Autumn, 2008 (2008)

Sing goddess!  Sing through your faithless lyre;
Sing to this world, even as beauty flees,
Leaving us parched and barren as the trees;
Ignite again your wild and raving fire!
Lost have I been.  Parnassus’ holy spire
Hid by the thoughtless clouds, I dwelt instead
In the earth of pain and sadness, death and dread.
But now you come in the glory of our Sire!
So sing goddess!  Sing of the heavenly spheres,
The radiant city which has no end,
How happiness is ours, and turn our tears
To joy for the Good which must transcend.
For even the thickest darkness melts away
Before the slightest candle’s slenderest ray.

Song for Spring (2010)

This is the time for youths to sing
And spend their slender hours
In gardens, blooming for their king,
Sweet Spring, among the flowers.

And each his favourite blossom dons,
And each adorns her dress;
They frolic on the waking lawns,
Their joy they can’t suppress!

One picks a daisy from the land,
He loves her innocence;
One takes carnations from his hand,
A married couple hence.

One boy walks off with petals blue,
Forget-me-nots, for one
Who almost loved but bid adieu,
And left his heart undone.

There goes the girl with lilied hair
And juniper on her wrist;
Whoever woos her should despair,
For she will not be kissed!

This is the time for youths to sing
And spend their slender hours
In gardens, blooming for their king,
Sweet Spring, among the flowers.

The boys and girls now dance and sing,
Delighting in the hour,
And round one maid they make a ring
And give to her a flower.

To her they give high beauty’s bloom,
The garden’s luscious queen,
A blushing bloom of sweet perfume,
A heart that’s ever green.

For loveliness, she is a rose,
A rose she is with reason;
Her verdant splendour warmly glows,
The crown of this fair season.

And now the garden is complete,
Spring’s court is strewn with bliss;
The queen, sweet rose, makes all replete,
Now nothing is amiss.

This is the time for youths to sing
And spend their slender hours
In gardens, blooming for their king,
Sweet Spring, among the flowers.

My Noble Friend (2009)

My noble friend, when many question why
A person might desire to deeply peer
Into the rich, spectacular night sky,
And seek for solace in the eternal sphere;

When much too many people cannot find
The time to lose themselves in sweet delight
With great ideas; when high Art is maligned
By whom, for all their seeing, have no sight;

When learning and the joy of seeking truth
No longer captivate, no longer shine
In people’s eyes, no sympathy, no ruth
Mark out that subtle spark of the divine:

It’s then, my friend, that you should fear the world,
In expectation of an imminent storm.
When fools rise high, and wisdom is down-hurled,
Corruption reigns, and idiots inform

The public sense, some doom is in the air;
For Boreas, on happy April’s breath,
Shrieks not his oracles of cold despair
With killing frost, with ice and wheezing death!

And tranquil interludes of warm July
Are not precursed with dark calamities;
But sickness is a prophet of demise,
Cachexia, the telltale of disease!

It’s then, my friend, I think that Goodness fled
The world, and waits beside some liquid rill
With hopeful eyes, yet weeping, sore and red,
Whose prayers and tears those waters overspill,

And make their way to earth, for those that heed,
With providence – without them all were vain!
They flow and flourish all in spite of greed,
Piercing the boundless realm of human pain,

And find their way to you and I, my friend,
Who do our best to soothe her woeful stream,
To work this muddy world until it mend,
So we may greet her, other than in dream.