(Timelessness)
Round the round day curved the golden shafts to say
That time within a circle lay
Or
Poised between the mind and mark
Eternity within an arc
And rainbowed clocks that toll’d no time
In muffled knocks and stuttered rhyme
While round the round day
Curved the silver limbs to say
That time within a circle lay
(Transcendence)
O bend the bow
In powerful prayer
And wing your wishes
On the air
Towards the tantalising
Ten
Again Again
Again Again
O bend the bow
In praise of gold
And tens and tens
And tens untold
Towards that blessed
Heaven’s-gate
That lies within
The blood-red eight
And when the day
Is shot and done
And shadows mark
The setting sun
Pray that days
Will come again
When shafts are shadows
In the ten.
(Camaraderie)
Now Paradise is very nice
But give me fields of green
Where regimented targets stand
And archers can be seen
Where time begins to lose its beat
In leisured conversation
And archers bend the bow complete
In measured concentration
Where day on day can slip away
In soothing repetition
Where scores are reached – and often breached –
In friendly competition
Yes, Paradise is very nice
It’s here between the row
Of targets and the shooting line
And archers in the bow.