LATE OF DAYS

What have you left me
Late of Days?
There's never a smile
For my words of praise,
And not a look
Or a sigh is spent
To point the way
That the wonder went;
Where is the way
Of the ancient ways -
What have you left me
Late of Days?

What have you left me;
Tardy nights
And grim repairs
To the look-alikes,
A heart that's troubled
And torn, and spent -
Which was the way
Your wishing went?
Why these thoughts
Of your witching ways -
What have you left me
Late of Days?

David Lewis Paget

Home-acre

Is this your home-acre
Dark beauty of mine,
Cold winds and rash words
And long hurts and harsh wine,
Caught fast in disasters
That seldom relent,
Am I your un-maker
My sweet discontent?

Is this your home-acre
This bleak, loveless tor,
Where promises are lost in
The dreams on your shore,
Where all that you hoped for
And wished for your own
Was left in harsh soil with
The seeds that I'd sown?

David Lewis Paget

At Eaglehawk Neck

She moves within
The rapid dream
That seeks to spill
Her tangled skein,
And touches others
Barely seen
Who shadow-pass
Another's pain.

The waters lap
Her anchored feet,
The forests turn her
To the shore,
The whirling tide's
A skirling scream
That spins her helpless
To the floor.

By some embittered
Candlelight
Her pen describes
The blackest line,
To tear the slender
Thread of night
In some despite
Of Valentine!

David Lewis Paget

After the Bomb...

'Goal!' he yelled, and laughed up at the sun,
And gambolled on the lawn in his delight:
'United leads by seventeen to one - '
His father smiled, but marked the fading light.
The boy went tiger-hunting in the grass,
And called for Gyp, who lay awhile and slept,
'You lazy dog - come out and join the fun!'
But Gyp, a long slow silent passage kept.

Another volley passed between the two
Who laughed, as if the world had time to run,
A hollow ball, filled tight with empty air
That soared and shone, to imitate the sun.
'If centre-forwards came from outer space
And kicked the Earth - a penalty - to Mars...'
His father sighed, and turned away his face:
'What man can hope to understand the stars?'

Then silent, in the middle of his stride
The man half-turned, and fell, and hit the earth;
Rolled over on his face, and then he cried,
But soundlessly, beside the youngster's mirth.
'So now you've seen me fall,' his father said,
'I'm fallible, like any other man,
All men can make mistakes,' he bent his head
And gazed in silent wonder at the land.

'I've only ever acted out of love!
You must believe...' he faltered, and was still,
The lad reached out and touched his father's hand
As silence settled on them, like a chill.
The boy walked on ahead a little way,
To spare the hand that trembled on the gun...
And thunder! And a peaceful summer's day,
And anguish, and an end to everyone.

David Lewis Paget

Wych-Elm

Green is the wych-elm
Torn is the tiding,
Ghosts in the old country
Surely are riding,
Deep lie the shadows
On dull days in waiting,
Trace the old harmonies
Long in creating,
Sharp is the memory,
Dark is the will,
Lost for all seasons
In some rippling rill.

Long did he wander,
He that in I
Took to the meadows,
Gazed at the sky,
Rambled by rivers and
Rolled in the corn,
He that in I was
When we were new-born,
Fled by the wych-elm
Where age and old sin
Awaited his passing
That he would come in.

He that came in as
The I that went by him
Smiled in some greeting
That caught my tongue tying,
Reached for the reins of
His dapple-grey gelding,
Rode through the seasons
That never had ending,
Squandered the meadows
And trampled the corn,
Serving the wych-elm of
Both of us born.

Now I return with
The lines in our faces,
Searching for shadows of
Both of our traces,
Hoping for comfort or
Words of some kindness,
Lost in the echoing
Creed of my blindness,
Shadows of him that I
Tore from within me,
Left by the wych-elm
To steal that he lent me.

Green is the wych-elm
Torn is the tiding,
Ghosts of the old country
Surely are riding,
Out by the meadow
A child that waylays me,
Speaks to me once, and that:
'You have betrayed me!'
Turns at the river to
Gaze at the sky,
Rides away slowly,
He that was I.

Nothing is left for
My bitter eye brightly,
Nothing but shades that
Return to me nightly,
Seasons that flickered, that
Galloped and fled me,
Schemes and ambitions that
Always misled me,
But no-one could ever do
More to dismay me
Than he that was I, saying:
'You have betrayed me!'

David Lewis Paget

Stone Cottages

You built your stone cottages
Without any windows,
No light for your memories
No doors for your soul;
You've long kept your pillages
Deep-dug in foundations
Your meadows and villages
Too far from your home.

The shadows of verities
Loom large on verandahs
To strut at the terraces,
Assault your grim walls;
But all of your sureties
Are locked in your cottages
And all your serenity
In dark, airless halls.

Your lines cross your messages
In treks round old workings,
Your mind lines the precipice
That quickens your pride,
Your darkness is born of
Young dreams and old wreckages,
Short schemes and long yearnings
You've always denied.

David Lewis Paget

Static

Stark patterns rent by winter storms
Sweep the blood-red sky,
By haunted mills and frozen rills
The static crackles by;
But not a stone stands on a stone
To halt its whispered sigh.

Through twisted steel and molten glass
The signal spends its force
Then mutters on through blackened wheat,
Bent on its wayward course;
But none may hear the crackling tear
That shimmers through the gorse.

Twice round the earth the signal runs
To seek that whip of steel,
The midnight radio of man
Has ceased to hear or feel,
And silence reigns, where once had seen
The skirling of the reel.

In some deep water-filling ditch
Lost in a ravaged land,
The signal finds a radio
Clutched in a dead man's hand;
And crackles static through its leads:
'I have returned, for man!'

David Lewis Paget

Sir John de Vere

Sir John de Vere has took a quill
And set himself to sit and write
The sweetest love that is of men
To take unto his heart's delight.

And he has took a damsel fair
That flitteth by, beseemingly,
And with a strand of golden hair
Begun to weave her mystery.

The hair it flows from quill to sheet
In whorls and ripples it doth flow,
In twists and bends it eddies forth
To settle on the sheet below.

The hair is sweet in light perfume,
The quill it flows from page to page,
The lady's love has settled there
For all to read and all to know.

The lady's hair has bound her love
With golden tresses to the line,
Her heart is caught, it knows not where,
But may not move, and may not go.

Her skin, that of the lightest hue
Is soft to touch and soft to dare,
Sir John de Vere reveals anew
The secrets of her every where.

The more the pen skims on the page
The tighter are the bonds that bind,
The lady swoons in righteous rage
At whorls and eddies in her mind.

In whorls and eddies it doth flow
The golden hair, a flowing stream,
The cheek is caught and now the thigh,
Imprisoned for the world to know.

'You've made my love a whore', said she
'For all to come and take their sup,
My mind is open, disarrayed,
And so my thighs, my kirtle's up'.

Sir John heard not his lover's plea
But worked from day to night his joy
And took another golden strand
To work his quill another ploy.

And so his muse grew forth apace
His verse became a mighty work
And when his quill had run him dry
He went to seek his lover's face.

He sought and searched him far about
But never no sight of her did see,
Then mused apace before he turned
To seek the pages of his creed.

Among the parchment of his room
He found his love within the scrip',
And all the art and all the grace
He'd taken from his lover's lip.

And all the life and all the joy
Imprisoned on the churley sheet
To leave the shadow of his love
Bereft, and for the world to meet.

Sir John de Vere took on the thread
And pulled it from the final line,
That words that tumbled from his head
Should never not, nor now to bind.

And as the muse its thread was broke
A sigh came from his shadow love,
And colour caught in both the cheeks
And life came back in all the blood.

The arms he loosed then gripped him fast
And lips that whispered him to hear,
He will not write his love at last
Nor never again, will John de Vere.

David Lewis Paget

Post Mortem

Some cryptic line has told your time
In words addressed to other friends,
And often pen has poured the wine: Remorse,
To slake the word: Amends;
Your love has won the awful flame
That burns regretful at the breach,
What carping conscience serves as mine
To set your world beyond my reach?

I've told the tale in other plays,
Enacted portions of the dream
But no-one knows completed days that
Seem to seem not what they seem!
You leave some flicker in my brain
That flares impassioned, wantonly,
That dares to whisper, yet again:
'Some part of you is all of me!'

David Lewis Paget