The Modern Thames' and *Under the Acorns' 

 arguing for every man's right to the countryside. 



But I think it is his winter pieces that come closest 

 to our modern sympathies. Perhaps the cold and 

 dark had a way of checking those intense flights of 

 fancy for which he never quite found a public 

 language. In * Haunts of the Lapwing' the words 

 themselves are as sharp as ice, and build up a 

 piercingly evocative picture of the shared hardships 

 of rain and gale. And in *Out of Doors in February', 

 writing of the optimism he found from the winter, he 

 comes as close as he ever did to answering the enigma 

 of the toiler in the field: 



The lark, the bird of the light, is there in the bitter 

 short days. Put the lark then for winter, a sign of 

 hope, a certainty of summer. Put, too, the sheathed 

 buds there, on tree and bush, carefully wrapped 

 around with the case that protects them as a cloak. 

 Put, too, the sharp needles of the green corn. . . . 

 One memory of the green corn, fresh beneath the sun 

 and wind, will lift up the heart from the clods.' 



Richard Mabey 

 January 1981 



