The Spirit of Lumley Hall

'Time was,' he remembers,
'it was all of a piece.

I dispensed Justice
to the miners of Madeley
as I might to the Masai
or the Solomon Islanders.

One dispensation
wherever the flag flew,
wherever there was a parade ground
and an Anglican church.

I remember the colliery band
on Empire Day, how the cornets
crew like cockerels. Sounds
ridiculous now. Small-town strutters.
Kings of the heap. But then
it was like a second sunrise.
...