The Cross

Tree which heaven has willed to dower
With that true fruit whence we live,
As that other death did give
Of new Eden loveliest flower,
Bow of light, that in worst hour
Of the worst flood signal true
O´er the world, of mercy threw;
Fair plant, yielding sweetest wine
Of our David harp divine;
Of our Moses tables new;
Sinner am I, therefore I
Claim upon thy mercies make;
Since alone for sinners´ sake
God on thee endured to die.

PEDRO CALDERÓN DE LA BARCA

Jones the Grocer

Jones, the Grocer, we called him-
A pale man skilled in servility,
His hands white and soft as the lard he stacked
In small meticulous rows, his head
Polish and somehow apologetic, as if
He was crowned forever with dishonour

I hated him, he was to obsequious by far,
Embellising, transaction   whit fulsome flattery
Of your hab, your appearance, your miserable opinions.
He seemed to exis in a fog
Of self-effacement, trouhg which  one caught
The rarest glimpse of a human dignity

Yet, one could suffer the arid washing of his hands
For the joy of that shops its curiosities,
like the corner where it was always dusk
And equatorial aromatics whith coffee beans
And calendars derisive of popularity,
And the adverts twenty years out of date

One could suffer it, and gladly suffer it again
To be delivered of this, its successor-
A supermarket, slick and soulless
Arrogantly accepting the shopper´s homage.


HERBERT WILLIAMS  

Incendiary

That one small boy, with a face like palid cheese
And burn out little eyes could make a blaze
As brazen, fierce and huge, as red and gold
And zany yellow as the one thar spoiled
Three thousands guineas worth of property
And crops, at  Godwin farm on Saturday
is fraitened, as fact and methafor
And ordinary match intented for
The lighting of a pipe, or kitchen fire
Misused may set a whole menagerie
Of flame fanged tigers roaring hungrily
And frightened , too,  thar one small boy shoud set
The sky on fire and choke the stars to heat
Such skinny limbs and such a little star
Which would have been content which one warm kiss
Had there been anyone to offer this


VERNON SCALLENN

Early Morning Feed

The father darts out on the stairs
to listen to that keening
In the upper room, for a change of note
That signifies distress, to scotch disaster,
The kettle huming in the room behind

He thinks, on tiptoe, ears a-strain,
The cool dawn, raising like the moon:
"Must not appear, and pick him up:
He musn´t think he has me springing
to his beck and call"
The kettle rattling, behind the kitchen door.

He has him springing
A-quiver on the landing-
For a distressed note, a change of key
To gallop up the stairs to him
To take him up, light as a violin,
And stroke his back until he smiles
He slides in the kitchen,
and pours his tea...


And again stands hearkening
For milk cracking the lungs
.There´s a little panting,
A cough: the thumbs in, he´ll sleep
The cup of tea cooling on the kitchen table

Can he go in now to his chair and think
Of the miracle of breath, pick up a book,
Ready at all times to take it at a run
And intervene between him and disaster,
Sipping his cold tea as the sun comes up?

He returns to bed
and feels like something, with the door ajar,
Crouched in the bracken, alert, whith big eyes
For the hunter, death, disaster.

Woman to Child

You who were darkness warmd my flesh
Where out of darkness rose the seed
Then all the world I made in me:
all the road you hear and see
hung upon my dreaming blood

There moved the multitudinous stars,
And coloured birds and fishes moved
There swam the sliding continents.
All time lay rolled in me, and sense
and love that knew not its beloved

O node and focus of the world
I hold you deep whitin that well
you shall scape and not scape-
that mirrors still your sleeping shape,
thar nortures still your crescent shell.

I wither and you brake from me;
yet thought you dance in living light,
I am the erth , I am  the root.
I´m the  the steam, that fed the fruit,
the links that join you to the night.


JUDITH WRIGHT

Unto us...

Somewhere and sometime
They commiteed themselves to me
And so, I was!
small but I was.


Tiny in shame,
lusting to live.
I hung in my pulsing cave
Soon they knew of me
My mother, my father.

I had no  say in my being
I lived on trust
And love
Tho¨ I couldn´t think
Each part or me was saying.

A silent  "for me
I will bring you love!"
I was taken
blind, naked and defencelees
By the hand of one


Whose good name
was graven on a brass plate
in Winpole Street
and dropped on the sterile floor
of a foot operated plastic waste bucket




There was no Quuen´s Councel
To take my brief.
The cot I might have warmed
Stood in Harrow´s shop window
When my passing was told


My father smiled
No grif fill my empty space.
My death was celebrated
With two tickets to see Danny y la Rue
Who was pretending to be a woman


Like, my mother was






Spike Milligan

On the late massacre in Piemont

A venge, O Lord, thy  slauhtered saints,   w
whose bones
Lay scattered on the Alpine mountains cold
Even them who kept thy trout so pure of
old.
When all our fathers worshipped  stocks and
stones.
Forggert not, in thy book record their groans.
Who were thy sheep, and in their anciennt fold.
Stain by the bloody Piemontesem that rolled
Mother with infant down the roks.Their
moans
The vales redoubled to he hills, and Then
The heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes
sow
oér the italiand fields, where still doth
sway
The triple Tyran; that from these may grow
A hundred- fold, who, having learnt ,
thy way,
Early may fly the Babylonian woe


Louisa Macartney Crawford