W. R. Rodgers

William Robert Rodgers (1909–1969), known as Bertie, and born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, was probably best known as a poet, but was also a prose essayist, a book reviewer, a radio broadcaster and script writer, a lecturer and, latterly, a teacher, as well as a former Presbyterian minister. Quotes Awake! and Other Poems (1941) London: Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd. Our flags climbed down their own ropes like spidersAnd scuttled off, also the tame saluteWent wild and flew away out of our hands,Our roof of government slumped, and our lawsSlid like slates, unsettling everywhere,Title’s kite-string broke, and Rank’s anchor sprang. "End of a World", l. 4 The dead diplomat, inseparableOn his finger-end the skeleton-keysOf compromise and ambiguity.There too floated the drowned scholar, his handHolding his pat reference and apt tag,Index and document, his subscriptionTo Authority. "End of a World", l. 44 The record-keepers of record-breakers,The lackers and onlookers of greatness,Eunuch students of love and peeping Toms. "End of a World", l. 54 Europa and the Bull and Other Poems (1952) New York: Farrar, Straus and Young Inc. thumb|It is always the women who are the Watchers and Wakeners. It is always the women who are the WatchersAnd keepers of life: they guard our exitsAnd our entrances. They are both tomb and womb,End and beginning. Bitterly they bring forthAnd bitterly take back the light they gave.The last to leave and still the first to come,They circle us like sleep or like the grave.Earth is their element, and in it liesThe seed and silence of the lighted skies,The seasons with their fall and slow uprise,Man with his sight and militant surmise.It is always the women who are the WatchersAnd Wakeners. "Resurrection: An Easter Sequence", XIII ("And there was Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre . . ."—Matthew 27:61) External links Category:1909 births Category:1969 deaths Category:Poets from Northern Ireland Category:Essayists from Northern Ireland