Bread and Circuses

Chapter 77: HIGH TIDE AT BATTERSEA

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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.

HIGH TIDE AT BATTERSEA

So now my Thames is fairly on the turn And plain it is the sum of water seeks That ocean which the flood so late did spurn With long reluctance in the little creeks; Now the great barges tethered to their buoys (Their gulls still seated in deliberate loads) Swing round majestical and, with no noise, Face the hid sea beyond these sullen roads. Even so my soul which did so long abide With thoughts so fledged and meditative freighted Hath veered about and answered to the tide, Glad, and her faithless station abdicated;— Lord, ere this lovely ebb shall set for me, Slip thou my chain and lure me out to sea.