Busvargus Down lies to the east of the village of Tregeseal which itself lies to the north of the town of St Just on the far west coast of Cornwall.
Note: "Ela!" is Greek and is used colloquially to mean "come!" "Pugging" (a Shakespeare word from Autolycus' famous song in "The Winter's Tale," Act 4 scene 3) means thievish (in my sense, seize the moment). "Gilded flies" are butterflies. "Banting" is my neologism meaning slight, young, bouncy, bantering. A "mew" is a seagull. A "scrip" is a bag, purse, satchel. "Smicker" mans handsome, amorous, smiling.
Another lyric, written as long ago as April 1980, is "What is the Use of Grinning." I posted it here on 31 March 2012. And a more recent and more discursive poem is "July Woods," written in July 2013 and posted here on 1 June 2015.
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Ela! And here’s a lively thing
Prods my pugging tooth to buzz:
Summer’s heat
And bright-air days
Set Busvargus Down a’craze;
The gilded flies are fluttering,
Larks outsing their size
And hares, big-eyed, play touch-tag, suave and fleet.
Truly it’s a thing that’s sweet,
The bearded heather, yolksy gorse,
Sky’s high blue
And banting breeze
Thithered as the prying bees;
The adder though, rotund with meat,
Curls question-marks, ignores
A pagan fieldmouse dancing slew and skew.
Yapping, veers the white-splash mew –
Scrip it, scrip it, ah this bon!
Come nightfall, scents
Like wine enlush
The smicker air. Hist! through the hush
Purls the dun nightjar, ancient, new;
And a sudden light shone
Catches the spiders legging at their tents.
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© August 2024
Ela! And here’s a lively thing
Prods my pugging tooth to buzz:
Summer’s heat
And bright-air days
Set Busvargus Down a’craze;
The gilded flies are fluttering,
Larks outsing their size
And hares, big-eyed, play touch-tag, suave and fleet.
Truly it’s a thing that’s sweet,
The bearded heather, yolksy gorse,
Sky’s high blue
And banting breeze
Thithered as the prying bees;
The adder though, rotund with meat,
Curls question-marks, ignores
A pagan fieldmouse dancing slew and skew.
Yapping, veers the white-splash mew –
Scrip it, scrip it, ah this bon!
Come nightfall, scents
Like wine enlush
The smicker air. Hist! through the hush
Purls the dun nightjar, ancient, new;
And a sudden light shone
Catches the spiders legging at their tents.
===============
© August 2024
