12 NOVEMBER 1988, Page 41

A Question Does love, dear love, survive a grave?

For ever absent while I live And constant in a silence No news will ever break, There by the margin of a lake Rests a boxed oblivion I would speak to, that will not speak.

And sadder is that northern lake, Now sadder for me than Avernus' Bare water, denuded of great Bowering woods, Virgilian leaves, Where, under what seemed English skies Cold, clouded, and subfusc, We picnicked, what time Cerberus (Or so we called the dog, remember?) Strolled up to us, and, fed by her, As in the fable fell asleep.

I raised a question, got no answer, Yet was answered after all In that moment of recall, My love living while I live. Over time and grief prevail Recollections: all she is. David Wright