STORMSCALD

When dark forces of unbridled Spring
Over our land deep drafted storms fling
Takes old life, or hurls blossoms in strife
Then tallest father-trees with roots unseen
In deathly bold winds do horribly lean

The thickly leaves prove now treacherous
And old worm's wounds rotting and dangerous
Cold raindrops they hold back like fierce tears
And whisper of mortal and brotherly fears
So sudden the incredible news arrives
The Poet's High Elm hath fallen alive!

Rush we both bards and workers of field
and behold the Titan by Typhon now smitten
Here once tormented Michael had written
And beneath the shade Harrius took rest

Or when in Imagination's furious fest
Told of the branches stretching to God
Or sung the magician's sun-backing clods
Alas what vastness in ruin before me
The World's strange fate: the fate of the tree

Even now Night's gnashing gales descend
And ghostly waves the Lake Triton sends
'gainst great ships of Iron, over whom
The beckoning Ancient mariner will loom

And beckon did the Elm with fine spun tale
For here doves would wistfully wail
How lovesick vandals marked with awry
The nest they were building high in the sky

And amidst mid-summer's musical eve
Might be heard Philomena's feverish weave
Yes here dwelt cicadas with alien shrill
Who burst the serpent on soft grassy hill

For slayers of dragons cicadas once were
Forgotten paeans from biblical Ur
Songs for which Immortality was granted
But for them old age was never recanted
So to frailty were they finally diminished

But harken their song is never finished
For long had they rung with ardent labour
How a crimson dragon of transparent paper
Would come from China's innermost reaches
Skim over the elms, the lake's rocky beaches

And ere the cicadas drank dew from the flight
Of Aurora's tresses in manifold light
In whose lap lay Helios madly entranced
While further the dragon skyward danced
And thrice would he circle and chase his own tail
Lo into the vastest Lake he now sails

The thread of the Parcae had just run out
No longer gulls would he playfully rout
For into the deep his perfection now sank
Since Auster his Pride found increasingly rank

Likewise did the flying Pendragon fall
When to bloody battle Mordred did call
So too did Daphnis in a cold rill drown
And worthily earn Arcady's ivory crown

Yet this tree's bane a strange Eschaton forbodes
And the Dragon's grave and Lunar Nodes
Frame well the cicada's many moon dream
How the Poet's High Elm dropped manna when green.