After you’ve negotiated that artfully-conceived
sharp elbow bend in the long, grand drive
through the fields of its estate,
and it hoves into view,
you always gasp – this palace
- no, more like a temple with living quarters –
set deep in the countryside, yet as sure
as one in Athens or in Rome;
yet that too is artfully contrived -
the slight mound it’s built on,
the cunning proportion that magnifies,
disguises, with its public face
the aptness of a family home;
its public rooms so grand, just echoing enough
to magnify a public speech;  its family rooms
smallish, cosy; love and friendliness
live here. It says to the world,
stability; tradition re-affirmed; yet
this is our familiar family home.
It has its rooms, as rooms should be,
devoted to each family pursuit:
here’s the grand library
but here, with books so evidently, lovingly well read;
you almost missed the little girl, her hair and knees
curled round a book, deep in that leather green armchair;
the study, where your breathing seems to change,
there’s such a still and living silence here;
the nursery that emanates a lifetime’s care;
the children’s bedrooms set around it,
through which you ran and laughed and ran again; the window seats
from which you looked so wistfully
as childhood’s assurance faded into teenage questioning;
a house to leave,
a house to come back to;
a metaphor
as living, haunting, as the poetry it is.