Wych Elm

How we sin against ourselves...

Green is the wych-elm

Torn is the tiding,

Ghosts in the old country

Surely are riding,

Deep lie the shadows

On dull days in waiting,

Trace the old harmonies

Long in creating,

Sharp is the memory,

Dark is the will,

Lost for all seasons

In some rippling rill.

 

Long did he wander,

He that in I

Took to the meadows,

Gazed at the sky,

Rambled by rivers and

Rolled in the corn,

He that in I was

When we were new-born,

Fled by the wych-elm

Where age and old sin

Awaited his passing

That he would come in.

 

He that came in as

The I that went by him

Smiled in some greeting

That caught my tongue tying,

Reached for the reins of

His dapple-grey gelding,

Rode through the seasons

That never had ending,

Squandered the meadows

And trampled the corn,

Serving the wych-elm of

Both of us born.

 

Now I return with

The lines in our faces,

Searching for shadows of

Both of our traces,

Hoping for comfort or

Words of some kindness,

Lost in the echoing

Creed of my blindness,

Shadows of him that I

Tore from within me,

Left by the wych-elm

To steal that he lent me.

 

Green is the wych-elm

Torn is the tiding,

Ghosts of the old country

Surely are riding,

Out by the meadow

A child that waylays me,

Speaks to me once, and that:

‘You have betrayed me!’

Turns at the river to

Gaze at the sky,

Rides away slowly,

He that was I.

 

Nothing is left for

My bitter eye brightly,

Nothing but shades that

Return to me nightly,

Seasons that flickered, that

Galloped and fled me,

Schemes and ambitions that

Always misled me…

But no-one could ever do

More to dismay me

Than he that was I, saying:

‘You have betrayed me!’

 

David Lewis Paget