home page list of works

FAREWELL #1 ("Let slip the dogs")

I shall have no choice but to go,
When the gas is low
And the curtains have been drawn,
From the smoking rows
Of chimneys where our home-fires glow
In fear of dawn.

From the sleeping stones of the cobbled street
To the hunters' meet,
From the still to the gathering storm,
In the misty gloom –
An autumn morn whose memories loom
In spectral forms.

Passing grey-brick ghosts as they stand in line,
Hedging paths that wind
Through a past that ever grows,
Where a child once played
With others, ah, I long to stay
And I must go.
(1974)
Burnley Road, Dollis Hill, London, ca. 1910
Adapted from a public domain photo, photographer unknown
Created: November 17, 2014. © Stephen Alsford