Strangeness Owing Nothing To Madness. 

('Barrow' is a psychiatric hospital near Long Ashton, near Bristol.)


       Far beyond the bounds of Barrow:
     caught in the crest of a night shrouded hill,
     deep in the dark lies a whispering lake,
     its far rim lit like a distant dockside.
     I listen in stillness, caught in its spell
     while it seems to watch me with its vast oval eye,
     shimmering like a secret harbour
     held by a permanent pause in the tide.

       I go back in the day like a fool after magic,
     hoping the wonder has not been destroyed;
     and it hasn't! The rough grass, the wind and the sheepshit
     are rugged as any in the Yorkshire dales.
     Yet as I climb upward a murmur of waves
     on a high shore erupts into fish-smelling sea spray,
     and gulls in the wind's roar cry joyful amd tragic;
     and we share this wild scene as we lean on the gales.