The snow was falling thick that night
like tiny feathers to the ground
while stiff white fossil-coral trees
Stood still as statues all around


And in their midst a mansion rose
with towers and frozen weather-vane
Where sparkling pavé diamond snows
encrusted every window pane

The match-girl shivered in the cold
then made a spy-hole in the ice
And peered into a golden realm,
an ante-room to paradise

But all the velvets and brocades,
the glowing fir-tree there inside
Appeared to her like pictures painted
on a magic lantern slide

For in her world these plush divans
with cushions bursting at the seams
The draperies and tapestries
would always be the stuff of dreams


Two cats with buttonholes for eyes
and fur that shone like watered silk
Were purring by an open fire
no doubt with bellies full of milk

While what our little match girl ate
was scarce enough to feed a fly
Though she was told by men in gold
her feast was waiting in the sky

No, here on earth, these coddled cats
like pharaohs basking in the heat,
Or padding round on velvet paws,
had choicer food than her to eat

So when she saw the gingerbread,
the frosted fruit, the marzipan
She wondered how this hunger could
be part of the Almighty's plan

And then, beside two girls, a youth
with dreamy gaze and rippling hair
Came in and hardly seemed to see
the many treasures waiting there

The  match-girl watched him button-eyed
as if he were a fire-plumed bird
Or some chimeric creature from
a fairy tale that she had heard

And as she dreamt she felt such joy
though hunger gnawed her like a mouse
For now she stood with him right there
inside that warm, ancestral house

They danced a sweeping ballroom waltz
while she was draped in crispest white
With diamonds sprinkled in her hair
like stars upon a cloudless night

Then as the lilting music swelled
he picked her up and twirled her round
Until, just like a swan in flight,
her feet were lifted off the ground

A swan who'd left her murky pond
with all the fetters lurking there
To reach up for the firmament
and taste its sweet, untainted air
                      ii
Next day as she was hard at work
she passed the house and there they were,
Her prince dressed all in powder-blue
the sisters swathed in sable fur

They'd flown down from their iv'ry tower
to tread with serfs upon the street!
Oh how she longed to be in silk
with buckled shoes upon her feet!

But as she blushed and stepped aside
to let the "dvoryanstvo".pass
The boy stared through her sallow face
as if it were a pane of glass

Dvoryanstvo=Russian nobility

Words of love so often stale and
die with the lips that utter them,
And go to the wormy realm of
the bone and the root and the gem.

And yet I do not dread the sidereal
silence of the tomb
When, like the stalwart evergreen,
the legend of our love will bloom

Our stories entwined, and chiselled
into history's marble pages
Our light will blaze like all the stars
Through the dark and through the ages

For we will prosper in my art
as the rose that lives and breathes,
And tread the gleaming aisles of glory
but not as kings festooned in wreaths

Nor as Byzantine manikins
from walls of tessellated gold
Nor simulacra, cast in bronze
each from the same heroic mould

But as creatures of light and shade
with just a spark of the divine
Where, mulled by bellies full of fire,
our blood flowed rich and warm as wine

It was the world after the Flood
a Shangri-la of dripping flowers
Of pungent soil and sparkling leaves
where minutes were as long as hours

I sang the music of the birds
and sighed as one with all the trees
I breathed the winds and wept the rain
and lived the rhythm of the seas

But childhood passed; life wrenched me from
the velvet womb of Mother Earth
The golden cord was sundered that
had bound me to Her since my birth

They stuffed my head with formulae
put cogs and wheels inside my brain
Till I began to think that I
would never smell a rose again

And when I delved into a flower
to search the reaches of its heart
I'd eye it through a jeweller's loupe
to **** and pick the thing apart

I'd pine in towers of hothouse glass
and wither slowly from within
For here the birds could not be heard
above the town's infernal din

Now I'd have given all the stars
to find once more that childhood Me
Like Tantalus I thirsted for
the waters of my Mother Sea

The waves of lapislazuli
and sands of crumbling honeycomb
The sulphur tang, the murmuring conch
the fish that swished beneath the foam!

Where mermaid queens had golden hair
and silver tails instead of legs
And shell-encrusted diadems
with pearls the size of darning eggs

And then there were the drowsing woods-
the wistful doves and droning bees
Elysian streams that trickled softly
In the shadow of the trees

Where summer air was sumptuous
as thick as musk and just as sweet,
where,after picnics, we would nap
like bluebells drooping in the heat.

And so I searched for Shangri-La-----

While bonfires smelt of frankincense,
Upon the chilly morning air,
A mist was rising in the pines,
that fell like stars upon your hair.

The sun was low atop the hill,
the fields were gleaming bright with dew,
And velvet mushrooms sprang up where,
a galaxy of flowers once grew.

For me at least, if not for you,
the atmosphere was charged that day,
It was as if each phrase you spoke,
I'd heard once in a Russian play.

And soon you would be on your way
Inside my chest I felt an ache,
And watched the geese take flight across,
the beaten silver of the lake.

Then as I gazed 'round at the mist,
that filled this cold, enchanted clime,
I realised moments could exist,
outside the drab constraints of time.

Where poets spin the golden stuff,
of which our finest dreams are made,
The goblin door, the fairy glade,
the land where roses never fade.

For then I knew, that once you had
been borne away upon your train,
You'd soon forget our meeting and
our paths would never cross again.

And later, at the station, as,
your train was waiting to depart,
I sealed this day forever in
the amber locket of my heart.

As the smoke twirls from the chimneys,
like weeds beneath the sea,
The houses look as finical
as baubles on a tree.


For tiny diamonds sparkle on
each little pane of glass,
And in the garden frost is piped
on every blade of grass.


While snowflakes twirl like candied flowers
and flutter all around,
The snow lies like an ermine cloak
upon the frozen ground.


In ferny trees of crystal bright,
beneath an opal moon,
The hoary-feathered owls sit
and flute their spectral tune.


And then inside a carriage as
she takes her night-time ride,
Appears the Snow-Queen, thin and wan,
her goblins at her side.

She has a wedge of swans to pull
her carriage through the air,
And there she sits in twinkling robes
with snowflakes in her hair.


She flies above the spindly spires
all powdered pearly-white,
Then, passing with her frigid stare,
she melts into the night

The weeping willow wallows
in her silver pool of grief,
And aches in every bending bough
and every withered leaf.

For Summer's gathered up her
skirts and flitted from the scene,
No velvet peach can grow here
now, nor silken nectarine

The leaves have turned to rusted
gold and mists are creeping in,
So cue the musk of woodsmoke
and a Schubert violin.

The birds have flown their dingy
nests, the flowers are all dust,
And in the ragged hedgerow
blows the sombre stench of must.

Soon tiny stars of crystal
bright will shimmer all around,
Till slabs of mausoleum
ice lie covering the ground.

But dreams will not be buried
here upon this funeral bed,
When in the earth a snowdrop
waits to show its sleepy head.

And bonfires smell of incense
now, of myrrh and spicy things,
As birds fly south to sweeter
climes on fiery golden wings

Now summer's here and showing off
her treasures to the world,
Festooning roses far and wide,
all dewy and unfurled.

The birds are gargling syrup as
the day glares hot and bold,
Each scrumptious fruit is jewelled with seed,
the pollen sparkles gold.

The dragonfly, a coxcomb, in
his rainbow-tinted coat,
Is ling'ring by a burnished pool,
where gauzy lilies float.

While butterflies parade about
with plush, new velvet wings,
A velvet fit to make the cloaks
of emperors and kings.

And, crowning all this splendour, sits
that tangy lemon sun,
That fizzes in a turquoise sky,
like sherbet on the tongue.