fracture

 you come at last to the resistant rock
hour after hour you've pushed down through soil
not knowing how to measure all your toil
nor counting time only by sweat and clock
until you hear the one confirming knock
and through your body sense the hard recoil
no time to let the motion spin or spoil
the value's in the fact more than the shock
you gild the rose and there is no more scent
but duty means that under all the pain
you have to tell the truth and not to shirk
the task on which your whole purpose was bent
and so you lie and say there was no strain
and claim as easy that which was hard work

live lion

we hide our faces underneath a mask
all that we know is covered by the dark
life just becomes another weary task

on some warm shore we have the time to bask
the world we find is just another park
we hide our faces underneath a mask

your choice to fill the bucket and the cask
and load them one by one in the last ark
life just becomes another weary task

if one of us had merely thought to ask
just what would lift the last ignoble mark
we hide our faces underneath a mask

we do not wear fine silk here or damask
this is a place where matters are most stark
life just becomes another weary task

you find that there's no drop left in the flask
and nothing will take fire from this last spark
we hide our faces underneath a mask
life just becomes another weary task

not quite a paradise

 within tight bounds a merry hopeful land
you want to ask just how we reached this shore
but words do not avail us anymore

what was those days a well-supported band
had turned into the best of all the corps
within tight bounds a merry hopeful land

so few the boats that wind up on this strand
and there is much we need now to restore
before we can make this what we adore
within tight bounds a merry hopeful land

mossy stone

 

a bit of nature broken off and dried
but what we hear is not the whole sad tale
if we were ever not to let the scale
alarm us were we not so dignified
it would not be so hard to set aside
those things that error and sorrow entail
allow the little ship to set full sail
and watch it leave upon the rising tide
the greener waters of this warming sea
contain no hope for us this winter day
but this is not our land and we must go
to stranger places where the things we'll see
are not imagined yet in work or play
but those are not the words we have to know