20 AUGUST 1954, Page 21

The Separation

Must we for ever eye through space? and make Contact too much for comfort and yet less, Like Peter Quint and that strange governess Divided by a window or a lake?

Deprived like ghost, like man, both glare, then move Apart in shadow. Must the breath swim between, The trampled meadow of words yet intervene, To part desire from the tall muscle of love? I thought, that night, the evening of the tower, When I could almost touch you, you were so clear, That I was Quint and it was all the rest Kept you away, the children or the hour;

THOM GUNN