Overture

When I think back upon the time I spent
With Arthur, and the mystery he leant
To those of us afforded with the chance
Of sharing vicinage, and seen askance
By all the rest who saw the distance for
A vague mirage, or elsewise would implore
A star was but a speck of light whereas
For those up close engulfed whole worlds and has
The power both to swallow and produce
Creations and to render tightness loose;
When I think back, I say, the firmament
Folds liquefactions of the occident,
Begetting what is at first minstrelsy
But augments into boundless artistry.

On either side did antecedents claim
A namesake of the artist; and the same
Two bloods forsook their safety for a war
Fought o’er Britannia’s skies and facing shore
Till one begot a baker who amassed,
From Greensleeves to the strains but lately passed,
An oeuvre of such songs as would entrance
A faun of afternoon’s own sweetly dance;
Anon excurse thence did he, westward bound,
Toward the prairies, yet unto the crowned
White mountaintops did his son (ours) seek out
To freely breathe the golden rays about,
To intermix them with the alder shades
From home, distilling all into cascades
Born out by nature, and heard from afar
As beauty’s murmurs from a lone guitar.

- H.C.E.

Concluding instalment to come