20 AUGUST 1988, Page 30

The Luck of It

Of course it is luck in a sense, In every sense indeed, Lucky for you that the words arrive out of what Really does seem a perfect, cloud-absent sky But the luck is not for that 'I' Which begs for sympathy, wants to tell its tale The poem is not your plot Or life or worry. It is imagination Let loose and allowed to run wild Till it sometimes brings back a phrase or two, at times A whole poem that needs no alteration.

What sings and tells and rhymes Only asks that you be two impossible things In the usual sense, that is:— Let things be and yet be wily too So that now and then language and music kiss