No more shall we tread the dusty lanes of youth
or lie amidst the meadows dancing flowers,
marvelling at nature’s simple truths,
recumbent ‘neath the cherry’s florid bowers.
To drink the crystal waters of the stream
or watch the red throats in their watery home
and  gaze at Dragon flies adream
or dig for pig nuts in the sandy loam.
Deep in the bracken oft we lay
to watch the towering citadels float by,
then up again  and off once more we’d go
beneath that vast dominion of the sky.
Though sixty years and more have quickly flown
yet still the memories come flooding back,
bright memories that live in me alone
of friends like Sara, Joe and Toothless Jack.
What fun we’d have in far off distant days
at harvest when the corn was cut and bound,
we’d help the farmer build it into stooks,
like little houses on the stubbly ground.
In winter when the north wind brought us snow
our sledges from the coal house we’d all bring,
and joyfully, with faces all aglow
heedless of the bitter wind we’d sing!
A candle in a jam jar for a light
hung from a stick and held on high,
would cast long shadows in the wintry night
that followed us wherever we passed by.
Gleefully we’d breach the wind blown drifts
and make our tunnels in the spotless snow,
hoping that the blizzard never lifts,
as through the fields and byways we would go.
But now all things are changed for good or ill,
The wind comes from the south and brings us rain
I think this nothing but a bitter pill,
and would make the howling North Wind King again!