Suffering
Memory dims but lingers day-long.
Deep and deep I sink into an evil sea.
Always I pray for day and birdsong
Only with light my breath returns to me.
Every night they swarm, flooding my brain,
The massed legions fighting in my head.
Every night I swallow the piled slain.
My laboured breathing choked with gruesome dead.
The horrors built in sleep invade my bed.
A Sheepdog Pines for his Dead Master
I’m old, and the days flow faster,
And always I’m longing to be
Where God has taken my master,
Surely there’s room for me.
Muscle and brain I’ve given
In serving the human race.
Have I no hope of heaven,
Haven’t I earned my place?
The Verge
Today I walked the flower-starred woodland verge,
And felt again the old compelling urge
To probe beyond and deeper down, to find
The leafy maze of paths that twist and wind
To glades that only deer and badger know,
And secret places where dark waters flow,
And in the twilit world to hear again
The plaintive pipe that teased a child’s brain,
And woke to poetry and vision pure,
His dreaming, ere drab learning could mature
His secret soul’s rich harvest. So that he
Sought always for a mystic, hidden key
To open all heaven’s wonderment,
Driven by yearning and sweet discontent.
All through youth and early manhood’s prime
The lone bird called, but heavy clogging time
Dulled true wonder, seeming then to bless
His thoughts with small material success.
Still came the call, ever more faintly then,
Dimmed in the deaf uncaring world of men.
Alas! Too late! This hedgerow brings to me
A magic from the past. A memory.
Oh! Would the plaintive pipe be heard again,
In these last few years in would not sound in vain.
My Dogs
(Written after the death of the last dog
Tammy)
Spud and Jack and Tammy
Each has played a part
In the making and the aching
And the breaking of my heart.
Heaven, they say, is perfect,
With every joy endowed,
But surely lacking something,
If dogs are not allowed.
Jesus said we are His flock
And surely God must know
That all sheep need a sheepdog,
Wherever they may go.
I always think of heaven
As a green and pleasant plain,
Where Spud and Jack and Tammy
Will walk with me again.
The Guide
Most of the poetry I write
Will never see tomorrow’s light.
Yet, sometimes in a scribbled maze
A line emerges or a phrase.
I read it over-and again,
Why did I write it? How explain
The power, the depth, the majesty
Of word and rhythm built by me.
What hand, what spirit, not my own?
What inspiration, all unknown
To me, did wing my thoughts along,
Would I knew who sang this song?
Something I wrote long years ago,
Or read as a child, how can I know?
Or if there’s a secret part of brain
That only exists once. In vain
I search old writings, books galore,
And turn and turn my scribbled store.
The explanation can only be
That sometimes God must dream with me.
Thoughts on my Seventieth Birthday
Who knows? I may not see again,
April sunshine after rain.
So every leaf on every bough
Is more precious to me now.
Every blossom I must cherish
E’re the sweets of living perish.
Blackbird singeth all day long,
Till he is tired out with song.
He knows he may not see, again,
April sunshine after rain.
Death
A blackbird dies still rich in song,
I would that we might emulate
His swift, sweet end, not linger long
In semi-conscious brain-sick state,
Kept living by a doctor’s skill,
All movement gone and spirit spent.
Just cabbages without a will,
Mumbling and incontinent.
‘Happy release’, is what we say
When all is still. If that be true,
The why do we prolong the day
When degradation’s end is due?
A blackbird hides in leafy bower,
And pipes alone one last refrain.
He knows his own allotted hour,
He knows he will not sing again,
Ever throatful, ever young.
Shining plumage unsurpassed
In full command of golden tongue,
His sweetest note will be his last.
Sussex 1
Of downland climb and downland breeze
In splendid youth I had my fill,
Now rheumatism cramps my knees,
I can but dream of Chancton Hill,
And wonder if upon the trees
Lovers carve a promise still.
Waving harebells tear my heart,
For short of breath and stiff with cramp,
I can no longer roam apart,
To seek my soul in Cissbury camp.
I only hope that old farm cart
Still strides the track I used to tramp.
Sussex 2
If I could live my life again,
I would not change one minute spent
On Sussex Hills in sun or rain;
Nor alter one dear day I went
By Arun’s lazy winding way
Where cows their blissful watches keep,
And willows droop, and tall reeds sway
In lush green meadows filled with sleep.
If I could live my life once more,
I’d surely travel far and wide:
And from some foreign, wave-lapped shore
Would hear upon a quieter tide
The gulls; a screaming wheeling din,
And being Sussex born and bred,
See the white caps surging in,
And dream I stood on Beachy Head.
Paralysis
So long I’ve been bed-ridden without pain,
No more I crave the scenery and the noise,
Cities and fields I’ll never see again,
This is the world I know, and these its joys.
The tiny room, familiar hands and things
Tangible, safe and certain, things I love.
The speckled thrush that every morning sings
His matin from the roof-top just above
My curtained square of weather, and the walls
That mark the passing sun in shafts of gold.
The silent swaying shadow bough that falls
Across my bed as day grows dim and old.
Why, I can touch the shades of leaves that sing
Sweet music to unheeding passers-by,
And every night you come: Oh! I’m a king.
A room, a bed, and three square feet of sky.
Age
In this, my life, so much has ended now
Of all that made my living so worthwhile.
Little does senility allow
To bear the shorter breath, the longer mile.
What remains of youth’s endowments sweet?
What consolation has old age to give?
Now gentle contour mocks the leaden feet,
And muscle cannot match the wish to live.
Will poetry bring peace; will dreams suffice?
Suppressed desires, books will not satisfy.
The best of living does not visit twice,
And all that maketh Man a God must die.
Lines to my Friend. Robin Redbreast
(His last poem)
Will you wait at my door
When my time comes?
Wanting my company more
Than your handful of crumbs.
Will you let sparrows feed
And eat their fill?
Whilst filling a deeper need
Than just their bill.
Will you wait and wait?
Not touching a crumb.
Thinking. ‘My friend is late,
But certain to come’.