Poetry Series by Arthur L. Wood

 The Crystallising Night

 

I could dedicate a song to you.

I could sit and talk till light,

And walk along a silvery street

In the crystallising night.

 

For joy is growing in my heart

And lives in every prayer.

And God is reigning in the sky

And crystallising air.

 

And I breathe him in; he fills my lungs

And captivates my soul.

And a hundred wondrous creatures live

In me without control. 

 

The land or Ur is in me

The vaporised books of Rome.

Infinities beyond mankind

Have named my flesh their home.

 

And I thank it, and I dedicate

This joyous work to thee.

May all our dreams be happy streams 

To a crystallising sea.

 

Winchester Walk

 

I wander down these English roads;

The sunshine beams into the breeze.

I smell the fresh-mown garden grass

And tip my hat to all who pass,

Brimful of joy, my life of ease. 

 

The stream and meadow flies are gold;

I meet them on the endless air.

I have my tea and tart and cream;

I drift in the undying dream,

But sadness lingers here and there.

 

I wander like the final leaf

In beauty through its final day;

The gates are locked, the house is cold,

The nooks and crannies left to mould

As memories fade away.

 

I’m mad to be here -- of course I’m mad;

True English blood is mad and free.

It’s keeping on along the river,

Tirra lirra, tirra lirra,

With gypsy ballads sung forever

Round the old oak tree.

 

Dreaming of Bayreuth

 

Listening to Wagner and dreaming of Bayreuth
And swimming down the pleasant golden rivers of lost time
I see a glowing maiden dressed in velvet-green and lace
With a poesy held toward me, sanctifying all of space,
Commanding me to dedicate to thee a lofty rhyme.

I dream with mystic melodies and sink through foggy fear
And all the world is present and all of time lives here
With me and with the dulcimers and with the reign of thee
And with the blue-eyed maiden skulking through the sea.
It’s possible I’ll be there to flash my dying eye
In Bayreuth with my darling with the world floating by
And the sinking feeling lifting with the clouds of scented space
With the precious blue-eyed maiden dressed in velvet green and lace.