Poetry Corner

on .

Thank you to Philip Drury (At School 1966 -73) for sending in his reworking of Adlestrop by Edward Thomas which reflects his memories of travelling to/from Sheppey on the train.

Yes.I remember Swale Halt

The name.Because one morning

Of frost the London train drew up there

Unwontedly. It was late January

The engine growled.Someone cleared his throat.

No one left and no one came

On the bare platform.What I saw

Was Swale Halt-only a name.

And sedges,soft rush and reeds

Unruly tufts and tussocks dry.

No whit less still and lonely fair

Than the high cloudlets in the sky

And for that minute hen harriers skirmished

Close by and round them mistier

Farther and farther all the estuarine

Birds of Kent and Essex.