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In a plane your hair was blown.

And in an island the old car

Lingered from inn to inn,

Like a fly on a map.

A mattress was spread on a cottage floor

And a door closed on a world, but another door

Opened, and I was far

From the old world sadly known

Where the fruitless seeds were sown,

And they called that virtue and this sin.

Did I ever love God before I knew the place

I rest in now, with my hand

Set in stone, never to move?

For this is love, and this I love.

And even my God is here.

This poem was written to Catherine Walston in 1949, soon after Greene had left his wife and children.  Their love affair had started during a light plane flight when  Catherine, the wife of the millionaire farmer and politician Harry Walston, had flown Greene home to Oxford after a party near Cambridge.    Much of the sexual part of the affair took place in a tiny cottage on Achill island in County Mayo, Ireland. 

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Last modified: September 20, 2006