This poem is taken from PN Review 36, Volume 10 Number 4, March - April 1984.
Semele
I imagine an English Semele -
A gawky girl who strayed beyond the town
Picking at stalks, alarmed by puberty . . .
Who by the handsome stranger's side lay down
And when he'd gone lay still in meadow-sweet
Knowing herself betrayed into the world -
Soft flesh suffused with summer's languid heat,
The clement light in which the ferns uncurled.
...
A gawky girl who strayed beyond the town
Picking at stalks, alarmed by puberty . . .
Who by the handsome stranger's side lay down
And when he'd gone lay still in meadow-sweet
Knowing herself betrayed into the world -
Soft flesh suffused with summer's languid heat,
The clement light in which the ferns uncurled.
...
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