Two Adlestrops

 If, by some deep injustice, Edward Thomas were to end up as one of those poets remembered for one much-anthologised poem, there is no doubting which it would be: this short, beautiful evocation of so much – 

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.

It is a poem that seems to have haunted the English imagination ever since it became widely known (it was not published in Thomas's lifetime). The centenary of the incident that inspired it was celebrated in grand style (in 2014) with a special Cotswold Line train, the Adlestrop Centenary Special, running from Oxford to Moreton-in-Marsh, with a respectful halt at the site of what was once Adlestrop station.  Festivities in the village itself included a reading of the poem by Robert Hardy.

In the 1970s, as I discovered last night, browsing in his Collected Poems, Peter Porter had his own experience of an Adlestrop interlude, one very different from Edward Thomas's. The poem that commemorates it is also very different from Thomas's, which Porter describes as 'Not a great poem, but rich in names And heartaches'. Porter's poem is rich in atmosphere and observed detail – both quite different from Thomas's, as is the season, though the day is hot, 'A sinisterly fine October afternoon'. The air of Porter's death-infused poem is oppressive, where Thomas's is rapt, peaceful, enchanted. But Porter is finally grateful to have had this strange, unexpected moment...

Good Vibes

for Shena Mackay

If you hadn't notice the unprominent sign

We'd have missed Adlestrop, missed the gone

Railway and the bullock raking his back

In the hollow holly-bower. Missed, too, the sky

So intolerably lofty in its beakered blue

And the loping dog which frightened me

(Which is how I know he was friendly) –

Most noticeably missed the station bench

And ADLESTROP, the railway sign, with Edward

Thomas's poem on a plaque for pilgrims.

Not a great poem, but rich in names

And heartache and certainly a focus for

A sinisterly fine October afternoon.

Down one lane adjacent the Home for Children,

(With what impediment we never found),

All the day-labourers of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire

Were about their honey-making masonry

Of Cotswold stone, and the bullocks were nifty

In the meadow by the creek. There were no

Devils in the landscape, exhalations from

Ponds and dogs' breath and graveyards after rain

Could only be imagined in such unexpected sunshine,

But we felt them, felt a new humidity,

Oppressive like the self. This was a short halt

On two pilgrimages, a look-back out of Hades, 

Such as the gods provide for laughter in their

Chronicles. Yet that sound, that risible division,

Strikes mortal earth some otherwise – such as

Gravel flicking from a low-slung bumper,

A trailing jet above, a jostling on the eaves

Of sycamores. It was as if the well-intentioned 

Dead were breathing out and blessing everyone,

Vibrations of the minute, without franchise,

A pointless benediction. Thinking again, I feel

Grateful that you saw through uncleaned windows

A name which meant the same to all half-educated

Persons. To have trod on ground in happiness

Is to be shaken by the true immortals.

The dedicatee of this jokily titled (but deadly serious) poem is the Scottish novelist and short story writer Shena Mackay, whose stories I remember greatly admiring back in the Eighties and Nineties (perhaps I should revisit them). Happily, unlike Porter, she is still with us.