We R 7 Fold
Now in the We R Seven Fold
Was drawn a merry company
Of careless youth which kept aloof
From wine and women, and, forsooth
From everything that gave them proof
Of shackled liberty!
And what high revels did they hold?
This very merry company
A happy band which roamed the land
And sought and found on every hand
The beauty spread by Nature’s wand
Each season’s livery!
Yet was their festive humour fold
This ever ready company!
Which sought upon the dining board
The tempting viand – the liquid poured
And many a pantry’s gourmet-hoard
To hold high revelry!
Untitled and almost certainly unfinished (regrettably)
North and west from Richmond Town
There lies a highland wide and fair
Where roads go rolling up and down
And into woodlands winter-bare.
I rode to keep a trysting time –
I feared no storm the year did store
Nor feared the icy-fingered rime
Nor stealthy snow that drifted o’er.
The grey November day did hold
Dim vistas flung on moor and vale
The nearer ridges grey and cold
The farther fells in etching pale.
The sweeping river far below
Did merit more than casual glance
As did the remnant autumn glow
Betimes the gloomy moor enhance.
The tryst I kept by Marrick den
In dalliance thus the day was spent
Till shadows lengthened in the glen
The shadow-wraiths that came and went.
They came emboldened by the night
They flung their cloak o’er tree and stone
Made all the earth bereft of light –
Hill, vale, and river, all as one.
The path was on my mind emboss’d
Each darken’d eve returning late
Quite certain I could ne’er be lost
‘Tween Marrick Tower and Richmond Gate!
I prayed to see above the glen
The frosty moonshine wan and high
To soften the view within my ken
And secret shades to beautify.
But now I stumbled in the night
While round the icy devils press
My light flung back upon my sight
A circled, sightless, spaciousness!
The snorting beast with chilling sweat
Beneath me plunged in frenzied fear
Or panted in a woeful fret
Or ceaseless champed the bridle gear.
What ailed my beast, my faithful nag
Erstwhile so fleet and sure of foot
Twas not her nature thus to lay
Nor mine to weild the spurred boot.
From a loose MS in Charlie’s poetry book.
I think this is not Charlie’s work, but if not, whose ??
Unfortunately, that concludes all that is in Charlie’s notebook.
