Handsworth Wood

Have ever you seen

On Halloween,

The cloud that covers the trees so green?

The shroud that covers the last of lovers

The shifting mist of the in-between?

 

I’ve stood, I’ve stood,

By Handsworth Wood,

I’ve stood as long as I thought I could;

All Hallow’s Eve is the night I grieve

My Genevieve of the purple hood.

 

She slipped between

The trees so green,

She slipped from me one Halloween;

The cloud had glimmered, the evening shimmered

But she was never to more be seen.

 

And since that cloud

Became a shroud,

I’ve not forgotten the words I vowed;

My patience burns for the cloud’s return

To help discern what I might have been.

 

The day she left

I held my breath,

Her sleight of hand was so very deft;

But Genevieve, I still believe

You’ll wander out on some Hallow’s Eve.

 

I wait in vain,

There’s only rain,

The rain and part of the cloud remain;

But Genevieve I’ve not perceived

Since she went tripping in World’s End Lane.

 

World End’s Lane

In Autumn rain,

There’s nothing left of my lost refrain;

For Handsworth Wood is a neighborhood

Where trees are held in a great disdain.

 

David Lewis Paget.