Uploaded September 2022 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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SEVENTH – PASTELS

I

Those pale and dancing Cornish daffodil fields
Painting warmth of the landscape in clever verse
Dictating deftly such a beauty only nature wields
As dancing wisps of mist float and gently disperse

Come today to our modern busy society
With a prevailing mode to criticize
No pervasive and gentile soft originality
For poems by the gifted and the wise

You are such a poet of slow flowing torrents
Embracing the built suburban scene
Mixed subjects of grandeur and abhorrence
To the lotus isle of blue and green

The dawn of emotional youth now dims
Poetry of mellifluence, rhythmical melodic hymns


II

In life you are our representative
Savouring a strong poetic flavour
In verse so gentle witty imaginative
Always a craftsmanship careful in humour

Those charming instincts of impression
Which solid depth and feeling lend
To a fear, a terror and depression
From the death of a close friend

Your poems exhibit such varied language
In tender tones succinctly successful
For this discordant cynical age
In your own words which remain successful

You used traditional evocative poetic devices
Achieving glossed skill which more than ever suffices


JB Harrogate September 1973