tag:https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/node/%25/atom 2026-04-04T06:12:42+01:00 admin niwa@bt48.com 1322 Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:17 Unpublished Poems Greacen Estate 19 Jan Linen Hall Library Wednesday, March 16, 2016 TIFF Greacen022 Manuscript By the winter sea English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen022 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen022_0.jpg LHL Archive By the winter Sea What can we say to-day that is not negative? Do not and again do not. Thus failure to act Seems more commendable than a positive stance, Here at the foam—edge of the pounding sea, Grey, neutral, dirty-specked, with March wind scourging it. And across the faded acreage of years the drums Of childhood beat themselves to death. 0 do not act Like frenzied drum-beaters, incensed by doom. Encased in winter despair may one still hope For another spring, for a tunnel away from gloom Far below the crust of the earth, then out to a valley Green in a haze of summer noon, gold fires ablaze? Or, not advancing, retreating sometimes, faith’s crumb holding, Making an effort to be honest about motives, (The Hamlet self, the double man ringed round by question marks) Can affirmation come, keeping at arm’s length meantime The lonely sobbing of this winter sea, And smothering that maddened drum-beat of a childhood Lost long aeons ago on a Northern shore? Do not and again do not - wait, it will come! Text Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:17