A Spell in the Library: A sonnet for summoning Geoffrey Hill!

In this episode we look at my slender volumes of modern poetry and take down my copy of Geoffrey Hill’s Tenebrae. I speak of how much these poems have meant to me and tell the strange tale of how I came to meet the poet.Here is the text of the poem I recited from memory. You can read my analysis of Hill's Lachrymal sequence in my book Faith, Hope and Poetry (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1...)
Lachrymae Amantis

What is there in my heart that you should sue
so fiercely for its love? What kind of care
brings you as though a stranger to my door
through the long night and in the icy dew

seeking the heart that will not harbour you,
that keeps itself religiously secure?
At this dark solstice filled with frost and fire
your passion’s ancient wounds must bleed anew.

So many nights the angel of my house
has fed such urgent comfort through a dream,
whispered, ‘your lord is coming, he is close’

that I have drowsed half-faithful for a time
bathed in pure tones of promise and remorse
‘tomorrow I shall wake to welcome him.’