Geoffrey Hill

In Memory of Jane Fraser

When snow like sheep lay in the fold And wind went begging at each door, And the far hills were blue with cold, And a cloud shroud lay on the moor, She kept the

Requiem for the Plantagenet Kings

For whom the possessed sea littered, on both shores, Ruinous arms; being fired, and for good, To sound the constitution of just wards, Men, in their eloquent fashion, understood. Relieved of soul, the dropping-back

Mercian Hymns I

King of the perennial holly-groves, the riven sandstone: overlord of the M5: architect of the historic rampart and ditch, the citadel at Tamworth, the summer hermitage in Holy Cross: guardian of the Welsh Bridge

Mercian Hymns VII

Gasholders, russet among fields. Milldams, marlpools that lay Unstirring. Eel-swarms. Coagulations of frogs: once, with branches and Half-bricks, he battered a ditchful; then sidled away from the stillness And silence. Ceolred was his friend

September Song

born 19.6.32 – deported 24.9.42 Undesirable you may have been, untouchable You were not. Not forgotten Or passed over at the proper time. As estimated, you died. Things marched, Sufficient, to that end. Just

Mercian Hymns XXV

Brooding on the eightieth letter of Fors Clavigera, I speak this in Memory of my grandmother, whose childhood and prime womanhood were spent In the nailer’s darg. The nailshop stood back of the cottage,

Mercian Hymns XVII

He drove at evening through the hushed Vosges. The car radio, Glimmering, received broken utterance from the horizon of storms… ‘God’s honours – our bikes touched: he skidded and came off.’ ‘Liar.’ A Timid