In the Dark of the Year

The Song of the Shrill Piper

In the mid-part of the night a wind arose
that rattled on the panes and smacked the doors
against their jambs. Dragged thus from sleep,
I hearkened to its dolour, which could keep
no time to any tune but would lament
a lost and broken song, now loud, now rent
to nothingness. But always murmurings
arose like ghosts, the threnody begin
again, as distant Dionysian flutes
unbid and ethereal would illume
time’s misty fields and awake in ancient
woods all drowsing minds with their persistence.
And mark you well – that sound has passed beneath
the hanging tree and trod the withered heath.
More. The path of this mad piper has traversed
grim deserts and benighted plains, immersed
the aeons’ sacred dust; and what remains
– regrets of slaves and kings long gone – now stain
the air I breathe? From thrice a thousand restive miles
what detritus of foundered, wind-borne lives
caress the cheeks and kiss the lips of living men?
What disembodied sorrows of the past? So when,
without, his low tones snuffle like a boar
dissatisfied – stay in.  And should your door’s
latch answer to a measured, urgent tune,
ah, when he plays this dirge – ask not for whom.
Ask not for whom, my friend, but count your days;
‘tis an ill melody the Shrill Piper plays.


(From ‘Otherworld’ )