Written in 1967, published in DIAL 174 (1994)

THE EDWARDIAN EDGE

Shafts of a brighter sun, staring

As a wide-eyed girl, drifts

Lazily over the lifting lawns

Where dotted figures linger

In croquet and half-heard conversation.

A very proper house, extratensive

In its beingness, unlooped

By years of light, gaiety and grief,

Stands prominent at the centre

Of these lawns and loitering loins,

A master of the sun on grass,

Sky on blue, lace on love.

Latimer seeks the darting hand

Of his diaphanous loved one

Behind that shrub that shrugs

In the decisive but defenceless breeze.

Lucy, strands of future

Glinting mischievously in her eyes,

Dodges a carelessly aimed ball

As it zips through her words:

'Can we see the spire … Oh!'

Latimer and lace, a doodle

Of intermixed emotions, are

Sentinel to the coming Edwardian night.

My name is Lucy, once

Bright-eyed as a bird-swept sun,

Now in age, in coming death,

A lady who sips her tea

As the petrol lorry heaves up the hill

Outside my parlour window.

In the old days, darkness

Was an edge, today a shroud.