The Christmas Tree
In the dark and damp of the alley cold, Lay the Christmas tree that hadn’t been sold; By a shopman dourly thrown outside; With the ruck and rubble of Christmas-tide; Trodden deep in the
The Missal Makers
To visit the Escurial We took a motor bus, And there a guide mercurial Took charge of us. He showed us through room after room, And talked hour after hour, Of place, crypt and
At The Golden Pig
Where once with lads I scoffed my beer The landlord’s lass I’ve wed. Now I am lord and master here; Thank God! the old man’s dead. I stand behind a blooming bar With belly
Bill The Bomber
The poppies gleamed like bloody pools through cotton-woolly mist; The Captain kept a-lookin’ at the watch upon his wrist; And there we smoked and squatted, as we watched the shrapnel flame; ‘Twas wonnerful, I’m
Agnostic Apology
I am a stout materialist; With abstract terms I can’t agree, And so I’ve made a little list Of words that don’t make sense to me. To fool my reason I refuse, For honest
The Mother
Your children grow from you apart, Afar and still afar; And yet it should rejoice your heart To see how glad they are; In school and sport, in work and play, And last, in
Two Blind Men
Two blind men met. Said one: “This earth Has been a blackout from my birth. Through darkness I have groped my way, Forlorn, unknowing night from day. But you – though War destroyed your
L'Envoi
Ever in the ebb and flow Of my dreams that come and go, Reader, I have you in mind, Humbly hoping you will find In my verse a gleam that’s true To the dreams
Faith
Since all that is was ever bound to be; Since grim, eternal laws our Being bind; And both the riddle and the answer find, And both the carnage and the calm decree; Since plain
Sunshine
I Flat as a drum-head stretch the haggard snows; The mighty skies are palisades of light; The stars are blurred; the silence grows and grows; Vaster and vaster vaults the icy night. Here in
Grumpy Grandpa
Grand-daughter of the Painted Nails, As if they had been dipped in gore, I’d like to set you lugging pails And make you scrub the kitchen floor. I’m old and crotchety of course, And
My Prisoner
We was in a crump-‘ole, ‘im and me; Fightin’ wiv our bayonets was we; Fightin’ ‘ard as ‘ell we was, Fightin’ fierce as fire because It was ‘im or me as must be downed;
To Frank Dodd
Since four decades you’ve been to me Both Guide and Friend, I fondly hope you’ll always be, Right to the end; And though my rhymes you rarely scan (Oh, small the blame!) I joy
Warsaw
I was in Warsaw when the first bomb fell; I was in Warsaw when the Terror came – Havoc and horror, famine, fear and flame, Blasting from loveliness a living hell. Barring the station
Relativity
I looked down on a daisied lawn To where a host of tiny eyes Of snow and gold from velvet shone And made me think of starry skies. I looked up to the vasty