Sleeping Spell; Adlestrop Through a Glass Darkly

Climb the steep stairs to Bedfordshire

And leave the world behind,

The wooden hill to Bedfordshire

Where all are deaf and blind;

They speak the truth in Bedfordshire,

Of bliss and ruth in Bedfordshire,

Where mind speaks out to mind

And no-one is unkind.

The windy ways of Bedfordshire

Wind to the forest hut,

Where sleeps the sleep of Bedfordshire

With doors and windows shut,

And though you lie in Bedfordshire,

Yet you can fly from Bedfordshire

To Caer or Calicut

Without an if or but.

Down leaf-strewn paths of Bedfordshire

You seek a place apart,

To dream in deepest Bedfordshire,

The land where passions start,

The plains of bright, white Bedfordshire.

Put on the night in Bedfordshire,

And find that place apart,

To listen to your heart.

John Whitworth

Adlestrop Through a Glass Darkly

I’ve quite forgotten Adlestrop,

Siddal, Piddle, Puddlewater,

Foggy Bottom, Devil’s Drop,

Upper Slaughter, Lower Slaughter,

Squeezegut Alley, Nettlefold,

Bogshole, Chicksands, Chickenshit,

Little Furtive-on-the-Wold,

Porlock, Warlock, Witch’s Tit,

On second thoughts I rather think

That some of these are not quite right.

My God, I need another drink!

Frensham, Froghorn, German Bight?

The Leith Police dismisseth us.

Is Leith a place? And where if so?

Steeple Bastard? Platypus?

Conjunctivitis? I don’t know.

John Whitworth