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A Roadside Harp: A Book of Verses

Chapter 45: St. Peter-ad-Vincula
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About This Book

This collection gathers lyrical and narrative poems that range from ballads and sonnets to short meditations. The verses move between rural and urban settings, evoking English and Irish countryside, Italian art and London streets, and blend historical, religious, and classical allusion with close natural observation. Recurring concerns include time and memory, faith and loss, friendship and artistic response; many pieces treat ruined churches, portraiture, and small domestic scenes with musical language and formal polish. Alternating narrative storytelling and reflective shorter lyrics, the work balances nostalgic melancholy with bright sensory detail and a cultivated, songlike cadence.

TOO well I know, pacing the place of awe,
Three queens, young save in trouble, moulder by;
More in his halo, Monmouth’s mocking eye,
The eagle Essex in a harpy’s claw;
Seymour and Dudley, and stout heads that saw
Sundown of Scotland: how with treasons lie
White martyrdoms; rank in a company
Breaker and builder of the eternal law.
Oft as I come, the hateful garden-row
Of ruined roses hanging from the stem,
Where winds of old defeat yet batter them,
Infects me: suddenly must I depart,
Ere thought of men’s injustice then and now
Add to these aisles one other broken heart.