Dove Cottage

A friend's recent visit to Dove Cottage reminded me that I'd been there about 30 years ago and had written a poem about the experience:

At Wordsworth's Cottage

I have seen the skates you wore
to cut across the moon;
and in a lit glass
your steel tooth-scrapers gleam.

You wrote of revolutions
in your neat brown-varnished room;
and you strode the fells at midnight,
fretted over postage costs.

You sang the tumbling tunes
of Helvellyn's mountain torrents
then lined your children's bedroom walls
with pages from The Times.

And now you are an industry:
your dear, dear sister
is a blank-eyed Dorothy doll.
The car people shuffle by.

And while you talked of joy,
the spirit and all nature's mysteries,
I think you might have warmed
to our swift turnstile efficiency.

From Cellos in Hell (Chapman Publications).

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