You like my bird-sung gardens: wings and flowers; <br />Calm landscapes for emotion; star-lit lawns; <br />And Youth against the sun-rise ... ‘Not profound; <br />‘But such a haunting music in the sound: <br />‘Do it once more; it helps us to forget’. <br /> <br />Last night I dreamt an old recurring scene— <br />Some complex out of childhood; (sex, of course!) <br />I can’t remember how the trouble starts; <br />And then I’m running blindly in the sun <br />Down the old orchard, and there’s something cruel <br />Chasing me; someone roused to a grim pursuit <br />Of clumsy anger ... Crash! I’m through the fence <br />And thrusting wildly down the wood that’s dense <br />With woven green of safety; paths that wind <br />Moss-grown from glade to glade; and far behind, <br />One thwarted yell; then silence. I’ve escaped. <br /> <br />That’s where it used to stop. Last night I went <br />Onward until the trees were dark and huge, <br />And I was lost, cut off from all return <br />By swamps and birdless jungles. I’d no chance <br />Of getting home for tea. I woke with shivers, <br />And thought of crocodiles in crawling rivers. <br /> <br />Some day I’ll build (more ruggedly than Doughty) <br />A dark tremendous song you’ll never hear. <br />My beard will be a snow-storm, drifting whiter <br />On bowed, prophetic shoulders, year by year. <br />And some will say, ‘His work has grown so dreary.’ <br />Others, ‘He used to be a charming writer’. <br />And you, my friend, will query— <br />‘Why can’t you cut it short, you pompous blighter?’<br /><br />Siegfried Sassoon<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/prelude-to-an-unwritten-masterpiece/
