| Robert Graves (1895–1985). Fairies and Fusiliers. 1918. |
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| 5. To Robert Nichols |
| | | (From Frise on the Somme in February, 1917, in answer to a letter saying: “I am just finishing my ‘Faun’s Holiday.’ I wish you were here to feed him with cherries.”) |
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| HERE by a snowbound river | |
| In scrapen holes we shiver, | |
| And like old bitterns we | |
| Boom to you plaintively: | |
| Robert, how can I rhyme | 5 |
| Verses for your desire— | |
| Sleek fauns and cherry-time, | |
| Vague music and green trees, | |
| Hot sun and gentle breeze, | |
| England in June attire, | 10 |
| And life born young again, | |
| For your gay goatish brute | |
| Drunk with warm melody | |
| Singing on beds of thyme | |
| With red and rolling eye, | 15 |
| Waking with wanton lute | |
| All the Devonian plain, | |
| Lips dark with juicy stain, | |
| Ears hung with bobbing fruit? | |
| Why should I keep him time? | 20 |
| Why in this cold and rime, | |
| Where even to dream is pain? | |
| No, Robert, there’s no reason: | |
| Cherries are out of season, | |
| Ice grips at branch and root, | 25 |
| And singing birds are mute. | |
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