Snatching The Tufts Of Starlight From My Lambs Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

[to George Herbert]
and to my poetry 'flocks'

snatching the tufts of starlight from my lambs
a thief of mere peach sunsets came to call:
Hold Sir! I cried for I have more than technicoloured flocks

from the One who made all colours shine
than you can carry off in broad daylight:
under God's unblinking Eye,

thieving the type from the printer's, bold as May

in her several ribbons but it's obscene and will not
last the hour that fades that fades from grass
green (and gold to straw spun backwards) .

though gem cracked are the stars before you've finished
gleam to gleam and the very winds will cry away! away! to no avail
from the golden apples in the hold of childhood fantasies=

bereft, all all the silver strays-
the violet-ridden and the Praise-
, .
and tissue thin your arguments hold sway
above the indiscriminate mobs
you cannot emulate my soul.

mary angela douglas 20 january 2015