The magic of the night

The inky magic of the night
is deepened by faint jewels of light
whose silent lanterns show the way
after the closing of the day,
when men await the rising Moon,
the fair queen of the anti-noon;
she softly shines above black shapes
of wooden sentinels who wait,
who wait for centuries of time
to forget - while the queen still shines.

Will those passing centuries
forget the dying qualities
of our old and decadent empire?
And will they try to set afire
the works of many a famous man
whose wisdom, words and marathon
energy did build the glory
and this almost endless story?
Oh, that I could build again
the dreams of men who died in vain!

Hear me, O watchers of the skies -
hear the prayer of one who dies
because he loves his countryside
and all the beauty none can hide
beneath the darkest shade of night,
which hid the wrath of England’s might
when once she was that truly great
ideal whom all did imitate -
before the days in which we live -
for which my life I hope to give.

The silver softness of the Moon
in silence mocks the heat of noon;
hooting owls across the treetops
scorn the sweat of factory workshops -
croaking frogs and a nightingale,
each adds a tiny fairy tale
to the pale enchanted moonlight
which lends imagination sight
to call those many things to mind
which daytime’s memory leaves behind.

Rustling leaves ’neath the fox’s foot
as drags he prey across a root -
crickets chirp in spindly birches
like the bells of a thousand churches
ringing out across a clear
and Moonless sky of th’aging year;
trout are rising in the stream -
the misty air smells sweet and clean
now that the midnight hour is come -
oh how I yearn for these my home.