Bereft

In the black winter morning

No light will be struck near my eyes

While the clock in the stairway is warning

For five, when he used to rise.

Leave the door unbarred,

The clock unwound,

Make my lone bed hard -

Would 'twere underground!

When the summer dawns clearly,

And the appletree-tops seem alight,

Who will undraw the curtain and cheerly

Call out that the morning is bright?

When I tarry at market

No form will cross Durnover Lea

In the gathering darkness, to hark at

Grey's Bridge for the pit-pat o' me.

When the supper crock's steaming,

And the time is the time of his tread,

I shall sit by the fire and wait dreaming

In a silence as of the dead.

Leave the door unbarred,

The clock unwound,

Make my lone bed hard -

Would 'twere underground!

-o0o-

The new poetry blog
My Poetry Digest
is now online
mypoetrydigest.blogspot.com

-o0o-

The Dream is - Which?

I am laughing by the brook with her,

Splashed in its tumbling stir;

And then it is a blankness looms

As if I walked not there,

Nor she, but found me in haggard rooms,

And treading a lonely stair.

With radiant cheeks and rapid eyes

We sit where none espies;

Till a harsh change comes edging in

As no such scene were there,

But winter, and I were bent and thin,

And cinder-grey my hair.

We dance in heys around the hall,

Weightless as thistleball;

And then a curtain drops between,

As if I danced not there,

But wandered through a mounded green

To find her, I knew where.

-o0o-

At a Country Fair

At a bygone Western country fair

I saw a giant led by a dwarf

With a red string like a long thin scarf;

How much he was the stronger there

The giant seemed unaware.

And then I saw that the giant was blind,

And the dwarf a shrewd-eyed little thing;

The giant, mild, timid, obeyed the string

As if he had no independent mind,

Or will of any kind.

Wherever the dwarf decided to go

At his heels the other trotted meekly,

(Perhaps - I know not - reproaching weakly)

Like one Fate bade that it must be so,

Whether he wished or no.

Various sights in various climes

I have seen, and more I may see yet,

But that sight never shall I forget,

And have thought it the sorriest of pantomimes,

If once, a hundred times!

-o0o-

The new blog
The Paul Verlaine Poetry Page
is now online
thepaulverlainepoetrypage.blogspot.com

-o=0=o-

The Voice of Things

Forty Augusts - aye, and several more - ago,

   When I paced the headlands loosed from dull employ,

The waves huzza'd like a multitude below

   In the sway of an all-including joy

      Without cloy.

Blankly I walked there a double decade after,

   When thwarts had flung their toils in front of me,

And I heard the waters wagging in a long ironic laughter

   At the lot of men, and all the vapoury

      Things that be.

Wheeling change has set me again standing where

   Once I heard the waves huzza at Lammas-tide;

But they supplicate now - like a congregation there

   Who murmur the Confession - I outside,

   Prayer denied.

The new blog

The Paul Verlaine Poetry Page

is now online

thepaulverlainepoetrypage.blogspot.com

-o0o-

The Little Old Table

Creak, little wood thing, creak,

When I touch you with elbow or knee;

That is the way you speak

Of one who gave you to me!

You, little table, she brought -

Brought me with her own hand,

As she looked at me with a thought

That I did not understand.

Whoever owns it anon,

And hears it, will never know

What a history hangs upon

This creak from long ago.

-o0o-

At an Inn

When we as strangers sought

Their catering care,

Veiled smiles bespoke their thought

Of what we were.

They warmed as they opined

Us more than friends -

That we had all resigned

For love's dear ends.

And that swift sympathy

With living love

Which quicks the world - maybe

The spheres above,

Made them our ministers,

Moved them to say,

"Ah, God, that bliss like theirs

Would flush our day!"

And we were left alone

As Love's own pair;

Yet never the love-light shone

Between us there!

But that which chilled the breath

Of afternoon,

And palsied unto death

The pane-fly's tune.

The kiss their zeal foretold,

And now deemed come,

Came not: within his hold

Love lingered numb.

Why cast he on our port

A bloom not ours?

Why shaped us for his sport

In after-hours?

As we seemed we were not

That day afar,

And now we seem not what

We aching are.

O severing sea and land,

O laws of men,

Ere death, once let us stand

As we stood then! 

-o0o-

Two new blogs starting this weekend

The Paul Verlaine Poetry Page 

begins on Saturday 28th July

thepaulverlainepoetrypage.blogspot.com

and

My Poetry Digest

begins on Monday 30th July

mypoetrydigest.blogspot.com

-o0o-

Neutral Tones

We stood by a pond that winter day, 
And the sun was white, as though chidden of God, 
And a few leaves lay on the starving sod; 
- They had fallen from an ash, and were grey. 

Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove 
Over tedious riddles of years ago; 
And some words played between us to and fro 
On which lost the more by our love. 

The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing 
Alive enough to have strength to die; 
And a grin of bitterness swept thereby 
Like an ominous bird a-wing -

Since then, keen lessons that love deceives, 
And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me 
Your face, and the God cursed sun, and a tree, 
And a pond edged with greyish leaves. 

-o0o-