Against Clock and Compasses

by Robert Graves (1923) — a poem card from Justes Mots

A defiant love poem that rejects conventional wisdom about beauty's decay and love's fading over time. The speaker denies Time and Space their power over love, arguing that true love transcends temporal and spatial boundaries. Using personifications of Time and Space as magicians and tricksters, Graves asserts that genuine love remains constant and eternal, offering reassurance to lovers facing mortality and separation.

“*Beauty dwindles into shadow,*
*Beauty dies, preferred by Fate,*
*Past the rescue of bold thought.*
*Sentries drowsed*,” they say, “*at Beauty’s gate*.”

“*Time duteous to his hour-glass,*
*Time with unerring sickle,*
*Garners to a land remote*…

Themes: love · new-baby · wedding · friendship