MEMORIES

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  • I first visited Auntie Babs when she lived in London and when she came to live in Penn, Wolverhampton with her nephew Christopher Poole and his wife Mary,  she used to tell me stories about her life as a companion to a lady called Miss Fisher.  I got the impression that they lived quite insular lives yet knew many artistic people, writers, painters and musicians who became quite well known. They used to go to Brighton quite regularly.  I wish I had written down all the people she spoke about.  I found two poems in the notebooks  which were particularly about London. The first called A Remembrance is dated 1912 then In May 1914 she also wrote a poem called Lights of London. She obviously loved living there. She also used to talk fondly about The Sussex Downs and wrote a poem about them which I will include in another blog.
  • A Remembrance
  • A moon o’er head curtained in spangled blue
    Deep shadows flung across a village street.
    A little church guarded by sombre yew
    And lofty elms where rooks were wont to meet.
  • A quaint old house with moss embroidered tiles
    A well loved face that I shall see no more.
    A long white road winding up hill for miles
    The lilt of waves upon a distant shore.
  • What called you from the long forgotten past?
    Oh fragrant scene, where peace and beauty meet
    A moon o’er head and soft dark shadows cast
    Of gabled roofs across a London street.
  • B H Poole
    1912
  • Lights o’ London
  • Lights o’London, Lights o’London
    Piercing through the river’s gloom
    Like small golden spiral stairways
    Leading to a magic room.
  • Round quiet squares and over bridges
    Far you fling your band of light
    Stretching on a mute procession
    Till you vanish out of sight.
  • Standing like a gleaming army
    Up each side of every street
    On and on through miles of darkness
    Till the last lights seem to meet.
  • Magic city by Thames river
    Wrapt in sable mystery
    Sunlight, moonlight, starlight, lamplight
    There’s no place on earth like thee.
  • B.H. Poole
    May 1914
  • Sometimes when I am reading through these notebooks, I am overwhelmed with the words and the emotion that comes from them. Not all well written but all from the heart, they are a real treasure and I feel privileged to be the owner of the books, if not the original owner of the poems.

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