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From a London garden cover

From a London garden

Chapter 12: THE FORERUNNER
By Arthur St. John Adcock
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About This Book

A collected series of lyrical poems moves between urban and rural imagery to reflect on love, mortality, time, memory, and moral growth. The poet uses concise, imagistic language and varied meters to meditate on human experience: longing and loss, pride and humility, the rhythms of city life and quiet country scenes, the passage of days and seasons, death and consolation. Voices range from personal confession to philosophical observation, with elegiac tones, religious reflection, and celebration of steadfastness. Recurring motifs—light and shadow, dawn and evening, gardens and streets—bind individual pieces into a contemplative portrait of inner life amid modern surroundings.

THE FORERUNNER

A wind out of heaven o’er holt and lea
Blows the dead ashes of life to a blaze,
And little green flames on hedge and tree
Flicker and shine through the lengthening days.
Summer is coming! The sound of her name
Gives sight to the blind and a voice to the dumb;
Spring is setting the green little buds aflame
To light the way she will come.
And down through the city, by shop and mart,
An Angel passes with hushed footfall—
His coming gladdens the wistful heart
Of a caged thrush hung on an outer wall,
And it sings till the spell of its rapturous song
Brings the field to its bars, and below in the street
Hearing, and mocked with remembrance, the throng
Feel the grass under their feet.
To a touch of the sunlight Death unlocks
His doors, and with laughter Life returns;
In high-walled garden, and window-box,
In square and byway glimmers and burns
Blossom and leaf, as a happier thought
Lights eyes that were sad, for each dull city place
Thrilled as the Angel went past it, and caught
The look that flashed from his face.