Yes. I remember Adlestrop

Yes. I remember Adlestrop—

Australian Fur Seals. Friars Rock, Bruny Island. September 2013.

The seals smelled like squid poo. Not the squid of a poo, but squid-flavoured poo. Some people don't like it all that much, but I didn't mind. I've smelled worse.

Adlestrop, Edward Thomas

Yes. I remember Adlestrop—
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop—only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

Comments

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

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This will hurt me...

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