For stale appearance I don't give a fig
since I won't see my friend for quite some while
but wit and humour always are in style
and I have grown to like this sort of gig.
Put on some hair, the deal is not so big
as you imagine. I do not revile
the belly laugh, nor yet the honest smile
since I am me beneath the longest wig.
In prose or verse the sentiment is true
that we're the grace that we have got to lend
to each occasion where the good may meet
to speak a while and give good peace its due
in wintertime. Still all fine things must end
and happy moments pass with foot too fleet.

love ties its hopes to what it thinks a rock
the furthest outlier of a merry isle
where there's no foe except the hateful clock

your modesty inclines you to take stock
in all those things that we would not revile
love ties its hopes to what it thinks a rock

impervious to any mortal shock
we hope to land and stay for quite a while
where there's no foe except the hateful clock

our ship is not for any normal dock
we've gone way past the ordinary style
love ties its hopes to what it thinks a rock

rejects enclosure will break every lock
and has more power still than any bile
where there's no foe except the hateful clock

though you despise and though you still may mock
our sacred purpose you cannot defile
love ties its hopes to what it thinks a rock
where there's no foe except the hateful clock

have caught the missing moment of each day
taken it prisoner and won't release
a single second of our hope's increase
out of plain fear that golden light could stray
from warming hands that yet know how to play
the human game without harm or caprice
into cold air that would soon end all peace
sending the waiting watchers on their way
have known hard losses and much harder wins
on courses and on surfaces that yield
their gifts to those who have little to tell
though coldest nights save the long count of sins
serving as sustenance across the field
while each survivor wishes they could yell

down south you forget the ripening leaves
and chilly mornings of bright october
no matter for redly a dying time grieves

sunlight on water fair smiling deceives
at dawn the frost shone ******* grass and clover
down south you forget the ripening leaves

yet clock there remains the swiftest of thieves
treating the same way both stayer and rover
no matter for redly a dying time grieves

telling each young one that what he believes
is false never true and patience is over
down south you forget the ripening leaves

slowly to slaughter we marched off the beeves
a suitable task for the youthful drover
no matter how redly a dying time grieves

the adult must measure how much he achieves
in calm acquiescence knowingly sober
down south you forget the ripening leaves
no matter how redly a dying time grieves

forbear to throw more weight upon the ***
since longer journey we must soon begin
the copper coin that the lone guide shall spin
no better guide through the hardest impasse
since at the end there may be but rough grass
and all our commons could turn out most thin
still none of that our better hope's to win
leaving our enemies in the morass
the hardest victory is still the first
when no experience is on our side
but suffering so all we know is pain
so we must say this has to be the worst
in largest part just to protect our pride
but also to account for your huge gain

we chose at last the path out of deep night
through tangled vines and withes into clean air
nothing we gained came to us just by right

what we'd been told was that the facts would bite
each normal mind and send us to despair
we chose at last the path out of deep night

not with relief but knowing that a fight
would have to come and that no one would care
nothing we gained came to us just by right

instead we seemed the victims of some spite
from distant past inheritors of fear
we chose at last the path out of deep night

although each thought that hope was truly slight
the only thing we had to do was dare
nothing we gained came to us just by right

we were the folk throughout bereft of light
who never thought the process could be fair
we chose at last the path out of deep night
nothing we gained came to us just by right

no meaning in these texts that is not bright
even in caverns that have known no sun
nor any warming heat since world begun
their sense is clarity their essence light
each word is set to open up in flight
as avian wisdom that we could not shun
even rock-bound its glories seem to stun
the wary heart with knowledge of the right
so having learnt a simple truth we turn
our faces to the task that now seems plain
to uncurl horrors and restore the chief
dependency of each old mind to earn
the wages of such learning once again
in this cold season of the fallen leaf