Christopher Laverty

One night I met a traveller,
here from an oriental land;
he little spoke, this wanderer,
and held a shamisen in his hand.
...

Away with Loneness - he whose winter bites,
who haunts the wasted wilderness and shores,
born in thunder on the misty moors;
who, bred by wolves, with howling fills the nights.
...

The sky is charged; a veil of frozen dew
enshrouds the earth; the distant hilltops wear
the evening's pall of sullen, sable hue.
Still is the wind. With cries that fill the air,
...

The final embers murmur in the grate -
the flickering ghosts of ravenous flames,
that licked the logs to ashes, that have warmed
this sharp November night - the only sound
...

Only the lone, resounding roar,
of waters that you tireless pour,
breaks this solitude, silent and still,
as you your ancient task fulfil -
...

Tonight I saw two cities side by side,
walked nameless backstreets by the day forgot;
saw blank and faceless windows hollow eyed,
...

Though ages leave your chalk white cliffs unchanged -
were I a traveller, they'd not prepare
my spirits for the scene that waits - estranged
your broken days I walk, days full of care;
...

Earth, water, air and fire - creation's daughters -
that ceaseless merge and melt into each other -
as all is one - and he who creatures slaughters
is well to think he kills a distant brother,
...

Modern bards - when you strike the lyre
let me not trudge through sludge and mire,
lost in the forests dark and tangled
of your perspectives jarred and mangled,
...

Cold is the air - still are the trees -
the clouds are streaked with red;
hushed are the birds as dusk descends
and here you lay your head.
...

My flower - do these blemishes you taint?
Do they betray the canker's cold caress
and call the sunset on your loveliness?
Does Mortality its crimson paint?
...

Disturb her not - she is not far;
she hears our voices - have no doubt.
Death does not her beauty mar -
not blow her candle wholly out.
...

Two springs we drink from, since the days we met:
one is a silver stream - a draught brings joy,
transports me far to fields that never cloy,
where drowsed on flowers, I would time forget.
...

Old tales of knights and honour I have turned:
sat at baronial tables, seen a hall -
through plots I've overheard - now rise, now fall;
spied cloistered sighs, felt pangs of lovers spurned.
...

Spirited upon your wings,
reveries bring boundless things;
with a pinch the sprightly fairy
blithely lures me while unwary,
...

Gales are gathering around your towers that lie crumbling -
bolted gates and doors seem poised, the stained-glass windows restless rattle -
yet to revelry they're lost - deaf to the distant rumbling -
children of the serpent - born of warriors once formed for battle.
...

The bee-loved foxgloves could not charm the mead -
geraniums their full-lipped petals fend
against first frosts - bright roses not ascend
the cottage arbours - if they did not feed.
...