The Abbey.

To Lord Byron, upon reading about his ancestral Newstead Abbey.

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Were I to see the Abbey (your home, Sir),

were I to walk where you have tread your feet

you would not see me.

Were I to put the book down a moment

travel, for a day, back to Nottingham,

my life would not change.

---

And yet, from between the page, you reach out:

Burns, Shelley, Byron; Pushkin, Schiller, Smith –

an illustrous list.

The Sensibility that you all left

to my life’s work, a scholarly bequest.

Enough to keep me.

---

I wonder how you’d look upon my life.

I read more, live less

than any man among you ever did.

I can’t afford to travel, I dine well;

there is boundless entertainment inside

centuries later.

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So why do I choose to write, like you did?

Is my inheritence as rich as yours?

I wish I had more,

of course – The Abbey gave you lifelong home

but what it represents is greater still,

and I have that too.

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This short poem was written as part of the ‘Alphabet Superset‘ programme: it is quick work and is unedited.