Lord Herbert of Cherbury

Lounges in a thicket

Like an unpicked strawberry,

Isaac Oliver, pinxit.

Montgomery Parish Church

Keeps all the little Herberts

As terracotta dolls. Which

One is George the Wordsmith?

Magic fills the landscape -

What, here in Wales?

A flowery English handshake

For Llandrindod Wells?

Windfarm propellers' traction

Turns a Lute Book's pages,

Victorian reticulation

Laps Vyrnwy's emerald edges.

Ask the hawks which hover

Over Dinas Vawr's sheep

Who if not Glendower

Talks rivers up from creeks?

Those plush hermetic demons

Who internationalise

Wye and Lugg and Severn

Are worth a Latin phrase.

The Past is why the Present

Is packed for the Co-op.

It is and yet it isn't

That time must have a stop.

O Sympathetic Magic,

Shy fortresses and weirs!

O Forests Green and Stygic,

The wit of Passing Stairs!

Lord Herbert gave his castle

Up to Cromwell's men,

He held himself a vassal

Only to song and pen. <p. · From Max is Missing by Peter Porter. Published by Picador, price £7.99.