FROM ADLESTROPHES, RE-ENVISIONINGS OF EDWARD THOMAS'S ‘ADLESTROP’ IN THE STYLE OF OTHER POETS
I caught that noontide nothing but the name
Of Adlestrop, where stopped the non-stop train
At the year's centre, sent my scenting brain
No trace or clue that memory can reclaim.
Engine and man did one thing and the same,
Hissed mist from out their pipes, but how explain
How stationary the station could remain
To lay stress on the sign? For that I came.
Codlins and cream, green grass, and all the willows,
Sweet meadowsweet, hay dry beneath sun's fires,
Clouds echoing stooks below like silk-sack pillows,
Made hush while blackbird's song set off the choirs
That cry their maker forth, from hill to hill, O,
Shout wide to Oxford and its sharing shires.