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Child of the South

For Pia Isabella on the Occasion of her Naming,

A Reponse to Coleridge's Frost at Midnight (1798).

The midnight sky is a deep, clear indigo

And the north east wind has dropped to a hush.

Outside, the air is sharpening, and a frost

Shines quietly to the quiet moon.

Across the water, two hundred years ago,

The poet of curses was stilled on such a night,

And blessed his beautiful, sleeping child.

Invoking wild nature and the God of what is

To mould its young spirit and to make it ask,

The rough romantic sat in wonderment,

Holding his child in tenderness and awe.

I have no child

And to me the frost speaks of cold not beauty.

No gentle breathing by my side

Can thaw my heart with paternal warmth.

And yet I think of you, far to the South,

New-born and something of a stranger to me.

What can I hope or dream for you

In a time of insatiable greed and selfishness?

I am not equipped to protect you from the world,

Nor to make its cruelties easier to bear.

I have not found the answer to loneliness,

Nor a way through the maze, nor the key to life.

I am what I am, a frail man

Who comes from a place of spiritual poverty:

A man who has tried, and usually failed,

A man who has struggled to give his word.

This then is my pledge,

My solemn oath, my one and only such undertaking.

I will not give you things for your appetites:

Nor gold, nor silver, nor tinkling trinkets;

Neither money nor power will you get from me.

But I will give you bluebells in the springtime

When the woods above Tintern are a lavender haze,

And the sweet scented chestnuts in their greening,

Are covered in candles like so many shrines.

I will give you slow, autumnal mornings,

Hunting for mushrooms in the misty fields,

And a mistle-thrush singing at winter sunset

His brave heart breaking on the twisted oak.

And he will give you the heron in his patience,

The kingfisher diving like a turquoise prayer;

A joy in being, and a taste for astonishment,

An eye for wonder, and an ear for God.

For truth to tell

I cannot shape you, nor would I choose to if I could.

So I'll spare you rules and give you stories

To keep you hopeful, imaginative and kind:

And poems and songs and chants and fables,

To help you to shudder and to shed a healthy tear.

For you will inherit a different world to me,

A world whose subtle forms and intricacies

My generation can scarcely imagine.

You will need cleverness, guile and wisdom,

And strength, and a star, and a willing heart.

All that takes thought and peace in the growing,

And the daily certainty of being loved.

The love, I am sure, you have aplenty,

Down there in the South where hearts are warm.

So I shall keep a place in the North, for you.

An old man waiting for a bright young soul.

There I shall polish my poems and my stories,

And sing back to the mistle-thrush as I wait.

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