Late-summer dawn

[From: “The Writings of C. James Gwyllyn”]

A ghost is speechless among the trees,
pensive and solemn; memories
are flowers pressed between pages
of the mind; quiet in cages,
domiciled and nearly tame,
in a wilderness aflame.
The alternating cloud and sun,
the shifting winds, the day begun
with such serene explosion of light,
tranquil as a wandering wight;
all is expressed in breathing,
with the air through leaves, seething,
attending to whispered almost-words
between the songs of insects and birds;
the grass, the trees, the very stones,
the hidden array of sleeping bones,
the diminishing corners of shade
while light upon the world is laid,
a white-golden torrent, a sea
of endless day, of bright eternity.

Soft Darkness

[From: “The Writings of C. James Gwyllyn”]

Soft darkness, speaking with great silence
in the soaring recesses of the mind,
in the deep crypts of the heart,
arises at last, ancient and new-made
amidst the brooding and relentless storm
persisting through the night-hours.
This is not our world - such is clear:
broken, faltering and bourne along
in the deep-gutted stream across the moor
and beyond, out to the slumbering sea
to be swallowed like shadowed coombs
at midnight; and we, like stars in the bright
dawn of sudden daylight-dreamings,
remain in serene and silent vigil.

A Journey by Night

[From: “The Writings of C. James Gwyllyn”]
 
Darkness loomed like gothic spires
lit by silver candle-fires;
the wind moaned low like ghostly choirs
in the cathedral of the night.
 
My footsteps hastened away from Thwaite;
my errand there had made me late.
The bright day met its nightly fate
and perished out of sight.
 
Upon that road, that misty strand
piercing through a forest-land
of twisted trees, I could understand
the many terrors of the night:
 
Such gnarled arms and demon-faces
emerged from deep and dire places
to chase away all holy graces
and impede me if they might.
 
The shapes pressed inward, I rushed along;
my frame was weary, the wind was strong.
I tried to sing a hopeful song
in the cathedral of the night.
 
The song soon died; I fought despair.
But lo! what was that glinting there
beyond the trees? A light most fair:
my home at last in sight!
 
The door opened out, I heard my name,
the hearth brimmed with a golden flame
and merry faces all exclaimed:
Come in now from the night!

Face the waves

[From: “The Writings of C. James Gwyllyn”]
 
Face the waves which touch our country;
breathe the starlight, admixed with brine;
swim amidst bright dreams of morning
tossed and tumbled through the night;
a strong desire for wind is upon us,
driven fierce by unseen tempests,
pushing the waters onto pale shores
through wild and wavering shadows;
these fair bone-cages are being washed,
serene in the warm and ebbing tide;
the fragile light is burning down
into the half-illumined depths;
such twilight and silhouetted smiles,
such longings between the water-pages,
longings not understood by youth:
the endless minstrelsy of frothy waves,
eyes bright beneath star-spray blossoms,
and the dying of each wave in its turn.