SUNSET

In this year, on the 18th of March, King Edward was
murdered in the evening, at Corfe Passage.                                      
Laud Chronicle 978-9             

At dusk we were led down the alley, caressed
By clinging walls, led from our silent tomb
This doomed city of our death, from the dim
And shapeless dusk, where go shades of men,
Towards a holy place, where bled the evening sun.
There spread belief, rounding cobbles, reddening
Brick and describing walls—perpetual forms.
No more the barren earth beneath the graveyard yew,
No more the insidious mist creeping from the canal
No more the dissolution of the city’s darkened towers.

But that was some false passion, some false sun,
And hope broke as the sun’s course sunk,
And the light was lost behind a cruel façade
Leaving but a memory of a creating warmth,
And in the alley, a grey and bloodless soul.

Dead the days that desired the word to greet the street,
Dead the hours that asked the word to lift the mist,
To make one the word, the image and the town.
We would have prayed for that sacrifice of streets
Could we have made the journey promised:
Thinking then that darkness descended only
On the world that slept without words, now
The same insidious thing has crept into the world
That fought for words. From darkness to darkness,
Has the darkened alley led. But the bright light
Of darkness still asks our bloodless soul to bleed.