Lines Composed in Moorsgate Cemetery

From: "The Last Journal of Gwyllyn"

The grand trees are voiceless in November,

but the songs of leaves they still remember;
they beg for alms with every member
from the sun which now is a dying ember.

But the beauty of each object is distilled

into a light, with which this place is filled
to brimming over - and my soul is thrilled
though my frame by autumn winds is chilled.

Many of the markers have crumbled apart
from the slow eroding of the years. A cart
of labourers clatters past; they depart
leaving me alone, but for sparrows that dart

and dance above my weary head,
while for an hour or so I make my bed.
Damp leaves are laid out yellow and red,
bright carpets covering the quiet dead.

But neither sombre nor lonely is this place;
it imparts a rather exquisite grace
as the mutual fate of our fretful race
is vividly presented before my face.

I behold their beginnings and their ends
and the years between, which gently lends
a strange light to my own life, and sends
me, as I stride homeward in autumn winds,

indeed rapt in a pensive quietude,
but not to morbidly grieve and brood
but to instead, with joy, in a hopeful mood,

more lovingly live my life renewed.