A Biedermeir Age (Revised)

On 16 August 2014 I posted 'A Biedermeir Age,' a poem on 'the current state of things.' It was written in rugged ottava rima which I have come to think of as too rugged. Hence I have revised the poem for greater smoothness. I quietly amended the original posting which can be read here

Tree Bark

The rhyme in line 5 of each stanza binds them together.

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   I’m too old to be smooth
   With a deep olive sheen
Like the bark of the neat laburnum;
   Or to glitter dark green
   When brusque April rain
Polishes each wart and groove;
And as for a corn-yellow head,
   Soon set, soon shed,
Long gone are my days of quorum.

   I’m too old to have beauty,

   Cream-full and white,
Like the bark of the silver birch;
   Catching the light
   Like a gleam on a pane,
In September dusks it does duty
Guiding labourers home
   Though shadows loom 
And an owl glides from its perch.

   I am old and rough,

   Ragged-grained and grey,
Like the bark of the leaning willow;
   With thin leaves all day
   It dabbles a stain
In the stream, black and buff,
Groaning sore in its boughs
   At the wind’s souse,
Longing for the earth’s pillow.

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© October 2013