In the clear light of morning, an October morning, at the beginning of this properly autumn month, he had felt sad: that he’d broken a promise to himself the afternoon before. It was her voice on the phone, and then that text. He had promised he would no longer write intimately, about their intimacy, remembering what has passed between them, which had so marked him. All it took was this flavour of her voice, a slowness in her diction, and he could not help himself: such a rush of images, of moments, sensations. He knew it was unwise to linger over any of these things because he felt sure she did not. That was no longer her way, if it ever had been her way, and he imagined that, with her accustomed kindness and generosity, she had quietly put such things aside. So on this gentle morning, he was upset that he had once again visited that box of treasures in the white room that he kept for her in his imagination house. This was not the route to happiness. He would throw away the key.

He needed consolation. Once he had turned to her letters, to catch that flavour of her, those things that surrounded her, a kind of aura that held within it her secret self. Now, there was a print above his desk that he loved (Spurn marks: seaweed #4), her origami bird, the print of a painting of an African woman and child given to him on his birthday (when he had first kissed her, tentatively on her left cheek,) and her dear photograph, dear because he knew he looked at it more times in a day than he could possibly admit to.

It needed to be a book, a passage he could read to remind him there were so many other joys in life alongside the joy he felt at the thought of her, a joy he felt he might never consummate. He took Ronald Blythe’s Word from Wormingford off the shelf and turned to the essay for the beginning of October. Ronnie had been watching the late September clouds, those armadas sailing across the skies. In a moment he was somewhere else, in a life he recognised so acutely, those East Anglian places of his early manhood. In this present time, in North Yorkshire, he would sit and watched such clouds from a bench above Filey Bay, clouds that David Hockney celebrated in his paintings of the Wolds.

Yesterday afternoon there had been a break in the weather after a week of mist and rain. It had found him gazing at a drama in the skies above the trees in his park. He had walked to the Rose Garden with its redundant conservatory and paired Pelicans atop its gateposts, where once he’d sat with his infant children as they’d slept. There were roses still, a little tattered, but colourful. Like Ronnie he had spent time cloud watching, until the geese from the nearby lake erupted into flight. Always a marvel of movement !

Blythe’s essays were always so rich in the sheer breadth and content of their meditations. There was always some new knowledge to be had, things to Google or better still ‘go to the book.’ This was when he loved what few books now remained from his library. He had Luke Howard’s essay on The Modification of Clouds. A Quaker, Howard was admired by Goethe (they corresponded) and Shelley, John Constable and John Ruskin (who used Howard’s cloud classifications in his Modern Painters). He then went to find Shelley’s The Cloud (and in so doing uncovered several books that he’d forgotten he owned). He read the last verse that once he had learnt by heart . . .

I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
And the nursling of the Sky;
I pass through the pores, of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die --
For after the rain, when with never a stain
The pavilion of Heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex gleams,
Build up the blue dome of Air
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph
And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, live a ghost from the tomb,
I arise, and unbuild it again.

Hmm, he thought, such rhyme and rhythm. And, via Blythe recalling the Chinese, he then pictured the official from the emperor’s counting house bringing guests home after work to gaze at the cloudscapes over the Tai Mountains from his humble balcony. Nothing was to be said, an hour of silence was the convention. In a blink he remembered the autumn poem by Lai Bai where ‘floating clouds seem to have no end.’

I climb up high and look on the four seas,
Heaven and earth spreading out so far.
Frost blankets all the stuff of autumn,
The wind blows with the great desert's cold.
The eastward-flowing water is immense,
All the ten thousand things billow.
The white sun's passing brightness fades,
Floating clouds seem to have no end.
Swallows and sparrows nest in the wutong tree,
Yuan and luan birds perch among jujube thorns.
Now it's time to head on back again,
I flick my sword and sing Taking the Hard Road.

He had to take a deep breath not to think too deeply about The Clouds and Rain, that metaphor for the arts of the bedchamber. But Ronnie’s 500 words sent him back to Wormingford and the bedbound old lady he describes who spent her days watching the clouds.

As he closed the book he felt a little better, ready to face the day, and more important ready to place his thoughts in a right place, a comfortable and secure place, quiet and respectful, however much he might seek to possess each night her Lotus pond and make those flowers of fire blossom within

I

Who would be
A mermaid fair,
Singing alone,
Combing her hair
Under the sea,
In a golden curl
With a comb of pearl,
On a throne?

II

I would be a mermaid fair;
I would sing to myself the whole of the day;
With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair;
And still as I comb'd I would sing and say,
'Who is it loves me? who loves not me?'
I would comb my hair till my ringlets would fall
                Low adown, low adown,
From under my starry sea-bud crown
                Low adown and around,
And I should look like a fountain of gold
        Springing alone
        With a shrill inner sound
                Over the throne
        In the midst of the hall;
Till that great sea-snake under the sea
From his coiled sleeps in the central deeps
Would slowly trail himself sevenfold
Round the hall where I sate, and look in at the gate
With his large calm eyes for the love of me.
And all the mermen under the sea
Would feel their immortality
Die in their hearts for the love of me.

III

But at night I would wander away, away,
        I would fling on each side my low-flowing locks,
And lightly vault from the throne and play
     With the mermen in and out of the rocks;
We would run to and fro, and hide and seek,
     On the broad sea-wolds in the crimson shells,
Whose silvery spikes are nighest the sea.
But if any came near I would call and shriek,
And adown the steep like a wave I would leap
     From the diamond-ledges that jut from the dells;
For I would not be kiss'd by all who would list
Of the bold merry mermen under the sea.
They would sue me, and woo me, and flatter me,
In the purple twilights under the sea;
But the king of them all would carry me,
Woo me, and win me, and marry me,
In the branching jaspers under the sea.
Then all the dry-pied things that be
In the hueless mosses under the sea
Would curl round my silver feet silently,
All looking up for the love of me.
And if I should carol aloud, from aloft
All things that are forked, and horned, and soft
Would lean out from the hollow sphere of the sea,
All looking down for the love of me.

Love has come Again

At a halt on our path
a field-scape lies.
The sky downcasts
a beige blankness
tucked into the horizon.
It is a scene, still of movement.

Then in an abrupt cloak of berries
the sudden plumage of a pheasant
erupts from its hedgerow covert,
a most vivid proclamation
of the season’s palette.

In these silent wolds winter’s wheat
has already sprung its green blade
from the buried grain . . .
only now to wait,
to wait in the cold earth
at our feet, to wait, then flower.

Love is Come Again  the carol sings.

This is nature’s promise,
and yet hidden from sight
the story tells itself
again. And yet again
we pause and wonder
at its telling . . .
even as the light fails us
and a darkness falls
against this frigid land.




La Serenissima*

There it was, high on an outer wall
of *San Giovanni Battista in Bragora;
the church where Vivaldi was baptised.

Ruskin would surely have brought
suo scala a pioli to come close
and so sketch this tableau in relief
of Mary, her son and the Magi three.

But with il telebiettivo
its detail becomes forever mine,
and so is pinned during Advent
to my studio notice-board:

a ****** purissimo,
un bambino divine,
my Christmas gift
from La Serenissima.

"Which world do you prefer?"



An illusion created by one's mind

May destroy a life


For it is a disease of an irrational illness

Just another hide-a-way

To keep secretes



Separating the real world from fantasy

But, what happens if the delusions

Revealed what is underneath the lies that it be stoles?

And fantasies start to become the real world?



Are our dreams gaining so much power, that is takes full control?

Can it be true?

Humans are afraid to face the truth

So they prefer to live in a world that barely exists



The days light reveals reality

But when darkness falls

The night deeply sleeps away

As more dreams gets created

Adding more power to something that is fake

Then revealing the truth when we awake



Though our foolish minds don't dare to believe,

We would rather live in a world that we establish

When we fall asleep



So I keep running and running

Hoping to reach a stop

Wondering if I should leave behind

All I got

Here I stand,

Ready to take on everything, day by day



I once told myself never to be like my mother

And fear what life gives

Never be like my father

And drink my life away

I failed to do both

I'm not as strong as I thought I was

But I struggle to change



To find the strength and face reality

It is not as simple as most people tend to say

Now I see why others prefer

To hide-a-way

To this day I remain in confusion

Questioning how life can be so brutal



That it pushes us over the edge

To the point where we can't bare

Over time I came to realize

Life is a lesson that's needed to be learned

So be prepared to face the real world

They call a deep orange-red moon “******,”
That, somehow, she can hurt and wound like I…
How absurd! A rock can’t show tears or glee
Yet she is as joyous as stars are nigh.

Goddess Moon kissed Mother Earth in passion,
Fire consum’ng their love so time would not.
Time is a hunter they could not outrun,
As he ripped them apart, doomed them to rot.

One grew lush and strong, the other ice cold;
One circled the other in longing stares,
The other raising man in open wolds;
Memories in scars -- what a tragic pair.

Bleed, Moon, bleed as I do cry for lost love,
Alone and cold with the stars high above.

Come, silver moon, alight on troubled clouds,
Gift them thy saintly glow lifting the gloom
Levied below, with flowery haloed buds
Springing forth like the lamb from mother's womb,

Light up anew hedgerows and quilted fields
Where cattle sleep in clusters like faint stars,
Constellations huddled upon the wolds,
Breath nebulous as fogging stale cigars;

Ill omens thrive to drift in darkest times
From cloud to stony cloud above the night,
Watching for victims from high lofted climes,
Raining full pent up fury of their might:

Come, silver moon, gift troubled clouds thy lining,
Hope lives in thee as long as thou art shining!

Alone,
Above frozen hills and icy forest,
Finding definition through separation,
A dark island in a white sky,  
Coming closer.

The eyes first- burning beads of life,
Searching for death and opportunity,
Blazing terrifying focus,
Coming closer.

The sound next- quiet rush of primaries,
Hiss of bone and feather slicing frozen air,
Whisper of the wolds wild goddess,
A knife blade.

Cutting holy air like I cut myself,
Soul slicing distinctions and definitions,
Of happiness and loneliness,
And he leaves me,
Alone.

The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Turnpikes and the Posting Inns
are scattered all across the County; many tales... where to begin?
Perhaps, to paint a picture of the countryside, to show just why
so many Blackguards, Highwaymen and Footpads there, in wait, did lie.
Compassing round Gloucester Vale, the Cotswold Scarp that reaches steep
up to the High Wolds would confound the Mails... their schedules to keep;
and as the horses struggled up the hills; at length, the Wolds to see...
The Highwaymen would fall on them, to pillage with impunity.

There were five major Mail Coach routes across the County in those days.
The Bristol-Oxford-London route was favourite, in many ways;
the long climb out, up Dowdeswell Hill... three miles of twisting, shadowy lane;
then on to Shipton Bank... yet two more miles of sweating, tiring strain.
On into Compton Parish where, God speed... soon into sight, would come...
Puesdown; for a change of horses, and a rest for everyone.
The Puesdown Inn... a lonely refuge on the road to London Town;
crouching four-square on the High Wolds... sturdy built, of honeyed stone.

The Mail Coach had departed Bristol early, in the morning light,
but, by the time that they accomplished Puesdown... slowly crept the night
upon them... whilst the Postern loaded Blunderbuss decisively,
the travellers watched in trepidation, wondering what their fate would be.
Next morn, they need cross Compton Bottom... on up then, to Hangman's Stone
where stood the Parish Gibbet... and this Gibbet never stood alone
Always, someone neck-roped there; soft tinkling in the wind... their chains;
perhaps, some plough-boy blinded by the promise of ill-gotten gains.

Perhaps, some Highwayman whose luck ran out... as luck is bound to do.
Perhaps, some Footpad who slit one too many throats... for shillings, few.
Perhaps, some Blackguard who, not waiting for consent... despoiled some maid;
But, not as yet...The Duke; the Highwayman of whom, all were afraid.
The Duke... he prowled the Oxford road from Shipton Bank to Windrush Pike;
he gave no quarter to his prey... much like an Adder swiftly strikes.
The merest hint of least resistance, and his pistols... they would speak,
cutting down those who would dare gainsay the plunder he did seek.

Until, one night, he overplayed his hand whilst holding up The Mail.
A storm-swept, snow-blown wintering night... the night his pistol primings failed.
Calling them "Stand and Deliver"... firing, as they swift retired;
both pistols flashing in the pan... loads not discharging... both misfired!
Swift-wheeling round his mount to flee... the Postern did discharge a ball;
clatteringly, The Duke sped down the icy road... he did not fall.
Had they hit him? No-one knew; at Puesdown, though... they knew the score;
The Duke, swift bleeding from the chest, leaned, beating on the Taproom door.

But, they would not bid him enter... casements locked... doors barred, all sound.
Without the Inn... an hour or more, they say he dragged himself around,
dripping blood; beseeching mercy...a thing, his victims he denied.
They found him in the yard, next morn. Alone out there, he froze... and died.
The Parish Constables then bundled him off, up to Hangman's Stone,
and hoisted him upon the Gibbet... fettered, chained, to swing alone.
A grim, and awful warning to dissuade those culls, who thought to stray
into a life of easy pickings... robbing on the King's Highway.

The Road to Oxford long-since changed; a bypass now skirts Northleach Town.
The Puesdown Inn still stands four-square... still sturdy built, of honeyed stone.
The old road now has little use... odd courting couples... local folk;
but in the Hamlets there are stories; whispers... words not often spoke,
about strange things out on that ancient Coaching road near Hangman's Stone.
They say it's not a place to linger in the night... 'nor be alone.
They say The Duke still prowls this place, still seeking vengeance for his fate;
They say that if you hear the clattering hooves... then, for you... it's too late.

And, at The Puesdown Inn, they say, some guests hear bangings on the door
of what was once, the Taproom... perhaps, just the wind? No-one is sure.
They say you may hear footsteps dragging round, and round those Honeyed walls...
and rattlings on the casements... and soft groaning... but, what then, the cause?
For Puesdown is an Ancient Inn; its timbered beams all tired and worn;
they creak and groan as they cool in the night... was thus, a legend born?
Is it just wind out in the trees; soft whimpering on the Wolds, so high?
Or... is it, indeed, The Duke... still seeking somewhere warm to die?

I chase numerical dreams for vocation
ever grasping for untouchable horizons,
counting sand granules
piling leaves in size order
according to shades of ochre.

Then release
to hobby with words
build castles of sentimentality,
sparkle yonder meadows with dew
wetted by inner calligraphy.

Poetry to feather my dust -
echo pain-stained syllables
resounding morosely bound verses,
liberating caved bats
flapping to rhythms
pen strokes.

Launching boulders
onto unvarnished whiteness
once rolling to and fro
on my emotive wolds,
grasslands may grow again.

Pasting tokens of lost love
shrouding texts with torment
stamping lingering wraiths,
least they not prance
for a-while.

Worlds drip-dry here
under auroral poetry
a chance to breathe;
fresh crisp air -
of expressiveness,
I arrived - stayed.

If you should climb the Limestone heights that ring the Vale of Gloucester, fair;
and follow the old Roman Fosse; within the hour, you will be where
an echo of the Old ways whispers still... beware! Yet, may remain
something of the legend that besets this place... this dark domain.
For, on the Wolds there stands a hill...
and, on the hill, there stands a wood...
but in the wood, no Rowan grows; and it is said... you really should
take care, if there, you foolish venture in... 'less, you be lost, as well;
For this is Wychwood... how well named.
Its shadowy tale, I now will tell.

lt is told... a young farmhand was cutting Hazel wands one day
to make a clutch of hurdles, for to pen the sheep... oft, want to stray.
When he was by a stand of Rowans, he espied a fair, young maid
laying in a grassy bower... bodice torn, skirts disarrayed.
Thinking she was victim of some importunement... to her side
the farmhand rushed; bent to her... and froze, as her eyes flashed open wide.
And, before his eyes, she changed... no more, blonde hair and eyes of green;
now... a dark-haired, red-lipped beauty...
Arelanna... Wychwood Queen.

Who held him, as one holds a fledgling sparrow, with her depth-less eyes...
her raven hair a'tumbling round her milky shoulders, undisguised.
She studied him with coal-black eyes, her lips made free a tiny smile...
"Come", she said, "for I have need of you, for just a little while."
And led him deep into the stand of Rowans... far, far out of sight,
and slipped her gown before him, standing red of lip, with *******... so white;
and pulled him to her; saying, "Come... for now, we shall beget a child...
a boy; to be the Wychwood King... and I shall name him... Arlafylde.

And so, the Great Rite was performed... the young farmhand... 'naught, but a pawn;
no pleasure found, 'nor offered; just a cold, sick dread of what had dawned
on this spring day which started, just like any other in the year...
but now, he watched her face beset by pleasure... and knew only fear.
She said, "You will not speak of this, or I shall bind you all in spell...
your crops will fail... your beasts will sicken, if, but one soul, you would tell."
Then, the scales fell from his eyes; alone, he stood upon the hill...
and yet, the scoring of her nails upon his back... he felt them still.

He did not speak of this again for many years... his thoughts were sealed;
until upon his deathbed, then, the Wychwood secret, he revealed.
And so the village gathered, and elected they should rid the wood
of Arelanna, Wychwood Queen,  and of her ungodly brood.
They climbed the hill with flaring links, all armed with Holy Water, too...
and circling round the stand of Rowan; therein... Holy water threw.
But not the Arelanna they expected; stumbled from the stand...
no dark-eyed, red-lipped beauty... but a wizened crone with claw-like hands.

The crone was bundled down the hill, and cast upon the village green...
and there, they hanged her out of hand... no trial... no justice to be seen.
They searched again to find the boy... 'though now, in truth; should he exist,
he would be full-grown... but they found 'naught; though nothing there, was missed.
But, what they did not know was this...  Arlafylde watched his mother dance
upon the rope; a shadowy figure in the night... not worth a glance.
Had they but seen his burning eyes; or felt his thoughts that flamed, so bright...
"Now; they shall all know, indeed, why it is they fear the night."

Misfortunes then began to happen... sudden deaths, all unexplained;
cattle dying in the pastures... thatches bursting into flames.
Pestilence and ague creeping... wells befouled, and blighted corn;
injuries that would not mend... the village cursed, and all forlorn.
And, then one day, there came a stranger; darkly cloaked, who walked with grace.
Who knocked upon the Parson's door... cast off the hood, and showed her face.
A dark-haired, red-lipped beauty; eyes as black as coal, with milky skin...
She spoke...
"I am Fenella; daughter of Arelanna... let me in."

This beauty was the first-born child of Arelanna, Wychwood Queen;
conceived in the same manner as her brother,  Arlafylde had so been;
but Arelanna cast her out... a girl-child was not her desire...
and kindly souls had found her, and had shared their home... their hearth... their fire.
And so, Fenella; 'though she had the magic, chose the shining way,
and now, had come to pay the debt she said she owed; from darker days.
She said, "Fear not; my Brother uses magic blemished with his hate;
but, I still hold my mother's instinct for this Art; t'is not too late."

Early in the morning when the Sun was fresh, and all was new;
Fenella climbed the hill to Wychwood, all alone... this thing to do.
To meet her brother for the first, and last time....which one would prevail?
Then she was lost from sight; they said a darkening cloud beset the hill...
and in it, they saw bolts of bright blue lightning, but, there was no crash
of thunder; not a sound to hear... then suddenly... a blinding flash;
and then, the cloud was gone... but where? The people could not understand...
and, there! Fenella walking down... a sprig of Rowan in her hand.

"The deed is done," she softly said, " My evil brother is no more...
'nor, is there now a stand of Rowan cluttering the woodland floor;
for, though the Rowan is a beneficial, magic tree for me;
so polluted, was it, by my mother's deeds... it could not stay.
But... I have sealed the evil in this tiny sprig for just a while...
just long enough to have it blessed; just long enough to un-defile
this little plant, so it may grow again to guard your lives once more
against the darkness you have known, against all that has gone before."

Fenella stayed, and married in the village beneath Wychwood Hill.
Her grave is in the small churchyard. Fenella is remembered still.
For, every year the children come with Rowan sprigs; which then, they lay
upon her grave; in memory still, of what she did for them, that day.
And, on the Wolds there stands a hill...
and, on the hill there stands a wood...
but in the wood, no Rowan grows; and it is said... you really should
take care, if there, you foolish venture in... because a standing stone...
for all the world... shaped like a man, stands in a clearing... all alone.

The place that I live in the heart of the Shires; they call it God's country; this County of mine.
With rolling green pastures, and wind-swept high Wolds all scattered with sheep, and forgotten by time.
A child could not wish for a happier place to play, and to grow... to learn about living;
to romp in the wheatfields on bright summer days, and, rather than take... find more pleasure in giving.

This is how I was taught in those innocent days where all were accepted... and none preconceived;
but, then I grew up and those values were crushed; but, I still hold to the truths I believed.
Why are there more words used for hatred, and envy, than ever there are used for tolerance, and joy?
Don't reach for the Prozac... just walk through my memories... experience that, which I had as a boy.

My Grandfather taught me that we are all equal...  in birth, life, and death we are all just the same.
"Shrouds have no pockets"... he said, as I listened, "It's all down to you... and how you play the game.
And what you will do with the time you are given is how they'll remember you, boy... have no fears."
and, ******* his pipe; he said, "Always remember, to just leave them smiling... and not shedding tears."

Now and again, I return to those high Wolds, and wander through meadows where I used to play;
remembering words that my Grandfather taught me... remembering wheatfields on hot summer days.
I hope that I've followed the truths that he taught me... his countryman morals that never efface;
and, if by his words, you should find some contentment... perhaps, this world might be a much nicer place.

Beneath the Limestone edge of the escarpment called the Cotswold Hills
lies the market town of Stroud, which once, was home to diverse mills
producing cloth; for countless streams flow down from off the Wolds, so high,
and wool aplenty, thereabouts ... sheep country, far as meets the eye.
And, spread out like a starfish arms; five valleys all about, do spread
around the town; 'though, more a pentagram, some locals whisperingly said.
Vague talk of Witchery and Covens, Pagan rites ... black candles lit;
it is, indeed, a curious place; whatever is the truth of it.

And, should you take the second Northern valley... once the old Coach road
that ran from Bath to Worcester; in the dark of night, you need be bold.
By light of day, a pretty route that skirts the valley pleasingly
up into Slad; the birthplace of the Famous Author: Laurie Lee.
Cider with Rosie... you can almost feel the echoes, hereabout;
for time has almost passed this little village by, there is no doubt.
The woods, the meadows where he spent his childhood ... much the same, today;
but, this is window dressing; for the real tale is two miles away.

Further up the valley is a windswept, empty place... all gaunt;
thrusting out above the woods, as if, its nakedness to flaunt.
A wild, and lonely shoulder of the Wolds... where only grass will grow,
where once, two Coach-roads crossed each other; many, many years ago.
Perhaps, if you are sharp of eye, you may make out the traces, still,
of coach wheel ruts in overgrown, green lanes which time has not yet filled.
The modern road runs parallel to the old Bath-Worcester coaching run;
And this, is then... Bull's Cross; and now, this story really has begun.

For it is said, on certain nights, about the hour of Twelve Midnight,
with Bull's Cross silent as the grave... all bathed in leprous, pale moonlight;
particularly, on New Years Eve; if dread misfortune strikes your soul
you may well see the Bull's Cross coach all thundering down, out of control.
The coach, all silver-grey; the galloping horses... flaring... runaway;
the pistol crack of snapping harness; coachman crying... "Clear the way!"
and then, the sound of splintering shafts... the screams of passengers thrown down
upon the wind-bent wilderness; all scattered, dying all around.

Some old disaster lost in time; played out at midnight, certain nights...
and those who have not seen it, boast they have... and those who have, keep tight
their lips;
for it is said, the sighting of the spectral coach will lay
a curse upon those witnesses who let their loose tongues run away,
and babble of what they have seen... the moonlit, splintered wheels a-spin;
they turn chalk-white, their teeth fall out, they meet their death by trampling.
And, there is more; there is another phantom lurking in this place,
and if you meet him, you must never, ever look him in the face.

For just below Bull's Cross, there stands a wood... dank, yellow... overgrown,
known locally as Deadcombe Bottom; not a place to go alone.
And here, there is a cottage... tumbledown, and open to the skies,
deep in the wood; all hidden from the passing, curious, prying eyes.
For Bull's Cross is a jutting baldness all the villages can see;
a perfect place to raise a Gallows... so, a Gallows, there would be.
The cottage, then... was specially chosen as the Bull's Cross Hangman's home;
close to his place of work, yet hidden... somewhere, people did not roam.

He lived there with his son, and worked his trade; he was a skilful man.
Times were hard, and he was busy; nightly... felons to be hanged.
One stormy night... a routine summons... a shivering lad brought to his hand.
Used to working in the dark... the lad despatched... he paused to stand
and light his pipe;
the moon slipped out, and lit the gallows, pale and wan,
and, in the rain-soaked face that stared at him... the Hangman saw his son.
To his companions he said not a word... just turned, and walked away;
and in his cottage, on a hook, he hanged himself without delay.

There is, but one wall standing now... and in that wall, a great iron hook
blood-red with rust... the very same from which, his final step, he took.
Still dank and yellow is the wood... silent, bird-less; not a place
you would wander in by choice... walk quickly by... increase your pace.
For it is said, on stormy nights he wanders all about Bull's Cross
searching for his son... and, if you see his face, then you are lost.
Condemned to walk with him forever, upon that bleak and windswept rise...
I wouldn't walk up there at Midnight;
'nor would you... if you are wise.

All the things i did in school
Alway made me look a fool
I no longer have the energy to go along
They try to teach you to believe
By always trying to deceive
Christ i got so tired of that song

So you head out on your own
Determined to make yourself a home
And surround yourself with people you hardly know
They’re just lonely for a friend
They won’t love you in the end
And pretty soon you find out this is so

The wolds is such a lonely place
The winds of change all in your face
The future a dark place beyond the dawn
Honey i’m comin home
But i’m not sure anymore where i come from
I'm not sure anymore where I come from

So I’m all alone tonight
creeks are rolling down my cheeks
And a heavy world of pain
Stacked up on my chest
Honey in a world without you
All i do is fall
I don’t think that i can do it
I don’t think that I can do it after all…