Poetry

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You are old , Father William’ the young man said

‘And your hair has become very white;

And yet you incessantly stand on your head-

Do you think, at your age, it is right?’

In my youth Father William

Replied to his son,

I feared it might injure the brain:

But now that I’m perfectly sure I

Have none,

Why I do it again and again

‘You are old’ said the youth ‘as

I have mentioned before,

And have grown most

Uncommonly fat;

Yet you turned a back-

somersault in at the door-

Pray, what is the reason of that?’

‘In my youth’ said the sage, as

He shook his grey locks,

‘I kept all my limbs very supple#

By the use of this ointment- one

Shilling the box-

Allow me to sell you a couple?’

‘You are old’ said the youth,

‘and your jaws are too weak

For anything tougher than suet:

Yet you finished the goose, with

The bones and the beak-

Pray, how did you manage to do

It?’

‘In my youth’ said his father, ‘I

Took to the law,

And argued each case with my

Wife;

And the muscular strength

Which it gave to my jaw,

Has lasted the rest of my life.’

‘You are old’ said the youth,

‘One would hardly suppose

That your eye was as steady as

Ever;

Yet you balanced an eel on the

End of your nose-

What made you so awfully clever?

‘I have answered three

questions, and that is enough,’

Said his father; ‘don’t give

Yourself airs!

Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?

Be off, or I’ll kick you downstairs!’

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,

I have forgotten, and what arms have lain

Under my head till morning : but the rain

Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh

Upon the glass and listen for reply,

And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain

For unremembered lads that not again

Will turn to me at midmight with a cry.

Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,

Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,

Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:

I cannot say what loves have come and gone,

I only know that summer sang in me

A little while, that in me sings no more

Pity would be no more

If we did not make somebody poor:

And Mercy no more could be

If all were as happy as we.

And mutual fear brings peace

Till the selfish loves increase;

Then Cruelty knits a snare,

And spreads his baits with care

He sits down with holy fears

And waters the ground with tears

Then Humility takes its root

Underneath his foot.

Soon spreads the dismal shade

Of Mystery over his head;

And the caterpillar and fly

Feed on the Mystery.

And it bears the fruit of Deceit,

Ruddy and sweet to eat;

And the raven his nest has made

In its thickest shade,

The gods of the earth and sea

Sought thro’ nature to find this tree;

But their search was all in vain;

There grows one in the human brain

When the voices of children are heard on the green

And laughing is heard on the hill,

My heart is at rest within my breast

And everything else is still

Then come home my children, the sun is gone down

And the dews of night arise

Come come leave off play, and let us away

Till the morning appears in the skies

No no let us play, for it is yet day

And we cannot go to sleep

Besides in the sky, the little birds fly

And the hills are all covered with sheep

Well we’ll go and play till the light fades away

And then go home to bed

The little ones leaped and shouted and laugh’d

And all the hills echoed.

My new religion would be silence

And its hymns would be

The song of birds, the sound

Of waves breaking on a shingle shore,

The wind soughing through the trees.

It’s prayers would be offered to the stillness

Deep within, that there a man

Might find himself,

And live in harmony

With all his fragile world,

It’s worship would be listening,

Wherever one might be,

Through all the noise and fret of life,

For the still sound of the turning earth

On it’s lonely journey, out among the stars.

Timothy Raikes
May 2007