BLACKTHORN

Upon the hill, beneath the brow,
Glowers an ancient Blackthorn Tree.
Just Shrike dare sit upon its bough,
And use its thorns for their butchery.
Through summers long, and winter’s chills,
It’s weathered snow, and gale and rain.
Come spring its crown with blossom fills,
To start the Goddess’s song again.
Its head in sky, its roots in stone,
A stream about its feet doth course.
It stands upon its heights alone,
A dark, foreboding, watching force.
Its watched man grow from savage child,
To reach the moon, in one short age.
From friend of Sidhe with voice so mild,
To bringer of poison, death and rage.
It reflects upon man’s great endeavour,
And wonders at the kingdom.
Who yet could be so fine and clever,
With not a drop of wisdom.
But the Norns’ hands move upon the loom,
Where fate is bound and myth revealed,
And the Blackthorn knows that man’s doom,
Is, by his own hand, now sealed.
For peoples come, and peoples go,
And who remembers the Firbolg’s roar?
To live you must with the Goddess flow,
Or be cast down, from loom to floor.
The Blackthorn knows naught of human pride,
Or thoughts of greed and glory.
It has always been on the Goddess’s side,
In the telling of the story.
So mighty man, in your declining years,
Regard the Blackthorn Tree with awe.
And learn at its feet, despite your fears,
The path to another door.
For between the Blackthorn’s tangled feet,
Lies the gate to a shining land.
But a final challenge must you meet,
To pass, you must first understand.
The earth cannot be owned by one,
Its wealth and lands to plunder.
A steward’s place is yours my son,
Or all will be rent asunder.
The Blackthorn has seen the dark face,
Of the Goddess in her anger.
And felt the cold earth’s dark embrace,
Of those who would defy her.
Beneath the hills, beneath the stone,
Lie the bones of those lost races.
Who thought like man, that they alone,
Were the masters of all places.
An ancient, sturdy Blackthorn stands,
Upon the hills, beneath the brow.
It sings out at the empty lands,
‘Ozymandias, where are you now?’

Craig


thankyou Druid Network poetry page ~







Ozymandias by Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,The lone and level sands stretch far away".