27 OCTOBER 1990, page 31

Au Cabaret Vert

Those eight days on the road, their wear-and-tear, Had left my boots stone-savaged. Limping-late, I came to Charleroi, to the Cabaret Vert. I asked for buttered doorsteps and a......

Babbled Of Green Fields

Michael Bentley THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE BRITISH ARISTOCRACY by David Cannadine Yale, f19.95, pp. 813 I n the last two decades of Queen Victor- ia's reign the British......

Wedlock

The chains of holy wedlock Are so heavy one can see Why it takes two to carry them: Why, sometimes, even three.' Victor Hugo (1802 — 1885)......

Annie

(For Anne Rivaz) Between Mobile and Galveston On the curve of the Texan coast, Overgrown with roses There is this most Ginormous bloody garden In which, itself another Bloody......