In a Forgotten Field In England

He had no insight into the mysteries
Of the gilded sports 
Of the British social elite,
By the time he arrived at his beloved college,
Long, long ago in a long-forgotten England,

And in later years he came to the opinion
That if he possessed a single quality 
That might be termed noble 
He owed it in part to his education, 
And not least the four years he spent there,

And there’d be times when certain pieces 
Of quintessentially English pastoral music 
Still had the power to evoke his strange and sudden vanishing, 
While seeming to him to bespeak a passion 
For the Arcadian soul of England that verged on the ecstatic, 

And others when he’d dream of a day
He might return to the scene of his flight as if in atonement,
And commune with the soul of his beloved England,
With a passion verging on the ecstatic, 
And then put the memory to rest for all time,

And he absconded once...just the once it was...
To avoid being chastised for something foolish he did, 
And he finished up wandering, forlornly wandering,
His boots freshly caked with the purest English soil,
Long, long ago in a forgotten field in England.
Copyright © | Year Posted 2016

Poem

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Vinson Avatar
November 30, 2016 at 7:53 AM
Carl, this is sweet - I can really see it. Thank you.
Halling Avatar
November 30, 2016 at 9:23 AM
That's great, Doug, thank you.
Bocsa Avatar
November 30, 2016 at 4:21 AM
A touching piece of music embracing serenity of personal Arcadia (et ego in ) as beloved England, but also, as kind of possible common recollections about better times when we were younger and full of Great expectations in order to live in the wishful thinking. Wandering soul wondering about the same noble Fountain of passion (of Coleridge and Charles Morgan)
Halling Avatar
November 30, 2016 at 5:27 AM
That's so beautifully put, Ovidiu, and I think you capture the spirit perfectly.
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