Ernest Sheppard
Ernest Sheppard was a founder member of Horsham Writers’ Circle. His poetry won many prizes in both national and international competitions and appeared widely in small press magazines. In the classical tradition, Ernest favoured rhyme and metre and a small selection of his work is displayed here in affectionate memory of a much-missed friend. The following eight poems all appeared in issues of The Darned Thing — the in-house magazine published by HWC during 1992-93.
A WALK IN WINTER
I walk the lanes this Winter-afternoon.
The westering sun swathed in a gauze of veils
smiles cold seduction on the scene, but fails
to thwart the wooing of a pallid moon.
The air is sharp and clear, each taken breath
holds a presentiment of snow to come.
The land rests under silence, stricken dumb
and apprehensive of a time for death.
Seen from a hill, the huddled village lies,
roofs battened over eaves with sombre thatch;
its guarded windows, tight-held on the latch,
send passing glances from suspicious eyes.
The hedges stripped to bareness, and the trees,
skeletal in the rigor of a trance,
all mime the stasis if their frozen stance,
in terror of some terminal disease.
And yet, a sudden breakthrough of the sun
striking the blood-bright clusters of the haws,
and yellow hazel-catkins, are a cause
for budding hope that life is not outdone,
that in the gap between the door and jamb
of light and darkness, imperceptibly,
it burgeons in the sinews of each tree.
and in the thin bleat of the new-born lamb.
CORMORANTS
A wedge of them, with metronomic beat
Of wings, flies shadowing the sea
Above the half-moon bay whose tints of blue
And green betray the deeps and shallows.
Necks stretched straight forward,
Gimlet-eyed, they scan the whitecap waters
For telltale silver of the wheeling shoals,
Before they peel off, broad-webbed feet
Thrust out for braking, fountaining the spray,
Then slip below the surface.
A cloud-rent lets a searchlight sun
Dance with quicksilver flashes
On the switch-back waves. And there they are
Hull-down, necks periscoping, raptor-beaks
Juggling the caught fish to a head-down pose
For closed-fin slide into the gullet.
A half-rise from the sea, wings shaken free
Of surplus water, and they dive again,
Before their brine-soaked, un-oiled plumage
Forces them to seek the shore.
On rocks or sandbanks poised,
They dry their shingled cloak-like wings
And rudder-feathers of the tail,
Black, with dull-green sheen of well-worn serge,
Spread for the wind. Thus, barely moving,
In cognative stance, they look
Their ancestry: the toothed reptilian divers
Of the Cretacious oceans, hunters
Of Ganoid fishes, ancient as
The fossilled Archaeopteryx.
FLOWERING BROOM
On heaths and hillsides, bright as minted gold,
Broom flowers, now that saffron-coloured gorse
Has paled to amber, and has ceased to hold
The bee-desired nectar at its source.
But why should broom, whose blooms are merest show,
Devoid of scent and of the honeyed hoard,
Provoke in bees a frantic to and fro,
Intent to leave no blossom unexplored?
Each shining flower is a tender trap,
Sprung by the yellow-banded bees, whose lust
For nectar makes the pollen-petals snap
Apart, to coat the insects with bright dust.
And so, defrauded of sweet loot, the bees
Become the dupes of Cupid, as they zoom
From raped to virgin flowers, bearing seeds
To bring more glory to the golden broom.
ORIGINAL SIN
Seen at this distance, our sinning
was somehow like a tender fall,
like that of autumn-leaves down-spinning,
or like the sliding of a shawl.
How could we see, who were but growing
aware that love first tempts through eyes,
that seeing leads to lust for knowing
the one who’s loved without disguise.
To give ourselves was our sickness,
to be received was our need;
we had no inkling of the quickness
whereby such wants a famine breed.
We were as trees are, lithe and slender,
unconscious of the things that maim,
resinous of spirit, and as tinder
which at a touch flares into flame.
It was within a sylvan setting
where sunbeams gilded ancient boles
that we, all, save ourselves, forgetting,
joined bodies to engrafted souls.
Whose was the word that urged transgression?
Who counselled first to break the seal? —
I know no more. — Yet can confession
more than the partial truth reveal?
And then the heavens we’d offended
blighted with guilt our time of bliss;
its bitter taste was apprehended
whenever we exchanged a kiss.
This meant a price to pay, and losing
the purchase to a thief within...
Love freely given, but refusing
to free us from a sense of sin.
RECOLLECTIONS
My idle thoughts, caught up in toil
which brings on tedium’s duress,
have come full circle on Time’s wheel.
Now, from a lifetime’s gathered spoil
of memories, I repossess
the treasured trifles they reveal.
These make of moments I forgot
in retrospect one whole fair day,
and cause extinguished suns to wrest
blue laughter from Forget-me-not,
or let misfortune’s castaway,
shriven of ill, be purely blessed.
There is no strangeness in the ease
whereby from ashes, grey and cold,
like to that legendary bird,
my thoughts on wing-bourne reveries
soar from the New back to the Old,
to find the past has re-occurred.
It seems as if I always knew
the contours of this land of dreams.
They have all been explored before,
yet are discovered to be new
whenever memory redeems
the early closing of a door.
THE DUCK-BILLED PLATYPUS
This weird antipodean creature
was first discovered some two hundred
years ago. Its every feature
declares that Nature might have blundered.
For this amphibious Australian
(one only of a separate species)
could scarce be thought to be mammalian;
at least, such was the learned thesis.
How could a mammal be egg-laying
and have a duck’s bill — not a muzzle —
and four webbed feet? — It was dismaying
zoologists who hate a puzzle.
Some were who would have recommended:
“Let’s call the beast Ornithorhyncus,
which means ‘Duck-Billed’.” Thus would be ended
a problem to perplex the thinkers.
But others pooh-poohed the suggestion
and said, “It seems the sense is lacking
to call it this. There is the question:
If duck-billed, why’s the beast not quacking?”
THE SITTER
Posing to have her portrait painted, she’s aware,
Beauty is not her forte, but she does not care,
And meets her would-be critics with a stare.
She has her share of pride, and having this, she lets
No smile suggest she holds it cheap, and therefore sets
Her mouth and chin to show she’s no regrets.
For being plain in features and in choice of dress —
Perhaps she is, or will be, courted nonetheless
By one for whom she will be his princess.
VIXEN
Hearing the high-pitched yelping of the hounds
Which raised the tufts of pelt along her spine,
Deep tribal terror struck her at the sounds.
She cuffed some of her cubs which tried to whine
Into stunned silence, felt the danger worth
A heightened caution for her litter’s sake,
And drove them deeper into shielding earth,
Her instinct telling her what was at stake.
The dog-fox had not come, as was his wont,
The morning after with a gift of food,
Nor since. She was reluctant to confront
The world above, and leave here hungry brood
Defenceless in the den, for danger lurked
That was beyond their ken. Her milk gave out,
And now what she must do could not be shirked...
Stark hunger made her quit their dark redoubt.
Now vulpine cunning sharpened every sense,
Brought innate skill and judgement to a head,
As, muzzle in the air to test for scents,
She stalked the field-edge where the rabbits fed,
There crouched in ambush, autumn leaves and fur
Blending in perfect camouflage, until
An unsuspecting prey came near to her,
And she lept instantly to make a kill.
A WALK IN WINTER
I walk the lanes this Winter-afternoon.
The westering sun swathed in a gauze of veils
smiles cold seduction on the scene, but fails
to thwart the wooing of a pallid moon.
The air is sharp and clear, each taken breath
holds a presentiment of snow to come.
The land rests under silence, stricken dumb
and apprehensive of a time for death.
Seen from a hill, the huddled village lies,
roofs battened over eaves with sombre thatch;
its guarded windows, tight-held on the latch,
send passing glances from suspicious eyes.
The hedges stripped to bareness, and the trees,
skeletal in the rigor of a trance,
all mime the stasis if their frozen stance,
in terror of some terminal disease.
And yet, a sudden breakthrough of the sun
striking the blood-bright clusters of the haws,
and yellow hazel-catkins, are a cause
for budding hope that life is not outdone,
that in the gap between the door and jamb
of light and darkness, imperceptibly,
it burgeons in the sinews of each tree.
and in the thin bleat of the new-born lamb.
CORMORANTS
A wedge of them, with metronomic beat
Of wings, flies shadowing the sea
Above the half-moon bay whose tints of blue
And green betray the deeps and shallows.
Necks stretched straight forward,
Gimlet-eyed, they scan the whitecap waters
For telltale silver of the wheeling shoals,
Before they peel off, broad-webbed feet
Thrust out for braking, fountaining the spray,
Then slip below the surface.
A cloud-rent lets a searchlight sun
Dance with quicksilver flashes
On the switch-back waves. And there they are
Hull-down, necks periscoping, raptor-beaks
Juggling the caught fish to a head-down pose
For closed-fin slide into the gullet.
A half-rise from the sea, wings shaken free
Of surplus water, and they dive again,
Before their brine-soaked, un-oiled plumage
Forces them to seek the shore.
On rocks or sandbanks poised,
They dry their shingled cloak-like wings
And rudder-feathers of the tail,
Black, with dull-green sheen of well-worn serge,
Spread for the wind. Thus, barely moving,
In cognative stance, they look
Their ancestry: the toothed reptilian divers
Of the Cretacious oceans, hunters
Of Ganoid fishes, ancient as
The fossilled Archaeopteryx.
FLOWERING BROOM
On heaths and hillsides, bright as minted gold,
Broom flowers, now that saffron-coloured gorse
Has paled to amber, and has ceased to hold
The bee-desired nectar at its source.
But why should broom, whose blooms are merest show,
Devoid of scent and of the honeyed hoard,
Provoke in bees a frantic to and fro,
Intent to leave no blossom unexplored?
Each shining flower is a tender trap,
Sprung by the yellow-banded bees, whose lust
For nectar makes the pollen-petals snap
Apart, to coat the insects with bright dust.
And so, defrauded of sweet loot, the bees
Become the dupes of Cupid, as they zoom
From raped to virgin flowers, bearing seeds
To bring more glory to the golden broom.
ORIGINAL SIN
Seen at this distance, our sinning
was somehow like a tender fall,
like that of autumn-leaves down-spinning,
or like the sliding of a shawl.
How could we see, who were but growing
aware that love first tempts through eyes,
that seeing leads to lust for knowing
the one who’s loved without disguise.
To give ourselves was our sickness,
to be received was our need;
we had no inkling of the quickness
whereby such wants a famine breed.
We were as trees are, lithe and slender,
unconscious of the things that maim,
resinous of spirit, and as tinder
which at a touch flares into flame.
It was within a sylvan setting
where sunbeams gilded ancient boles
that we, all, save ourselves, forgetting,
joined bodies to engrafted souls.
Whose was the word that urged transgression?
Who counselled first to break the seal? —
I know no more. — Yet can confession
more than the partial truth reveal?
And then the heavens we’d offended
blighted with guilt our time of bliss;
its bitter taste was apprehended
whenever we exchanged a kiss.
This meant a price to pay, and losing
the purchase to a thief within...
Love freely given, but refusing
to free us from a sense of sin.
RECOLLECTIONS
My idle thoughts, caught up in toil
which brings on tedium’s duress,
have come full circle on Time’s wheel.
Now, from a lifetime’s gathered spoil
of memories, I repossess
the treasured trifles they reveal.
These make of moments I forgot
in retrospect one whole fair day,
and cause extinguished suns to wrest
blue laughter from Forget-me-not,
or let misfortune’s castaway,
shriven of ill, be purely blessed.
There is no strangeness in the ease
whereby from ashes, grey and cold,
like to that legendary bird,
my thoughts on wing-bourne reveries
soar from the New back to the Old,
to find the past has re-occurred.
It seems as if I always knew
the contours of this land of dreams.
They have all been explored before,
yet are discovered to be new
whenever memory redeems
the early closing of a door.
THE DUCK-BILLED PLATYPUS
This weird antipodean creature
was first discovered some two hundred
years ago. Its every feature
declares that Nature might have blundered.
For this amphibious Australian
(one only of a separate species)
could scarce be thought to be mammalian;
at least, such was the learned thesis.
How could a mammal be egg-laying
and have a duck’s bill — not a muzzle —
and four webbed feet? — It was dismaying
zoologists who hate a puzzle.
Some were who would have recommended:
“Let’s call the beast Ornithorhyncus,
which means ‘Duck-Billed’.” Thus would be ended
a problem to perplex the thinkers.
But others pooh-poohed the suggestion
and said, “It seems the sense is lacking
to call it this. There is the question:
If duck-billed, why’s the beast not quacking?”
THE SITTER
Posing to have her portrait painted, she’s aware,
Beauty is not her forte, but she does not care,
And meets her would-be critics with a stare.
She has her share of pride, and having this, she lets
No smile suggest she holds it cheap, and therefore sets
Her mouth and chin to show she’s no regrets.
For being plain in features and in choice of dress —
Perhaps she is, or will be, courted nonetheless
By one for whom she will be his princess.
VIXEN
Hearing the high-pitched yelping of the hounds
Which raised the tufts of pelt along her spine,
Deep tribal terror struck her at the sounds.
She cuffed some of her cubs which tried to whine
Into stunned silence, felt the danger worth
A heightened caution for her litter’s sake,
And drove them deeper into shielding earth,
Her instinct telling her what was at stake.
The dog-fox had not come, as was his wont,
The morning after with a gift of food,
Nor since. She was reluctant to confront
The world above, and leave here hungry brood
Defenceless in the den, for danger lurked
That was beyond their ken. Her milk gave out,
And now what she must do could not be shirked...
Stark hunger made her quit their dark redoubt.
Now vulpine cunning sharpened every sense,
Brought innate skill and judgement to a head,
As, muzzle in the air to test for scents,
She stalked the field-edge where the rabbits fed,
There crouched in ambush, autumn leaves and fur
Blending in perfect camouflage, until
An unsuspecting prey came near to her,
And she lept instantly to make a kill.
