As I now breathe

[From: "The Last Journal of Gwyllyn"]

As I now breathe, I remember the world
when it shone bright, was gilded, pearled;
when silver were the swollen drops of rain
which fell like stars on the golden grain;
when trees danced glad, and the ancient moon,
when not so ancient, brought afternoon
to the shade of night; when mountains aloft
with hoar-heads shining, scraped the soft
and airy dome, which brimmed with wine,
decanted when the sky-gem rose to shine;
when gold of morning brought forth a song
from folk emerging in gladsome throng,
the citizens beholding with glittering eyes
the good world beneath the blazing skies.

The music of silence

[From: The Last Journal of Gwyllyn]

The music of silence fills the air
with a hushed and hidden minstrelsy
from far beyond the Farthest Sea,
from a continent bright and fair.

And in the darkness, light is seen
though veiled behind a shadow-cloak,
a robe of thundercloud and smoke,
obscuring its golden sheen.

But for now, the dark and silent night
embraces the soul in solitude
which awaits with patient quietude
the advent of morning light.

A ghost is in the apple grove

A ghost is in the apple grove,
a midnight shadow on the wind,
behind the house, in a gated cove
where fruitless branches shake and bend.

And a fragrance comes up from the sea
of cinnamon, clove and rosemary.

A raven watches from the wall
in calm repose, with gleaming eye;
from yonder wood his fellows call
but to them there he will not fly.

The air is rich with thyme and myrrh
admixed with sage and juniper.

Wolves are howling at the gate,
beneath a sky without a stain;
a candle-flame is burning late
through an upper windowpane.

Spikenard, mint are on the breeze
still shaking through the apple trees.

A dream

I dreamed of a deer, robust and tall,
with oak-branch antlers hoisted high;
his new leaves swung in gladsome winds
and glittered beneath the springtime sky.

He strode up to a rocky height
and viewed the world in morning light.

A green fire blazed upon the hills
bestirred by soft and whispered words
which told the tales of summer joys
that fill the hearts of singing-birds.

The sylvan realm had breadth and scope
which burgeoned bright with living hope.

But the beast grew solemn when the sun
reached its zenith-height at noon;
he shook his leaves, now touched with red,
and beheld an early-rising moon.

A coldness laced the golden wind;
he knew the day rushed to its end.

A pale fire smoldered in the west
as leaves and acorns from him fell.
A hoar-frost gathered on his coat
and he laid down in the twilight, frail.

He lowered his white and weary head,
with branches bare, and soon was dead.

I awoke with the sun ablaze in the sky
bursting anew with its joyful face;
glittering golden on many leaves
and filling the day with boundless grace.

Spring was bright, the sky was blue
and light was on the morning dew.

Suspend the stars

Suspend the stars, serene and bright,
around the moon with silver strings
and crown the trees like lofty kings
who rule in peace the realm of night.

Perfume the air with scent of pine
and send out moths abroad to dance
on powdered wings to find, perchance,
some blooming phlox or columbine.

Then stir the wakeful nightingale
to intone her fair and wistful song
and induce the stars to sing along
so to bid the setting moon farewell.

Elixir

[From: "The Last Journal of Gwyllyn"]

The light of morning grew apace
and filled the chalice of the sky
with golden elixir for the eye
to brighten and heal with quiet grace.

A foul flood from the hills was streaming
turbulent in haste over many stones
in deep vales where a dark wind moans
until it appeared under daylight gleaming.

The taints of wormwood were then made sweet
and the cataract-clouds were dissolved away,
as when night yields to the flame of day
and the winter chill to the summer heat.

And at last when the torrent found the sea
and in quietude glittered clear and bright
beneath a calm and golden light,
the eye closed in tranquility.

The heavens of Atlantis

The girl stood placid and fair
in a desolate sort of way,
like the streets of Carthage
or the ruins of Pompeii,
gazing out upon the ocean
with her saltwater eyes,
upon the heavens of Atlantis
shining under the skies.

The Machines! the Machines!
now drowned and decayed
in their many-pillared temples
thrown down and unmade!
No more incense offerings,
no more nectar libations,
no more lofty choruses
of sweet supplications!

The seabirds are restless
and wail in the wind;
the sand-grasses rattle,
they shudder and bend.
The tide is now swelling
across the black shore;
the girl turns from the waters
to gaze on them no more.

In the throes of solitude

[From: Journeys at Eventide]

In the throes of solitude,
discerning elvish runes
hidden among the leafless branches
twining beneath the moons.

Beneath fair silver Änanfël
sailing out of the west
on sundered waves with star-spray
glittering upon each crest.

And also golden Ixilthwë
arising from the east
in vestiture of blazing clouds
as solemn as a priest.

At middle-night, the twain shall meet
in an alchemy of light;
the priest will board the shining ship
as stars burn golden-bright.

The trees will sway their barren limbs
toward the meeting moons,
and sleep will come in the mingled light
under a canopy of runes.

Wandering an acre of the world

Wandering an acre of the world
where magnolias wear mighty beards
and tall firs shiver in benighted winds,
where mist-ships sail upon a sea of stars
and hurry past on their secret errands -
you and I, with half-shuttered eyes,
behold the dusty porcelain moon
sinking behind a boxwood hedge,
and move pale lips to the stanzas
of deep and solemn winter-songs.

A joy like sorrow

[From: "The Last Journal of Gwyllyn"]

The world is brown beneath the sky
and stark against such vivid blue;
a fragile breath is shaking through
the barren branches stretching high.

The hills that dwell out in the west
are burning now with orange fire,
fading flames of another pyre
built for day at night's behest.

The first stars and the rising moon
witness the dying of the day,
the conquering of the golden ray
which blazed so radiant at noon.

But a joy like sorrow finds me here
and dawns on me in dim twilight;
the darkness shines with hidden light
and speaks with silence in my ear.

For now I know I was never the one
who sought to pierce the skies above
and who quested for eternal love:
in myself I would have not begun.

But seeking, questing, comes a bliss,
serene and simple in the night,
through the tangled shadow-light,
to give my weary soul a kiss.

Beyond the hills

[From: "The Last Journal of Gwyllyn"]

The hedgerows are silent, the gardens are grey,
the pageant of summer has faded away,
and cool gusts in the oak leaves sigh:
Even the loveliest flowers die.

Elm branches twine like wood-hag hands,
the geese flee south in solemn bands,
and blackbirds in their conclaves cry:
Even the loveliest flowers die!

And beyond the hills, a bell is ringing;
a hidden voice is softly singing
beneath a gathering grey-beard sky:
Even the loveliest flowers die.

In time of famine

[From: "Songs and Verses" by C. James Gwyllyn]

You feed me in time of famine,
you shine on me at night,
you come to me as hidden bread,
you come to me as light.

My fields are dark beneath the stars
and withered is the grain
from being bludgeoned by the sun
and forgotten by the rain.

O feed me in time of famine!
O shine on me at night!
O give to me your hidden bread!
O give to me your light!

silt-dust

[From: "The Last Journal of Gwyllyn"]

O what will the archaeologists find
sifting the silt-dust in my mind?
A monastery buried in the hills,
a cloistered box of cogs and wheels
left overnight in the pouring rain,
little souvenirs of forgotten pain:
a rusted half-penny, a twisted nail,
a toy sailing-ship without a sail,
beetle-leather armor and spider-silk,
an acorn goblet of moonlight milk,
wooden thoughts, wrought-iron dreams;
mansions built up with ryegrass beams;
white-onyx smiles, looking-glass eyes;
a clockwork crow that croaks and flies;
a rocking-horse rabbit, a porcelain frog;
an engraving of foxes chasing a dog;
some wild boar tusks, a skeleton hand
and an hourglass emptied of all its sand.

Bruised by shadows

[From: "The Last Journal of Gwyllyn"]

A strange quietude now invades me,
walking beneath these sleeping skies;
a silver tangled mist pervades me,
confusing old and wearied eyes.

Shadows mingle and night conceives
dreams and whispers, skin and bones,
entwining boughs of withered leaves,
a world built of such brittle stones.

Through pine-nettles, wind is seething;
beyond the mist, the moon is bright.
I wander farther, brooding, breathing,
bruised by shadows through the night.

fevered dreaming

metal shavings, braided wire
magma apples, ocean fire
fossil hailstones from the sky
sad clowns trying not to cry
foxes eating desert sand
a keyhole carried in the hand
the sun grown weary of the heat
bison running down the street
a sky full of silver polka-dots
bonfires of plums and apricots
the blinding beauty of the clam
an uncooked slice of Christmas ham
faces covered with many words
discovering that bees are really birds
a river clogged with wooden dolls
leaves falling over waterfalls
watching an acorn as it dies
watching an acorn as it dies...

I was missing you

[From: "Songs and Verses" by C. James Gwyllyn]

I was missing you
among the stars
and the golden moon
at nocturnal noon.
I was missing you.

 

I was missing you

out in the groves
of almond trees
touched by a breeze.
I was missing you.

I was missing you
beyond the clouds
all shining bright
in the morning light.
I was missing you.

These cornfields

These cornfields now are withered seas
teaching autumn mythologies
with crackling voices to the crows,
their credo as the cold wind blows.

The sun bows to the harvest moon,
the star-lights will be kindled soon;
the wind blows through the golden light
now fading fading into night.

These cornfields study in their sleep
and rustle parchments that they keep,
until the dawn when autumn glows
and once again they teach the crows.

Holding my breath

Holding my breath...and the memories remain
of moonlight on the waves and the sky without a stain
and flowers of night I had never seen before
shining blue and white as they bloom upon the shore
then fade away, then fade away.

The summers die before they have a chance to live;
the hourglasses spill, they have no more time to give.
Our feet were washed by the waters of the sea;
the sounds of falling waves and your laughter next to me
now fade away, now fade away.

I am leaving the sand spilled wide across the shore
where flowers of night will be shining nevermore.
But recalling the light and the beauty left behind
and holding my breath I find they linger in my mind
then fade away, then fade away.

In the ragged heath

Clouds in the west are piling high
like sea-foam on a vast ocean,
like cresting waves in slow-motion
washing across the autumn sky.

The oaks battle the undertow,
the birches whisper in the wind;
the alders burgeon as they bend,
waving druid-wands to and fro.

And like gypsy-orphans, you and I

lose ourselves in the ragged heath,
out on the moors which lie beneath
the silent breakers passing by.

Italia

Italia sits in the evening sky
with star-bouquets and indigo
as zephyrs from the ocean blow
a silver gondola drifting by.

The day had ended with a fire
upon the twining waters bright,
enkindled by the autumn light
and dying with serene desire.

The dark clouds, tired of making rain,
went to slumber in the east;
the night became a gentle beast
to carry us behind its mane.

Ascend we now to Roma fair,
a wilderness of colonnades;
cannoli and frozen lemonades,
cigars and Vespas everywhere.

But ancient steps are draped with dust
to museums never open late;
an old face glowers at the gate
of centennial iron caked with rust.

The trees are shedding almond tears,
dogs are running down the street;
the cobbled pavement hurts our feet,
the alleys stir up midnight fears.

The gondola arrives with silver glow;
we pay the man a handsome fare;
we slip then through the open air
and bid Italia addio!

Jumping the train of your thoughts

Jumping the train of your thoughts,
like a hobo, bedraggled and weary,
adrift upon rattling wheel-dreams,
sprawled in a boxcar under twilight,
with dying moths in the sawdust,
with yeast rolls and apple cores,
Indian Head pennies and peach snuff.
The trees are sifted by September;
a silo eclipses the swelling moon.
Old eyes open in the half-light
and watch as unfamiliar sceneries
pass by like clean mountain streams
after the first great thawing of spring.

How sudden sunlight shakes

Of course she does not realize
how sudden sunlight shakes,
like golden veins of lightning,
through antiquated stonework,
through battle-wearied walls,
at a smile of clear-eyed joy,
striking with acute enchantment - 
a ruin of bliss! in gladness straying
over silver-beaded grasses
into hushed and hidden gardens
ablaze with blooming florettes,
the fairest of lanterns shining
in all the encircling world!

To Anna

[from: Joy Beneath the Battered Moon: The Complete Writings of Gwyllyn]

 

I wish I could make this world as full of radiant light

as beautiful and as pure, as happy and as bright

as it now seems to you in your childish sight
untouched by the tainted shadows of night.

She sleeps under a Rackham tree

Her eyes are tired, they close unbidden,
the moon by tattered rags is hidden;
a breath of cold air moves the leaves,
a lonely night-dove gently grieves.

The Rackham tree is reaching down
with crooked arms and troubled frown
as if to guard the sleeping child
from the world now dark and wild.

Broadway

Let silence smooth away
the fault-lines and furrows,
the riven hillocks between
curious strangers in the sun,
stepping on paper trash and
shouldering the hot wind. We
emerge with empty clockwork
faces, hiding trembling little
souls, flames leaping up from
candlewick lives, past crumbling
art nouveau cornices into the
great blue wilderness of heaven.

Late in the Day

Broad grasses like holy emeralds shine
and breezes bestir the poplar and pine,
while clouds with painterly skill are arrayed
across a canvas of shimmering jade.

What charms now bid my mind to turn
and gently coax my heart to burn?

Skeleton leaves and cypress seeds,
putrid flowers and beautiful weeds,
robins and sparrows, leaping squirrels,
sandstone fossils of angels and girls.

What dreams now lull my soul to rest
from dying days and weary quest?

The birds and trees are falling asleep,
the squirrels no longer climb and leap.
The bright jade sky now turns to grey
and in shadows the emeralds fade away.

200th posted piece: From whence come now

From whence come now these fragrant winds
bestirring hope? Who gently sends
such breathings full of whispered words
upon which dance the joyous birds?
What phlox and wildwood roses fair
with thyme and trillium scent the air
of sylvan hallways green and cool?
What shaking leaves and shining pool
charm these woodlands all the day
and countless troubled thoughts allay?

The ravens of my thoughts

The ravens of my thoughts
come to your waters to drink,
under dream-mists of moonlight,
settling darkly on the shore.

Recalling fairest meadows
on watercolor mornings,
breaths full of wild thyme
and new-blooming heather.

Afternoons of leisure,
the running freely about,
the clear light and music
of bright laughing voices.

The peace of purple twilight,
the drowsy lull of nature,
the silver stars enkindled
in your ocean-jewel eyes.

With a long thirsting slaked,
the ravens, on shining wings,
like stray shadows on the wind
to the sleeping woods return.

Imperatrix Ignis

Clare's wakeful dreamings flew up like flames
out on the raging sun-meads of Empyrean.
Worlds leapt from the gladsome furnace of her thought,
colliding and expanding in splendor as they arose.
The ascendancy eclipsed even the expanse of heaven
as the revelation of her designs became fearsome and fair.
The builded realms were arrayed as exquisite abodes
wherein dwelt many throngs of flaming personages,
like unto angels in shining attire, immersed in living light:
fiery choirs, radiant and mirthful in their ministrations,
uplifting choruses to She who had deigned to bring them
from Her Regal Mind into the bright fire-spheres of Life.
At the core of the edifice pulsed an immense Fire-Heart,
from which surged the lava-blood of Life Essence.
She beheld the lofty resplendence, and was well-pleased.
But the gravity of her triumph brought about utter defeat:
The blazing structure, under its own beautiful weight, collapsed
and oh! how the interlaced sinews of spectacular fire,
the joyful assemblies, and the entire glorious metropolis,
streamed down from the sky as burning embers and ash,
yea! as a very Anti-Phoenix, into the darkness of Oblivion.

Ruined Estate

When the bricks of these buildings were young,
when the songs of the years were yet unsung,
when wormwood waves lapped not these shores,
and the light danced glad through open doors;
it was then that fair Eden was found in your eyes,
with the music and fragrance of bright summer skies,
when apples and apricots swelled in the trees
and gardens were merry with the droning of bees;
but those windows are shuttered, the bricks are decayed,
the seas are now bitter, and summer delayed,
all the bees have departed, the gardens are bare,
and shadows and shriveled fruit only are there.

Agnes Abroad

It was a moon-scorched midnight;
the stars were thoroughly dissolved.
Agnes arose from where she had lain too long.
The deep grass remembered her sleeping frame
as she rubbed bright eyes with fragile fingers.
The maples danced in the warm wind like marionettes,
moving many hands to their own native rhythms.
Songs from wild and unseen mouths
crowded upon the outer edge of silence.
A startled dove took sudden flight
and fled towards the shadowed hill-slopes.
Agnes breathed, and gazed into the black north.
She would fain be beyond those hills
before the first kindling of dawn.
And so, with nightgown fluttering like white fire,
and with bare and furtive feet, she pressed on.

Passing through Perkins

These mountains are not lovely, they
are clothed in tattered brown and grey
like the local old men who go
to sit outside the Texaco
each morning to mumble and grimly joke
and breathe and blow tobacco smoke
and squint at cars as they pass by
beneath the solemn bearded sky
stained by smolderings in the hills
shrouding barns and abandoned mills
which loom up wraith-like from the past
and stand remembering to the last.

Beside the brooding sea

[From: The Last Journal of Gwyllyn]

Imagine, friends,
the gloaming skies,
the ember ends,
the grey goodbyes,
the starlight shining in the eyes
beside the brooding sea.

The tide comes in
to cleanse the soul
from every sin;
the white waves roll
and midnight bells in the belfry toll
beside the brooding sea.

The gulls are tired
and taciturn,
quite uninspired;
the waters churn
and in the moonlight softly burn
beside the brooding sea.

And through the long
and raven night,
the wind whips strong,
the stars shine bright,
and eyes keep vigil in silver light
beside the brooding sea.

O Father God

Last prayer composed by Fr. Cedric of Ulster before his holy death in 1780:

O Father God of greatest might
who dwells within eternal light,
or rather you, being Light itself,
illumine eternity with Yourself -
I stand before you now unveiled
beholding where in life I failed:
Ninety years I had by grace
to seek your bright and holy face,
to serve you as I thought I should
and to do my fellow man some good.
But with the good, I did more ill,
sought my own and not your will.
I see it all: the grief, the pain,
the joy in others I have slain,
unknowingly, yes, at the time,
but now I know my every crime.
Repair the damage I have done
upon the earth, beneath the sun.
Every person I have slighted,
every good thing I have blighted,
wash and renew now through your Word,
through your Son whose prayer you heard
to make creation new again
freed from every stain of sin.
O recreate my little life,
bring new goodness out of strife;
the pain I caused, please now forgive
so eternally I with you may live.
Amen.

Ten thousand years ago

The sun was bright and beautiful
and cast a friendly eye
upon the laden boughs of fruit
new-swelling under sky.

But ice encased the waking moon
arising from its bed
and in the warmth it shook away
bright dewdrops from its head.

They fell as cold and heavy rain
upon the gladsome trees
and drowned them all beneath the flood
of deep and trackless seas.

And now they sway in water-winds
but bear no more their fruit
in darkness miles beneath the waves
where they have taken root.

This happened on the turning earth
ten thousand years ago
and what bright fruit they would have borne
the world will never know.

Snow-tears

Snow-tears are soft upon the cheek
beneath a brittle porcelain moon;
delicate griefs of nocturnal-noon
falling into a gladsome creek
that wends off through a shadow-wood
conversing of all things fair and good.

Moon-peaks are luminous in the sun
draped in blankets of alabaster dust;
the clouds in the east are turning to rust:
the bonfire-bloom of dawn has begun.
But snow-tears still fall with quiet charm
and soft on the cheek they do no harm.

O! to breathe the blessëd air

[From: The Last Journal of Gwyllyn]

O! to breathe the blessëd air
full of pearl and blazing gold,
of juniper and marigold,
on distant islands ever-fair.

The sundering waves surge like hills
crashing down to very hell,
with deeps that teem with krakens fell
- but hark, the song of whippoorwills!

Rising soft above the fray,
a song no tumult could defile
from a blissful garden-isle
blooming out in Ever-Day!

O! for wings to hasten there,
across the wide and surging sea,
to find the fair birds calling me
from the bright and blessëd air!

Weep for beauty

Weep for beauty while it gleams
bright and holy in the world;
attend in gladness while it seems
the shadow-flag of night is furled;
in waking dreams of diamond-eyes,
of distilled roses in the veins,
of bursting sunfire in the skies
falling bright like gilded rains;
of oceans churning wild at noon,
of twilight calm and cobalt-graced;
of joy beneath the battered moon,
of breathing zephyrs apple-laced;
of ruddy warmth in marrow-roots,
of spirits quickened into flame
by banqueting on blazing fruits
swelling ripe without a name;
weep for beauty while it sings,
and joyful tears will wash away
the veil that daily duty brings
and fling new light upon the day.

In the Halcyon Skies

What refulgence is unfurled
from beyond the walls of night
to shine upon the shadow-world
with a pure and hallowed light?

Like the dawn upon the plain,
my Aurvandil glimmers fair,
an elixer to my burdened brain,
easing every weighted care;

softening every jagged edge,
uplifting wan and weary eyes;
the prelude of an endless pledge,
radiant in the halcyon skies.

Wayfarer

The withered hand of winter offers
coins of coldness for the coffers;
beneath the howling wolfish sky,
comes a striding stranger, I.
The winds bestir the dying leaves,
the crows disperse, the hedgerow heaves,
the air is filled with discontent,
changeful, fretting, spectre-sent.
Travailing against the ether-weight,
I stride along, and contemplate,
passing dormant fountain-heads,
and mirthless shriveled flowerbeds,
grimly noting their demise
with sympathetic weary eyes;
but beyond these gardens, oh!
many leagues are left to go,
and wolves are howling in the sky,
as the stranger passes by.

A feather now my page will keep

The Realms of South America can wait;
I need a moment to rest my eyes;
to recline my head and contemplate,
with listless limbs and weary sighs;
       while birches shiver out in the chill
       and scrape across my windowsill;
and, like so many moths, the snow
beats with softness on the glass
amid a dull and spectral glow
arising from the frosted grass.
      The candle flickers beside my bed;
      the pillow calls my nodding head;
the Andes, lofty in the light
shining broad in warmer climes,
must now await another night:
the yonder church bell rang three times!
      A feather now my page will keep
      as I succumb at last to sleep.

Laraleä

[From: 'The Last Journal of Gwyllyn']

 

She is gone away from me

with the sun beyond the sea;

what she was she will not be.

 

'Still she haunts me, phantomwise,'

beneath these gloaming winter skies,
a light and solace to my eyes.

The silver mirth of star and moon
brings forth dreams of light in June
upon a golden afternoon.

Like fair Venus in the west,
there she sits where all is best
and bids me come and take my rest.

Under young and tender leaves,
she, as wind with music heaves,
sings of joy and never grieves.

In skiff past shrouded riverside,
through the night I gently glide
toward the roaring ocean-tide

where waves dance upon the shore,
and stars glimmer like silver ore,
but I will leave these evermore.

For with her I soon will be
with the sun beyond the sea;
what I was I will not be.