Will-o-the-Wisp
Will-o-the-Wisp
With weary gait I wandered
Into a sequestered wood,
Whereby happenstance
I recalled from childhood –
A series of events
Which gave the area its name.
It was only me and Nature,
But we gave it all its fame.
Apollo had retired,
And my mother fallen ill.
My father was away and all
In me could not stay still.
My feet would ask no questions,
Both my lungs kept all their breath –
Little atria aquiver –
Underneath the moon, I left.
Unsteady steps, they took me
Far past the trodden path.
In nervousness I wondered
If it wasn't Our Father's wrath.
I held myself too tightly
For much breath to escape.
In sitting on a broken log,
I chattered in my quake.
When far off in the distance
A light appeared to me.
This glowing ball was floating,
Dancing through every tree.
And this, I did conjecture
To be some kind of fey
Who had been sent to lead me
Back from where I'd gone astray.
With unseen wings it flitted,
An ethereal majesty,
Through bracken, deeply dewy,
It lit the lane for me.
It couldn't be much further
For I heard my name called out.
The tones of our good preacher
Were, for me, moved to shout.
I made my way much faster
To the end of the dark wood
Tears ran warm down both my cheeks
When there the parson stood.
He took me in his arms
And scolded me for being wry,
Led me to my dwelling when
I recommenced my cry.
"What now," the good man asked me
"Has got you all upset?"
For in looking back I saw no light
My glowing friend had left.
I told him my whole story
Of the darkness and the blaze.
He laughed and called it fancy,
Though I questioned his queer gaze.
In the coming of the morning
It was spread about the town
Of the child and the lantern
Oh, it was of renown.
And so they named that thicket
Rife with bracken and of lore
"Faerie Field" for my savior,
To be remembered evermore.
So here I stand, much later,
And my chest, it still constricts
I rest here on a broken log
While anxiety afflicts.
When suddenly, out of the dark,
A floating light appeared
I felt it came to calm me,
Lay to rest all that I feared.
Then close came my own faerie
To lead me to the heel
Of the darkness all surrounding
This lost mystery made real.
My bleak brow it then brightened
And grim mouth raised where it stopped
For in stepping through the shadows
All worry's weight had been dropped.
With livened gait I wandered
Out of the sequestered wood
Whereby happenstance
I'd revived everything good.