Ogre

In the kingdom of Bryneich Verging on a muddy crook of Coquet A dice of houses cast with clay and sheepdung Through a soup of starlit peatsmoke Gradually emerges as we descend "Bring the goose my child!" I carve a notch into the squirming post It smells like a smithy "Hurry now and drink the bowl before it congeals" There comes frightful news from town Of great evil abound The heartbroken potter's idiot boy was snatched from the speltfield Scouring a fortnight in the hills All they found, pointing from a sett, a small grey hand "Tie the goats to my cot With tansy rags their faces cover Push straws into the windows Damp the coals, and bar the door with hornbeam limb" Blinding colours leap Along bemirrored tower walls Stretching as far as the eye can see I am woke in icy beads By a clamour coming from the broadbeans The snapping of stems and a foul-smelling bloom Paralysed I watch my child's breath Glide like a jellyfish across the black morning When the sun is climbing We'll find the harrow smothered in slime When the sun is climbing We'll put it in the dog's noses When the sun is climbing We'll break upon the heath When the sun is climbing We'll dash across the Ringing Meadow When the sun is climbing We'll weather a storm of living needles When the sun is climbing We'll tarry by the Pool of Plenty When the sun is climbing We'll hurry down the Valley of Eagles When the sun is climbing We'll hear the distance of the North Sea When the sun is dying We'll cross the Causeway of No Memory When the sun is dying Our trees will billow in dunes When the sun is dying We'll wade around the shoreline When the sun is dying The algae as a nap of fire When the sun is dying Below the surface of the water When the sun is dying In the face of the cliff a ghastly doorway When the sun is dying We'll pitch a tent of pigskin on the beach When the sun is dying The ebbing tide will soon reveal it's secrets