How soon the summer leaves how cooled and changed to amber gold!
And with the season’s turn, my mind revisits times of old.
Sweet morning mists, warm summer days and eventide’s soft bliss,
With crowning golden sunsets – England’s summer evening kiss.

‘Twas in that sleepy Sussex village, by the Rother’s tranquil course,
Where first we met, we keepers of the garden and the horse;
Where smoothest flank and quarters hind that found my eyes returning
Were not that born of equine form, nor of a fleeting yearning.

Oh No! ‘twas something finer still, – a mystical attraction,
I longed that she would feel it too, that spark, that hot reaction.
Damn the conscience which prohibits what a married man could say
To a jodhpur wearing princess when she’s feeding horses hay.

What magic in those honeyed curls, where sunbeam’s playful dancing
Would frame her pastel eyes and lips, bewitching, all-entrancing!
Such jewels there would dance, like silver salmon in a stream;
So that just to stand beside her was a living, breathing dream.

Her speech so eloquent, refined, – its strange hypnotic power
Would ever linger in my mind, caress each passing hour.
Her very nearness spurred my pulse to race, and heart to hammer,
As such charisma and panache would any man enamour! 

There was just a hint of perfume – it was Lentheric’s “mystique”
As it mingled with the saddle soap, thus would my ardour peak.
‘Midst the hay and straw and barley, and the bridles in a row,
Precious moments in her presence were the best I’d come to know.

How well we laughed and chatted in that little tack room stall
Where we had our tea and biscuits as we watched the snowflakes fall.
While her heart was light and happy then, my own was close to breaking,
And the horses munched their haynets, of their daily feed partaking;

On the day I found my courage, and I told her how I felt,
She confessed there was another, and I felt my spirit melt.
But he had a guilty secret, he betrayed a woman’s trust
Just like me, he was a victim of the war ‘twixt love and lust.

Yet I saw beyond her fragile pose, and feelings that controlled me;
The mirrors of her soul belied the words which her lips told me.
Vibrations from her heart were stronger than her spoken word,
Which made our farewell . . . madness, to the point of the absurd.

Though the voice of reason begged me, I had banned it from my ears,
So all-consuming was the beauty of her five and twenty years;
But her wisdom, it was stronger, and it touched me to the core;
While the lust went undefeated, it was love that won the war.

So, for her I wrote “The Eagle” – at the time I didn’t know it,
That a decade down the line, they would consider me a poet.
Yes, our parting was sweet sorrow, she was tender, she was fine,
Though I have no part of her life . . . she’s forever part of mine.


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