GLASTONBURY TOR

  Seen distantly,
  The eyes and thoughts are drawn persistently
  To this ancient, noble pinnacle;
  There can be no refusal
  To respond to its low, persuasive call.

  It is early spring.
  Listen to the song of birds, which sing
  Not just of now, but of the past they know,
  Of the surging centuries which flow
  So fast but still beneath the earth below.

  Even God himself would strain his mind
  To enumerate and illustrate
  Such a pulsing throng of human kind,
  Whose unnumbered feet have trod this hill;
  Whose unnumbered eyes interpreted with skill
  This all-encompassing, entrancing view.
   
  And here are paramount
  No binoculars or telescopes –
  Which those unsighted raise
  With eternal expectation
  To their cataracted, granite eyes;
  For were they but aware,
  They need only to inhale – of an air
  So pure – to sense the distillation   
  Of each preceding generation.

  But also, here, the blind barbaric armies
  Of an ambitious, reforming king
  Hung, drew and quartered
  A gentle abbot
  – his gentleness was in his very calling.

  From here, as death drew near, he perceived
  The blue-bright promised skies
  As his bequest, and embracing death, believed.

  Unfettered from the chains of mortal agonies
  At the last his soul escaped;
  For the moment fragile, it fluttered free; and flew.

  Just as these birds, now,
  With their slow, enduring certainty,
  Encircle endlessly,
  Singing ancient messages – anew.

  
  Dedicated to Richard Whiting, the last Abbot
  of Glastonbury, executed for his faith in 1539.