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"England and Yesterday": A Book of Short Poems

Chapter 39: APRIL IN GOVILON.
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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.

APRIL IN GOVILON.

Slowly, slowly darken
Primrose and pimpernel;
Heather of the rock, a-shake
On delicious air;
Slanted seas of spreading grass,
(Green glow and tidal swell,)
Under wind and pausing light how variably fair!
Larks from heaven descending
Hush; not a cloud-shadow,
Where so late the romping lambs
Chased it, in a ring;
High along a little wood
Quick rain-sparkles go;
Blorenge walls the faëry world: the sole substantial thing.
April in Govilon,
Filled with a bright heart-break;
Evenfall on dying wing,
Swanlike and supreme!
Soon, unheard, the Hyades
Run up the hills to take
Seven lamps, and trail the seven all night in Isca stream.