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A Roadside Harp: A Book of Verses

Chapter 8: W. H. 1778–1830
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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.

BETWEEN the wet trees and the sorry steeple,
Keep, Time, in dark Soho, what once was Hazlitt,
Seeker of Truth, and finder oft of Beauty;
Beauty ’s a sinking light, ah, none too faithful;
But Truth, who leaves so here her spent pursuer,
Forgets not her great pawn: herself shall claim it.
Therefore sleep safe, thou dear and battling spirit,
Safe also on our earth, begetting ever
Some one love worth the ages and the nations!
Nothing falls under to thine eyes eternal.
Sleep safe in dark Soho: the stars are shining,
Titian and Wordsworth live; the People marches.