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THE SHEPHERD’S HUT
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
The Genius of Shakespeare
The Cure for Love
The Song of the Earth
John Clare: A Biography
Soul of the Age
English Literature: A Very Short Introduction
Being Shakespeare: A One-Man Play for Simon Callow
Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life
For Ian Huish
Slow Reading
PASTORALS
The Swans on Our Lake
The Man Who Had Not Written a Poem for Years
The Quad from Our Window
Banjaran
Tang Variations
Arboreal Cousin
Kydonia
Aegean
Andelle Valley
Easter Snow on Dartmoor
Retreat
Broadstairs
Spirit of Place
The Shepherd’s Hut
AMORS
Beginning
Laforgue’s Image
Three Kisses from the Greek Anthology
Titania and the Neuroscientist
Found in France
Photograph
The Rose Cure
After Victor Hugo
Ending
ELEGIES
For a Funeral
Omphalos
Letter to Diana
Five Stages
Moments of Exequy
The Memory Bank
Lochbroom Elegy
HOMAGES
The First Modern Man
Herbal
She Gave Him Eyes
A Broken Sonnet for John Clare
The Thought-Crow
The Elocutionary Disappearance of Stéphane Mallarmé
His Master’s Voice
CARPE DIEM
Advice to a Young Man
Ode
Afterword
About the Author
About the Illustrator
Acknowledgements
Special Thanks
Supporters
Copyright
Take time for each word,
Give room to white space,
Listen for the beat,
Tune to the weather,
Rekindle memory,
Life-scape and heart-leap.
Know that poetry
is not of the world:
It is in the worth
of the words to you,
Patient reader, open
to the spirit of slow.
All royalties from this book will be donated to the work of ReLit, a foundation devoted to slow reading as a form of stress relief.
The diet of swans is mainly vegetarian:
pondweed, stonewort and widgeon grass,
sea arrow, salt marsh and eelgrass,
club-rush, milfoil and green algae.
But they occasionally indulge
in tadpole and mollusc.
Sometimes you see one fold its leg upon its back
to adjust body temperature,
rather as an elephant’s ear
absorbs the heat of the sun.
They sleep standing on one leg
or afloat with head tucked under wing.
The ungentlemanly behaviour depicted in the story of Leda
is uncharacteristic:
they mate for life and know the meaning of grief.
Some bereaved swans stay alone for the rest of their lives
while others take flight and rejoin their flock.
The other myth is true:
when they lie dying
they breathe their only song,
a long, low honk as air vacates their lungs.
They are said to be loyal servants of the queen.
As the sand trickled through his fingers
The boy looked at the sea.
Spume flecks near, tanker hulks far.
The race was on.
All the sails working with the wind:
White, striped and zig-zag.
His heart racing, he ran along the sand.
As the sand trickled through the glass
The man looked at the lake.
Weir rustle near, bending tree far.
The words were flowing.
All his mind was working with the muse:
Poem, prose and letter.
His heart leaping, he was the boy again.
Forward and back
following string and peg
he mows the ancient quad