Mount Edgcumbe Poem by Brian Taylor

Here the descendants of Bosworth Field
built their Eden from forest, bracken, heath;
bred partridge, pheasant, boar and deer,
then cast their shadow of darkening fear,
stretched out their hands
and filled their woods with death.

Built Tudor house and Tudor fort,
enclosed the land with Tudor thought.

Four hundred years from that to this
carefully constructed wilderness.
No man-traps now to stumble on,
the deer remain, the boars are long since gone.

The Tudor rides are proletarian walks
where we can wander where the next road forks,
through oak and elm and beech and ash,
through hyacinths and primulas,
daffodils and camellias.

Down to where Lady Emma’s Cottage
slumbers in quiet decay.
But as for Lady Emma,
she has “left and gone away”.