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Lois Howard

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Keswick 1800-1829

(for Sarah Coleridge)

Darkness. Your harsh clogs echo
on Greta’s stone flags
returning one more time
into the “Camp of Hills”
you made your own.
Skiddaw, Blencathra, Dunmail,
their names a wild music.

You came to Lakeland,
one child on your hip,
another dead, the third within you
stirring to be born.
Hope, and the community
of friends, shining
like sun on Bassenthwaite,
before the drug and Grasmere
took a husband from you,
leaving one final child,
born after hope was gone.

You made a hone with laughter
in that uneasy house,
the Southeys’ world,
your sisters, children,
guests, crowding
your sense of loss, betrayal
and a fierce pride.
What was it gave you strength?

Seen through a softer century’s
lens, your world is etched
with hardship,
drawn with exquisite care,
like antique prints we frame
in black and gold.

Outsider to your time
I know you only in being woman.
“Twenty-four to tea....so tired
I scarcely see for weariness.”

 

Page(s) 67

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