More on: England

A poor printing, eye blight, a spine of straw, the threshed and winnowed word, heaven unhusked, a kind of seed unpacked, conspicuous fantail, fishy contraband, rendered law, thunder’s ragged hymnal, bottomless wineskin warped from deluge and drying with the hay, frozen, frostbit, thawed and sighing like the heart, prodigal returned, a glass- bottomed boat, God…

On Plough Monday, a “fool plough” or “white plough” was dragged about the village by young ploughmen covered in ribbons and other gay ornaments; they asked for pennies at every door and, if refused, they ploughed the ground before the cottage. _________________________________________________—Peter Ackroyd At the first breaking of ground we prayed heaven speed the plow,…

London is a city of churches and my mother loved the church bells calling to one another over the rooftops. She said you could tell one church from another from the sound of the bells. The bells were that distinct, like human voices. The bells at Saint Paul’s overwhelmed her, just as the grandeur of…

The morning after the blitzkrieg that toppled the vaults of Saint Michael’s Cathedral and set the rest on fire, a stonemason found among the embers one roof beam laid across another, a kind of crucifix created by the forces of accident and violence and then by grace of eyes that saw in them an order.…