This poet parasite of grief

Lives on the falling, leaf by leaf,

Of life’s illusion, glad to see

The nakedness of misery.

He probes his pen deep down within,

To make a sonnet of a sin.

A Realist, revealing less

Life’s beauty than its bitterness.

Yet purer eyes than his have seen

Truth in these fields of living green,

And truer hearts than his have trod

White ways of wonder up to God.

Lord, touch my lips that I may sing

The music of men’s hallowing.

Touch Thou my soul that I may know

Life’s worth more real than its woe.

‘In the name of reality many writers are indulging in shabby forms of make-believe, and are reducing all reality to ashes.’ Alfred Noyes (1880-1958).