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.

I shall haunt all these places

[From: “The Last Journal of Gwyllyn”]

“I shall haunt all these places”, said he,
“in this great gothic world - I shall haunt them all:
a spectral moth amid blossoms at twilight
imbibing their fragrance beneath the budding stars
after the day has slumbered into deep dreamings,
when comes a stone-grey joyous melancholy,
with air like maiden-breaths expanding into quiet
and innocent peace. I shall wander thus, and rest,
wander and rest, and discover all the secret places;
shall become lost amid the moon-sheen, among
the everlasting mountains of dark-swelling silence
to await the serene and fair dawning of the Sun.”

The Final Movement

[From: “The Last Journal of Gwyllyn”]

We gaze through eyes bright with candlelight,  
across moorlands of memory, toward the departed sun 
and into profound depths of shadow-remembrance:
delving, delving - yet those riches are lost to time.

We could not hold forever to the fair visions
which flickered lively upon these walls
in daylight-dreamings, in patterns manifold,
dancing to a symphony now fading away.

Behold we now, from a quiet distance, 
the world turning slowly, wick smouldering, 
wax melting thick on the table, mounding up in silent waves
like the empty heath-hills stretching out beyond sight.

Shadows remain in corners; yet the sun of tomorrow
promises a wide expanse of new-blooming heather,
as now the moon rises fair and bright, the wind serene 
under the stars, under the oaks, under the eaves of the house.

Whispers in the Night

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

Breath is pale beneath the moon,
blood is warm as afternoon.
Colours blend in salt-sea eyes,
storm clouds halt in silent skies.
The rain is heavy but never falls,
the voice is loud but never calls.
Dreams are vivid but all forgotten,
bright like stars but ill-begotten,
fountains behind a darkened glass.
Memories are kindled, but swiftly pass
like whispers spoken in the night,
like promises with the morning light.
Two faces at the upper window
behold the moors now draped in shadow.
Her breath is pale beneath the moon,
his blood is warm as afternoon.

Lines Composed at Headington Hill, Oxford

[From: "The Last Journal of Gwyllyn"]

Voices are on the autumn breeze
sifting through the dying leaves
with the sound of distant seas:
“O come with us! O come!

“The light is slanting from the west;

fly to where all things are best –
a dwelling-place of peace and rest.
O come with us! O come!

“Life has reached its endmost stage,
years have bloomed with fullest age,
the reader turns the final page –
O come with us! O come!

“O come with us, the day is ending;
the lights of Sun and Moon are blending;
the wind is strong, the trees are bending –
O come with us! O come!

“We fly away, beyond the sky
to where the Light will never die;
whisper at last a soft ‘good-bye’
O come with us! O come!”

I come with you, I come with you!
I come with you, I come!

Overnight in Coeur d'Alene

The sky is broken; a jeweled night spills out.
The watchful crows departed like shadows
to pursue the dying-coal of daylight
far into the darkening forest-deeps.
Dry wood burns best and brightest,
with less smoke. Our lives are leaves,
poised and pierced by firelight,
shifting and shivering in the wind,
in the sharp unfocus of the season
disturbed by blustery weather.
We sleep in the open air; dreams come strong,
fragrant with cedar and damp earth:
dreams of owls and powdered moths,
of crickets and distant singing-frogs
all along the slumbering river.
The wind is dark in the tallest trees;
the morning will find us here.

Awaiting Tomorrow

[From: “The Last Journal of Gwyllyn"] 

If in your dreams you see me wandering
through ripe wheatfields, pensive, pondering,
alone and adrift upon an ocean of grain
golden and billowing under a threat of rain,
then sing out to me from your upstairs window,
intone a bright song while the sea-zephyrs blow,
that my thoughts in the turbulent twilight air
will be mingled with a music resplendent and fair
and so ascend arrayed with both gladness and sorrow
through clouds to the starlight awaiting tomorrow.

A beautiful sadness

[From: "The Last Journal of Gwyllyn"]

A beautiful sadness, a sorrowful joy,
there are no suitable words to employ
for rightly describing this looming desire,
this living catastrophe of bright gentle fire
which blazes in darkness and thick quietude
and thunders in silence and content solitude,
with a wordless wisdom from beginning to end
unseen yet beautiful, all sorrows to mend.

How soundlessly the sunlight falls

[From: "The Life of Saint Robert Southwell, Priest and Martyr"]

How soundlessly the sunlight falls
upon the wide world after rain,
unmeasured night and fevered pain,
dispelling gloom in woodland halls.
Dewdrops cling to eyelash wings,
and eyes once more see many things.

But the objects underneath the sky,
so dear before, appear quite strange,
all stricken with some peculiar change -
as silent as death they pass me by.
The things of earth, I must confess,
now seem empty and meaningless.

But a living call is on the wind,
a breath requesting willing price,
for many souls, a sacrifice,
as new leaves shake and branches bend.
A courage swells for what may come,
be it blade or noose of martyrdom.

The wind is fierce

[From: “The Last Journal of Gwyllyn”]

The wind is fierce in my thoughts today
sifting the thistles and tangled weeds,
scattering dry leaves and maple seeds,
and sweeping withered flowers away.

The air is fragrant with unseen rose,
with marigold, alyssum, and juniper,
honeysuckle, phlox, and lavender,
mingling as the morning glows.

Light is bright on the tender frond
and dew is lingering in the sun;
some new splendor has begun
with fierce wind blowing from beyond.

A fragrant minstrelsy

The starlight pierced the soundless sky
before the sun laid down its head,
beyond the hillocks burning red
with bands of small birds passing by.

A fragrant minstrelsy was hung
on winds blown from a distant land
where turquoise waves sift diamond sand,
where all is fair and ever-young.

Where apple-blossoms in the sun
are stirred by every gentle breeze,
by music in the blooming trees,
by ancient arias just begun.

And with the sun now gone to sleep
and dreaming of another day,
the world in shadow fades away
as stars their quiet vigils keep.

There shines a fair road

[From: "The Last Journal of Gwyllyn"]

Subtle yet certain, there shines a fair road,
a gossamer thread, a thin golden hair,
weaving its way up through branches and stars
and bidding me to follow - and yet do I dare?

For once on that way, the things of the earth
would be drained of their vibrant color and taste;
and what would life be in such a strange world,
in such an insipid and grey-muted waste?

But behold! what a blessëd and glittering light
shakes down the filament from its farthest end,
from beyond the splendors of this fading realm,
from the fount on which all splendors depend!

And taking a step onto this fairest of roads,
I find that the footing is solid and secure;
and so, with the beckoning light in my eyes,
I run to it headlong, the way being sure!

Drawing Near

[From: "The Last Journal of Gwyllyn"]

Between the grinding gears of life,
in the very midst of strife,
there comes a sense of quiet here,
drawing drawing drawing near.

The blinding brightness of the day
begins to dim and fade away;
a darkness comes, bereft of fear,
drawing drawing drawing near.

A shadow-silhouette is seen,
eclipsing every earthly sheen;
enduring love and peace appear,
drawing drawing drawing near.

Anna-Maria

[From: "The Last Journal of Gwyllyn"]

Never was Anna-Maria more beautiful
than when she gazed on the twilight sea,
in the spring of her life; when a lonely gull
cried aloft in the tumbling wind; when she,
heedless of gusts in her unfettered hair,
let saltwater fall from her blue eyes there.

The waves, each draped with a white wedding veil,
bowed low as they came in procession ashore,
and hushed their fair voices near a maiden so pale,
so beautiful and wistful, so pitiful and poor.
The golden sands shifted beneath her bare feet,
and stars began blooming, the nightfall to greet.

Awakening

[From: "The Lost Writings of C. James Gwyllyn"]

Awakening, as if from death,
drawing in a full soft breath;
arising from the coffin-bed,
knowing I am not yet dead.
Light is on the shaking leaf
and in my eyes. The tender grief
grows mellow in the morning hour,
becomes a kind of joy, a flower
blooming in the hopeful spring,
glad of life, of everything.
Drops of rain fall in the sun,
glittering, golden, every one.

A Lovely Muse

[From: "The Last Journal of Gwyllyn"]

Melancholy is a lovely muse,
and a welcome houseguest after all;
I will hearken to her tender call,
her visits I will not refuse.

A twilight wind through many leaves
precedes her knocking at the door,
like gentle waves upon the shore
while the ocean under moonlight heaves.

A maiden young, but growing old,
with a wistful smile, but shining bright;
her grey eyes brim with glad starlight
glimmering through the quiet cold.

She stirs the woodland of my mind
with many fair and whispered words;
I hear the songs of many birds,
for a time I leave the world behind.

And from these visits she makes to me,
I have learned that it is not so bad,
to be profoundly happy, yet a little sad,
and to live life thus, contentedly.

She has made me see the world anew,
with potent splendors under light of day,
and at the same time watch them fade away,
unhindered by all we could say or do.

She has taught me to listen to the song
that these things sing before they go,
something they would have us know,
that Here you will not tarry long...

...your yearnings pull you far away
from this dark world; what here you love
will never last; O look above
where night will soon be endless Day!

Windowpane

[From: "The Last Journal of Gwyllyn"]

I behold the world from far away,
as through a window; the light of day,
subdued behind a mountain chain,
can scarcely pierce the windowpane.

The milky heavens, drained of gold,
at times send raindrops, fierce and cold;
the wind speaks to the sleeping trees
of distant winter tragedies.

A river of starlings hurries past
on some grand quest; they briefly cast
their fluttering shadows on the ground,
then pass away without a sound.

Night is creeping across the grass,
the world slips further from the glass;
a candle is lit within the room
against the swiftly gathering gloom.