At once I came awake in darkness knowing
That you were not beside me in the night
The fear within my veins a river flowing
Unstoppable as you might be in flight

For honour named are thee as Petrarch’s Muse
Alive to me as she to he once crowned
By royal leaves that marked a king’s renown
That Caesar’s force his empire might effuse

When vigorous the north wind blows across the steppe as far as Kent
Victorious his power shows in falling tiles and trees full bent

The Earth’s curve is revealed to me
As asphalt disappears
Beneath my boots and wheels I see
The rushing of the years
The light returning from these bars
In nickel hardened rays

Should a veil of fear and suffering cause me at the end
To forget the love and kindness of you all
If I say such and such and this or that and it offend
Forgive this feeble body at its fall

Grey afternoon light draws all hue from your face
Dark as day fades and I leave your embrace
Fair skin becomes blue for bare naked you lay
As I steal through your blinds though longing to stay

As morning lays her hands upon my sill
Ethereal threads of night I cling to still
And holding as they whisper from my mind
The revenant trace of you they leave behind

This dolorous wound that festers still caused me by your thoughtlessness
Given that you might fulfil fate’s destiny with someone else

Make a fortress of the golf course
With eighteen feet high walls
And at each corner towers build
Send Dobermans abroad!

Oh razor-wire the sixteenth hole
And booby-trap the green

Hard monument to bloody days
Darkly in the shadows lies
Hidden here from grateful gaze
Of nation she had come to save

Thousands of her brothers fell
Shredded in the teeth of hell

If, say at heaven’s gate, you and I should meet anew
Would time accelerate again disappearing from our view?
Would you begin to speak like me and I in turn like you

Foresworn am I to ever view your love once swift declared to me
For false - it was and so shall be my abjuration now of thee
In consequence of what prevailed (and all that’s left of no avail)

These gallants gathered here about
Now ‘pon their fiery steeds do mount
And charging forth let out a yell
To glory now or else to hell!

Encased in armour dark as night

The last few leaves now withered brown cling to the boughs upon the downs
And blush the light refracted
And sunken in December’s sky as buttermilk the sun now shy
Can hardly be detected

Answer me this -
How did I wound thee?
Describe to me the way
In which I suffered you to suffer

For I would like lightning move to defend thee now