Elegy for a lost world


These hills were once adorned in deeper hues,
when ancient boughs burst forth in bright array.
Forgotten now, the memory yet imbues
the cluttered vales where once the Fey held sway.

Where terraced houses step down cobbled lanes
and slate-bruised slopes betray forsaken mines,
majestic trees once tossed their dappled manes
and pierced the sky with countless eager tines.

The soughing wind conducted chattering leaves
whose swaying rhythm flowed from tree to tree.
Illumined motes afloat beneath the eaves
exalted a cathedral canopy.

In oaken groves, by sweetly glistening streams
the prayerful mortals knelt in awe and dread
of holy places, otherworldly dreams,
of misty mornings and a godly tread;

(not finished)

**

The slopes were wreathed in bramble, briar and thorn
grown dense from mouldered leaf and pungent loam,
and twisted trunks with limbs both gnarled and worn
wore sores of moss and leprous sponge like foam

on stagnant water, lying noisome still.
Reflected darkly on its sluggish face,
the blackened hovel stark upon the hill,
which but a puff of wind would now efface.

The great and dreadful forest now lies deep
in myth, the hills now crowned with grass and shale,
and deeper still the Fey, in troubled sleep,
see not a glint of daylight touch the vale

where young imagination, ripe and sweet
with promise, glows with living fire; a chance
to wake, to wake again the silent beat,
to stir lethargic limbs. 'Once more to dance!'

An elegy is writ within that cry,
a sorrow deep as death that dance has died,
that Pan should pipe no more, nor mortal pry
behind the mist, where gods and dragons hide.

**

Far from the madding crowd the churchyard lies
within a valley bronzed by waning day.
Bare hills stand mute, the owl soft, silent flies
in mourning for the passing of the Fey.

I sit and write despite the deepening gloom,
my grief carved from these weathered mounds and stone,
for though my youth knows nothing of such doom,
imagination calls me to atone.

The church bell tolls and I must now depart
for cheerful hearth, for light, for warmth, for life
The forest and the Fey I leave, in part,
for here they rest...

(need to figure out how to end. Not much works with 'life')