Bread and Circuses

Chapter 58: THE KNOBBY-GREEN

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About This Book

A lyrical collection of short poems ranges from quiet country scenes and childhood memories to urban sketches and religious reflections. The poet renders streams, gardens, market sellers, and domestic interiors in close sensory detail while pairing everyday observation with moral and spiritual meditation. Animal vignettes and playful pieces for children sit alongside elegies, prayers, and ironic portraits of modern life, producing tones of humour, tenderness, and solemnity. Varied forms and concise portraits move between pastoral lanes, London streets, and intimate household moments while attending to time, sorrow, and faith.

THE KNOBBY-GREEN

O thou who ’neath the umbrageous trees That line the Avenue Louise Did’st spread in Belgian sun and breeze Thy buds about, I come to weep thy destinies My Brussels Sprout:

Who, on this drear December day, Rearest above mine Essex clay Thy wand of buds as green as they Who spend their Yule Hearing remoter church-bells play In St. Gudule.

Hail, noble alien, I see Thou bear’st in exile and for me A neat-curl’d row of progeny, (Not all unlike Some purse-proud donor’s family, By John van Eyck)

For me unmindful of thy place (Comrade of carpets and of lace) Who class thee with the vulgar race Of Beet and Bean, And call thee—to thy very face— The Knobby-green.