Ledbury is a beautiful and interesting old town which can be dated back to the end of the seventh century; its original name may have been Liedeberge, as recorded in Doomsday, but I just wonder if the name is much older… I must ask my friends who know about ancient languages. It may, of course take its name from the River Leadon.
It was here on June 1st, 1878, that John Masefield was born; no doubt his early childhood was happy with his brothers and sisters and his parents; tragedy struck when his mother died when he was six. It seems interesting to me that in this sonnet he mentions the month of June, his birth month, and in the next few lines talks about blooms fading and dying
Roses are beauty, but I never see
Those blood drops from the burning heart of June
Glowing like thought upon the living tree,
Without a pity that they die so soon,
Die into petals, like those roses old,
Those women, who were summer in men’s hearts
Before the smile upon the Sphinx was cold,
Or sand had hid the Syrian and his arts.
O myriad dust of beauty that lies thick
Under our feet that not a single grain
But stirred and moved in beauty and was quick
For one brief moon and died nor lived again;
But when the moon rose lay upon the grass
Pasture to living beauty, life that was.
Lois Elsden 