Englands Green & Pleasant Land

London. Englands Green.

Browning’s poem Christmas Eve especially opened the door for me, finally walked through, after decades of thinking about it. Browning and Tennyson before Westminster Abbey. A cordial reception and then a dressing down. The Federation of the World.

Blake and Milton walk together over from St. Margaret’s Church and join us. My master guides me to what Blake called, so rightly, “Englands green & pleasant land.” A simple parish church. Surrounding graves. A church perhaps Thomas Hardy had restored, in need again of his services. A prayer.

And the Lady of the Lake. A thrush, not darkling now, though it were. Excalibur. Arthur returns. An inscription on the shining blade.

Frederick Glaysher