Date: 1953

"Should poets bicycle-pump the human heart / Or squash it flat?"

— Amis, Kingsley (1922-1995)

Date: 1959

"And I believe in the spurred flame, / Those racing tongues, but cannot come / Out of my heart's unbroken room."

— Hill, Geoffrey (b. 1932)

Date: 1959

"O quiet deed! / This is the breaking of the bread; / On this the leanest heart may feed / When by the stiffly-linened priest / All wounds of light are newly dressed, / Healed by the pouring-in of wine / From bitter — as from sweet — grapes bled."

— Hill, Geoffrey (b. 1932)

Date: 1959

"And so my heart has ceased to breathe / (Though there God's worm blunted its head / And stayed.)"

— Hill, Geoffrey (b. 1932)

Date: 1959

"The heart's tough shell is still to crack / When, spent of all its wine and bread, / Unwinkingly the altar lies / Wreathed in its sour breath, cold and dead, / A server has put out its eyes."

— Hill, Geoffrey (b. 1932)

Date: 1959

"Still beneath / Live skin stone breathes, about which fires but play, / Fierce heart that is the iced brain's to command / To judgment -- studied reflex, contained breath) -- / Their best of worlds since, on the ordained day, / This world went spinning from Jehovah's hand."

— Hill, Geoffrey (b. 1932)

Date: 1959

"(A slight miracle might cleanse / His brain / Of all attachments, claw-roots of sense)"

— Hill, Geoffrey (b. 1932)