Rowan Williams’ Winterreise: for Gillian Rose, 9 December 1995
Williams, then Archbishop of Canterbury, penned “Winterreise: for Gillian Rose, 9 December 1995” (originally in Remembering Jerusalem: Poems and now included in The Poems of Rowan Williams). The first third, “Morning”:
The flat fields tramp towards the Severn.
I know there is no cliff to drop from
their edge, only the sand and the wet still sheets.
This morning, through, the thick and chest-constricting
light, the level, rose-grey clouds and the remains
of icy fog stand between fields and water.
And the horizon has to be a steep edge, has to be
the cliff where Gloucester fell that never-to-be measured
drop from his body to the ground.
And down, a long way down, below the frost,
must be soft embers sending up the light
from fires the night-fog has muffled but not killed.
The complete poem – as well as Williams’ commentary on it – was available on this archived website but since it is no longer available, here is the complete poem in .pdf format
Geoffrey Hill’s “In memoriam” (Poetry 189.3, pp. 187-191):