(Remembering
R.W.K-C.)
Families have
no beginning, but can end
Though 350 armigerous years
Brighten the vellum. But life may descend
Obliquely, and a score of Norfolk squires
Are summed up here into a fresh dimension
That can progenerate outside the reach
Of county gossip and outlive the plantation
Of those long woods of Spanish chestnut and beech.
For a while over his arable and pasture
The rooks come idling home. The piled clouds grow
And fade this late October afternoon.
Here in his great library, ill and slow,
He leans between his lamp and the young moon,
Become the elements of more than nature.