To praise in our dejected age this globe that laves our night-time dark. . . invites derision. As if one didn; t know the features of his foolish face are but rocks and abominable fields trampled with man's giant steps. Anne Haverty's first collection of poetry is haunted by the fin de siecle literature of the nineteenth century which informs not only its subject matter, but its moods and themes . Bound together by the sense of time passing, the poems are full of a yearning for union and a resignation to the idea of division - between mothers and daughters, town and country, west and east, past and present, life and death. Wonderfully varied in form and content, this collection introduces a poet of considerable range and talent. Intimate poems are set against verse which looks beyond the author's experience to other times and places.