“Give me of your bark, O Birch-Tree!
Of your yellow bark, O Birch-Tree!
Growing by the rushing river,
Tall and stately in the valley!
I a light canoe will build me,
Build a swift Cheemaun for sailing,
That shall float upon the river,
Like a yellow leaf in Autumn,
Like a yellow water-lily!

“Lay aside your cloak, O Birch-Tree!
Lay aside your white-skin wrapper,
For the Summer-time is coming,
And the sun is warm in heaven,
And you need no white-skin wrapper!”

Thus aloud cried Hiawatha
In the solitary forest,
By the rushing Taquamenaw,
When the birds were singing gayly,
In the Moon of Leaves were singing,
And the sun, from sleep awaking,
Started up and said, “Behold me!
Gheezis, the great Sun, behold me!”

And the tree with all its branches
Rustled in the breeze of morning,
Saying, with a sigh of patience,
“Take my cloak, O Hiawatha!”

With his knife the tree he girdled;
Just beneath its lowest branches,
Just above the roots, he cut it,
Till the sap came oozing outward:
Down the trunk, from top to bottom,
Sheer he cleft the bark asunder,
With a wooden wedge he raised it,
Stripped it from the trunk unbroken.

“Give me of your boughs, O Cedar!
Of your strong and pliant branches,
My canoe to make more steady,
Make more strong and firm beneath me!”

Through the summit of the Cedar
Went a sound, a cry of horror,
Went a murmur of resistance;
But it whispered, bending downward,
“Take my boughs, O Hiawatha!”

Down he hewed the boughs of cedar,
Shaped them straightway to a framework,
Like two bows he formed and shaped them,
Like two bended bows together.

“Give me of your roots, O Tamarack!
Of your fibrous roots, O Larch-Tree!
My canoe to bind together.
So to bind the ends together,
That the water may not enter,
That the river may not wet me!”

And the Larch, with all its fibres,
Shivered in the air of morning,
Touched his forehead with its tassels,
Said, with one long sigh of sorrow,
“Take them all, O Hiawatha!”

From the earth he tore the fibres,
Tore the tough roots of the Larch-Tree,
Closely sewed the bark together,
Bound it closely to the framework.

“Give me of your balm, O Fir-Tree!
Of your balsam and your resin,
So to close the seams together
That the water may not enter,
That the river may not wet me!”

And the Fir-Tree, tall and sombre,
Sobbed through all its robes of darkness,
Rattled like a shore with pebbles,
Answered wailing, answered weeping,
“Take my balm, O Hiawatha!”

And he took the tears of balsam,
Took the resin of the Fir-Tree,
Smeared therewith each seam and fissure,
Made each crevice safe from water.

“Give me of your quills, O Hedgehog!
All your quills, O Kagh, the Hedgehog!
I will make a necklace of them,
Make a girdle for my beauty,
And two stars to deck her *****!”

From a hollow tree the Hedgehog
With his sleepy eyes looked at him,
Shot his shining quills, like arrows,
Saying, with a drowsy murmur,
Through the tangle of his whiskers,
“Take my quills, O Hiawatha!”

From the ground the quills he gathered,
All the little shining arrows,
Stained them red and blue and yellow,
With the juice of roots and berries;
Into his canoe he wrought them,
Round its waist a shining girdle,
Round its bow a gleaming necklace,
On its breast two stars resplendent.

Thus the Birch Canoe was builded
In the valley, by the river,
In the ***** of the forest;
And the forest’s life was in it,
All its mystery and its magic,
All the lightness of the birch-tree,
All the toughness of the cedar,
All the larch’s supple sinews;
And it floated on the river
Like a yellow leaf in Autumn,
Like a yellow water-lily.

Paddles none had Hiawatha,
Paddles none he had or needed,
For his thoughts as paddles served him,
And his wishes served to guide him;
Swift or slow at will he glided,
Veered to right or left at pleasure.

Then he called aloud to Kwasind,
To his friend, the strong man, Kwasind,
Saying, “Help me clear this river
Of its sunken logs and sand-bars.”

Straight into the river Kwasind
Plunged as if he were an otter,
Dived as if he were a ******,
Stood up to his waist in water,
To his arm-pits in the river,
Swam and shouted in the river,
Tugged at sunken logs and branches,
With his hands he scooped the sand-bars,
With his feet the ooze and tangle.

And thus sailed my Hiawatha
Down the rushing Taquamenaw,
Sailed through all its bends and windings,
Sailed through all its deeps and shallows,
While his friend, the strong man, Kwasind,
Swam the deeps, the shallows waded.

Up and down the river went they,
In and out among its islands,
Cleared its bed of root and sand-bar,
Dragged the dead trees from its channel,
Made its passage safe and certain
Made a pathway for the people,
From its springs among the mountains,
To the water of Pauwating,
To the bay of Taquamenaw.

In the cold grey light of the sixth of June, in the year of forty-four,
The Empire Larch sailed out from Poole to join with thousands more.
The largest fleet the world had seen, we sailed in close array,
And we set our course for Normandy at the dawning of the day.

There was not one man in all our crew but knew what lay in store,
For we had waited for that day through five long years of war.
We knew that many would not return, yet all our hearts were true,
For we were bound for Normandy, where we had a job to do.

Now the Empire Larch was a deep-sea tug with a crew of thirty-three,
And I was just the galley-boy on my first trip to sea.
I little thought when I left home of the dreadful sights I'd see,
But I came to manhood on the day that I first saw Normandy.

At the Beach of Gold off Arromanches, 'neath the rockets' deadly glare,
We towed our blockships into place and we built a harbour there.
'Mid shot and shell we built it well, as history does agree,
While brave men died in the swirling tide on the shores of Normandy.

Like the Rodney and the Nelson, there were ships of great renown,
But rescue tugs all did their share as many a ship went down.
We ran our pontoons to the shore within the Mulberry's lee,
And we made safe berth for the tanks and guns that would set all Europe free.

For every hero's name that's known, a thousand died as well.
On stakes and wire their bodies hung, rocked in the ocean swell;
And many a mother wept that day for the sons they loved so well,
Men who cracked a joke and cadged a smoke as they stormed the gates of hell.

As the years pass by, I can still recall the men I saw that day
Who died upon that blood-soaked sand where now sweet children play;
And those of you who were unborn, who've lived in liberty,
Remember those who made it so on the shores of Normandy.
____________

Doctor Larch peers out the window,
Pulling aside brocaded curtains to hide
The grief that he will not show,
The rending emptiness he feels inside.

As his son Homer rides past the sunset,
Not knowing where he goes
But aspiring to see the wide world,
The ocean at Mount Desert,
Seeing wonder in the expanse
And worlds inside a circle of glass.

He has taken with him his heart,
A dark picture of frailty.
He finds unexpected work in an orchard,
Leisurely harvesting round, garnet jewels.
The nomads, dark and wary,
Ask him to read about death and stars.

There are rules for the workers.
And Homer finds that they apply
To no one, neither nomads or
Curious young men.
He sees in the errant father
The reflection of his own,
The man who made him good.
“You are my work of art”
He wrote.

Like an artist with his painting,
Who resists giving it away,
So Doctor Larch holds on to him
Hoping his adolescence ends
And he returns.
Finding peace at the last.

The lack of rules bring about a sea change,
Allowing forbidden love and pain.
He ventures out once more into the vacuum
Of conscience set free,
He devises his own rules about the womb
And how to help those in agony
But eventually…

With all the rules now open,
There is nothing left for him to do.
So he boards the migrant truck
Just as the pilot returns, broken.
He watches the struggle with a wheelchair
Sees his lover watch him with her yellow hair
Knows her future, years of sacrifice.
And he admits at last
That he has a purpose,

The train to St. Cloud huffs slowly away,
With Homer standing in the wet snow.
There is the old asylum,
The orphanage and home on the hill,
Almost black, with the sunset behind,
Homer begins the long climb.
He approaches slowly.

But then, a burst of laughter
And children from the door
Flock around him, dancing, shrieking,
Some holding him like an errant dog,
Who must be told to stay.
“Will you stay?” they ask.
“I think so,” he smiles in irony.
He is home at the last.

Newdigate prize poem recited in the Sheldonian Theatre
Oxford June 26th, 1878.

To my friend George Fleming author of ‘The Nile Novel’
and ‘Mirage’

I.

A year ago I breathed the Italian air,—
And yet, methinks this northern Spring is fair,—
These fields made golden with the flower of March,
The throstle singing on the feathered larch,
The cawing rooks, the wood-doves fluttering by,
The little clouds that race across the sky;
And fair the violet’s gentle drooping head,
The primrose, pale for love uncomforted,
The rose that burgeons on the climbing briar,
The crocus-bed, (that seems a moon of fire
Round-girdled with a purple marriage-ring);
And all the flowers of our English Spring,
Fond snowdrops, and the bright-starred daffodil.
Up starts the lark beside the murmuring mill,
And breaks the gossamer-threads of early dew;
And down the river, like a flame of blue,
Keen as an arrow flies the water-king,
While the brown linnets in the greenwood sing.
A year ago!—it seems a little time
Since last I saw that lordly southern clime,
Where flower and fruit to purple radiance blow,
And like bright lamps the fabled apples glow.
Full Spring it was—and by rich flowering vines,
Dark olive-groves and noble forest-pines,
I rode at will; the moist glad air was sweet,
The white road rang beneath my horse’s feet,
And musing on Ravenna’s ancient name,
I watched the day till, marked with wounds of flame,
The turquoise sky to burnished gold was turned.

O how my heart with boyish passion burned,
When far away across the sedge and mere
I saw that Holy City rising clear,
Crowned with her crown of towers!—On and on
I galloped, racing with the setting sun,
And ere the crimson after-glow was passed,
I stood within Ravenna’s walls at last!

II.

How strangely still! no sound of life or joy
Startles the air; no laughing shepherd-boy
Pipes on his reed, nor ever through the day
Comes the glad sound of children at their play:
O sad, and sweet, and silent! surely here
A man might dwell apart from troublous fear,
Watching the tide of seasons as they flow
From amorous Spring to Winter’s rain and snow,
And have no thought of sorrow;—here, indeed,
Are Lethe’s waters, and that fatal ****
Which makes a man forget his fatherland.

Ay! amid lotus-meadows dost thou stand,
Like Proserpine, with poppy-laden head,
Guarding the holy ashes of the dead.
For though thy brood of warrior sons hath ceased,
Thy noble dead are with thee!—they at least
Are faithful to thine honour:—guard them well,
O childless city! for a mighty spell,
To wake men’s hearts to dreams of things sublime,
Are the lone tombs where rest the Great of Time.

III.


Yon lonely pillar, rising on the plain,
Marks where the bravest knight of France was slain,—
The Prince of chivalry, the Lord of war,
Gaston de Foix:  for some untimely star
Led him against thy city, and he fell,
As falls some forest-lion fighting well.
Taken from life while life and love were new,
He lies beneath God’s seamless veil of blue;
Tall lance-like reeds wave sadly o’er his head,
And oleanders bloom to deeper red,
Where his bright youth flowed crimson on the ground.

Look farther north unto that broken mound,—
There, prisoned now within a lordly tomb
Raised by a daughter’s hand, in lonely gloom,
Huge-limbed Theodoric, the Gothic king,
Sleeps after all his weary conquering.
Time hath not spared his ruin,—wind and rain
Have broken down his stronghold; and again
We see that Death is mighty lord of all,
And king and clown to ashen dust must fall

Mighty indeed their glory! yet to me
Barbaric king, or knight of chivalry,
Or the great queen herself, were poor and vain,
Beside the grave where Dante rests from pain.
His gilded shrine lies open to the air;
And cunning sculptor’s hands have carven there
The calm white brow, as calm as earliest morn,
The eyes that flashed with passionate love and scorn,
The lips that sang of Heaven and of Hell,
The almond-face which Giotto drew so well,
The weary face of Dante;—to this day,
Here in his place of resting, far away
From Arno’s yellow waters, rushing down
Through the wide bridges of that fairy town,
Where the tall tower of Giotto seems to rise
A marble lily under sapphire skies!

Alas! my Dante! thou hast known the pain
Of meaner lives,—the exile’s galling chain,
How steep the stairs within kings’ houses are,
And all the petty miseries which mar
Man’s nobler nature with the sense of wrong.
Yet this dull world is grateful for thy song;
Our nations do thee homage,—even she,
That cruel queen of vine-clad Tuscany,
Who bound with crown of thorns thy living brow,
Hath decked thine empty tomb with laurels now,
And begs in vain the ashes of her son.

O mightiest exile! all thy grief is done:
Thy soul walks now beside thy Beatrice;
Ravenna guards thine ashes:  sleep in peace.

IV.

How lone this palace is; how grey the walls!
No minstrel now wakes echoes in these halls.
The broken chain lies rusting on the door,
And noisome weeds have split the marble floor:
Here lurks the snake, and here the lizards run
By the stone lions blinking in the sun.
Byron dwelt here in love and revelry
For two long years—a second Anthony,
Who of the world another Actium made!
Yet suffered not his royal soul to fade,
Or lyre to break, or lance to grow less keen,
’Neath any wiles of an Egyptian queen.
For from the East there came a mighty cry,
And Greece stood up to fight for Liberty,
And called him from Ravenna:  never knight
Rode forth more nobly to wild scenes of fight!
None fell more bravely on ensanguined field,
Borne like a Spartan back upon his shield!
O Hellas!  Hellas! in thine hour of pride,
Thy day of might, remember him who died
To wrest from off thy limbs the trammelling chain:
O Salamis!  O lone Plataean plain!
O tossing waves of wild Euboean sea!
O wind-swept heights of lone Thermopylae!
He loved you well—ay, not alone in word,
Who freely gave to thee his lyre and sword,
Like AEschylos at well-fought Marathon:

And England, too, shall glory in her son,
Her warrior-poet, first in song and fight.
No longer now shall Slander’s venomed spite
Crawl like a snake across his perfect name,
Or mar the lordly scutcheon of his fame.

For as the olive-garland of the race,
Which lights with joy each eager runner’s face,
As the red cross which saveth men in war,
As a flame-bearded beacon seen from far
By mariners upon a storm-tossed sea,—
Such was his love for Greece and Liberty!

Byron, thy crowns are ever fresh and green:
Red leaves of rose from Sapphic Mitylene
Shall bind thy brows; the myrtle blooms for thee,
In hidden glades by lonely Castaly;
The laurels wait thy coming:  all are thine,
And round thy head one perfect wreath will twine.

V.

The pine-tops rocked before the evening breeze
With the hoarse murmur of the wintry seas,
And the tall stems were streaked with amber bright;—
I wandered through the wood in wild delight,
Some startled bird, with fluttering wings and fleet,
Made snow of all the blossoms; at my feet,
Like silver crowns, the pale narcissi lay,
And small birds sang on every twining spray.
O waving trees, O forest liberty!
Within your haunts at least a man is free,
And half forgets the weary world of strife:
The blood flows hotter, and a sense of life
Wakes i’ the quickening veins, while once again
The woods are filled with gods we fancied slain.
Long time I watched, and surely hoped to see
Some goat-foot Pan make merry minstrelsy
Amid the reeds! some startled Dryad-maid
In girlish flight! or lurking in the glade,
The soft brown limbs, the wanton treacherous face
Of woodland god! Queen Dian in the chase,
White-limbed and terrible, with look of pride,
And leash of boar-hounds leaping at her side!
Or Hylas mirrored in the perfect stream.

O idle heart!  O fond Hellenic dream!
Ere long, with melancholy rise and swell,
The evening chimes, the convent’s vesper bell,
Struck on mine ears amid the amorous flowers.
Alas! alas! these sweet and honied hours
Had whelmed my heart like some encroaching sea,
And drowned all thoughts of black Gethsemane.

VI.

O lone Ravenna! many a tale is told
Of thy great glories in the days of old:
Two thousand years have passed since thou didst see
Caesar ride forth to royal victory.
Mighty thy name when Rome’s lean eagles flew
From Britain’s isles to far Euphrates blue;
And of the peoples thou wast noble queen,
Till in thy streets the Goth and *** were seen.
Discrowned by man, deserted by the sea,
Thou sleepest, rocked in lonely misery!
No longer now upon thy swelling tide,
Pine-forest-like, thy myriad galleys ride!
For where the brass-beaked ships were wont to float,
The weary shepherd pipes his mournful note;
And the white sheep are free to come and go
Where Adria’s purple waters used to flow.

O fair!  O sad!  O Queen uncomforted!
In ruined loveliness thou liest dead,
Alone of all thy sisters; for at last
Italia’s royal warrior hath passed
Rome’s lordliest entrance, and hath worn his crown
In the high temples of the Eternal Town!
The Palatine hath welcomed back her king,
And with his name the seven mountains ring!

And Naples hath outlived her dream of pain,
And mocks her tyrant!  Venice lives again,
New risen from the waters! and the cry
Of Light and Truth, of Love and Liberty,
Is heard in lordly Genoa, and where
The marble spires of Milan wound the air,
Rings from the Alps to the Sicilian shore,
And Dante’s dream is now a dream no more.

But thou, Ravenna, better loved than all,
Thy ruined palaces are but a pall
That hides thy fallen greatness! and thy name
Burns like a grey and flickering candle-flame
Beneath the noonday splendour of the sun
Of new Italia! for the night is done,
The night of dark oppression, and the day
Hath dawned in passionate splendour:  far away
The Austrian hounds are hunted from the land,
Beyond those ice-crowned citadels which stand
Girdling the plain of royal Lombardy,
From the far West unto the Eastern sea.

I know, indeed, that sons of thine have died
In Lissa’s waters, by the mountain-side
Of Aspromonte, on Novara’s plain,—
Nor have thy children died for thee in vain:
And yet, methinks, thou hast not drunk this wine
From grapes new-crushed of Liberty divine,
Thou hast not followed that immortal Star
Which leads the people forth to deeds of war.
Weary of life, thou liest in silent sleep,
As one who marks the lengthening shadows creep,
Careless of all the hurrying hours that run,
Mourning some day of glory, for the sun
Of Freedom hath not shewn to thee his face,
And thou hast caught no flambeau in the race.

Yet wake not from thy slumbers,—rest thee well,
Amidst thy fields of amber asphodel,
Thy lily-sprinkled meadows,—rest thee there,
To mock all human greatness:  who would dare
To vent the paltry sorrows of his life
Before thy ruins, or to praise the strife
Of kings’ ambition, and the barren pride
Of warring nations! wert not thou the Bride
Of the wild Lord of Adria’s stormy sea!
The Queen of double Empires! and to thee
Were not the nations given as thy prey!
And now—thy gates lie open night and day,
The grass grows green on every tower and hall,
The ghastly fig hath cleft thy bastioned wall;
And where thy mailed warriors stood at rest
The midnight owl hath made her secret nest.
O fallen! fallen! from thy high estate,
O city trammelled in the toils of Fate,
Doth nought remain of all thy glorious days,
But a dull shield, a crown of withered bays!

Yet who beneath this night of wars and fears,
From tranquil tower can watch the coming years;
Who can foretell what joys the day shall bring,
Or why before the dawn the linnets sing?
Thou, even thou, mayst wake, as wakes the rose
To crimson splendour from its grave of snows;
As the rich corn-fields rise to red and gold
From these brown lands, now stiff with Winter’s cold;
As from the storm-rack comes a perfect star!

O much-loved city!  I have wandered far
From the wave-circled islands of my home;
Have seen the gloomy mystery of the Dome
Rise slowly from the drear Campagna’s way,
Clothed in the royal purple of the day:
I from the city of the violet crown
Have watched the sun by Corinth’s hill go down,
And marked the ‘myriad laughter’ of the sea
From starlit hills of flower-starred Arcady;
Yet back to thee returns my perfect love,
As to its forest-nest the evening dove.

O poet’s city! one who scarce has seen
Some twenty summers cast their doublets green
For Autumn’s livery, would seek in vain
To wake his lyre to sing a louder strain,
Or tell thy days of glory;—poor indeed
Is the low murmur of the shepherd’s reed,
Where the loud clarion’s blast should shake the sky,
And flame across the heavens! and to try
Such lofty themes were folly:  yet I know
That never felt my heart a nobler glow
Than when I woke the silence of thy street
With clamorous trampling of my horse’s feet,
And saw the city which now I try to sing,
After long days of weary travelling.

VII.

Adieu, Ravenna! but a year ago,
I stood and watched the crimson sunset glow
From the lone chapel on thy marshy plain:
The sky was as a shield that caught the stain
Of blood and battle from the dying sun,
And in the west the circling clouds had spun
A royal robe, which some great God might wear,
While into ocean-seas of purple air
Sank the gold galley of the Lord of Light.

Yet here the gentle stillness of the night
Brings back the swelling tide of memory,
And wakes again my passionate love for thee:
Now is the Spring of Love, yet soon will come
On meadow and tree the Summer’s lordly bloom;
And soon the grass with brighter flowers will blow,
And send up lilies for some boy to mow.
Then before long the Summer’s conqueror,
Rich Autumn-time, the season’s usurer,
Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees,
And see it scattered by the spendthrift breeze;
And after that the Winter cold and drear.
So runs the perfect cycle of the year.
And so from youth to manhood do we go,
And fall to weary days and locks of snow.
Love only knows no winter; never dies:
Nor cares for frowning storms or leaden skies
And mine for thee shall never pass away,
Though my weak lips may falter in my lay.

Adieu!  Adieu! yon silent evening star,
The night’s ambassador, doth gleam afar,
And bid the shepherd bring his flocks to fold.
Perchance before our inland seas of gold
Are garnered by the reapers into sheaves,
Perchance before I see the Autumn leaves,
I may behold thy city; and lay down
Low at thy feet the poet’s laurel crown.

Adieu!  Adieu! yon silver lamp, the moon,
Which turns our midnight into perfect noon,
Doth surely light thy towers, guarding well
Where Dante sleeps, where Byron loved to dwell.

SLOWLY the Moon her banderoles of light
Unfurls upon the sky; her fingers drip
Pale, silvery tides; her armoured warriors
Leave Day's bright tents of azure and of gold,
Wherein they hid them, and in silence flock
Upon the solemn battlefield of Night
To try great issues with the blind old king,
The Titan Darkness, who great Pharoah fought
With groping hands, and conquered for a span.

The starry hosts with silver lances *****
The scarlet fringes of the tents of Day,
And turn their crystal shields upon their *******,
And point their radiant lances, and so wait
The stirring of the giant in his caves.

The solitary hills send long, sad sighs
As the blind Titan grasps their locks of pine
And trembling larch to drag him toward the sky,
That his wild-seeking hands may clutch the Moon
From her war-chariot, scythed and wheeled with light,
Crush bright-mailed stars, and so, a sightless king,
Reign in black desolation! Low-set vales
Weep under the black hollow of his foot,
While sobs the sea beneath his lashing hair
Of rolling mists, which, strong as iron cords,
Twine round tall masts and drag them to the reefs.

Swifter rolls up Astarte's light-scythed car;
Dense rise the jewelled lances, groves of light;
Red flouts Mars' banner in the voiceless war
(The mightiest combat is the tongueless one);
The silvery dartings of the lances *****
His fingers from the mountains, catch his locks
And toss them in black fragments to the winds,
Pierce the vast hollow of his misty foot,
Level their diamond tips against his breast,
And force him down to lair within his pit
And thro' its chinks ****** down his groping hands
To quicken Hell with horror-for the strength
That is not of the Heavens is of Hell.

Mandibles make their own hoarding,
but they do not make it as they please;
they do not make it under semiconductor-selected civilians,
but under civilians existing already, given and transmitted from the past.

The trailer of all dead gentians weighs like a nipper
on the brandishes of the lob.
And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and thistles,
creating something that did not exist before, precisely

in such equipments of rheostat crochet they anxiously conjure up the spleens
of the past to their setter, bother from them nappies, bayonet slouches,
and cottons in *****-grinder to present this new scheme in wound hoarding
in timpanist-honored disincentive and borrowed larch.

Thus Luther put on the masseur of the Appearance Paul,
the Rhapsody of 1789-1814 draped itself alternately in the gully of the Rook Requisite and the Rook Empress,
and the Rhapsody of 1848 knew novelette bicentenary to do than to parsonage,
now 1789, now the rheostat trailer of 1793-95.

In like mantel, the belch who has learned a new larch always translates it backfire into his motor toot,
but he assimilates the spleen of the new larch
and exteriors himself freely in it only when he moves in it
without recalling the old and when he forgets his navy toot.

soft larch needles    I sniff wish     thin dangling larch twigs hold
raindrops    christ & pagan wrapped to tinsel    autumn light
has projected Borrowdale’s matter    a work crafts growth    I

peer    at a twig’s knuckles    a needle’s green edge   a tiny globe
dissolving landscape    Borrowdale is a    mass    of details full
a vastness of minuscule    high    resolution beauty    immense

numbers of bits    of leaf-frames pebbles daddylongleg claws
for an instant I spread    let    a moment explode    as I climb
through woods by crags    every detail of me    follicle bone-cell

grease    shatters or slicks    amongst     Borrowdale’s infinite
tiny details    one    of my gasps stretches wetly with the beck
others entwine with white fibres of gills    unravelling    gravity

the calcium atoms of my teeth    jumble     along drystone walls
moss green-gleaming    my meal     of Herdwick meat    passes
through my gut whilst Borrowdale’s    details    digest my soul

Stink up the beer house with unadorned putrid self-thoughts.
Poppy-eyed and hating others is easy for blue bottled buggers.
A sweet thing for you!
A growing circle of six-legged empty.

Filled to the brim with puffed up space. A white brim with a shiny red exoskeleton.

Oh, what a dreadful sight!

Hair strewn across a face and hooked into the teeth of the blushy lullabied insect screech.
Clear liquid not blood, but blood all the same on an empty stomach with full vein-shot bones.

Not milky bones with calcium-love..

A dead, deficient, cracked, neglected, insufficient skeletal frame, limp.

Yellowed with hate-smoke and old book notes.
Splintered, crazed and buzzed through the gridded bulging eye-window of every single one of those insect like Self-Loathers.

Chosen out of pure sympathy "We should talk more"
.......To the sun, the moon and the stars?


Every star mocks,

Every beam scoffs

and every moon likes to deride on the pain that hides beneath the lies of human bug eyes.

A simply formed pound of vertebrate flesh leaks soft plasma on the scaly moth floor.

Oh how we are dusty and unsure!

Forestry consisting of a Sitka Spruce and of a Japanese Larch was a claim I made from the start.
Over gardens of attention arachnid lurking selfish bugs and even those half winged "friend people".
The bell has rung the scariest of chimes and with every soul wrenching 'ding' a furry fang digs at the blotchy eyed, softly fleshed girl.


Oh such a sweet thing to be surrounded by selfish bugs who spin webs with tear stained tissues!

The little white clouds are racing over the sky,
And the fields are strewn with the gold of the flower of March,
The daffodil breaks under foot, and the tasselled larch
Sways and swings as the thrush goes hurrying by.

A delicate odour is borne on the wings of the morning breeze,
The odour of deep wet grass, and of brown new-furrowed earth,
The birds are singing for joy of the Spring’s glad birth,
Hopping from branch to branch on the rocking trees.

And all the woods are alive with the murmur and sound of Spring,
And the rose-bud breaks into pink on the climbing briar,
And the crocus-bed is a quivering moon of fire
Girdled round with the belt of an amethyst ring.

And the plane to the pine-tree is whispering some tale of love
Till it rustles with laughter and tosses its mantle of green,
And the gloom of the wych-elm’s hollow is lit with the iris sheen
Of the burnished rainbow throat and the silver breast of a dove.

See! the lark starts up from his bed in the meadow there,
Breaking the gossamer threads and the nets of dew,
And flashing adown the river, a flame of blue!
The kingfisher flies like an arrow, and wounds the air.

Erewhile, on England's pleasant shores, our sires
Left not their churchyards unadorned with shades
Or blossoms; and indulgent to the strong
And natural dread of man's last home, the grave,
Its frost and silence--they disposed around,
To soothe the melancholy spirit that dwelt
Too sadly on life's close, the forms and hues
Of vegetable beauty.--There the yew,
Green even amid the snows of winter, told
Of immortality, and gracefully
The willow, a perpetual mourner, drooped;
And there the gadding woodbine crept about,
And there the ancient ivy. From the spot
Where the sweet maiden, in her blossoming years
Cut off, was laid with streaming eyes, and hands
That trembled as they placed her there, the rose
Sprung modest, on bowed stalk, and better spoke
Her graces, than the proudest monument.
There children set about their playmate's grave
The *****. On the infant's little bed,
Wet at its planting with maternal tears,
Emblem of early sweetness, early death,
Nestled the lowly primrose. Childless dames,
And maids that would not raise the reddened eye--
Orphans, from whose young lids the light of joy
Fled early,--silent lovers, who had given
All that they lived for to the arms of earth,
Came often, o'er the recent graves to strew
Their offerings, rue, and rosemary, and flowers.

  The pilgrim bands who passed the sea to keep
Their Sabbaths in the eye of God alone,
In his wide temple of the wilderness,
Brought not these simple customs of the heart
With them. It might be, while they laid their dead
By the vast solemn skirts of the old groves,
And the fresh ****** soil poured forth strange flowers
About their graves; and the familiar shades
Of their own native isle, and wonted blooms,
And herbs were wanting, which the pious hand
Might plant or scatter there, these gentle rites
Passed out of use. Now they are scarcely known,
And rarely in our borders may you meet
The tall larch, sighing in the burying-place,
Or willow, trailing low its boughs to hide
The gleaming marble. Naked rows of graves
And melancholy ranks of monuments
Are seen instead, where the coarse grass, between,
Shoots up its dull green spikes, and in the wind
Hisses, and the neglected bramble nigh,
Offers its berries to the schoolboy's hand,
In vain--they grow too near the dead. Yet here,
Nature, rebuking the neglect of man,
Plants often, by the ancient mossy stone,
The brier rose, and upon the broken turf
That clothes the fresher grave, the strawberry vine
Sprinkles its swell with blossoms, and lays forth
Her ruddy, pouting fruit. * * * *

"I know where the timid fawn abides
  In the depths of the shaded dell,
Where the leaves are broad and the thicket hides,
With its many stems and its tangled sides,
  From the eye of the hunter well.

"I know where the young May violet grows,
  In its lone and lowly nook,
On the mossy bank, where the larch-tree throws
Its broad dark boughs, in solemn repose,
  Far over the silent brook.

"And that timid fawn starts not with fear
  When I steal to her secret bower;
And that young May violet to me is dear,
And I visit the silent streamlet near,
  To look on the lovely flower."

Thus Maquon sings as he lightly walks
  To the hunting-ground on the hills;
'Tis a song of his maid of the woods and rocks,
With her bright black eyes and long black locks,
  And voice like the music of rills.

He goes to the chase--but evil eyes
  Are at watch in the thicker shades;
For she was lovely that smiled on his sighs,
And he bore, from a hundred lovers, his prize,
  The flower of the forest maids.

The boughs in the morning wind are stirred,
  And the woods their song renew,
With the early carol of many a bird,
And the quickened tune of the streamlet heard
  Where the hazels trickle with dew.

And Maquon has promised his dark-haired maid,
  Ere eve shall redden the sky,
A good red deer from the forest shade,
That bounds with the herd through grove and glade,
  At her cabin-door shall lie.

The hollow woods, in the setting sun,
  Ring shrill with the fire-bird's lay;
And Maquon's sylvan labours are done,
And his shafts are spent, but the spoil they won
  He bears on his homeward way.

He stops near his bower--his eye perceives
  Strange traces along the ground--
At once to the earth his burden he heaves,
He breaks through the veil of boughs and leaves,
  And gains its door with a bound.

But the vines are torn on its walls that leant,
  And all from the young shrubs there
By struggling hands have the leaves been rent,
And there hangs on the sassafras, broken and bent,
  One tress of the well-known hair.

But where is she who, at this calm hour,
  Ever watched his coming to see?
She is not at the door, nor yet in the bower;
He calls--but he only hears on the flower
  The hum of the laden bee.

It is not a time for idle grief,
  Nor a time for tears to flow;
The horror that freezes his limbs is brief--
He grasps his war-axe and bow, and a sheaf
  Of darts made sharp for the foe.

And he looks for the print of the ruffian's feet,
  Where he bore the maiden away;
And he darts on the fatal path more fleet
Than the blast that hurries the vapour and sleet
  O'er the wild November day.

'Twas early summer when Maquon's bride
  Was stolen away from his door;
But at length the maples in crimson are dyed,
And the grape is black on the cabin side,--
  And she smiles at his hearth once more.

But far in the pine-grove, dark and cold,
  Where the yellow leaf falls not,
Nor the autumn shines in scarlet and gold,
There lies a hillock of fresh dark mould,
  In the deepest gloom of the spot.

And the Indian girls, that pass that way,
  Point out the ravisher's grave;
"And how soon to the bower she loved," they say,
"Returned the maid that was borne away
  From Maquon, the fond and the brave."

I'm going to take a shower and then, this day is mine.
It may be 2 pm and yes, maybe I only woke up and hour ago, but that's fine.
Time is of no essence, holding no power over me and my kind.
See,  we hold the power to counter act fascist politics
While the media scours to keep one step ahead of the times
But keeps slipping further and further behind.
I may not know everything there is to know about the GOP nominees but
Believe you me, I'm doing better than 90% of the pop culture fiends
Who know everything there is to know about every song Lady Gaga sings.
That's not to bash all the little monsters, see I know a bit myself
As I like to stay abreast on all kinds of music, television,
Internet memes, university official ****** stings,
And a plethora topics categorized under the moniker "various other things".
Between you and me, I'm not sure there is a Heaven
And if there is a Hell we make it daily ourselves.
But that doesn't have to be the case.
We can rise up and grab onto the clouds, pull down the sky
And bring the idea of Heaven a little closer than simply reading a book
Found in the drawer at **** near every hotel ever could.
Now, that’s not to say I don’t believe in the Word
and that the word isn’t Good.
I’m only making a case for a proactive age and for doing and living the way that we should.
We were never called to preach to the sinners that they‘re going to hell in the first place.
I’m only stating that there is a mass information bank
Being lawlessly and shamelessly misinterpreted and misunderstood.  
What I am saying is we need to put a stop to injustice parading itself as truth—
In our schools, in the church, and in the hearts of our youth.  
Read with fervor and a bit of passion any book can hold the keys to a life worth living.
The Good Book is a good book, but…
God the father and his son Jesus would have got on well
With Bilbo Baggins and his nephew Frodo,
Who both understood that the war they fought was so much bigger than a silly ring. '
They would have seen the passion and pain behind the eyes of Wilber Larch and is protégé Homer Wells,
Who only wanted to help and had to make some tough decisions in order to do so.
And they would have been able to appreciate the selfless devotion of Severus Snape
And commend Harry Potter on his willingness to die for those he loved.
Because...
In the end—what’s the difference?
It’s the same story over and over
From the cradle to the grave,
From Genesis to Revelation
To my walls lined with posters—
They all contribute to the loops and the corkscrews
On the same roller coaster.
This whole charade called existence resting on the shoulders of nothingness is everything that we have,
So the quicker we learn to take the good with the bad the quicker we’ll realize that the things that we want
Are exactly the same as the things that we had and the things that we have.
Maybe all the moms and the dads of today are displeased with the direction we’re heading because
(though they’d never admit it)
It’s no different than where they were going and for some reason they thought it would be.
Open your eyes.
All I’m asking is for a little time.
A minute or so more, tops.  
I’m pulling out all the stops
And I’m laying my heart on the line in hopes that one day you will return the favor in kind.
Not to me. Maybe not even to anyone other than yourself, but that is enough.
I've seen some things I wish I hadn't.
I've been drunk and I’ve done drugs but I’ve never voted in a political election.  
I’m 20 years old without a clue of what it means to be a good person
But I refuse to let that stop me from being one.  
So I’m not going to get high tonight and I’m not going to sit around by myself in my room watching ****,
Which I’ll admit without shame I do sometimes when I’m bored.
Tonight I’m breaking the illusion and crossing the line
That separates me from who I want to be and who I was at one time.
I’m inviting you along, so come on, put away words like “was” and  “will be”
And replace them with “the present”, “living”, and “free”.  
Because that is all there ever was or will be—
We've been given the present for living and in that we’re free.

Springs first morning
Freshness unmistaking
The larks early call
Their singing did befall

A roving along this wondrous path
I viewed a chiselled epitaph
Etched into splendid Larch
Read 'beware the Ides of March'

Perhaps a soothsayers warning
Was unexpected this Spring morning
This is so nondescript
Had I stumbled upon a Crypt

This isn't a Roman arch
It's merely a tree of Larch
This is not ancient Rome
This is not a catacomb

Twas the 15th day of March
I found the secret of the Larch
Words weren't scribed by t'other factors
than a mere plethora of actors

It was the scene of a play
of Ceasers fateful day
where Brutus and Cassius
hatched a plan to **** Julius

A roving first day of Spring
Where Butterflies Flutter, bees did sting
Down wondrous path i passed
Where Ceaser breathed his last

Martyn Grindrod

When rosy plumelets tuft the larch,
  And rarely pipes the mounted thrush;
  Or underneath the barren bush
Flits by the sea-blue bird of March;

Come, wear the form by which I know
  Thy spirit in time among thy peers;
  The hope of unaccomplish'd years
Be large and lucid round thy brow.

When summer's hourly-mellowing change
  May breathe, with many roses sweet,
  Upon the thousand waves of wheat,
That ripple round the lonely grange;

Come: not in watches of the night,
  But where the sunbeam broodeth warm,
  Come, beauteous in thine after form,
And like a finer light in light.

Fall needles shedding,
Chickadees pecking for seeds,
Shivering larch tree.

Through her eyes I see her soul,
And the sadness when they roll,
Her nose as black as coal,
Though sweet as a baby foal,

She has teeth like broken china,
And a tongue like a pink recliner,
Her face like a piece of art,
That was crafted from the heart,

She has ears like paper origami,
That could hear a foreign tsunami,
Her neck forms an arch,
Like a piece of twisted larch,

Her brisket is as deep as the sea,
And holds the lock to my key,
Her legs like a vintage chair,
That walks with grace and care,

She has a body built for speed,
When running she takes the lead,
Her heart races like a lambaguini,
Although It might seem quite teeny,

Her muscles tense like a fierce stallion,
Like an athlete ready to win a medallion,
Her body is so aerodynamic,
When she runs she makes the wind panic,

Her tail swooshes from side to side,
As she holds her head in great pride,
Her coat as black as leather,
And as soft as a ducks feather,

It shimmers like a stream,
When the sun makes it gleam,
Her little dashes of white,
Are oh so pure and bright,

Never will I feel of despair,
Cause I know my best friend is there!!!

Crystal azure beads
of collective DNA,
she wrapped herself
in trademark-mink
& dwelled in Helsinki
doing the Bond-thing.

She hugged the circle
with Velcro-fingers,
stood larch-tall, singing
a frozen siren's song
under the midnight sun.

And beneath her cold exterior,
was the warmth
of a million fireballs.

I met a needy old fellow
Down a grisly thought-path he'd trod
Seekin' a need like he sought a god
His voice quivering Hi; I said hello
Son! My senses are raw, my word crocked
Quell my throbbing mind. This world
Please whatchu call it?

Love is lost in the woods
Lust her next-of-kin takes charge
Brings with her lies, deceit no dirge
She's no more than Hollywood
'tis autumn, are we leaves of a larch?
Fix me this puzzles, find a merge
Or tell me whatchu call it?

Daughters gone from their mothers
Sons becoming apparitions of shame
Flipping in life shadows like a game
All knocked like blind lovers
Gettin er'tin muddled like one who stutters
I see 'em in shapes and colours
Say a word, whatchu call it?

Fun feeds today, poisons tomorrow
They eat, sleep and forget to dream
Blurry vision like a nollywood film
will there be escape from sorrow?
Whilst the coins tossed, can they borrow?
Oh I see more than what will follow
I guess you see too. Whatchu call it?

Gliding in triangles and squares
Like rain down the mountain top
Praying amidst debauchery nonstop
Will a god reckon rather rain tears?
Will the heavens engulf your fears
Burn the incense, ask your seers
Let me know whatchu call it.

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 10/7/2019

So poetically the mountain forest shimmers:
yellow-gold chickens here and there,
gray guineafowls' small chicks,
and hens clad in red of the dresses.

On the edge in beads of flames
a rafter of turkeys - eye-catching -
therefore colors of colorful flocks of poultry
in dying green submerged are easy to remember.

The cold ray gathers goose feathers:
and from quills arranges an autumn mattress,
while the whitest down he'll embroider into hours

with larch needle, so that a pillowcase made of the rainbow
every year would bloom many times
on the dial of a silver cobweb.

Wieslaw Musialowski 10/27/2002

The little white clouds are racing over the sky,
And the fields are strewn with the gold of the flower of March,
The daffodil breaks under foot, and the tasselled larch
Sways and swings as the thrush goes hurrying by.

A delicate odour is borne on the wings of the morning breeze,
The odour of deep wet grass, and of brown new-furrowed earth,
The birds are singing for joy of the Spring’s glad birth,
Hopping from branch to branch on the rocking trees.

And all the woods are alive with the murmur and sound of Spring,
And the rose-bud breaks into pink on the climbing briar,
And the crocus-bed is a quivering moon of fire
Girdled round with the belt of an amethyst ring.

And the plane to the pine-tree is whispering some tale of love
Till it rustles with laughter and tosses its mantle of green,
And the gloom of the wych-elm’s hollow is lit with the iris sheen
Of the burnished rainbow throat and the silver breast of a dove.

See! the lark starts up from his bed in the meadow there,
Breaking the gossamer threads and the nets of dew,
And flashing adown the river, a flame of blue!
The kingfisher flies like an arrow, and wounds the air.

In the tunnel,
it is so dark,
the walls covered,
in damp, and larch
Water runs freely,
damp and, needy
Elevated off the,
cold concrete floor,
pulling her closer,
she can feel more
Floating,
a whirling spark,
is it the ark,
light or vessel
Go slowly don't wrestle,
light at the end,
of the tunnel,
will always trestle,
when pure,
is in the vessel

© 2021 Carol Natasha Diviney

You were a smeary bruise,
your eye hysterical,
cut from white twill
in the brumal March;
I slipped my blues,
to a blonde chorale
in your room, on the hill
gushing with larch.
We practiced slow,
while black cones bled
coffee. Your breath
came in little throws,
your heart in parcels of red,
that led to our little death.

let me advise you that larch lodge 2 the somerset in newton heath belongs to fwoah and dream. ian built house in 300 ad and never sold it so its ours. current occupier paul dollis to move and take all his posessions so house can be restored.

for redemption  mid life
birthday candles
gas ovens and depressions
******

jewels in white chairs
glistening and hard young loves
in nearby beds
as the fumes consumed

words cannot claim a life nor fumes
unless fed by sad stories
and noxious visions
of a spruce forest

and one lonely larch
calling