5 NOVEMBER 1954, Page 15

• Baie des Anges

For once a simple image: moonlight on A strip of gently moving water. Love Makes it a system of comparison.

The clear unchanging tone and lustre of The light is emblem for the purity Of love's obsession. Its protean dance From smooth and shifting facets of black sea May represent the endless play of chance Where the love's sameness never shows the same.

And several other forms will have occurred For this clear twice-reflected stellar flame To whose who counterchange the world and word, Whose senses rule their passion circumspectly.

But it is getting cold when all is said.

So now let love speak more directly: —Come to bed.

ROBERT CONQUEST