12 April 2026

Contents

Early sonnets


Late sonnets

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Four Nots, Six Notes

Not in Amiens, off the car ferry, 
Outskirted, clutching a sketchy youth hostel map;
Not in Cambridge, ambling a lane, very
Gobsmacked to be jumped by a mad-eyed chap;
Not in New York, along a street lined with faces
Saying: “You do know you’re in Harlem, yes?”
Not in Giza, at a gallop in rocky places,
My stirrup-stuck shoe threatening a bloody mess.
Four occasions I was oddly unafraid,
Cossetted by tiredness, surprise, folly and buzz.
Guarded now by the castle I have made,
Distant dangers blur into background fuzz.
A privileged London life could hardly be finer:
Essentially, my greatest fear is D sharp minor.

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04 April 2026

Symphonies

Mozart picks out dabs of sonic hue
That coruscate across these most human of scores;
Haydn has hundredfold wit gushing through,
Gets the band dancing to his new-found laws.
Mendelssohn draws gossamers and donkeys in sound,
Limns watercolours of Europe’s south and west;
Schumann is romantic – solid, but not hide-bound,
Even thinking to add a guitar, as a test.
Mahler chromatics up worlds of anguish and love,
Vaunting his agony-ecstasy in every note;
Bruckner consecrates cathedrals to the heavens above
– The greatest symphonies Wagner never wrote.
This is classical music’s timeless pairing:
Contrasts coming together, united in sharing.

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