'Adelstrop' by Edward Thomas
Thank you Johann for reminding me of 'Adelstrop' by Edward Thomas.
Incidentally this is an interesting programme by poet Mathew Hollis about the friendship between Thomas and Robert Frost that encouraged Thomas to move from journalism to poetry - built upon the prose account of an epic bicycle ride: 'In Pursuit of Spring'. He died a hundred years ago on the first day of the Battle of Arras.
Great wireless.
ADELSTROP
Yes, I remember Adlestrop --
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.
The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop -- only the name
And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.
And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
Incidentally this is an interesting programme by poet Mathew Hollis about the friendship between Thomas and Robert Frost that encouraged Thomas to move from journalism to poetry - built upon the prose account of an epic bicycle ride: 'In Pursuit of Spring'. He died a hundred years ago on the first day of the Battle of Arras.
Great wireless.
ADELSTROP
Yes, I remember Adlestrop --
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.
The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop -- only the name
And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.
And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
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