Anthony Cooney
Liverpool, UK

St. Michaels-in-the-Hamlet

Beyond the cliffs
the Hamlet stands, surprise
of sudden turnings;
elegance of trees
elegance of lawns
a minute land.

Here, before Rosetti,
Rickman looked back
and forged anew
the narrow arch
the twisting stone;
clamour of iron
glamour of fire
romance of unicorns,
new method wedded to old form,
the High Romance was born.
In this hollow behind the shore
Europe refound her arts and pride,
looked back beyond the sterile centuries
of the dome, stood comparison
with Raphael's Greece and Rome.

Here the centuries were leapt to find
the ancient, the stem that might have been.
Here the springtime came anew, bearing
promise of the Culture's burgeoning.

The shore is covered now,
an esplanade of concrete
and tame flowers, but
still the Hamlet stands, cast iron framed,
white stucco, Flemish brick, cool lanes,
conserved and ordered to remain
a monument to the summer which never came.