Come queen of months in company
Wi all thy merry minstrelsy
The restless cuckoo absent long
And twittering swallows chimney song
And hedge row crickets notes that run
From every bank that fronts the sun
And swathy bees about the grass
That stops wi every bloom they pass
And every minute every hour
Keep teazing weeds that wear a flower
And toil and childhoods humming joys
For there is music in the noise
The village childern mad for sport
In school times leisure ever short
That crick and catch the bouncing ball
And run along the church yard wall
Capt wi rude figured slabs whose claims
In times bad memory hath no names
Oft racing round the nookey church
Or calling ecchos in the porch
And jilting oer the weather ****
Viewing wi jealous eyes the clock
Oft leaping grave stones leaning hights
Uncheckt wi mellancholy sights
The green grass swelld in many a heap
Where kin and friends and parents sleep
Unthinking in their jovial cry
That time shall come when they shall lye
As lowly and as still as they
While other boys above them play
Heedless as they do now to know
The unconcious dust that lies below
The shepherd goes wi happy stride
Wi moms long shadow by his side
Down the dryd lanes neath blooming may
That once was over shoes in clay
While martins twitter neath his eves
Which he at early morning leaves
The driving boy beside his team
Will oer the may month beauty dream
And **** his hat and turn his eye
On flower and tree and deepning skye
And oft bursts loud in fits of song
And whistles as he reels along
Cracking his whip in starts of joy
A happy ***** driving boy
The youth who leaves his corner stool
Betimes for neighbouring village school
While as a mark to urge him right
The church spires all the way in sight
Wi cheerings from his parents given
Starts neath the joyous smiles of heaven
And sawns wi many an idle stand
Wi bookbag swinging in his hand
And gazes as he passes bye
On every thing that meets his eye
Young lambs seem tempting him to play
Dancing and bleating in his way
Wi trembling tails and pointed ears
They follow him and loose their fears
He smiles upon their sunny faces
And feign woud join their happy races
The birds that sing on bush and tree
Seem chirping for his company
And all in fancys idle whim
Seem keeping holiday but him
He lolls upon each resting stile
To see the fields so sweetly smile
To see the wheat grow green and long
And list the weeders toiling song
Or short note of the changing thrush
Above him in the white thorn bush
That oer the leaning stile bends low
Loaded wi mockery of snow
Mozzld wi many a lushing thread
Of crab tree blossoms delicate red
He often bends wi many a wish
Oer the brig rail to view the fish
Go sturting by in sunny gleams
And chucks in the eye dazzld streams
Crumbs from his pocket oft to watch
The swarming struttle come to catch
Them where they to the bottom sile
Sighing in fancys joy the while
Hes cautiond not to stand so nigh
By rosey milkmaid tripping bye
Where he admires wi fond delight
And longs to be there mute till night
He often ventures thro the day
At truant now and then to play
Rambling about the field and plain
Seeking larks nests in the grain
And picking flowers and boughs of may
To hurd awhile and throw away
Lurking neath bushes from the sight
Of tell tale eyes till schools noon night
Listing each hour for church clocks hum
To know the hour to wander home
That parents may not think him long
Nor dream of his rude doing wrong
Dreading thro the night wi dreaming pain
To meet his masters wand again
Each hedge is loaded thick wi green
And where the hedger late hath been
Tender shoots begin to grow
From the mossy stumps below
While sheep and cow that teaze the grain
will nip them to the root again
They lay their bill and mittens bye
And on to other labours hie
While wood men still on spring intrudes
And thins the shadow solitudes
Wi sharpend axes felling down
The oak trees budding into brown
Where as they crash upon the ground
A crowd of labourers gather round
And mix among the shadows dark
To rip the crackling staining bark
From off the tree and lay when done
The rolls in lares to meet the sun
Depriving yearly where they come
The green wood pecker of its home
That early in the spring began
Far from the sight of troubling man
And bord their round holes in each tree
In fancys sweet security
Till startld wi the woodmans noise
It wakes from all its dreaming joys
The blue bells too that thickly bloom
Where man was never feared to come
And smell smocks that from view retires
**** rustling leaves and bowing briars
And stooping lilys of the valley
That comes wi shades and dews to dally
White beady drops on slender threads
Wi broad hood leaves above their heads
Like white robd maids in summer hours
Neath umberellas shunning showers
These neath the barkmens crushing treads
Oft perish in their blooming beds
Thus stript of boughs and bark in white
Their trunks shine in the mellow light
Beneath the green surviving trees
That wave above them in the breeze
And waking whispers slowly bends
As if they mournd their fallen friends
Each morning now the weeders meet
To cut the thistle from the wheat
And ruin in the sunny hours
Full many wild weeds of their flowers
Corn poppys that in crimson dwell
Calld ‘head achs’ from their sickly smell
And carlock yellow as the sun
That oer the may fields thickly run
And ‘iron ****’ content to share
The meanest spot that spring can spare
Een roads where danger hourly comes
Is not wi out its purple blooms
And leaves wi points like thistles round
Thickset that have no strength to wound
That shrink to childhoods eager hold
Like hair—and with its eye of gold
And scarlet starry points of flowers
Pimpernel dreading nights and showers
Oft calld ‘the shepherds weather glass’
That sleep till suns have dyd the grass
Then wakes and spreads its creeping bloom
Till clouds or threatning shadows come
Then close it shuts to sleep again
Which weeders see and talk of rain
And boys that mark them shut so soon
will call them ‘John go bed at noon
And fumitory too a name
That superstition holds to fame
Whose red and purple mottled flowers
Are cropt by maids in weeding hours
To boil in water milk and way1
For washes on an holiday
To make their beauty fair and sleak
And scour the tan from summers cheek
And simple small forget me not
Eyd wi a pinshead yellow spot
I’th’ middle of its tender blue
That gains from poets notice due
These flowers the toil by crowds destroys
And robs them of their lowly joys
That met the may wi hopes as sweet
As those her suns in gardens meet
And oft the dame will feel inclind
As childhoods memory comes to mind
To turn her hook away and spare
The blooms it lovd to gather there
My wild field catalogue of flowers
Grows in my ryhmes as thick as showers
Tedious and long as they may be
To some, they never weary me
The wood and mead and field of grain
I coud hunt oer and oer again
And talk to every blossom wild
Fond as a parent to a child
And cull them in my childish joy
By swarms and swarms and never cloy
When their lank shades oer morning pearls
Shrink from their lengths to little girls
And like the clock hand pointing one
Is turnd and tells the morning gone
They leave their toils for dinners hour
Beneath some hedges bramble bower
And season sweet their savory meals
Wi joke and tale and merry peals
Of ancient tunes from happy tongues
While linnets join their fitful songs
Perchd oer their heads in frolic play
Among the tufts of motling may
The young girls whisper things of love
And from the old dames hearing move
Oft making ‘love knotts’ in the shade
Of blue green oat or wheaten blade
And trying simple charms and spells
That rural superstition tells
They pull the little blossom threads
From out the knapweeds button heads
And put the husk wi many a smile
In their white bosoms for awhile
Who if they guess aright the swain
That loves sweet fancys trys to gain
Tis said that ere its lain an hour
Twill blossom wi a second flower
And from her white ******* hankerchief
Bloom as they ne’er had lost a leaf
When signs appear that token wet
As they are neath the bushes met
The girls are glad wi hopes of play
And harping of the holiday
A hugh blue bird will often swim
Along the wheat when skys grow dim
Wi clouds—slow as the gales of spring
In motion wi dark shadowd wing
Beneath the coming storm it sails
And lonly chirps the wheat hid quails
That came to live wi spring again
And start when summer browns the grain
They start the young girls joys afloat
Wi ‘wet my foot’ its yearly note
So fancy doth the sound explain
And proves it oft a sign of rain
About the moor ‘**** sheep and cow
The boy or old man wanders now
Hunting all day wi hopful pace
Each thick sown rushy thistly place
For plover eggs while oer them flye
The fearful birds wi teazing cry
Trying to lead their steps astray
And coying him another way
And be the weather chill or warm
Wi brown hats truckd beneath his arm
Holding each prize their search has won
They plod bare headed to the sun
Now dames oft bustle from their wheels
Wi childern scampering at their heels
To watch the bees that hang and swive
In clumps about each thronging hive
And flit and thicken in the light
While the old dame enjoys the sight
And raps the while their warming pans
A spell that superstition plans
To coax them in the garden bounds
As if they lovd the tinkling sounds
And oft one hears the dinning noise
Which dames believe each swarm decoys
Around each village day by day
Mingling in the warmth of may
Sweet scented herbs her skill contrives
To rub the bramble platted hives
Fennels thread leaves and crimpld balm
To scent the new house of the swarm
The thresher dull as winter days
And lost to all that spring displays
Still mid his barn dust forcd to stand
Swings his frail round wi weary hand
While oer his head shades thickly creep
And hides the blinking owl asleep
And bats in cobweb corners bred
Sharing till night their murky bed
The sunshine trickles on the floor
Thro every crevice of the door
And makes his barn where shadows dwell
As irksome as a prisoners cell
And as he seeks his daily meal
As schoolboys from their tasks will steal
ile often stands in fond delay
To see the daisy in his way
And wild weeds flowering on the wall
That will his childish sports recall
Of all the joys that came wi spring
The twirling top the marble ring
The gingling halfpence hussld up
At pitch and toss the eager stoop
To pick up heads, the smuggeld plays
Neath hovels upon sabbath days
When parson he is safe from view
And clerk sings amen in his pew
The sitting down when school was oer
Upon the threshold by his door
Picking from mallows sport to please
Each crumpld seed he calld a cheese
And hunting from the stackyard sod
The stinking hen banes belted pod
By youths vain fancys sweetly fed
Christning them his loaves of bread
He sees while rocking down the street
Wi weary hands and crimpling feet
Young childern at the self same games
And hears the self same simple names
Still floating on each happy tongue
Touchd wi the simple scene so strong
Tears almost start and many a sigh
Regrets the happiness gone bye
And in sweet natures holiday
His heart is sad while all is gay
How lovly now are lanes and balks
For toils and lovers sunday walks
The daisey and the buttercup
For which the laughing childern stoop
A hundred times throughout the day
In their rude ramping summer play
So thickly now the pasture crowds
In gold and silver sheeted clouds
As if the drops in april showers
Had woo’d the sun and swoond to flowers
The brook resumes its summer dresses
Purling neath grass and water cresses
And mint and flag leaf swording high
Their blooms to the unheeding eye
And taper bowbent hanging rushes
And horse tail childerns bottle brushes
And summer tracks about its brink
Is fresh again where cattle drink
And on its sunny bank the swain
Stretches his idle length again
Soon as the sun forgets the day
The moon looks down on the lovly may
And the little star his friend and guide
Travelling together side by side
And the seven stars and charleses wain
Hangs smiling oer green woods agen
The heaven rekindles all alive
Wi light the may bees round the hive
Swarm not so thick in mornings eye
As stars do in the evening skye
All all are nestling in their joys
The flowers and birds and pasture boys
The firetail, long a stranger, comes
To his last summer haunts and homes
To hollow tree and crevisd wall
And in the grass the rails odd call
That featherd spirit stops the swain
To listen to his note again
And school boy still in vain retraces
The secrets of his hiding places
In the black thorns crowded copse
Thro its varied turns and stops
The nightingale its ditty weaves
Hid in a multitude of leaves
The boy stops short to hear the strain
And ’sweet jug jug’ he mocks again
The yellow hammer builds its nest
By banks where sun beams earliest rest
That drys the dews from off the grass
Shading it from all that pass
Save the rude boy wi ferret gaze
That hunts thro evry secret maze
He finds its pencild eggs agen
All streakd wi lines as if a pen
By natures freakish hand was took
To scrawl them over like a book
And from these many mozzling marks
The school boy names them ‘writing larks’
*** barrels twit on bush and tree
Scarse bigger then a bumble bee
And in a white thorns leafy rest
It builds its curious pudding-nest
Wi hole beside as if a mouse
Had built the little barrel house
Toiling full many a lining feather
And bits of grey tree moss together
Amid the noisey rooky park
Beneath the firdales branches dark
The little golden crested wren
Hangs up his glowing nest agen
And sticks it to the furry leaves
As martins theirs beneath the eaves
The old hens leave the roost betimes
And oer the garden pailing climbs
To scrat the gardens fresh turnd soil
And if unwatchd his crops to spoil
Oft cackling from the prison yard
To peck about the houseclose sward
Catching at butterflys and things
Ere they have time to try their wings
The cattle feels the breath of may
And kick and toss their heads in play
The *** beneath his bags of sand
Oft jerks the string from leaders hand
And on the road will eager stoop
To pick the sprouting thistle up
Oft answering on his weary way
Some distant neighbours sobbing bray
Dining the ears of driving boy
As if he felt a fit of joy
Wi in its pinfold circle left
Of all its company bereft
Starvd stock no longer noising round
Lone in the nooks of foddering ground
Each skeleton of lingering stack
By winters tempests beaten black
Nodds upon props or bolt upright
Stands swarthy in the summer light
And oer the green grass seems to lower
Like stump of old time wasted tower
All that in winter lookd for hay
Spread from their batterd haunts away
To pick the grass or lye at lare
Beneath the mild hedge shadows there
Sweet month that gives a welcome call
To toil and nature and to all
Yet one day mid thy many joys
Is dead to all its sport and noise
Old may day where’s thy glorys gone
All fled and left thee every one
Thou comst to thy old haunts and homes
Unnoticd as a stranger comes
No flowers are pluckt to hail the now
Nor cotter seeks a single bough
The maids no more on thy sweet morn
Awake their thresholds to adorn
Wi dewey flowers—May locks new come
And princifeathers cluttering bloom
And blue bells from the woodland moss
And cowslip cucking ***** to toss
Above the garlands swinging hight
Hang in the soft eves sober light
These maid and child did yearly pull
By many a folded apron full
But all is past the merry song
Of maidens hurrying along
To crown at eve the earliest cow
Is gone and dead and silent now
The laugh raisd at the mocking thorn
Tyd to the cows tail last that morn
The kerchief at arms length displayd
Held up by pairs of swain and maid
While others bolted underneath
Bawling loud wi panting breath
‘Duck under water’ as they ran
Alls ended as they ne’er began
While the new thing that took thy place
Wears faded smiles upon its face
And where enclosure has its birth
It spreads a mildew oer her mirth
The herd no longer one by one
Goes plodding on her morning way
And garlands lost and sports nigh gone
Leaves her like thee a common day
Yet summer smiles upon thee still
Wi natures sweet unalterd will
And at thy births unworshipd hours
Fills her green lap wi swarms of flowers
To crown thee still as thou hast been
Of spring and summer months the queen

Christmass is come and every hearth
Makes room to give him welcome now
Een want will dry its tears in mirth
And crown him wi a holly bough
Tho tramping neath a winters sky
Oer snow track paths and ryhmey stiles
The huswife sets her spining bye
And bids him welcome wi her smiles
Each house is swept the day before
And windows stuck wi evergreens
The snow is beesomd from the door
And comfort crowns the cottage scenes
Gilt holly wi its thorny ******
And yew and box wi berrys small
These deck the unusd candlesticks
And pictures hanging by the wall

Neighbours resume their anual cheer
Wishing wi smiles and spirits high
Clad christmass and a happy year
To every morning passer bye
Milk maids their christmass journeys go
Accompanyd wi favourd swain
And childern pace the crumping snow
To taste their grannys cake again

Hung wi the ivys veining bough
The ash trees round the cottage farm
Are often stript of branches now
The cotters christmass hearth to warm
He swings and twists his hazel band
And lops them off wi sharpend hook
And oft brings ivy in his hand
To decorate the chimney nook

Old winter whipes his ides bye
And warms his fingers till he smiles
Where cottage hearths are blazing high
And labour resteth from his toils
Wi merry mirth beguiling care
Old customs keeping wi the day
Friends meet their christmass cheer to share
And pass it in a harmless way

Old customs O I love the sound
However simple they may be
What ere wi time has sanction found
Is welcome and is dear to me
Pride grows above simplicity
And spurns it from her haughty mind
And soon the poets song will be
The only refuge they can find

The shepherd now no more afraid
Since custom doth the chance bestow
Starts up to kiss the giggling maid
Beneath the branch of mizzletoe
That neath each cottage beam is seen
Wi pearl-like-berrys shining gay
The shadow still of what hath been
Which fashion yearly fades away

And singers too a merry throng
At early morn wi simple skill
Yet imitate the angels song
And chant their christmass ditty still
And mid the storm that dies and swells
By fits-in humings softly steals
The music of the village bells
Ringing round their merry peals

And when its past a merry crew
Bedeckt in masks and ribbons gay
The ‘Morrice danse’ their sports renew
And act their winter evening play
The clown-turnd-kings for penny praise
Storm wi the actors strut and swell
And harlequin a laugh to raise
Wears his **** back and tinkling bell

And oft for pence and spicy ale
Wi winter nosgays pind before
The wassail singer tells her tale
And drawls her christmass carrols oer
The prentice boy wi ruddy face
And ryhme bepowderd dancing locks
From door to door wi happy pace
Runs round to claim his ‘christmass box’

The block behind the fire is put
To sanction customs old desires
And many a ******* bands are cut
For the old farmers christmass fires
Where loud tongd gladness joins the throng
And winter meets the warmth of may
Feeling by times the heat too strong
And rubs his shins and draws away

While snows the window panes bedim
The fire curls up a sunny charm
Where creaming oer the pitchers rim
The flowering ale is set to warm
Mirth full of joy as summer bees
Sits there its pleasures to impart
While childern tween their parents knees
Sing scraps of carrols oer by heart

And some to view the winter weathers
Climb up the window seat wi glee
Likening the snow to falling feathers
In fancys infant ******
Laughing wi superstitious love
Oer visions wild that youth supplyes
Of people pulling geese above
And keeping christmass in the skyes

As tho the homstead trees were drest
In lieu of snow wi dancing leaves
As. tho the sundryd martins nest
Instead of ides hung the eaves
The childern hail the happy day
As if the snow was april grass
And pleasd as neath the warmth of may
Sport oer the water froze to glass

Thou day of happy sound and mirth
That long wi childish memory stays
How blest around the cottage hearth
I met thee in my boyish days
Harping wi raptures dreaming joys
On presents that thy coming found
The welcome sight of little toys
The christmass gifts of comers round

‘The wooden horse wi arching head
Drawn upon wheels around the room
The gilded coach of ginger bread
And many colord sugar plumb
Gilt coverd books for pictures sought
Or storys childhood loves to tell
Wi many a urgent promise bought
To get tomorrows lesson well

And many a thing a minutes sport
Left broken on the sanded floor
When we woud leave our play and court
Our parents promises for more
Tho manhood bids such raptures dye
And throws such toys away as vain
Yet memory loves to turn her eye
And talk such pleasures oer again

Around the glowing hearth at night
The harmless laugh and winter tale
Goes round-while parting friends delight
To toast each other oer their ale
The cotter oft wi quiet zeal
Will musing oer his bible lean
While in the dark the lovers steal
To kiss and toy behind the screen

The yule cake dotted thick wi plumbs
Is on each supper table found
And cats look up for falling crumbs
Which greedy childern litter round
And huswifes sage stuffd seasond chine
Long hung in chimney nook to drye
And boiling eldern berry wine
To drink the christmass eves ‘good bye’

ENDYMION.

A Poetic Romance.

"THE STRETCHED METRE OF AN AN ANTIQUE SONG."
INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS CHATTERTON.

Book I

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

  Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast,
That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast,
They alway must be with us, or we die.

  Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own vallies: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimm'd and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finished: but let Autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,
Be all about me when I make an end.
And now at once, adventuresome, I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thorough flowers and ****.

  Upon the sides of Latmos was outspread
A mighty forest; for the moist earth fed
So plenteously all ****-hidden roots
Into o'er-hanging boughs, and precious fruits.
And it had gloomy shades, sequestered deep,
Where no man went; and if from shepherd's keep
A lamb strayed far a-down those inmost glens,
Never again saw he the happy pens
Whither his brethren, bleating with content,
Over the hills at every nightfall went.
Among the shepherds, 'twas believed ever,
That not one fleecy lamb which thus did sever
From the white flock, but pass'd unworried
By angry wolf, or pard with prying head,
Until it came to some unfooted plains
Where fed the herds of Pan: ay great his gains
Who thus one lamb did lose. Paths there were many,
Winding through palmy fern, and rushes fenny,
And ivy banks; all leading pleasantly
To a wide lawn, whence one could only see
Stems thronging all around between the swell
Of turf and slanting branches: who could tell
The freshness of the space of heaven above,
Edg'd round with dark tree tops? through which a dove
Would often beat its wings, and often too
A little cloud would move across the blue.

  Full in the middle of this pleasantness
There stood a marble altar, with a tress
Of flowers budded newly; and the dew
Had taken fairy phantasies to strew
Daisies upon the sacred sward last eve,
And so the dawned light in pomp receive.
For 'twas the morn: Apollo's upward fire
Made every eastern cloud a silvery pyre
Of brightness so unsullied, that therein
A melancholy spirit well might win
Oblivion, and melt out his essence fine
Into the winds: rain-scented eglantine
Gave temperate sweets to that well-wooing sun;
The lark was lost in him; cold springs had run
To warm their chilliest bubbles in the grass;
Man's voice was on the mountains; and the mass
Of nature's lives and wonders puls'd tenfold,
To feel this sun-rise and its glories old.

  Now while the silent workings of the dawn
Were busiest, into that self-same lawn
All suddenly, with joyful cries, there sped
A troop of little children garlanded;
Who gathering round the altar, seemed to pry
Earnestly round as wishing to espy
Some folk of holiday: nor had they waited
For many moments, ere their ears were sated
With a faint breath of music, which ev'n then
Fill'd out its voice, and died away again.
Within a little space again it gave
Its airy swellings, with a gentle wave,
To light-hung leaves, in smoothest echoes breaking
Through copse-clad vallies,--ere their death, oer-taking
The surgy murmurs of the lonely sea.

  And now, as deep into the wood as we
Might mark a lynx's eye, there glimmered light
Fair faces and a rush of garments white,
Plainer and plainer shewing, till at last
Into the widest alley they all past,
Making directly for the woodland altar.
O kindly muse! let not my weak tongue faulter
In telling of this goodly company,
Of their old piety, and of their glee:
But let a portion of ethereal dew
Fall on my head, and presently unmew
My soul; that I may dare, in wayfaring,
To stammer where old Chaucer used to sing.

  Leading the way, young damsels danced along,
Bearing the burden of a shepherd song;
Each having a white wicker over brimm'd
With April's tender younglings: next, well trimm'd,
A crowd of shepherds with as sunburnt looks
As may be read of in Arcadian books;
Such as sat listening round Apollo's pipe,
When the great deity, for earth too ripe,
Let his divinity o'er-flowing die
In music, through the vales of Thessaly:
Some idly trailed their sheep-hooks on the ground,
And some kept up a shrilly mellow sound
With ebon-tipped flutes: close after these,
Now coming from beneath the forest trees,
A venerable priest full soberly,
Begirt with ministring looks: alway his eye
Stedfast upon the matted turf he kept,
And after him his sacred vestments swept.
From his right hand there swung a vase, milk-white,
Of mingled wine, out-sparkling generous light;
And in his left he held a basket full
Of all sweet herbs that searching eye could cull:
Wild thyme, and valley-lilies whiter still
Than Leda's love, and cresses from the rill.
His aged head, crowned with beechen wreath,
Seem'd like a poll of ivy in the teeth
Of winter ****. Then came another crowd
Of shepherds, lifting in due time aloud
Their share of the ditty. After them appear'd,
Up-followed by a multitude that rear'd
Their voices to the clouds, a fair wrought car,
Easily rolling so as scarce to mar
The freedom of three steeds of dapple brown:
Who stood therein did seem of great renown
Among the throng. His youth was fully blown,
Shewing like Ganymede to manhood grown;
And, for those simple times, his garments were
A chieftain king's: beneath his breast, half bare,
Was hung a silver bugle, and between
His nervy knees there lay a boar-spear keen.
A smile was on his countenance; he seem'd,
To common lookers on, like one who dream'd
Of idleness in groves Elysian:
But there were some who feelingly could scan
A lurking trouble in his nether lip,
And see that oftentimes the reins would slip
Through his forgotten hands: then would they sigh,
And think of yellow leaves, of owlets cry,
Of logs piled solemnly.--Ah, well-a-day,
Why should our young Endymion pine away!

  Soon the assembly, in a circle rang'd,
Stood silent round the shrine: each look was chang'd
To sudden veneration: women meek
Beckon'd their sons to silence; while each cheek
Of ****** bloom paled gently for slight fear.
Endymion too, without a forest peer,
Stood, wan, and pale, and with an awed face,
Among his brothers of the mountain chase.
In midst of all, the venerable priest
Eyed them with joy from greatest to the least,
And, after lifting up his aged hands,
Thus spake he: "Men of Latmos! shepherd bands!
Whose care it is to guard a thousand flocks:
Whether descended from beneath the rocks
That overtop your mountains; whether come
From vallies where the pipe is never dumb;
Or from your swelling downs, where sweet air stirs
Blue hare-bells lightly, and where prickly furze
Buds lavish gold; or ye, whose precious charge
Nibble their fill at ocean's very marge,
Whose mellow reeds are touch'd with sounds forlorn
By the dim echoes of old Triton's horn:
Mothers and wives! who day by day prepare
The scrip, with needments, for the mountain air;
And all ye gentle girls who foster up
Udderless lambs, and in a little cup
Will put choice honey for a favoured youth:
Yea, every one attend! for in good truth
Our vows are wanting to our great god Pan.
Are not our lowing heifers sleeker than
Night-swollen mushrooms? Are not our wide plains
Speckled with countless fleeces? Have not rains
Green'd over April's lap? No howling sad
Sickens our fearful ewes; and we have had
Great bounty from Endymion our lord.
The earth is glad: the merry lark has pour'd
His early song against yon breezy sky,
That spreads so clear o'er our solemnity."

  Thus ending, on the shrine he heap'd a spire
Of teeming sweets, enkindling sacred fire;
Anon he stain'd the thick and spongy sod
With wine, in honour of the shepherd-god.
Now while the earth was drinking it, and while
Bay leaves were crackling in the fragrant pile,
And gummy frankincense was sparkling bright
'Neath smothering parsley, and a hazy light
Spread greyly eastward, thus a chorus sang:

  "O THOU, whose mighty palace roof doth hang
From jagged trunks, and overshadoweth
Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, death
Of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness;
Who lov'st to see the hamadryads dress
Their ruffled locks where meeting hazels darken;
And through whole solemn hours dost sit, and hearken
The dreary melody of bedded reeds--
In desolate places, where dank moisture breeds
The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth;
Bethinking thee, how melancholy loth
Thou wast to lose fair Syrinx--do thou now,
By thy love's milky brow!
By all the trembling mazes that she ran,
Hear us, great Pan!

  "O thou, for whose soul-soothing quiet, turtles
Passion their voices cooingly '**** myrtles,
What time thou wanderest at eventide
Through sunny meadows, that outskirt the side
Of thine enmossed realms: O thou, to whom
Broad leaved fig trees even now foredoom
Their ripen'd fruitage; yellow girted bees
Their golden honeycombs; our village leas
Their fairest-blossom'd beans and poppied corn;
The chuckling linnet its five young unborn,
To sing for thee; low creeping strawberries
Their summer coolness; pent up butterflies
Their freckled wings; yea, the fresh budding year
All its completions--be quickly near,
By every wind that nods the mountain pine,
O forester divine!

  "Thou, to whom every fawn and satyr flies
For willing service; whether to surprise
The squatted hare while in half sleeping fit;
Or upward ragged precipices flit
To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw;
Or by mysterious enticement draw
Bewildered shepherds to their path again;
Or to tread breathless round the frothy main,
And gather up all fancifullest shells
For thee to tumble into Naiads' cells,
And, being hidden, laugh at their out-peeping;
Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping,
The while they pelt each other on the crown
With silvery oak apples, and fir cones brown--
By all the echoes that about thee ring,
Hear us, O satyr king!

  "O Hearkener to the loud clapping shears,
While ever and anon to his shorn peers
A ram goes bleating: Winder of the horn,
When snouted wild-boars routing tender corn
Anger our huntsman: Breather round our farms,
To keep off mildews, and all weather harms:
Strange ministrant of undescribed sounds,
That come a swooning over hollow grounds,
And wither drearily on barren moors:
Dread opener of the mysterious doors
Leading to universal knowledge--see,
Great son of Dryope,
The many that are come to pay their vows
With leaves about their brows!

  Be still the unimaginable lodge
For solitary thinkings; such as dodge
Conception to the very bourne of heaven,
Then leave the naked brain: be still the leaven,
That spreading in this dull and clodded earth
Gives it a touch ethereal--a new birth:
Be still a symbol of immensity;
A firmament reflected in a sea;
An element filling the space between;
An unknown--but no more: we humbly screen
With uplift hands our foreheads, lowly bending,
And giving out a shout most heaven rending,
Conjure thee to receive our humble Paean,
Upon thy Mount Lycean!

  Even while they brought the burden to a close,
A shout from the whole multitude arose,
That lingered in the air like dying rolls
Of abrupt thunder, when Ionian shoals
Of dolphins bob their noses through the brine.
Meantime, on shady levels, mossy fine,
Young companies nimbly began dancing
To the swift treble pipe, and humming string.
Aye, those fair living forms swam heavenly
To tunes forgotten--out of memory:
Fair creatures! whose young children's children bred
Thermopylæ its heroes--not yet dead,
But in old marbles ever beautiful.
High genitors, unconscious did they cull
Time's sweet first-fruits--they danc'd to weariness,
And then in quiet circles did they press
The hillock turf, and caught the latter end
Of some strange history, potent to send
A young mind from its ****** tenement.
Or they might watch the quoit-pitchers, intent
On either side; pitying the sad death
Of Hyacinthus, when the cruel breath
Of Zephyr slew him,--Zephyr penitent,
Who now, ere Phoebus mounts the firmament,
Fondles the flower amid the sobbing rain.
The archers too, upon a wider plain,
Beside the feathery whizzing of the shaft,
And the dull twanging bowstring, and the raft
Branch down sweeping from a tall ash top,
Call'd up a thousand thoughts to envelope
Those who would watch. Perhaps, the trembling knee
And frantic gape of lonely Niobe,
Poor, lonely Niobe! when her lovely young
Were dead and gone, and her caressing tongue
Lay a lost thing upon her paly lip,
And very, very deadliness did nip
Her motherly cheeks. Arous'd from this sad mood
By one, who at a distance loud halloo'd,
Uplifting his strong bow into the air,
Many might after brighter visions stare:
After the Argonauts, in blind amaze
Tossing about on Neptune's restless ways,
Until, from the horizon's vaulted side,
There shot a golden splendour far and wide,
Spangling those million poutings of the brine
With quivering ore: 'twas even an awful shine
From the exaltation of Apollo's bow;
A heavenly beacon in their dreary woe.
Who thus were ripe for high contemplating,
Might turn their steps towards the sober ring
Where sat Endymion and the aged priest
'**** shepherds gone in eld, whose looks increas'd
The silvery setting of their mortal star.
There they discours'd upon the fragile bar
That keeps us from our homes ethereal;
And what our duties there: to nightly call
Vesper, the beauty-crest of summer weather;
To summon all the downiest clouds together
For the sun's purple couch; to emulate
In ministring the potent rule of fate
With speed of fire-tailed exhalations;
To tint her pallid cheek with bloom, who cons
Sweet poesy by moonlight: besides these,
A world of other unguess'd offices.
Anon they wander'd, by divine converse,
Into Elysium; vieing to rehearse
Each one his own anticipated bliss.
One felt heart-certain that he could not miss
His quick gone love, among fair blossom'd boughs,
Where every zephyr-sigh pouts and endows
Her lips with music for the welcoming.
Another wish'd, mid that eternal spring,
To meet his rosy child, with feathery sails,
Sweeping, eye-earnestly, through almond vales:
Who, suddenly, should stoop through the smooth wind,
And with the balmiest leaves his temples bind;
And, ever after, through those regions be
His messenger, his little

...for love.
(sonnet #MMMMMDXXXIX)


He jested that he'd write a book whose tale
Was "I forgot to cry" as twas mine thence
For his love drying the endless tears' vain sense
Oer losing Mum, my best friend, and prevail
As bashert where I've never known to hail
Aught soulmate; loved me more than life, to fence
The twinkling hours with him in sheer defense,
And aye, eclipsed my grief oer her, t'avail.
Thus where Death called his lease, or ours as twere,
His last speech mine, he prayed another'd do
That for his Baby.  Yet aught else is poor.
I weep sans comfort, maddened while I rue
Whatever sin brought our demise, or fer
What took his life.  Cuz I'll e'er love him too.

22Mar16b
He said in closing [giving his full name]that he is mine affectionately forever in love for eternity.

i.

Michar, Oer'***-
Lavokri, proment;

ii.

Pravickle gla shoviet
Shoviet crunce du;
zeftar mun acopolli,
vas dae ba-la shu.

iii.

Marantash sodetti
Grasvantas, blinta
Yeshatari klevo's.


©Brandon Nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry
©Earl jane sardua Nagley ( àgapi mou) dedicated






You must read bottom while reading poem for words meanings.
Thanks Brandon. And to all my readers thank you dearly for your support! I thank all of you for your support and kindness and love. Your fellow poet
Brandon Cory Nagley.....

Once upon a time we had the hymnal propped by the kitchen sink so's I could learn; years later Mum would sing along with me, and now...I like never but once in a blue moon dare to sing aloud, for missing her to tears.



(sonnet #MMMMMMCCXLVII)


What's happened to--me?  Rainy hours detail
Thet eye with silver's touch while green lawns fence
The minutes fog obscures by vague suspense
With softest carpets rolled out to avail,
And I'm not erm, my own in sheer betrayl;
Erst naked trees lost to mists' whitish sense
Of yonder, I could shiver, and do hence,
Cuz in a blink I'm his upon that scale.
One comment like my wont five days ere, poor
As what?  now he distracts aught hours 'til through
Suggestion I am giggling, sober, tour
His deepest sorrows, and maunt say he'd woo?!
Of course, I'm better searching violets, fer
All that.  Let purple wink low, saying we knew.

05Apr17b

Yes, I am prolly the only fan of old, cold, coffee.  Over antique sonnets, too.


(sonnet #MMMMMMMCLXXX)


Soft blue heavn's arid eye ne clouds 'non fence
Though ah, how ghostly shadows haunt and trail
Across the rippling fields of grass detail
Below! look sweetly as in years gone--sense
Of all we'd known within their cast, til hence
The soul yields to is't childhood's carefree scale
As twere of hope? vain dreams' perspective hale
If we'd but 'llow ourselves to breathe, fr'intents.
And Maples' shaggy boughs nod; leaves astir
To aerie whispers, as the voice of who?
Some distant motorcyclist passing through
Upon these emptyer country roads in tour,
Lends 'scuse for placid calm, where Sunday fer
All that's excuse, the hol'day 'pon us too.

27May18b

Kick me, I smile too gaily for the sparrows these days.



(sonnet #MMMMMMCCL)


Now twilight falls upon what was and thence
Sifts out more lucid notes, how silence' pale
Breath hangs oer naked trees until their frail
Stance, like to ghosts half frozen in suspense,
Waits for the darkness sans a voice, though hence
Ah, Mavis' hallowed strains aught thrill t'avail.
Me left alone and whispring in betrayl,
"Oh, Andrew--!" blue skies thicken oer that sense.
Yes, I watched orange splash stone walls left as twere
Forlorn with empty eyes that stared out through
The greyish windows as lo, clouds donned fer
Effect, ah, purple, fuschia winking too
Oer houses left in shadows none in poor
'Scuse shifted.  Come, tell me when he'd not woo.

06Apr17c

See my spiral for how she rendered it*  



(sonnet #MMMMMMCCXXXVI)


Ya.  Lean upon the porch rail as night's dense
Black--does it twinkle with ah, stars? nor hail
The mirk none pass through, just my brother.  Pale
As Au Revoir where all else sleep from hence,
Lo, how--what ist?  Hark!  For the train calls thence,
Its whistle breaking this cold silence' tale,
And think now, of how I'll lose all ist? frail
Against the metal lacework, sans defense.
Turn back indoors to clean the mess we'd stir
In babysitting.  Wooden tracks a crew
Of Brio traincars clattered oer in tour
Half like what deeply rumbles past, aye to
A fault, my brother saying "a real train--" Were
I numb too long oer Mum?  Or swear I knew?

01Apr17b

Old Elm that murmured in our chimney top
The sweetest anthem autumn ever made
And into mellow whispering calms would drop
When showers fell on thy many coloured shade
And when dark tempests mimic thunder made
While darkness came as it would strangle light
With the black tempest of a winter night
That rocked thee like a cradle to thy root
How did I love to hear the winds upbraid
Thy strength without while all within was mute
It seasoned comfort to our hearts desire
We felt thy kind protection like a friend
And pitched our chairs up closer to the fire
Enjoying comforts that was was never penned

Old favourite tree thoust seen times changes lower
But change till now did never come to thee
For time beheld thee as his sacred dower
And nature claimed thee her domestic tree
Storms came and shook thee with aliving power
Yet stedfast to thy home thy roots hath been
Summers of thirst parched round thy homely bower
Till earth grew iron—still thy leaves was green
The children sought thee in thy summer shade
And made their play house rings of sticks and stone
The mavis sang and felt himself alone
While in they leaves his early nest was made
And I did feel his happiness mine own
Nought heeding that our friendship was betrayed

Friend not inanimate—tho stocks and stones
There are and many cloathed in flesh and bones
Thou ownd a lnaguage by which hearts are stirred
Deeper than by the attribute of words
Thine spoke a feeling known in every tongue
Language of pity and the force of wrong
What cant assumes what hypocrites may dare
Speaks home to truth and shows it what they are

I see a picture that thy fate displays
And learn a lesson from thy destiny
Self interest saw thee stand in freedoms ways
So thy old shadow must a tyrant be
Thoust heard the knave abusing those in power
Bawl freedom loud and then oppress the free
Thoust sheltered hypocrites in many an hour
That when in power would never shelter thee
Thoust heard the knave supply his canting powers
With wrongs illusions when he wanted friends
That bawled for shelter when he lived in showers
And when clouds vanished made thy shade ammends
With axe at root he felled thee to the ground
And barked of freedom—O I hate that sound

It grows the cant terms of enslaving tools
To wrong another by the name of right
It grows a liscence with oer bearing fools
To cheat plain honesty by force of might
Thus came enclosure—ruin was her guide
But freedoms clapping hands enjoyed the sight
Tho comforts cottage soon was ****** aside
And workhouse prisons raised upon the scite
Een natures dwelling far away from men
The common heath became the spoilers prey
The rabbit had not where to make his den
And labours only cow was drove away
No matter—wrong was right and right was wrong
And freedoms brawl was sanction to the song

Such was thy ruin music making Elm
The rights of freedom was to injure thine
As thou wert served so would they overwhelm
In freedoms name the little so would they over whelm
And these are knaves that brawl for better laws
And cant of tyranny in stronger powers
Who glut their vile unsatiated maws
And freedoms birthright from the weak devours

And now, ....



(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCX)


As if twere not enough that for intents
This valentines Dad gave me Starbucks' scale
Of romance:  cherry mocha to avail
Where I'd not dreamed of aught, how blue skies fence
These minutes I warm soup with pink for sense
Light golden with an eye late April's hale
Last hours know as I set the table, frail
Sweet gloaming when we should dine, like what hence?
I don't konw.  Caught in memries as it were,
Three years ere was it? Febry's cold as due,
And Valentines Day only halfway through,
Yet I feel in my bones that May'd bestir,
Ere violets have a chance to shift in tour
Mats of dead leaves, for what is't that'd um, woo?

14Feb19b

birches and tastsy jerky wood.  resin in the immediate shubbary.... and dust and cobwwebs growing adjacent to the jerky wood.  Myraid of birds, ranging from small birch-types to crows.  A lingering dominant hawk.  A giant possum crossing between borders carrying unborn infants.  Dusty walls with abandonded spiderwebs- insect carcassases dangling, still.  Pool motors revving in every direction lets of a subtle hum that compliments the planes descending and ascending oer-head

the water is grainy yet cool and healing.  the sprinklers function at midnight and sometimes on the weekend.  Maintinance trucks, expensive commuter vehicals, modest vehicls, unmanned vehicles, arrowhead trucks, macdonalds trucks, safeway trucks....

the earth is still wheaty and chalky adjacent the jerky trees, the jerky trees have little hairs and appetizing off red color, the bark saddles off with grace and with a satisfying tare.

...the Word of God.



(sonnet #MMMMMCMLXXII)


Oh yes.  I wimper still oer Mum.  Care thence
In silence as ne words assuage nor bail
My soul, except the LORD's in sheer betrayl.
Orange kisses treetops, yellow nestles hence
In sidewalk cracks and dips, vines paint a sense
Of scarlet through the copse no phlox detail
Now, and lo, I submit a sonnet they'll
Not choose, remembring Mum last year--and whence?
I swear, the Word of God my home as twere,
Replies as through a parched land we ensue.
Grey hours rain drips oer, deep blue heavns we were
So fond of seeing twixt yellow Maples--do
Not have my ticket anymore.  In poor
Scuse I watch Pride and Prejdice.  Where are you?

16Oct16b

Wonder which of my favourite kites I am?



(sonnet #MMMMMMCCLV)


Read antique sonnets, yet don't hear them, frail
As voicing David Grey oer coffee thence
Is, lost to western beaches' surf from hence
And which I almost listen to in pale
Excuse, while Illinois' blue skies detail
These moors and wasted prairies winds pass whence
I canna say oer, whispers in a sense
Where Or'gon's ist? tore up auld trees to scale.
Our houses wink to golden light as twere,
Whiles Andrew's feel the hurr'cane damage to
Effect.  Suppose I don't know what I stir
In asking, he swears I shan't know 'til through
What ist? the ache's root we unearth in tour:
All.  And I love each minute lost to you.

09Apr17a

Summer pleasures they are gone like to visions every one
And the cloudy days of autumn and of winter cometh on
I tried to call them back but unbidden they are gone
Far away from heart and eye and for ever far away
Dear heart and can it be that such raptures meet decay
I thought them all eternal when by Langley Bush I lay
I thought them joys eternal when I used to shout and play
On its bank at ‘clink and bandy’ ‘chock’ and ‘taw’ and
    ducking stone
Where silence sitteth now on the wild heath as her own
Like a ruin of the past all alone

When I used to lie and sing by old eastwells boiling spring
When I used to tie the willow boughs together for a ’swing’
And fish with crooked pins and thread and never catch a
    thing
With heart just like a feather—now as heavy as a stone
When beneath old lea close oak I the bottom branches broke
To make our harvest cart like so many working folk
And then to cut a straw at the brook to have a soak
O I never dreamed of parting or that trouble had a sting
Or that pleasures like a flock of birds would ever take to
    wing
Leaving nothing but a little naked spring

When jumping time away on old cross berry way
And eating awes like sugar plumbs ere they had lost the may
And skipping like a leveret before the peep of day
On the rolly polly up and downs of pleasant swordy well
When in round oaks narrow lane as the south got black again
We sought the hollow ash that was shelter from the rain
With our pockets full of peas we had stolen from the grain
How delicious was the dinner time on such a showry day
O words are poor receipts for what time hath stole away
The ancient pulpit trees and the play

When for school oer ‘little field’ with its brook and wooden
    brig
Where I swaggered like a man though I was not half so big
While I held my little plough though twas but a willow twig
And drove my team along made of nothing but a name
‘Gee hep’ and ‘hoit’ and ‘woi’—O I never call to mind
These pleasant names of places but I leave a sigh behind
While I see the little mouldywharps hang sweeing to the wind
On the only aged willow that in all the field remains
And nature hides her face where theyre sweeing in their
    chains
And in a silent murmuring complains

Here was commons for the hills where they seek for
    freedom still
Though every commons gone and though traps are set to ****
The little homeless miners—O it turns my ***** chill
When I think of old ’sneap green’ puddocks nook and hilly
    snow
Where bramble bushes grew and the daisy gemmed in dew
And the hills of silken grass like to cushions to the view
When we threw the pissmire crumbs when we’s nothing
    else to do
All leveled like a desert by the never weary plough
All vanished like the sun where that cloud is passing now
All settled here for ever on its brow

I never thought that joys would run away from boys
Or that boys would change their minds and forsake such
    summer joys
But alack I never dreamed that the world had other toys
To petrify first feelings like the fable into stone
Till I found the pleasure past and a winter come at last
Then the fields were sudden bare and the sky got overcast
And boyhoods pleasing haunts like a blossom in the blast
Was shrivelled to a withered **** and trampled down and
    done
Till vanished was the morning spring and set that summer
    sun
And winter fought her battle strife and won

By Langley bush I roam but the bush hath left its hill
On cowper green I stray tis a desert strange and chill
And spreading lea close oak ere decay had penned its will
To the axe of the spoiler and self interest fell a prey
And cross berry way and old round oaks narrow lane
With its hollow trees like pulpits I shall never see again
Inclosure like a Buonaparte let not a thing remain
It levelled every bush and tree and levelled every hill
And hung the moles for traitors—though the brook is
    running still
It runs a naked brook cold and chill

O had I known as then joy had left the paths of men
I had watched her night and day besure and never slept agen
And when she turned to go O I’d caught her mantle then
And wooed her like a lover by my lonely side to stay
Aye knelt and worshipped on as love in beautys bower
And clung upon her smiles as a bee upon her flower
And gave her heart my poesys all cropt in a sunny hour
As keepsakes and pledges to fade away
But love never heeded to treasure up the may
So it went the comon road with decay

A suite of fourteen poems

for Alice, always

I

Cutting for Silage

Seen
on the path close to the field edge
a swathe of green grass cut,
Left
in the wake of the machine
to dry in the hopeful sun,
Rich
in a profusion of grasses,
glimmers of wind flowers,
weeds and tares.

Seen from afar
the cut fields partition this landscape
with stripped overlays
packaging the valley,
dark green rows revealing
the camber and roll of
a naked field shorn,
Dark upon light.

II

Walk to Porth Oer

Where the sand whistles
and windy enough today
for the tinnitus to set in,
we’ll walk the curve of its dry fineness
left untouched by the tide’s daily passage
up and back

before
and along cliff paths,
from the mountain
past secret coves
whose steep descents
put the brake on all
but the determined,
beside shoulders of grasses
bluebelled still in almost June
now hiding under the rising bracken
up and down

we’ll walk to a broad view
of this whispering bay
where below on the sandy shore
dots of children
tempt the slight waves.


III

Cold Mountain

Whether  a large hill
or officially a mountain
it’s cold on this higher place
wrapped in a land-mist,
the sea waiting in breathless calm
where the horizon has no line,
no edge to mark the sky.

Any warmness illusory,
in sight of sun brightening a field
far distant, but not here,
where waiting is the order of the day,
waiting for grass to shine and sparkle,
for bare feet to be comforted
by sweet airs.

Meanwhile the sheep chomp,
the lambs bleat and plead,
the choughs throaty laugh
a shrill punctation, an insistence
that all this is how it is.


IV


China in Wales

In my hermitage
on this sea-slung place,
a full-stop of an island
back-lit illuminated always,
I view the distant mountains,
a chain of three peaks
holding mist to their flanks,
guarding beyond their heights
a gate to a teaming world
I do not care to know.


V


Wales in China

O fy nuw, I thought
my valley only owned such rain,
but here it teams torrential
taking out the paths on this steep
mountain side. Mud
everywhere it shouldn’t be.
Everything I touch damp and dripping.
No promise of pandas here.
And there’s this language like the chatter of birds,
whilst mine is the harsh sibilants of sheep
on the hill, the rasp of rooks on the cliffs.


VI


Boy on the Beach

Heard before seen
the boy on the beach,
a relentless cry
of agrievement, of
being badly done to.
This boy on the beach

following his mother
at a distance
then no further.
‘I hate you, ‘ he screams,
and stops,
turning his back on the sea,
folding his arms,
miserableness unqualified,
no help or comfort
on the horizon he cannot see.
It is attrition by neglect.
He becomes silent, and called
from a distance, relents
and turns.


VII


The Poet

Austere, his mouth
moved so little when he spoke,
you felt his words
were always made in advance,
scripted first
and placed on the auto-cue.
Ask a question: and there’s a long pause

as though there lies
the possibility of multiple answers
and he’s running through the list
before he speaks, his antenna
trained on the human spirit,
full of doubt, doubting even
belief itself.


VIII


A Gathering

Thirty, maybe forty
and not in a lecture room
but a clubhouse for the sailing
look you. And we did,
out of the patio doors
to the sun-flecked sea below us,
here to honour a poet’s life and work
in this village of the parish he served
at the end of the pilgrim’s path .

Pilgrims too, of a kind, we listened  
to the authoritative words
of scholarship where ironing
the rough draft found in the bin,
explaining the portrait above the bed,
balancing the anecdotal against the interview,
reading the books he read
become the tools of understanding.

But the poems, the poems
silence us all, invading the space,
holding our breath like a fist.



IX


In the Garden

He came alone to sit in the garden
and remember the day
when, with the intimacy of his camera,
he took her, deep into himself;
her look of self-possession,
of calmness and confidence,
augmented by butterflies
motionless on the wall-flowers,
and the soft breath of the blue sea,
her soft breath, her dear face,
freckled so, his hand trembling
to hold the focus still.


X


The Couple from Coventry

Young beyond their years
and the house they had acquired
but only to visit at weekends for now,
they drove four hours to open the gate
on a different life, a second home
requiring repairs on the roof
and replastering throughout.

With their dog they were walking
the mountain paths, checking out the views,
returning to the quiet space
their bed filled in an upstairs room
echoing of birth and death:
to experiment further with loving
before the noise and distraction
of children swallowed up their lives.


XI


On Not Going to Meeting

There was an excuse:
a fifteen mile drive
and a wet morning.
He had a book, a journal
that might focus his thoughts
towards that communion of souls:
a silence the meeting of Friends
sought and sometimes gathered.

These experimental words
of a man who felt he knew
‘I had nothing outward
to help me,’ who then, oh then,
heard a voice which said,
‘There is one, even Christ Jesus,
that can speak to my condition
. . .  who has the pre-eminence,
who enlightens and gives grace
and faith and power.’


XII


New Life

From behind its mother
the calf appeared
tottering towards the gate,
but after a second thought,
deeming curiosity inappropriate,
turned back to that source
of nourishment and life.


XIII


A Walk on Treath Pellech

Good to stride out.
Good to feel unencumbered
by the unconfining space
of beach and sea, a shoreline
littered with rocks and shallow pools,
sea birds flocking at the tide’s edge.

Alone he sought her small hand
and wished her there over time and space
so to observe what lay at his feet,
that he might continue to look
into the distance with a far-flung gaze.


XIV


The Owl Box

James put it there.
One of forty
all told but
empty yet.
‘We live in hope,’
he said.

Slung from a bough,
bent and bowed,
on a wind-shaped tree,
a hawthorn blossoming still,
(inhabited by choughs a’nesting)
the box hangs waiting
for its owl, her eggs,
her fledgling young
who are not hatched together
but are staggered as though
to give the mother owl some
pause for thought.

Meanwhile the nesting choughs
tear the air with tiresome croaks,
a bit of rough these black characters,
neighbours soon to the delicate mew,
the cool, downy white of the Athene noctua.

(sonnet #MMMMMCDXXIX)


I've rolled the phrase "white rime upon--" in frail
Excuse across my tongue oer tea's intense
Note in that morning cuppa, as defense
For something while cold porridge' stiff detail
Was forked twixt apple slices in the pale
Eye of uncertain dawn whose warming sense
Would filter shafts through skeletons I'd thence
Termed all the naked trees stance, and what's bail?
If Febry opes with silence as it were,
What's new?  Mine's colder in the frozen view
No voice breaks oer, the blueish distance poor
Light watches sans aught joy because I knew
Not to thence cherish Mum, or failed our tour
Of hours together now she's gone.  Frost cue?

01Feb16a

Why I seem to be fair prey for men my father's age and his friends to boot, I cannot guess.  But how do you be friendly while hating their interest intensely?  He said, "I saw that look!" and I'm not really sorry he did, either.


(sonnet #MMMMMCMLXX)


Thin blue skies peer twixt greyish clouds a sense
Of bitter air wafts from, as if the pale
Eye of uncertain warmth's half golden scale
Of light is fragile and must tiptoe thence
In fear across these rasping fields 'til hence
Called off, whileas how leaves just whisper, frail
Breaths passing through oer naked boughs' detail,
The maples green yet as orange paints suspense.
He pops his head in at my bedroom door in tour,
And I assure him that, "Oh, I know you--"
While classcal music plays, rehearse in poor
'Scuse memries, 'til oer one say that we do
Not hafta lie:  "I'm not availble fer
Whomever--" and he bows...is that adieu?

15Oct16

just raises brows quizzically



(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCCXXXVIII)


Soft blue skies feign a note of what fr'intents
I thought to know at dawn, whilst in betrayl
"He's" finished and quite gone, me like to scale
'Non wondring if twas all in that joke's sense
Of "April Fools!" or but a dream from hence?
To rub my eyes as groc'ries, laundry hail
Me for attention, dinner too, in frail
Excuse now feeling like I've small kids thence.
O! How I long to go outside and fer
All that, just breathe!  Forget the day we knew,
Hark to the birds, and lose myself as twere
In that soft calm.  But oh! that will not do.
Watch golden light draw shadows up, each fir
A lacy doily, til that sunset cue.

01Apr19b

One tiny water droplet dances,
On a river of rushing air.
She races 'oer  cumulus cliffs.
She tumbles down the nimbus stair,
And as she whirls mid the frozen flow,
Her body begins to turn to snow.

Relinquishing her liquid status,
Spreading forth her crystaline lattice,
She leaps from the cloud tops of her birth,
Forsakes the sky and drifts to earth.

Now me...
               ...I come...
Grumping down the stony street,
Back turned to the sky, eyes glued to my feet,
And lurking in my furrowed head,
Myriad troubles, worry and dread.
No time to look round, no time to see,
No time for laughter, no time to be.

Suddenly, a glint, flashing, captivates my eye,
Causing me to look upon a small speck drifting by.
One perfect snowflake, like a musical note,
Piroettes, hovers and lands upon my coat.

At once, the black veil distorting my sight,
Dissolves to reveal the truth and the light.
I look up, breathless, for now I can see,
The whole world is dancing and smiling at me,
And my cares, so tremendous a moment before,
Now seem quite tiny and sort of a bore.

I must thank this lovely creature who has perched upon my sleeve,
But all I found was a water droplet, slipped down into the weave.
And on that winter afternoon as I stood beneath a tree,
A small voice whispered on the wind and sighed...
                                                       ­                        ..."Remember me."

Later on, the moment past, now back my daily trials,
And I, caught up in deadlines met, far from thoughts of smiles,
Reached for a pen to make a list of certain things to get,
Looked down my arm at the sleeve of my coat,
                       ...and saw it was still wet.



(For Casey)

Being fatigued has its benefits: I don't give a hoot.


(sonnet #MMMMMMCCCCLXXXVI)


Talk to the silence as a train growls thence
Through wooded stretches, 'neath the bridge detail,
Sans more than rumbling deeply on that scale,
And think of how wee cricket voices fence
These ghastly plains with fiddling oer suspense,
Nor listen cuz--those days are gone and fail,
At least my solace in their joys does, pale
Expanses washed in moonlight not mine hence.
Or not the maple's knobby roots as twere,
Its canopy of shadow lace I knew
Last year, that freedom of the lake in tour
Gone, I remember, as tinnitus to
Effect half waltzes with the clock's demure
Tread, ticking, whilst...what is't that no man woo?

09Jul17b

(sonnet #MMMMMCDXXXII)


How rain's nigh ghastly light haunts vague suspense
Ere darkness yield to after.  In the pale
Note follwing, whiter morsels chase th'exhale
Which moves atwixt these firs as if pretense
Could not decide oer snowbanks' worn intents
And newer puddles thinking of betrayl,
This fragile romance in surreal tones' bail
Lost in the flurry of just whither hence.
I want to ask you what you're doing fer
All we have overnight made me and you
Erm, us and we.  And scared but driving, you're
Not one bit daunted either.  What'd we do?
I've heard of whirlwind stories.  Aren't such poor?
You'd kiss my tear-washed face, and say we knew?

03Feb16

...the old classic "I'm forever trying to keep ahead of that freight train--"



(sonnet #MMMMMMCCCCLXIV)


Lo, peach-kissed fluffy white clouds sailing thence
In bluest seas oer greener Maples frail
Winds softly ply to soto voce's scale
Of whispers on a Friday evning's calmer sense,
And I'm too zonkered to but note from hence
What nudges memries long since past t'avail,
As if Mum still was waiting in betrayl
To talk and laugh while sunset yawns oer whence.
Now but's an hour 'til midnight, hark! in poor
'Scuse an explosion rocks the silence, to
Lapse into nothing.  Is't July astir
Upon suggestion?  O, what matters?  Do
We feel the changes tugging, what's as twere
To do?  Perhaps Joe shan't call.  Say I knew.  

30Jun17c

...and I'll give you half an ear.  
[L9:  Robert.  And sent a pic when returned.  And yes, I loved him, shame to say.]



(sonnet #MMMMMCMXCI)


Where gloaming filters out in greyish thence
And fading halflight, children's voices trail
Some barking canine as no birds detail
Calm whispers whose soft breath tugs at me hence
Likeas to stay my footfalls with that sense
Tis now, and here.  Ne stars yet in blue's veil
Except the evening star alone oer pale
Dead houses, and how sunset burns low.  Whence?
Indeed.  He's gone to Burning Man as twere
Or some take off that, romance forfeit too,
Else I'll wish for a date with each in poor
Excuse, how's that?  The problem is...that you
Are not here.  What are cool winds' murmurs?  You're
Who gives dusk romance.  Tell me that you knew.

23Oct16c

He told me flat out that he owns me.  Some later date I'll parse that happiness out, I guess.



(sonnet #MMMMMMDIV)


These faded blue skies like to denim, whence
I cull a refrence to "old glory," t'hail
That pick-up with the flag 'non waving, hale
Against whichever backdrop in defense
Of liberty, look placid in a sense;
My voice hoarse from oh, singing's tale,
Cuz Joey plays the drums and when in frail
'Scuse I said I'd sing while he did--what hence?
He said I could sing anytime as twere
For him, and being late worried oer him too,
Cuz he'd download some virus, I sang fer
Relief, oer dinner dishes 'til nigh through;
And lo, when done and listless, what in pure
Yes, mercy?! but he'd call.  I love him too.

17Jul17b

(sonnet #MMMMMCCCLXVIII)


Lo, poor man's tea in dawn's first light, whose pale
Eye shifts vague shadows 'cross dead houses thence,
Ere twinkling with an orange splash' warming sense
Upon that silence, and no coffee's bail
In morning's fog as rosy lee's detail.
Snow's bitter whiteness waits sans aught suspense
While sparrows gaily answer for two pence,
And I wash up the dishes on that scale.
We fix a mean cup of ole joe as twere,
Yet where the Brits swear by tea's mincing cue
I oddly know what tis to waken, poor
As such assertions oer the second brew.
Discuss caffeine, and I sleep well nor stir
'Til ah, forget it.  What I need is you.


05Jan16d

Layered.  Say you didn't know these were complex.



(sonnet #MMMMMMCCXXXVII)


Blue skies peer thinly twixt the whiter tale
Of clouds whose stringy webs mask what, from hence?
The warming golden light half bleak, a sense
I maunt put down stalks through all that'd avail.
Ne shadows nor a flirting breath t'exhale
By even halves and I am jumpy, whence
What daffodils might nod can own intents
While folk tell April Fools jokes like we've bail.
Did I complain oer...jonquils' yellow tour
Of frilly heads and purple hy'cinth too?
Yes.  I said even ******* laundry's...poor,
Sith Mum is buried.  Taen from me now, who
Shall pity?  Sparrows e'en too distant fer
Aught smiles, I wonder if a man'd now woo.

01Apr17c

Notice my play on words?!



(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCLIX)


Roll Soren Kierkegaard (nor dare exhale
As if the mention culls a sheer suspense)
Across your tongue, and spell "philospher" thence
Out slowly, to learn we were taught lies they'll
Assure us was for good, to countervail
His wisdom, whiles you're piqued for aught intents
Upon that note:  "they" would acknowledge, sense
Demanded it?  But hide what might avail.
I know "they" swore that Shelley was in poor
Scuse mad.  And now find Kierkegaard was too?!
Yet Bysshe had keener sense than all as twere,
Which I learn Soren did as well?  and who
"They" classed as what, eh, for all that?!  Go stir
The burning coals, for ashes whisper 'new.

21Jan19c

If only, if only...



(sonnet #MMMMMMMCMLXXXIII)


Read Jeremiah twelve, and lo, in pale
Excuse how William Drummond's lines come thence
Unto the 'fore with that old question dense
Wi' import we've asked oer and oer to scale:
"...Is THIS how all goes?  Is it thus?!"  Detail
Jist what the Scriptures beg an answer hence
To, and, oh me! is that auld query's sense
Of wrong the reason we do not find bail?
Thou dost not seem to tell Thy prophet fer
All that a wherefore, jist as lo, unto
Thy servent Job, um, rather how as twere
We aught to be.  Why don't we follow to
Effect?  Why am I here?  Have I in tour
'Non turned aside as if such things would do?

23May19a

...like, "if you must remain nobly a ****** unto death in lieu of marrying divorced or ungodly men, buck up and be thankful." or something like that.  


(sonnet #MMMMMMCMVI)


If butterflies were dancing gaily hence
Across these wastes, likeas in sheer betrayl
Pink 'non embroidered ones do whilst flutes scale
Soft notes and trip too merr'ly for intents
Now through the minutes I work pinning thence
An ancient zipper to this skirt, we'd hail
Sweet joy no, aye?  But thin white clouds 'gain veil
Blue skies til shadows' ghosts fade, and's pretense.
Did I complain too much ere, that as twere
I'm punished with ne best friend?  No man'd woo
Affections then, but he was toying in poor
Excuse with me, or was divorced.  None do
Ha, ha now either, flutes in lieu what stir
Fond visions as I bend oer sewing's cue.

25Jan18b

'Twas March of 1958
A babe arrived, a heavyweight
As babies go he was first-rate
Really worth the nine months wait
A child so fair, so good, so bonnie
Our fourth born child, we named him  Ronnie
Oer the years we watched him grow
A loving child, we loved him so
So strong, so sweet, unlike any other
A loving son, a loyal brother
he's grown from such a special lad
to a quite extraordinary dad.
It's been apparent from the start
he has an extra roomy heart
Full of giving, always sharing
towards others he is more than caring
So raise your glasses
and give some cheers
to celebrate his forty years.

We had some swans,
such lovely ones,
gliding 'oer the water,
I'm sad to say,
they didn't stay.
white feathers on dark water.

Hi.  waves with a happy smile



(sonnet #MMMMMMCCLXVII)


"Your Jenny."  And these blank skies thinly pale,
The baby leaves 'non shiver to winds' sense
Of sheer caprice, their soft chartreuse lit thence
As if translucent while birds wing oer, hail
With voices my heart knows from June's detail,
Like summer's breath flirts 'cross green lawns more dense
And ruffled carpets, daffodils bright hence
In deepest yellows smiling to avail.
Oh, Andrew!  Song of Songs talks of what fer
Effect seems mine, though we're but friends--yet ooh!
That's how she knows him, yes.  Warmth's waltzing tour
With singing lightly on the air and dew
What twinkles in morn's eye is ours as twere,
Whiles I want violets as I wait for you.

14Apr17b

Barn door
swings gentle in the wind
and as it swings it sings a creaking hymn
each rusting metal part contributes something to the tune
no caustic gale has swept this sodden farmyard free of life
time has cleared this plot, severing today from times long past
those who lie in the churchyard up the valley know full well
what years have brought this building down
with windows mostly out,
battered eyelets all shot through with jagged holes
as if the house itself had lost its stocky stone built soul
crouched low, set firm against a nagging breeze
sagging ivy wags a finger in its gaping maw
that bent and twisted raw bone knuckled door
and finds its way through rotten skirting board and floor
to lift the planks and venture to the cellar dug below
toppled from beneath, by damp and rot
where pale and sickly mushroom flowers grow
fat and pink among the creeping green
a place that better days have definitely seen

...the sages taught.  



(sonnet #MMMMMMMCMXXII)


Tis all a paltry jest whose sweet pretense
I cherished more than due, although sans bail
Thy Scriptures oer and oer instruct t'avail
My soul to not love aught here; all I'd thence
Laugh 'bout and think t'extole as being fr'intents
Tops, waxing thin in retrospect's detail,
And to the moment's shining face, til frail
Joys mock "...their own presage--" is't lo,from hence?
She wants to go out for um, coffee.  Her
Idea, not mine, when it comes down unto
The point of which cafe.  And that's good too.
But most joe is not worth the price, in poor
'Scuse.  She does not care.  'Nother friend in tour
Will hook me with her cousin, when?  He'll woo?!

29Apr19b

sigh* a day later, when Saturday's mad pile of work was a memory, it literally tasted like water.  Now, how did that happen?  



(sonnet #MMMMDCXLIV)


Mists waft with curious fragrance' odd detail
Upon the creamy surface of those scents'
Brown claim of coffee in my mug, to fence
Thin hope with old chagrin as morning's pale
Light watches from its cloudy vantage' scale
Of truth, where ghostly layers shift oer pretense
And grey asks white to call it blue from thence,
My breakfast:  ***** dishes 'hind th'exhale.
It's nat'nal cereal day, so in a poor
Excuse I added Malt-O-Meal to do
The favours with our wonted pancakes, fer
A whopping stack of edibles.  Yes, two
Eggs, bacon, and a touch of fruit.  If you're
Still hungry, there's no coffee.  I love you.

07Mar15a

give not a sound

      trembler

the knees knocking crane
'oer a lathered thing rising

by mute unsound

       fumbler

the crook pierced open vane
by jeweled petal (a poppy smiling)

creeply warmth unbound

        tumbler

a flower blooms in sullied fane
inch by eater -- becomes silver stung

(sonnet #MMMMMMMCCXLIII)


So, if I wait until the morrow, pale
As aught excuse, we might continue thence
This theme:  I meant to scribble--for intents.
Espresso.  With sweet conversation, bail
For many years, passe, lost in betrayl
Since April was't?  This morning likeas hence
We'd never ceased, I sip with Dad, a sense
Of sweeter hours in tow as if t'avail.
And Wordsworth oer last bits of coffee, to
Effect where Sunday afternoon in tour
Could don a sense of happier years we knew
When Mum was still with us.  O tis a poor
Suggestion.  I cooked lunch with mishaps fer
Reminders of the LORD's great mercies:  new.

24Jun18

THIS: see note below



(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCLXXXVI)


Salve, then, thy wounded disposition's sense
Of loss, where hitherto what joys' detail
I'd thought to know! in music first, t'avail:
Bach's lute piece I've long cherished; and from thence
Lo, Medelssohn's fourth Symphny for intents,
While reading up on Tristram Shandy's tale,
And then an essay on um, friendship they'll
Assure us is a lost art, like...pretense?
The funniest thing is how old tis as twere:
...From my last year of highschool.  That should do?
Next, that first summer lo, in college' tour
Of guy/girl friendships and romance, cuz two
Can't long be simply friends.  Or what?  Is't poor?
I still have guy friends, with no lover too.

17Mar19d

(sonnet #MMMMMCDXV)


There was a science to extraction.  Pale
Morn's wintry eye does not observe the sense
I rather feel as boiling water thence
Steams up the pipe, to settle without bail
Above my waiting carafe, as't fail
To know the vacuum meant it'd drain from hence.
And none else trouble-shoots the Pebo, whence
My griefs **** weary thumbs in sheer betrayl.
I know Mum would ask why I bother fer
The umpteenth time to make this work, and brew
A *** of grim frustration joe in poor
Excuse shan't bless.  Dad cites my dreams, to stew
By halves oer this grand failure.  I don't stir
Aught grounds, pray, miss Mum, and what'd aye, subdue?

28Jan16a