David Lewis Paget Poems

And you, my father
Who cast my light
In the dim mists
At my mother’s art –
...

Nights in white cottages
By the last of the flickered firelight,
Supping sweet pottages
To the wind-wail without,
...

I walked to the back verandah
And stared at the midnight sky,
The moon, long gone, lay hidden
By the rainclouds, up on high,
...

We stare at the rocks and shoreline
As if time itself has fled,
For the sea once lapped at our laughter
When he would go on, ahead;
...

And so to you my sweet, it comes
The point at which, three quarters gone
Life trickles through our fingers
Like the sand,
...

Each night
As he drops his head
To the deep dream
Of the dark bed,
...

A light appeared on the darkest hill,
The girl fell once, and was left behind,
I caught her arm and we crossed the rill:
‘I can’t go on - I think I’m blind.’
...

All you left were your plastic pieces
Cloaked in covers of light and sound,
Whatever happened to spill our leases,
Wreck our passage and check our treaties
...

Stars clash, and pale moons
Gloat over you, my pretty witch
While brooding shadows of the loom
Reflect you in some shining dish;
...

The basic tenets of my faith
Remain, though time has blunted all
The finer points I once embraced
By casting doubts beyond my trawl.
...