I will do an entry about the AGM

[sally_maria]

In the meantime, though, it's National Poetry month and this is one of my perfect poems for lovely sunny days like today, driving through the Cotswolds.

Adlestrop
by Edward Thomas

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

Comments

[muuranker]

Everyone seems to be posting this poem! Even those who were not at Moreton in 't Marish!

[sally_maria]

Really? Excellent. :-)

I hadn't seen it anywhere else recently, but a combination of various things, including being in Moreton and the weather, brought it to mind.

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

What a wonderful, wonderful poem. I don't know Edward Thomas well, I think it's time to remedy that.

[sally_maria]

Isn't it? :-)

I must admit that I probably don't know him as well as I ought to, but this particular poem caught my imagination, both for being such a vivid and evocative description, and because of its local connection for me. (Adlestrop is few miles this side of Moreton, well within the area I think of as close to home.)

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

My Mum phoned just after I got home from being out all day, so I was idly skimming my Friends list while talking to her. "Dad's just got back from a walk in Adlestrop," she said, about a milisecond after I'd reached this post and was reading "Adlestrop."

If this is magic, it's probably just as well you didn't post The Destruction of Sennacherib. :-)

[sally_maria]

:-)

That is an interesting coincidence. We were in Moreton in Marsh this weekend, for the TS AGM, and driving back this morning, so it helped to bring the poem to mind.

[elegaer.livejournal.com]

I've always loved that poem - at Dean Close we always had to enter the Cheltenham kiddies stand-up-and-make-an-idiot-of-yourself-doing-prose-or-poetry-recital annual trauma, and I remember having to do that poem one year. The only time I actually enjoyed it. It brings to me everything wonderful about the Cotswolds.