Ages and ages ago I posted a photograph of the cemetery in Portsmouth, said it reminded me of Eliot's line, 'I never thought death had undone so many', and undertook to take more pictures that brought poems to mind. Well, that hasn't happened.I've seen some high windows and presumably missed any number of opportunities but on Butser Hill last week, not very far from genuine Edward Thomas territory, the scenery brought to mind his lines in I Never Saw That Land Before. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/248178
Perhaps it suffers from sincerity, almost preciousness, but many might see that as a virtue in our knowing, ironic age. Apart from the customary Thomas appreciation of the countryside, it undertakes to defend a 'language not to be betrayed' which makes it something of a manifesto poem and one to be admired.
I took some pictures while up Butser because, always a struggle, I did wonder if it might be my last walk up to Hampshire's highest point. It is quite shameful how much I suffer on such gradients and I should know because twenty years ago I was almost equally shamefully fit. But on such a day as last Thursday, it had to be done.
