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Flora’s England

The hedgerows droop with bulbous berries black
As feathers of the Raven in the sun
Of August, glowing hot upon his back.
He soars above the corn, its growing done.
While Lammas songs are sung in hamlet fields,
The sickles swing and slice a background beat
That helps the sweating men bring home the yields,
To bake the harvest loaves from yellow wheat.
Across enlarging towns the Raven flies,
Away from country folk and fading skills.
To bread unblessed where folklore shrinks and dies,
And factories replace the wind-fed mills.
Today a raven bathes in drying brooks;
I sit and watch, and read from Flora’s books.

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Poet’s Note: This poem is inspired by Flora Jane Thompson, an English novelist and poet best known for her semi-autobiographical trilogy Lark Rise to Candleford. She captured and recorded the rural rituals and life, in and around the Oxfordshire countryside, which was rapidly declining in the 1890s.

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Isabella Simmonds is a British musician and piano teacher living in London. 

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18 Responses

  1. Bruce Phenix

    Thank you, Isabella. A lovely and poignant sonnet, skilfully constructed. I like the way the Raven loses his capital letter and becomes merely ‘a raven’ in the penultimate line, I think to mark the transition to the modern world.

    Reply
    • Isabella

      Thank you so much Bruce! I’m so pleased you enjoyed it. Yes exactly; the Raven’s loss of his capital letter did indeed mark the transition to the modern world.

      Reply
  2. Martin Rizley

    A beautiful sonnet lamenting the loss of blessings belonging to an age when life was simpler and people lived closer to nature and to one another than is generally the case in our fast paced, modern, industrialized society.

    I find particularly touching the description in the third stanza of what lies below in the “enlarging towns” over which the raven flies. The “bread unblessed” seems to symbolize the secular character of the modern world, and the “drying brooks” seem to speak of changes, not only to the physical landscape, but to the spiritual and cultural landscape, as well.

    The poem brought to mind a classic documentary on the changing face of England’s landscape produced years ago by the BBC entitled “The Vanishing Hedgerows.” You can watch it for free on YouTube. It has beautiful photography and a lovely musical score, pastoral and poignant, by composer Paul Lewis.

    Reply
    • Isabella

      Thank you so much Martin for your wonderful and insightful comment! Yes indeed the “unblessed bread” referred to the secular character of the changing world and attitudes in which food is produced. It was also a reference following on from Lammas in L5 the first harvest festival, celebrated at the start of August where the first harvest loaf is blessed in church. Lammas coming from an old English phrase loaf-mass.
      Thank you also for the recommendation of “The vanishing hedgerows” I shall definitely watch that. It sounds delightful.

      Reply
  3. Mary Gardner

    Isabella, your sonnet captures well the dignity and freedom afforded by hard, even backbreaking, work. Cities and factories are good things, but as the poem cautions, Man can lose his soul in them.

    Reply
    • Isabella

      Thank you very much Mary! I am so pleased that my sonnet conveyed these messages to you.

      Reply
  4. Roy Eugene Peterson

    You beautifully captured the transition from the fading countryside with its blessings and work ethic to the encroaching factories and towns that swallowed the souls of mankind. This resonates with me, since my family made such a transition, and I felt the loss of freedom and feeling blessed with the harvests for our hard work. I really liked the alliteration in the first line and was thankful for the poet note after the ending to put things in perspective.

    Reply
    • Isabella

      Thank you so much Roy! I am absolutely delighted that my poem resonated with you; someone who has experienced first-hand, that which I have tried to capture in my poem.

      Reply
  5. Paul A. Freeman

    I love the way you linked the past and the present with the raven imagery, Isabella. Your poem reminded me of later Thomas Hardy novels, particularly Tess of the d’Urbervilles, where the old country life was rapidly changing due to rural-urban migration.

    Thanks for the read.

    Reply
    • Isabella

      Thank you so much Paul! I am thrilled beyond measure that my poem has reminded you of Hardy’s writing! He is one of my favourite authors.

      Reply
  6. Joseph S. Salemi

    This is such a sad poem — lovely and melancholy at the same time. It pains me to think of all the traditional rituals and practices that have died out in such a comparatively short period since the start of the Industrial Revolution.

    But your sad sonnet ends on a positive note: we can read Flora Thompson’s work and catch a glimpse of what once was.

    Reply
  7. Isabella

    Thank you so much Joseph! I am glad you found my poem lovely, albeit sad; but it is very sad to think of all that has been lost with industrialization.
    There is a BBC series “Lark rise to Candleford” which is very charming. More light-hearted in tone than the books. I think it ran for four seasons and was very popular here in the UK.

    Reply
  8. Cynthia Erlandson

    I am impressed with the way you have been able to compress so much beautiful imagery, and such meaningful content, into the form of this sonnet, particularly allowing the image of the raven to be carried throughout the poem. Your musical gifts have doubtless played a part in the inclusion of the songs being sung, the sickles providing a rhythm, and your lovely alliterations. I love musical-sounding poems, and this is definitely one!

    Reply
    • Isabella

      Thank you Cynthia for your lovely comment! I am delighted that you found my poem musical! I too enjoy the flow and movement of a musical-sounding poem.

      Reply
  9. Margaret Coats

    “If you want a new idea, read an old book.” Isabella, your poem about the lost spirit and values of working the land is tender and realistic, just as Flora Thompson’s depictions are. I’m delighted to hear from someone who has read “Lark Rise to Candelford.” You make me wonder where my copy has gone, as I would love to pick it up and join you. Before you get to that happy end of your sonnet, you show what the turn of a sonnet means. “The Raven” overseeing country life has become “a raven” endangered because that life of care for the land has disappeared from the perspective of most human beings. Perhaps a new “Flee to the Fields” movement is in order.

    Reply
    • Isabella

      Thank you so much Margaret for your wonderful comment. To know that you have read “Lark rise to Candleford” and have enjoyed my sonnet and found it tender and realistic,makes me very happy!
      Yes a new “flee to the fields” movement may well be in order, although it would doubtless be exploited and its true essence lost, like most things these days.

      Reply
  10. Shamik Banerjee

    You’ve packed so many images into this sonnet, Isabella. It’s sad how old skills are fading at an unimaginable rate and open fields, are getting converted to jam-packed roads, cramped with chains of tall and pompous buildings. The Raven analogy blows life into this poem.

    Reply
  11. Isabella

    Thank you Shamik for your lovely comment. Yes indeed it is very sad when true and honest skills are lost. The human-touch goes and the world becomes very impersonal. Inevitable unfortunately.

    Reply

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