Arthur Ronald Mulligan
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TO A FRIEND IN THE WILDERNESS
A.R.D. Fairburn
I could be happy, in blue and fortunate weather,
roaming the country that lies between you and the sun,
over the hills, fold after fold,
following the gradual sheeptracks, winding slowly
past gullies flecked with the ragwort’s curse
or golden with the uneconomic gorse
to the tops of the skyhills where in time of drought
the danthonia shines like a flame that consumes the summer.
I could be happy roaming chancefoot
over those hills in the soft autumn rain,
or wandering in winter wildness.
...
Come with me now, past the Maori grave,
past the straggling fig-tree like a map of London,
along the track and over the wooden bridge.
Once more we climb the cliff-path sweating and silent
and stand at the high point, by the crumbling edge,
the sea beneath us, the winds’ dancing-floor
deserted now and shining:
...
Landward the far-off hills are walls of blue
fringing the valley floor, broad map of summer. The deepening green
foretells the fall of leaves, and friendship’s end,
all that we are, all that we love,
dissolved and lost in the [wilder]ness.[Read the full poem]