet of reverence
Away from you. You just could not believe it.
And you could not stop. What would happen
If you were to stop? Would they attack you,
Scared by the shock of silence, or wanting more - ?
So you had to go on. You went on -
And twenty cows stayed with you hypnotized.
How did you stop? I can't remember
You stopping. I imagine they reeled away -
Rolling eyes, as if driven from their fodder.
I imagine I shooed them away. But
Your sostenuto rendering of Chaucer
Was already perpetual. What followed
Found my attention too full
And had to go back into oblivion.

A triptych from me tonight.

Sylvia Plath
Edge

The woman is perfected.
Her dead

Body wears the smile of accomplishment,
The illusion of a Greek necessity

Flows in the scrolls of her toga,
Her bare

Feet seem to be saying:
We have come so far, it is over.

Each dead child coiled, a white serpent,
One at each little

Pitcher of milk, now empty.
She has folded

Them back into her body as petals
Of a rose close when the garden

Stiffens and odors bleed
From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower.

The moon has nothing to be sad about,
Staring from her hood of bone.

She is used to this sort of thing.
Her blacks crackle and drag.

We ourselves wrote a little hate poem about Sylvia Plath in 1965:

  Quiet Husbandry

  Having consumed
  Her
  Daily ration of buns,
  Sylvia Plath, poetess,
  Takes her seat.

  Who is she to have
  Replaced the newspaper in the chest
  Of drawers?

  Under her fading yellow hair,
  Inspiration waits for her.

  Under the kitchen sink
  Millions of maggots and
  Silver silverfish
  Do a white curdling copulating twist.

  She has f***ed twice
  Already.

(We hope Members will forgive us that.)

And we are suddenly put in mind of the hundred-year old family favourite:

Lady in train compartment (to a gentleman): Excuse me, have I passed Windsor?
Gentleman: Yes ma'am, three times.

SCGrew, both railway stations at Windsor are termini, as was the bus station, in days before it was pulled down to built luxury flats.

Nothing wrong there Syd. Fake(e)d while passing Windsor.

I'd also like to throw in my only published poem (since Syd has graced us with his own verses, I feel moved to inflict this upon you in retribution). It was written in a hotel room in Piano di Sorrento twelve years ago.

Pyromaniac

Burning bright consume me,
Fascinate the pyromaniac
Within me, feed my
Bottle imp, this thing of fire
That will not go away.

Burnt flesh stink you sniffing smell
And burnt hair smell you sniffing think.
You purify me, cleanse me, save me,
Build my pyre tonight and torch me,
Fill my grave with ashes and then mourn me,
Build my pyre tonight.