Two Phases
I You had to come Calling my singularity In scorn, Imprisonment. It contained content That, now, at liberty In your generous embrace, As once, in rich Rome, Caractacus, I mourn. II When the labour was for love He did but touch at the tool And holiday ran prodigal. Now, stripped to the skin, Can scarcely keep alive, Sweats his stint out, No better than a blind mole That burrows for its lot Of the flaming moon and sun Down some black hole.
Two Phases - meaning Summary
Love Turned Into Labour
The poem contrasts freedom that feels like loss with work that loses its purpose. In the first section, a speaker recalls being drawn out of isolation only to mourn the independence that has gone. In the second, labour once animated by love becomes exhausting, bare survival. Together, the two phases suggest that human energy and identity depend on chosen devotion rather than possession, duty, or necessity.
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