I have loved this Louis Macneice poem for a long time, and have a compulsion to quote it or copy it out every so often. I place it in the same category of poems as Robert Graves' Counting the Beats, although this one, with the Antony and Cleopatra reference, is closer to my heart.

There was a very good discussion of the poem online that I saw a few years ago by Peter Green, Classics Professor at I think it was U of Texas, Austin, although when I looked a moment ago I couldn't find it.

The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold,
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon.

Our freedom as free lances
Advances towards its end;
The earth compels, upon it
Sonnets and birds descend;
And soon, my friend,
We shall have no time for dances.

The sky was good for flying
Defying the church bells
And every evil iron
Siren and what it tells:
The earth compels,
We are dying, Egypt, dying

And not expecting pardon,
Hardened in heart anew,
But glad to have sat under
Thunder and rain with you,
And grateful too
For sunlight on the garden.


                        - Louis MacNeice