Across a wind and willop of a sea
your face grows dim, grows dim to me.
At first it grew in strength, was clear,
at every corner, haunting, near.
Time and distance can do much
to love - how fast I lose your touch
across a wind and willop of a sea.
Your face grows dim, grows dim to me.

Romance fills the room,
and petals of a bloom
invented
by angels, round our feet
in little clusters, neat,
lie scented.

Crazily we share
words rapturous and rare
in worth;
and magic on our lips
as joy from Heaven slips
to Earth.

These few hours that are mine to keep
remind me that nobody will regret
my passing - no fond family will weep.
Some friends will think of me and then forget.

I am no loss, unless, perhaps, to England,
her fields and farms and winding country lanes,
her rivers and her heather-covered moorland
where wild ponies gallop in the rains.

A paper hat,
a piece of string
around my finger
for a ring.

And we play wedding day.
And you can stand there
Poochy boy;
and be preacher with your toy.

Swiftly blows the scent of rain
borne by wind and sun
across a deep and trackless sky
where clouds in legions run.
Soon at night will sail the moon,
a ship of burnished brass,
upon a sea of ink with stars
that flicker as they pass.

Pluck a dandelion - live your life in full.
Pluck a dandelion from its home
among the long grass in the glade and give,
my lover, give it to the wind,
the wind that knows.

Drink my lover - drink, it is your worth.
The tame fish at the rock will watch you then.
Watch my lover, watch until you sleep
the sleep of dreamers on the bank;
the slow wind knows.

And the tame fish at the rock can wink,
or make a little nod and I will hear
the moment that you wake, my lover, and
the wind will blow the dandelion
in your lap.

I stood on Marathon's old plain
and saw Miltiades again,
before ten thousand men of Athens;
and, bolder than their thousand spears, Plateans,
a little band who, too, would die
and on those marshes, ******, lie
rather than exchange the sword
for chains and curses of a Persian lord.

Many are the years since then.
But still their spirit breathes, for when
we contemplate their great success,
unknowingly their ancient souls we bless.