Then in the War of Roses came the crash
That brought extinction to the feudal name
And desolation to its crumbling home.
And yet, though scarred by time and gray with age,
The little church of Saxon days remained
The emblem of a never-dying faith.
The years rolled by and then there came a day
Which gave a new possessor to the place,
A nobleman in favour with that queen
Who loved a witty tongue and ready sword
When coupled with good looks and brave attire.
He built a great Elizabethan pile,
The ground-plan shaped to form the royal E,
Conforming to the fashion of the times
When loyalty spoke even from silent stone.
And he, to please his lady's pious whim,
(Though ten years wed, he called her Sweetheart still)
Forbore to raze the chapel to the ground,
But stayed with flying buttress either side,
Repaired the roof and made it to her mind.
And there they lie, both in one marble tomb
On which their effigies with clasping hands
Bear witness to an everlasting love.
And when vacation brings its hours of rest
I sometimes sit within the Saxon church
And muse upon the changes time has brought
Save to the faith that reared the little shrine,
And still builds churches "in Fayre Jesu's name."
Winter
'Tis winter and the darkening skies
Awake regretful memories
Of wooded hill and sunlit plain,
Ringing with anthems to the sun
Until his arching course was run
And nightingales took up the strain.
The trees, then dense with leaves and flowers,
Stood through the long and smiling hours,
Housing an honest little folk,
Throbbing with life by day and night,
Whose voices, vibrant with delight,
Of happy labour ever spoke.
The trees now spread their haggard arms,
Bared of their pristine, leafy charms,
To cold and unresponsive skies
That neither smile nor weep, but chill
With cold indifference, and kill
Hope that all nature underlies.
A dreary moan floats on the wind
From the gaunt oaks, that, ill defined,
Show spectral shapes against the sky
From which the fleeting day has flown
While dead leaves on the earth are strown
To mark the summer's mortuary.
Where are the thousand things of life
That erstwhile made the place all rife
With busy hum and restless wing
And turmoil of a world of love?
The blackbird on her nest above,
Below, the beetle tunnelling.