Whimsical

LITTLE BOY LOST

The wood was rather old and dark

The witch was very ugly

And if it hadnt been for father

Walking there so smugly

I never should have followed

The beckoning of her finger.

Ah me how long ago it was

And still I linger

Under the ever interlacing beeches

Over a carpet of moss

I lift my hand but it never reaches

To where the breezes toss

The sun-kissed leaves above.

The sun?

Beware.

The sun never comes here.

Round about and round I go

Up and down and to and fro

The woodlouse hops upon the tree

Or should do but in really cannot see.

Happy fellow. Why cant I be

Happy as he?

The wood grows darker every day

Its not a bad place in a way

But I lost the way

Last Tuesday

Did I love father, mother, home?

Not very much; but now they're gone

I think of them with kindly toleration

Bred inevitably of separation.

Really if I could find some food

I should be happy enough in this wood

But darker days and hungrier I must spend

Till hunger and darkness make an end.

ANGER'S FREEING POWER

I had a dream three walls stood up wherein a raven bird

Against the walls did beat himself and was not this absurd?

For sun and rain beat in that cell that had its fourth wall free

And daily blew the summer shower and the rain cam presently

And all the pretty summer time and all the winter too

That foolish bird did beat himself till he was black and blue

Rouse up, rouse up, my raven bird, fly by the open wall

You make a prison of a place that is not one at all.

I took my raven by the hand, oh come, I said, my Raven,

And I will take you by the hand and you shall fly to heaven.

But oh he sobbed and oh he sighed and in a fit he lay

Until two fellow ravens came and stood outside to say:

You wretched bird, conceited lump

You well deserve to pine and thump.

See now a wonder, mark it well

My bird rears up in angry spell,

Oh do I then? He says, and careless flies

Over flattened wall at once to heaven's skies.

And in my dream I watched him go

And I was glad, I loved him so,

Yet when I woke my eyes were wet

To think Love had not freed my pet

Anger it was that won him hence

As only Anger taught him sense.

Often my tears falls in a shower

Because of Anger's freeing power.

DEEPLY MORBID

Deeply morbid deeply morbid was the girl who typed the

letters

Always out of office hours running with her social betters

But when daylight and the darkness of the office closed

about her

Not for this ah not for this her office colleagues came to doubt

her

It was that look within her eye

Why did it always seem to say goodbye?

Joan her name was and at lunchtime

Solitary solitary

She would go and watch the pictures

In the National Gallery

All alone all alone

This time with no friend beside her

She would go and watch the pictures

All alone.

Will she leave her office colleagues

Will she leave her evening pleasures

Toil within a friendly bureau

Running later with her leisure?

All alone all alone

Before the pictures she seems turned to stone.

Close upon the Turner pictures

Closer than a thought may go

Hangs her eye and all the colours

Leap into a special glow

All for her, all alone

All for her, all for Joan.

First the canvas where the ocean

Like a mighty animal

With a really wicked motion

Leaps for sailors' funeral

Holds her panting. Oh the creature

Oh the wicked virile thing

With its skin of fleck and shadow

Stretching tightening over him.

Wild yet captured wild yet captured

By the painter, Joan is quite enraptured.

Now she edges from the canvas

To another loved more dearly

Where the awful light of purest

Sunshine falls across the spray,

There the burning coasts of fancy

Open to her pleasure lay.

All alone, all alone

Come away, come away

All alone.

Lady Mary, Lady Kitty

The Honourable Featherstonehaugh

Polly Tommy from the office

Which of these shall hold her now?

Come away, come away

All alone.

The spray reached out and sucked her in

It was a hardly noticed thing

That Joan was there and is not now

(Oh go and tell young Featherstonehaugh)

Gone away, gone away

All alone.

She stood up straight

The sun fell down

There was no more of London Town

She went upon the painted shore

And there she walks for ever more

Happy quite

Beaming bright

In a happy happy light

All alone.

They say she was a morbid girl, no doubt of it

And what befell her clearly grew out of it

But I say she's a lucky one

To walk forever in that sun

And as I bless sweet Turner's name

I wish that I could do the same.