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Adlestrop
Read by James Fenton
Adlestrop - Edward Thomas - Read by James Fenton
Justly famous is the poem 'Adlestrop', which reminds us that the old steam trains were very noisy in action when they came to a halt at a country station, then you would hear for the first time the sounds of the countryside.
Adlestrop
Yes. I remember Adlestrop—
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.
The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop—only the name
And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.
And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
from Collected Poems (Faber, 2004); recording by Helen Thomas used by permission of the Edward Thomas Fellowship.