Early work written mainly in Shoreham-by–Sea before the Second World War

BROWN BULLS

Many times I have been in the marshy fields

With the mystic beautiful bulls that feed by the river.

I never saw them as I saw them on a certain day,

But the beauty and strength of them is in me forever.

Whenever the dawn comes slow and grey and quiet,

I think of the strong bulls that feed by the river.

They are as much a part of me as the crows

That gather in the end tree, in the wind in the rain.

Or the castle house where the lonely ladies dream

And dream and dream forever, gazing from their

Windowed towers.

I can see the fields now though I am far away,

Where the brown bulls wander by the river bank…

THE GYPSIES

‘Tis bed time now,

But mothers call in vain,

The gypsies are back

On the village green again.

Scent of pine cone fires

Thrills the evening air,

And the gathered village children

Rudely point and stare

At a world so different from theirs,

Fearfully, longing to be

As the gypsy children are-

Unschooled, alive and free.

And I, old as I am,

Have a secret longing too,

To take the road in a caravan

As the gypsies do.

SONNET

As children play long past the allotted hour

Nor head the reckoning, so should we live

Unmindful of the morrow. After-life

Is but a hope, an unconfirmed belief,

And why should any Priest or Power presume

To censor living with a fanatic’s dream.

Enough for me that Earth is beautiful;

That life is ecstasy, and lips to lips

Two lovers find their heaven before death.

We are Earth’s kindred and to Her return.

The judgement and the reckoning are now,

And he who thwarts his sensibilities ,

Denying Earth and her rich Motherhood,

Shall answer to a sterner Judge than God.

MY CASTLE

I wish I had a castle

With a moat around the walls.

And deep and gruesome dungeons,

And great old echoing halls,

And windy towers and turrets,

And flagged stoned floors,

And swords and suits of armour,

And secret corridors.

I wish I had a castle

With a moat around the walls

With hoof-worn cobbled courtyards,

Where the night owl calls.

And clanking chained drawbridge,

And iron-studded doors,

A creeper covered castle,

Upon the lonely moors.

OLD IMAGINED THINGS

Oh! Sweet the pain of ‘’old imagined things’.

Imagined gatherings on sylvan lawns,

Golden with splendour of undreamed dawns

That woke the sleeping palaces of kings

With cannonade and silver trumpet calls.

Who can resist the promise of pageantry,

Of banner and band and old time revelry?

Who can resist the call of carnival.

GREEN CANOE

Evening peace upon the water.

Gliding along alone forever,

Answering every dip of the paddles,

Green canoe on the silent water.

Drifting by where the willows leaning

Reflect in the shadow land below;

World under world, the secret drips

Are golden with the afterglow.

With lapping of water against the bows

My mind is a drifting dream forever.

Evening peace upon the water,

Oh green canoe on the silent river.

WINTER DREAM

(The Stealing of my Soul)

I dreamed the old beech tree in Cissbury Wood

Was green again-and that you came and stood

Beneath the boughs within that secret glade

And looked up through the leaves beseechingly.

I dreamed you cried with pain and knelt and prayed,

‘ Oh Forest God give back my love to me’.

And suddenly my soul arose alone,

And flew across the hills to find you there,

And when I came, you and my soul were gone

And all the branches bare.

TITLELESS

My dear you have nothing of

All that is real.

But all that I ask of love and all

It can be

Ease to mine aching, so that it leaves me

Free.

To think and to feel.

THE MUSEUM

There were butterflies in glass cases, crucified;

Stretched and pinned and labelled every one.

I remember as a child, how I cried and cried,

Knowing they belonged to the flowers and wind and sun.

“Look at the butterflies”, they said to me,

In musty, quiet, and artificial light.

Some kind person held me up to see,

I wondered what that room was like at night

So still so cruelly, terrible dead!

I remember being unhappy all that day.

They were in neat rows, a pin through each small head.

That night I threw my butterfly net away,

Knowing I could never want again

A toy that brought imprisonment and pain.

LAST NIGHT

When I awoke last night and heard the rain

Fierce hissing down the dark deserted street,

And wind moan in the trees along the lane,

Because of you my heart went out to meet

The lonely and the loveless and forlorn.

Safe my beloved in your close curtained room

Wreathed with lovely dreams you sleep till dawn,

Oblivious of shadows in the gloom,

Of hissing rain and wind’s wild moaning cry.

And storm-dark woods where secret terrors hide

Warm and white in your silk soft bed you, lie

Asleep to all the raging night outside.

WIND & WINE

Oh wind and wine are much the same

To me, Ye Gods ’tis hard to choose

Twixt tavern old of rural name

And windy hill, twixt blow and booze.

And if to make the downland heights

Through raging gale, a staggering climb,

Or merry with good friend-o-nights,

And stagger home at closing time.

I cannot say, I only know

That Wine and Wind

To choose-why trouble

I must have both booze and blow

So I’ll make wind and wine my double.