As I walk by bush and tree
Phantom shadows keep with me,
Friends I left in other days
Walk beside me all my ways,
As I walk and swing my lamp
Through the empty meadows damp
Where the moth upon the stem
Shines its eyes of double gem,
Where the owl and cricket sing
Elegies of wandering
And my other friends in white
Hang their heads against the night,
Flowers that I used to know
Hang their heads and palely glow
In the meadow stretches soon
Where my rival is the moon.
Where the nightingale makes moan
In the dusky shades alone
And the glow-worm later on
In a grassy dell has shone,
Dewdrops splinter into sight
As I take my lantern bright,
Dewdrops cool my aching limbs
Till my head in heaven swims
And the stars that fill the sky
To those dewdrops make reply
And the lantern in my hand
Makes a noise I understand
As I brush the quiet grass,
As I home at midnight pass
Where occasional alarms
From the dogs that keep the farms
And the hazel whispers quiet
Of the hazel insect’s diet
Interrupt my reverie
As I walk by bush and tree.
Alasdair Aston
Editor’s note:
With the poems Alasdair included this note that puts them into context, which I think readers may appreciate.
“The poems relate to my mothing nights at Onehouse (Northfield) Wood, where I went with my tilley lamp from 1945 onwards. Just before dusk I would enter by the hollow- oak main gate, cross the entrance clearing and take the first right along the main glade to where it turned left. At this point I turned right across the two internal meadows, at the far end of which I again entered the wood for my favourite lamp site. I would stay there until about midnight and then retrace my steps, hoping that the oil would not run out and leave me in the dark! Obviously I had no idea that changes in management would alter the meadows so drastically.”
© 2004 Suffolk Naturalists' Society
used by kind permision.