With rumbling
brilliant barrow-loads devise
Temple and tower of cloud upon the sky,
Let the brave arch, the column fall and rise
With engrossed genius of your slavery.
My hill is strung with your vast breath and strain,
Coils of elation tumble down to earth,
Green fills the mullions of a phantom rain,
Eternal lightning heaves and travels forth.
The Wensum with a royal nonchalance
Shepherds his slender waters, yet the vision
Of vaster, upstairs doings takes his glance,
Patterns break out on humdrum ways to ocean.
You tell me all are as the leaping fish
And his silver devoted ripples, all are one.
Slave, power, your creative force and wish
Inform with praise, the clouds, the earth, the sun.
(By kind permission of Claudia Snell) |