TRIP TO HISTORIC BATH POEM 21

Christmas is coming! The proverbial geese is perhaps not so fat this year, due to COVID and the economic repercussions of such a worldwide disaster, but we still have plenty to be thankful for. Poetry can focus us on these things - as other people have also had to find things to be grateful about, even in times of disaster.

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“It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour.” Charles Dickens

Dedication

I could write a thousand poems,

All versed in order and regular,

Lined and ruled to celebrate you,

I would not capture your figure.

So high above our view we must look,

Upwards and find ourselves at a loss,

For your figure ornamented and sustained,

In glass indicates a subject holy and worthy.

Perhaps if the sun were to shine less brightly,

I would see the earthly nature of your design,

But as the light penetrates the colour vivid,

The celestial is inescapable as your grasp.

There is a moment in looking where time

Suspends its lofty measure the eyes transfixed,

We almost do not see for staring at the holy,

A pilgrim blinded by intent and purposeful glance.

“My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?” Bob Hope