The Hermit Songtext
von Richard Dawson

I′m awake but I can't yet see
An eager chiffchaff is heralding me
The image starts to form of a four-poster bed
Sprung in the clarts of a riverbend

And the Claviger knows
When the beaded shoots go
Through the arid interstix of my toes
Among the mazed roots of Rowan as
I pass my waste

Vaporous shafts of a burgeoning sun
Skewer the forest-floor onto a world fresh begun
All in the Name of the Harvest
I.e. our ever-onrushing plasma

Shadows of leaves
Mottled by thе cleaves
Of caterpillar′s ardеnt mandibles
Form a basketweave of glowing mud
Bluebells in bud


Linen smock
And scarlet-embroidered mantua
Descend from alderbranches shined with dew to settle
Onto my body

A little emerald brooch
Unclasps itself from moss
To alight upon my breast

I step into a slipperpair -
Exquisite replicas of those worn by
Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers

Two swallowed cups
Of pureed bilberries
Which grow in abundance
By the cornmill ruins
One hungers for nothing

Now let's follow
These tracks of a Fallow Deer -
Sentences of clay leading away from here

Out of the yawning dene
And over a gorsey brow vanishes
Her black horseshoe rump and tattered tail
Into a gossamer vale


At the heather-tousled crest of
Yeavering Bell we may enter a
Stone beacon-tower
From which the eye may
Hold a whole sweep of the kingdom

Hazy marshes, crow-pocked copses
Patchwork meadows labyrinthed with hedgerows
Gently declining to a fluff of woodsmoke
Clung to the fringe of the North Sea
The village of Bebba
Where once I lived, a
Fisher, before I was forced to flee

One fair morn, wrapped in a shawl of salt-mist
I gathered in my pots of White-Clawed Crayfish
And from those sucking sands
Did I make my way
Dripping to the kitchendoor of the Crossed Keys
Young Charley Wheatstone, the innkeeper's lad
With the same star-shaped birthmark as his dad
Set square on his chin
Bid me a shy "hail fellow"
And emptied the squeaking traps
Into a pewter trough

The forlorn brewer, lacking ample coin
Apologised with a token of grubs on a stick
And suggested payment take the form
Of an upgrade to my visual and ontoceptual cortexes

Back in the throes of my then-home -
A blubberlit chamber,
Off the cliff-crazing tunnels beneath the fort -
I donned Diogenes′ Robes, imbibed the Code
And disappeared into a dream of Kittiwakes
A hundred billion voices echoing around a
Dark amphitheatre

Still ringing in my ears
As I went, creel in hand
Through the Bog of Names

Upon entering a blossom grove
I went into total spasm as a
Storm of info broke abruptly across my retinas

I came around to an enhanced perception
Of every life-form within a ten-yard radius
Each throbbed with its own aurora

Utterly awed
I′d inadvertently drawn to my mind's-eye
A lone Ashy Miner Bee, as if to a plate
Under a microscope
I sobbed as I zoomed among
Individual hairs on its forelegs and face
And stared for a long time into the ommatidia

Performing a scan
On a cache of False Death Caps
I found I could trace their history
All the way back to manufacture

Slippery Jack, Amethyst Deceiver
Fairy Rings, Penny Buns, Hen Of The Wood

I was amazed
Scrolling not only the funguses yesterdays
But also their myriad yet-bloomed tomorrows

With a burden of redcurrants
And wild garlic at my elbow I
I wearily made my
Way along Crackpool Burn
Joining the coast road at Glororum

Up ahead I could see what
Looked to be a robot knelt in the lane
Revealed at a higher magnification
As a gilt-clad knight of Old
Submerged at the waist in
Unyielding concrete
Flailing his arms to a windmill of gold

Lifting up the poor soul′s visor
My gaze met with a mask of
Vein-popping fury -
Or was it abject fear? -
Gasping the Chivalric oath

Then, it was over -
He split asunder
Gleaming armour dissolving to unveil
The apprentice of Godwin the Whitesmith, a merest sliver of a man

Stooped to retrieve the platinum from his mouth I
Heard halted hooves in the dust, and the cry "MURDERER!"

Tiny cobles out at sea
A black wall of cloud in the east
And a taper of rainbow
Faintly aglow
Amidst their wakes

Tiny cobles out at sea
A black wall of cloud in the east
And a taper of rainbow
Faintly aglow
Amidst their wakes

Tiny cobles out at sea
A black wall of cloud in the east
And a taper of rainbow
Faintly aglow
Amidst their wakes

Tiny cobles out at sea
A black wall of cloud in the east
And a taper of rainbow
Faintly aglow
Amidst their wakes

Tiny cobles out at sea
A black wall of cloud in the east
And a taper of rainbow
Faintly aglow
Amidst their wakes

Tiny cobles out at sea
A black wall of cloud in the east
And a taper of rainbow
Faintly aglow
Amidst their wakes

Tiny cobles out at sea
A black wall of cloud in the east
And a taper of rainbow
Faintly aglow
Amidst their wakes