"England and Yesterday": A Book of Short Poems

Chapter 62: VALEDICTION (R. L. S., 1894).

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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.

VALEDICTION (R. L. S., 1894).

When from the vista of the Book I shrink,

From lauded pens that earn ignoble wage,

Begetting nothing joyous, nothing sage,

Nor keep with Shakespeare’s use one golden link;

When heavily my sanguine spirits sink,

To read too plain on each impostor page

Only of kings the broken lineage,

Well for my peace if then on thee I think,

Louis: our priest of letters, and our knight

With whose familiar baldric hope is girt,

From whose young hands she bears the Grail away.

All glad, all great! Truer because thou wert,

I am and must be; and in thy known light

Go down to dust, content with this my day.