"England and Yesterday": A Book of Short Poems

Chapter 22: VII. A DECEMBER WALK.

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About This Book

The collection gathers sonnets and shorter lyrics that observe English locales, chiefly London and Oxford, and move between public bustle and quiet precincts. Urban pieces register fog, crowds, docks, and social inequality alongside civic and ecclesiastical history; Oxford poems and pastoral lyrics dwell on college gardens, ancient churches, and memory. The verse balances formal sonnet discipline with lyrical interludes, employing vivid sensory detail and reflective, often elegiac tone. Recurring concerns include transience, the persistence of historical presence, spiritual consolation, and a moral awareness of poverty and beauty.

VII.
A DECEMBER WALK.

Whithersoever cold and fair ye flow,

Calm tides of moonlit midnight, bear my mind!

Past Christchurch gate, with leafy frost entwined,

And Merton in a huge tiara’s glow,

And groves in bridal gossamers below

Saint Mary’s armoured spire; and whence aligned

In altered eminence for dawn to find,

Sleep the droll Cæsars, hooded with the snow.

White sacraments of weather, shine on me!

Upbear my footfall, and my fancy sift,

Lest either blemish an ensainted ground

Spread so with childhood. Bid with me, outbound,

On recollected wing mine angel drift

Across new spheres of immortality.