We stood in silence in his croft,
as he swayed upon a three-legg'd stool,
in the whiskey-hues of hearth-light
and from his fiddle tore an air,
so low and wistful and so lost,
as to deepen every down-turned eye
and stir the sorrows in the rain.

And Old Nan mumbling on her bench,
who once could blow on knots and sink a ship,
or make a hermit fall in love,
cracked a vacant ruined grin,
unlocked the silver in her throat
and sang the moonlight on a river.

And we the gathered island dead,
all crammed together in the flicker
among the rafters and the drying fish,
between the sacks and well-worn tools,
did not move or moan or give a cry,
to see how song can make a world
from the trash of memory that remains.

Now with the fading of the night,
we're gone like frost-thorns from the pane
and Nan and John are left alone.

In truth there is no heaven yet above,
but hours like these are living things
that minister softly to our needs:
for we ourselves are unheard songs,
that lying out here in the dark,
await the singer who will come
and sing us on his golden tongue.

We spent our childhood summers in Grandpa's house,
among the creaks and groans we knew were spooks,
and sometimes in the dark, when we'd been specially good,
he'd take us to a field to see the stars.

To begin we'd find the one the others circled round,
that could guide a ship to north all through the night,
then he'd point out Mars and Venus, and the Demon Star,
and show us where the constellations were.

Then bath and up to bed, and just one fairy-tale.
At first we were frightened of the noises in the night:
'It's just the ghosts who warm the water
dancing through the pipes,' he smiled,

then told us how our ancestors, five thousand years before,
when they went to seek their fortunes in the world,
carried fire from their mother's hearth,
to light and warm them through the forest ways

and passed it on unbroken down the centuries to him.
Then he took us to an ancient boiler underneath the stairs,
'The soul of that old mother's still burning deep in here,
she's the oldest tree in the forest, she's our guiding star.'

And he let us look inside it through a crystal glass,
and her blue and savage eye returned our gaze,
then as a chill wind shook the fabric of the house,
a host of shining figures rose up behind her back.

'Look at the spirits of the families of our dead!
Their souls are burning bright and hard as yours,
they sigh and tap the walls at night to tell you all is well,
though their bones sleep cold and still beneath the soil.'

Then he led us back to bed and tucked us in,
beneath a cloud of quilts like setting sun:
'Now get your sleep so you can take our fire
to those who wait in forests still to come.'