A Poet & a Rose

Rosa 'A Shropshire Lad' 10 August 2026

 

Peter Trower

With rue my heart is laden

For golden friends I had,

For many a rose-lipt maiden

And many a lightfoot lad.

 

 By brooks too broad for leaping

 The lightfoot boys are laid;

 The rose-lipt girls are sleeping

 In fields where roses fade.

A.E. Houseman from LIV A Shropshire Lad

 

Many of my roses have the faces of people. This English Rose, Rosa ‘A Shropshire Lad’ has the face of my poet friend Peter Trower, now gone, who was often called the logging poet.

WeMany of us used to meet every Thursday at noon at the Railway Club in the 80s and early 90s. We were a group of photographers, artists, editors, musicians, strippers and, yes, poets like Trower, and Jamie Reid. It was Trower who recommended I read A Shropshire Lad. I did.

This English rose is one of my best. Today it is the only rose in my garden in bloom. One of its most lovely characteristic is the new growth is a deep and dark red.

I miss those two poets as I do Gerry Gilbert and Susan Musgrave who now lives in Masset. My other friend Michael Turner I cannot find a contact number for him. The only poets I have left are the ones I read in books.