Woman In Child
'Oh, woman in child
What dare do you dare;
The wind's in its warren
The rain's in your hair,
The tides of the spirit
Are tides of the moon,
What mysteries ferret
Sweet love in your womb.'
'Womb-woman in child,
What witch do you wear;
Sad King's in his carriage
Wild spell's in the air,
Such wonder has pealed
From you never before,
My child's in your bracken;
My heart's on your shore.'
6 November 1976
poem by David Lewis Paget
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One September Night
At one with me, this silence
Serves as death,
For no long sighs will ever
Catch at my breath.
Such times have gone, and rhythms
Subtly change,
Where love in me lay dying
Lies only pain.
For love itself, so weary now
Has tired of me,
Its darts lie shattered, spent
And lent, disastrously!
While I plod on, toward some
Unforgiving night,
Where dreams still tilt at shadows,
Try as they might!
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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That Light - That Sound
'I've noticed that light before, ' she said,
'In the pale of the dawn
In a passing storm,
In the eyes of a child having fun;
In the stories I'm told
In the glitter of gold
In the habit of many a nun.'
'I've noticed that sound before, ' she said,
'In the tinkle of glass
In the whisper of grass
In the ring of an ambulance bell;
In the patter of rain
In a whimper of pain
In the secrets that children tell.'
18 May 1971
poem by David Lewis Paget
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Love Grows Slowly
You of the winter eye
Hoar frost and crab tree
Eyelids of ice, you lie
Beside and beyond me.
Cold are the storms of you
That scatter your needings,
Deep are the wells you fill
With other men's readings.
Leaving me wait for grace
And the autumn, its crowning,
Deep in the golden leaves
Here am I, drowning.
Playing that patience, time...
That measures us only,
Whisper the one true line -
Love grows slowly.
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Home Acre
Is this your home-acre
Dark beauty of mine,
Cold winds and rash words
And long hurts and harsh wine,
Caught fast in disasters
That seldom relent,
Am I your un-maker
My sweet discontent?
Is this your home-acre
This bleak, loveless tor,
Where promises are lost in
The dreams on your shore,
Where all that you hoped for
And wished for your own
Was left in harsh soil with
The seeds that I’d sown?
6 September 1979
poem by David Lewis Paget
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Vain Imaginings
We have grown old
Time will not wait
For us, who caught
Its drift too late,
Who spent like fools
And lent like Kings
Purblind with vain imaginings.
For though each cup
Would spill the brim
At every sup
Of every whim,
What fool could see
His own intent –
Each shallow draft the level spent.
And now, like beggars
Caught in need,
We hoard the dregs
Of every creed
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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At Eaglehawk Neck
She moves within
The rapid dream
That seeks to spill
Her tangled skein,
And touches others
Barely seen
Who shadow-pass
Another’s pain.
The waters lap
Her anchored feet,
The forests turn her
To the shore,
The whirling tide’s
A skirling scream
That spins her helpless
To the floor.
By some embittered
Candlelight
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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China
This land of ancients grows on me
Like a soft moss, damp-oozed in time,
Sad breezes churn each soul, unfree,
And sweep me over, like some tide.
Strange voices echo from dim pasts
Long littered with dead Mandarins
I hear, I understand them less
But feel their presence in old sins.
While grace and beauty walk each street
As daughters fan their coal-black hair
The future calls to them, at last
And the world waits, to meet them there.
25 October 2005
poem by David Lewis Paget
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On the Death of John Lennon
This world unravels, bit by bit
Each thread that binds
Is torn in rage,
And desolation stalks where wit
And beauty walked
On some lost page.
From light to darkness; life and art
And talent bleeds
At every loss,
Each shallow murder strikes the heart,
The root, the branch,
The Saviour’s Cross.
Now at the height, some furtive thief
Has stolen yet
Another strand,
And left in thrall unyielding grief
To wonder at
This bloodied hand.
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Lines on a Mormon Missionary
What sort of wild temptress is this
That tears at the memory’s core,
That conjures and courts to dismiss
And knows not what tempting is for?
What softness of speech and of eye
That seduces a man from his lust,
When he knows that he’s never to try
But feels that he should, and he must?
And why, in the stillness of night
When the world filters down at the rim,
Does he stare at the long fading light
And despair at her image of him?
31 August 1978
poem by David Lewis Paget
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