"England and Yesterday": A Book of Short Poems

Chapter 59: AN EPITAPH FOR WILLIAM HAZLITT.

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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.

AN EPITAPH FOR WILLIAM HAZLITT.

Between the wet trees and the sorry steeple,

Keep, Time, in dark Soho, what once was Hazlitt,

Seeker of Truth, and finder oft of Beauty;

Beauty’s a sinking light, ah, none too faithful;

But Truth, who leaves so here her spent pursuer,

Forgets not her great pawn: herself shall claim it.

Therefore sleep safe, thou dear and battling spirit,

Safe also on our earth, begetting ever

Some one love worth the ages and the nations!

Nothing falls under, to thine eyes eternal.

Sleep safe in dark Soho: the stars are shining;

Titian and Wordsworth live; the People marches.