He asked whether I could remember a poem at sight. I told him that I had rarely “memorised” a poem, even at school, and had no “system”; that I remembered particular lines at once, being moved by them, and then might read the poem over, bear it in mind, say it aloud when I was alone. Then I might remember it always. That had been the case since childhood. In adolescence and in my early twenties, when I had much solitude whether circumstantial or inward, I was able to recall poems from a reading or two if they were not very long. There was nothing diligent in it. Recollection was spontaneous, easier than breathing. One remembered all manner of lines that captured ear and imagination. Where there was greatness, the words seemed inevitable, as if memory had been awaiting them.

For Graham, something of the same: memory, rather than memorising. He found that he added less and less with age, and rarely recalled lines of new poets, even if he liked their work: “I don’t think one is so accessible to poems that come after one’s own era.” Sensations aroused by poetry were in any case private, intuitive, unaccountable. In the past, poetry had been a presence that cut across the generations and the classes. One never knew where it would turn up. Like mercy.