Adlestrop, Edward Thomas, Frost
 

This summer, while I was in England, I finally went to Adlestrop, subject of the wonderful poem by Edward Thomas. There's no station now--just an old station bench as a memorial, with the poem inscribed on a little metal plate. Poem and Pic below!

Also check out this interesting recent article about Edward Thomas and Robert Frost that appeared in The Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011...-thomas-poetry

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.

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/attachment.php?attachmentid=561&stc=1&d=1312397673[/IMG]stc=1&d=1312397673[/IMG]

It takes genius to think of rhyming "mistier" with "Gloucestershire."

My other favorite train station poem is by Edward Gorey:

The tourist huddles in the station
While slowly night gives way to dawn.
He finds a certain fascination
In knowing all the trains are gone.

It's a great little poem, but it raises the issue of two peoples divided by a common language in its last word, which scans horribly if an American tries to pronounce it phonetically.

Hi Charlotte, and a warm welcome to you!

Thank you SO much for posting that very interesting article from The Guardian; I really enjoyed it, being a big Robert Frost fan. (I like Edward Thomas too.)

I don't know if you were aware, but we've had two meetings in England in the last few weeks, in Oxford and Cambridge, of 'Spherians' from the UK, US and Australia. I was lucky enough to be at both venues. What a pity we didn't get a chance to meet when you were over here too (and quite near to where I live!).

That's a lovely pic of you at Adlestrop (Thomas' famous poem featured in my own poem that won the Literary Review 1st prize this time last year, btw.)

I look forward to seeing some of your work here in a while :)

Hi Tim,

Are you aware that we pronounce 'Gloucestershire' like 'Gloss- ter-sher'? Does that help you to scan it more easily?

Adlestrop and more
 

Thanks to ALL these great responses. In fact, I am English by birth, originally from Derbyshire (as in DAH-bi-sher). And yes, "mistier" DOES rhyme with "Gloucestershire." I had to learn this poem when I was 13, as I recall, so it's very much in my head as a spoken poem.
Jayne, I will have to track down your poem--unless you can quickly send it to me. And yes, I JUST found out about these meetings (from seeing the lovely pictures posted). Horrible coincidence--I was in England, and I COULD have made the Oxford one. In fact, I was planning to be in Oxford on that day, believe it or not, then canceled because of visiting overload--but would have made the effort for poets! I'm so sorry I missed it. (I know Gregory and Dave well.) However, I come to England every summer, so let's make the effort to meet next year!

Oh Charlotte, what a shame about the meeting in Oxford; it would have been lovely to see you there! But yes, next year...:)

If you put this into 'Search': Literary Review (LitRev) Comp results August - you'll find the thread with my poem in it.

(And Tim, if you're looking in, an American once asked someone the way to "Loo-ga-Ba-Roo-ga", which is actually spelt 'Loughborough' but is pronounced 'Luff-Burra' :D I remember wondering how 'Zzyzx' was pronounced, on my first trip to California. Strange language, English!)

LUFF-burra... etc.
 

Jayne, found your poem! It's beautiful, both heart-wrenching and funny. I've saved it on my desktop. I had a chuckle over Luff-burra too. So yes, next year!

Well I remember my Merry-can of a wife calling in GLAW-cess-ter-SHIRE. Shudder. Now she lives right next to it. I spend a lot of time up near Loughborough, and sometimes people humorously refer to it as 'Loogabrooga' (and Bristol becomes Brizzle, for some reason). I hope you DIDN'T visit Loughborough - though it DOES still have a train station. Not many haycocks, etc, though.

Zzyzx???? But, er...

Yes. I remember Zzyzx, too.
It's in my native state's sequoia
grove of unpronounceables:
Yreka, Lodi, Nice, La Jolla...

[ZIE-zicks, wye-REE-kuh, LOH-die, NEESE, luh HOY-uh]

I was in the Cotswolds last week on a walking holiday with my wife.

We called at Adlestrop but couldn't find the site of the station, so I googled the map reference, saw it was a mile or two away from the village and found the way with my satnav. We met a charming lady who lives in the former station-master's house. She showed us some photographs of the station from Thomas's time.

In the nature of things in England there was nothing to mark the site and I asked her if she saw many tourists coming down her drive. She said yes, but never with a satnav before.

There's a new biography of Edward Thomas, "All Roads Lead to France" by Matthew Hollis, which got a rare five star review from Craig Brown in last week's Sunday Times. I've bought the book but haven't read it yet.

Adlestrop was one of Thomas's very first poems, when he was 36 years old. By 39 he was dead, killed by a shell in the Great War. He would probably have written no poems had he not been encouraged by his friend and admirer Robert Frost.

Hello David,

After our meeting in Oxford it's nice to 'talk' to you again here.

The link that Charlotte posted at the start of this thread has a really interesting article, though it sounds as if you're already quite familiar with Thomas's history. I'm afraid I'm not as well-informed ;)

Hello Jayne,
I've just read it and it's an excellent article.
I feel close to Thomas. He was one of the "old" soldiers of WW1, who had no necessity to go to war. I wrote a poem once about another: "Talking to Lord Newborough".
Best,
David

David,

I'm glad you enjoyed the article. (I didn't know they wrote stuff like that in the 'Grauniad', as I don't buy it, so I was very pleased that Charlotte posted the link.)

Thanks to Amazon's wonderful 'One-click' your book, which includes "Talking to Lord Newborough" is now on its way to my house. I shall be wanting to have it signed, of course! :D

Hello Jayne again, and hello David! I'm new at this game, so it's lovely to see so much interest around the poem and the place--and the article. So glad you enjoyed it, David. (And I will check out your book!) Thanks for all these comments.
David, I also tried to find the original Adlestrop station, based on directions given to me in the village, but failed miserably! However, the lady in the tea-shop has cards with pictures of the old platform, during Thomas' time, I believe--and the porter pictured there is godfather to one of her relatives. I am very interested in the Thomas biography and will look for it. I always feel saddened by Thomas' death--and his short life as a poet.

Here is Talking to Lord Newborough, one of the most distinguished sonnets in the long history of our bake-offs. Thank you for writing it, David Anthony:

I’d perch beside your gravestone years ago,
a boy who thought you old at forty-three.
I knew you loved this quiet place, like me.
We’d gaze towards Maentwrog far below,
kindred spirits, and I’d talk to you.
Sometimes I asked what it was like to die—
were you afraid? You never did reply,
and silence rested lightly on us two.

These days the past is nearer, so I came
to our remembered refuge on the hill,
expecting change yet finding little there:
my village and the Moelwyns look the same,
Saint Michael’s Church commands the valley still—
but you, old friend, are younger than you were.

Seems to me that a while back we had a thread about Edward Thomas over at Musing on Mastery. To me he's the most underrated great poet of the 20th c. I know he wrote a wonderful poem about the Great War, of which I remember only the following lines (and often say them to myself while out walking):

Now on the road to France
heavy is the tread
of the living, but the dead
returning lightly dance...

Well I started a thread about the article Charlotte has linked to here just six days ago on Musing on Mastery:

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=14820

Duncan

Wales, of course, is a minefeld of naughty names. If you go out of my back garden onto the mountain and keep a-going, up and up and down the other side, you'll arrive at a place called Cwm, the innocent phonetic pronounciation of which by the unwary is a source of much local mirth.

Ann, Welsh pronunciation scares the hell out of me, and I'm not easily scared. So I do the logical, I turn to David Anthony. Not many know that he is actually David Gwilym Anthony, named after no less than Dafydd ap Gwylym, who contests with Geoffrey Chaucer the bragging rights for best poet in Britain before Shakespeare. Of course for us Chaucer is mother's milk, and nobody born after Dylan Thomas and Burton can read Dafydd ap Gwylym. But break the suspense for me, damsel Ann. Surely Cwm rhymes with room, doom, and gloom. If not, I've been mispronouncing Hardy's The Oxen since boyhood!

Thanks for posting this beautiful poem, Tim, and for the scoop on the REAL David And, yes, absolutely, thank you for writing it, David!
Duncan, sorry not to have seen your thread. I am pretty new at this, and haven't yet been able to catch up yet on everything on the Sphere. As for Welsh rhymes... I was first dragged up Snowdon at the age of six, as I recall, and have been back many times. I think cwm rhymes doom and all that, but leave it to the Welsh speakers/knowers to give the final pronouncement.

Charlotte & Tim,

My mum was Welsh and she used to live in a street called 'The Cwm', which means 'valley'. It's pronounced more like 'cum', or the double 'o' in 'book', but definitely not like the longer double 'o' in room, doom and gloom!

Tim, I don't think you have been mispronouncing Hardy's Oxen.
English 'coomb' or 'combe' (from OE cumb) is pronounced, as a word on its own, with the vowel sound of too according to the COD and my own experience. However, it has the sound of the modern Welsh 'cwm' when in combination, such as nearby Babbacombe, Hollicombe, Widecombe (of Fair fame) and so on. Ultimately from post-Roman proto-Welsh 'cwm', but I don't know how that was pronounced.

Thanks, Jayne.
I'll be happy to sign it when next we meet, although I fear the rarity value will be thereby diminished.
I've ordered your book of rhyming verse. I had to get a second-hand one since Amazon are out of new stock.

Tim, thanks for posting my poem.

Best regards,
David

Oh heck, David, I'm really embarrassed about my old book of rhyming verse; I was a novice who's learned a lot since then.
A new (hopefully better) one is shortly becoming available.

Jayne, reverting to the 'mistier-Gloucestershire' pairing, the COD gives two pronunciations, 'sher' and 'sheer' for the 'shire' element of such county names. I've only ever (consciously) heard one person use the 'sher' ending and myself pronounce it 'sheer', which I'd assumed was the standard RP version. So, for me, 'mistier' - Gloucestershire' is only an approximate rhyme. I wonder if there any recordings of Thomas's own pronunciation?

Oh - sorry. :o My point was in fact rather more tasteless than has been supposed. It's nothing to do with Welsh pronounciation per se; it was referring to the fact that many of the American vistors to the Ebbw Vale Garden Festival pronounced "Cwm" as "Quim", blissfully unaware of its anatomical connotations. I used it in a poem and the comedian Victor Spinetti incorporated it into a stand-up routine. Here in the Valleys, we get our giggles where we can. :o

Jerome,
Interesting point! You've now got me saying all the county names out loud, to see whether I say 'sher' or 'sheer' at the end of them! I say 'York-sher', yet 'Lanca-sheer' - something I've never consciously thought about till now. Checking off the entire list from Google (can't believe I've gone to these lengths!) I do pronounce most of them 'sheer', with the possible exceptions of 'Wilt-sher' and 'Hamp-sher' - not sure about 'Berk-sher'... the rest of the world is probably reaching for the razor blades by this point :rolleyes:

I agree with you that 'mistier'/'Gloucestershire' is only an approximate rhyme, but 'sher' is a tad closer. (The rest of the world: my apologies if you're bored witless by this... only, now I'm starting to wonder about 'Stafford-sher, Stafford-sheer). Blimey, Jerome, I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight with all this going through my head.

Ann,
You're a very naughty girl! I've never heard anyone pronounce 'cwm' as 'quim' (heehee) - but then I've led an extremely sheltered life :D
Victor Spinetti? Isn't he about 120 years old by now? :confused:

Shires, again
 

Jayne, Jerome... a few more words on the English pronunciation of "-shire!" I just spoke to my 92-year-old Dad. He believes that one says either "sheer" or "sher" (which he made sound more like "shuh.") He's lived in Derbyshire (Dah-bi-sher) and Leicestershire (Lester-sher) for most of his life... If "shuh," that's closer to Thomas' "mistier," isn't it? For my own part, I also wonder if the pronunciation has something to do with class and region... Northerners tend to lengthen syllables, don't they? And I think it IS Lanca-sheer, Jayne! Well, some people might be tearing their hair out at this point, but I find such things fascinating!
(By the way, Jayne, loved "latex" in your metrical poem today!)

Glad you enjoyed my poem over on Met, Charlotte.

It's funny how we talk about the 'shires' but it's never pronounced 'shire' on the end of the counties. (Your "shuh" is a better way of writing it phonetically, and is closer than 'sher' to how it's mostly pronounced.)

I find such things fascinating too! (Some people would say we need to 'get out more' :rolleyes:)

I spend much of my time in Wales (in fact, I've just returned from a long weekend in Powys, chucking myself into plunge pools and whatnot). A few months ago I stayed in a place called Pumpsaint. Raised a chuckle or seven, so it did. Cilycwm is about five miles away. I know how to pronounce Welsh words for the most part, but that needn't be an impediment to schoolboy (or schoolgirl) mirth. I think pant cudd means hidden dip, doesn't it? Which sounds about right on those narrow, tight country lanes of mid Wales, only it isn't pronounced how it 'should' be.

It's just not that easy to generalise. I'm imagining lots of Yorkies at a football match chanting 'YAAARK-shuh! YAAAARK-shuh! YAAARK-shuh' (ad nauseam). It almost never rhymes with hire, of course, unless the syllable stands alone - which is the mistake lots of uninitiated Americans make in my experience. I'm from Lincolnshire. to me, it ends -sheer, but not to everybody. What would Queenie do? -shuh? But so would Geoffrey Boycott, wouldn't he?

NOT Adlestrop
 

Has anyone ever encountered this poem by Danny Abse? Below with note and link! (It's different...)

NOT ADLESTROP

Not Adlestrop, no - besides, the name
hardly matters. Nor did I languish in June heat.
Simply, I stood, too early, on the empty platform,
and the wrong train came in slowly, surprised, stopped.
Directly facing me, from a window,
a very, very pretty girl leaned out.

When I, all instinct,
stared at her, she, all instinct, inclined her head away
as if she'd divined the much married life in me,
or as if she might spot, up platform,
some unlikely familiar.

For my part, under the clock, I continued
my scrutiny with unmitigated pleasure.
And she knew it, she certainly knew it, and would not
glance at me in the silence of not Adlestrop.

Only when the train heaved noisily, only
when it jolted, when it slid away, only then,
daring and secure, she smiled back at my smile,
and I, daring and secure, waved back at her waving.
And so it was, all the way down the hurrying platform
as the train gathered atrocious speed
towards Oxfordshire or Gloucestershire.

Dannie Abse

Found on this blog (with note below) and also there's a piece about him on the Guardian link below!

http://poemsandprose.blog.co.uk/2011...trop-11655178/


"Dannie Abse, now nearly 80 is the best-known living Welsh poet. He has enjoyed a long and successful literary career, from the publication of his first volume of verse in 1948 to a 2003 volume, 'New and Collected Poems'. Remarkably, most of this career has been conducted while holding down a full-time job as a doctor in a London chest clinic. He has also edited poetry anthologies, been a playwright, a literary journalist and a writer on medical affairs."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2003/mar/15/featuresreviews.guardianreview31

Neither is this Adlestrop, but Dannie Abse, and a wonder. You can find him reading it online.

Cousin Sidney

Dull as a bat, said my mother
of cousin Sidney in 1940 that time he tried
to break his garden swing, jumping on it,
size 12 shoes -- at fifteen the tallest boy
in the class, taller than loping Dan Morgan
when Dan Morgan wore his father’s top hat.

Duller than a bat, said my father
when hero Sidney lied about his age
to claim rough khaki, silly ass;
and soon, somewhere near Dunkirk,
some foreign corner was forever Sidney
though uncle would not believe it.

Missing not dead please God, please,
he said, and never bolted the front door,
never string taken from the letter box,
never the hall light off lest his one son
came home through a night of sleet
whistling, We’ll meet again.

Aunt crying and raw in the onion air
of the garden (the unswinging empty swing)
her words on a stretched leash
while uncle shouted, Bloody Germans.
And on November 11th, two howls
of silence even after three decades

till last year, their last year,
when uncle and aunt also went missing,
missing alas, so that now strangers
have bolted their door and cut the string
and no-one at all (the hall so dark)
waits up for Sidney, silly ass.

[Dannie Abse]