OF THE DAY

ANOTHER poem about the power of books, this time from Kit Wright’s Ode to Didcot Power Station (Bloodaxe Books, £9.95). Tennyson, whose great poem Ulysses featured on Thursday, provides the starting point. A DEDICATION RESTORED FROM 1860 Poems by Alfred Tennyson Of 1859: Blue, battered boards; indented gilt; A loose and flapping spine. The first day of the new-turned year, She penned this A bright inscription that revives The ghost of her who gave it: A New Year’s gift from a loving wife To her fond and affectionate husband. It’s gone forever from the world, That tender, measured kind Of intimate formality, Long fallen out of mind, Long fallen out of mind. And I know nothing of the man And wife thus linked, or rather Know just that when he died she gave The book to my grandfather ... Who drowned beneath the Bay of Biscay When my dad was ten, And therefore was a mystery And is one, now as then. SoIamgladtofindwhatlay So long without detection: A testament of ancient love, And fondness, and affection.