Requiem for the Plantagenet Kings - a poem by Geoffrey Hill

For a quiet end to the month of February, here is a favourite sonnet of mine by the sorely missed Geoffrey Hill. Text from this website.


Requiem for the Plantagenet Kings

 

For whom the possessed sea littered, on both shores,

Ruinous arms; being fired, and for good,

To sound the constitution of just wars,

Men, in their eloquent fashion, understood.

 

Relieved of soul, the dropping-back of dust, 

Their usage, pride, admitted within doors;

At home, under caved chantries, set in trust, 

With well-dressed alabaster and proved spurs 

They lie; they lie; secure in the decay

Of blood, blood-marks, crowns hacked and coveted, 

Before the scouring fires of trial-day

Alight on men; before sleeked groin, gored head, 

Budge through the clay and gravel, and the sea 

Across daubed rock evacuates its dead.