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"England and Yesterday": A Book of Short Poems

Chapter 58: A LAST WORD ON SHELLEY.
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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.

A LAST WORD ON SHELLEY.

Each great inrolling wave, a league of sound,
All night, all day, the hostile crags confound
To merest snow and smoke. The crags remain.
Smile at the storm for our safe poet’s sake!
Not ever this ordainèd world shall break
That mounting, foolish, foam-bright heart again.