Richard Jefferies' footstone on his grave in Broadwater Cemetery, Worthing describes him as the 'Prose Poet of England's fields and woodlands'. Never could there be a better example of how well his prose reads beautifully as lyrical poetry as in his glorious essay 'The Pageant of Summer' that was collected in The Life of the Fields (1884).
R.D. Stapleford has introduced and edited the essay (in May 2026) and expressed it as an epic found-poem (click on the link to read in full) that begins:
Green rushes, long and thick,
Standing
up above the edge of the ditch,
Told
the hour of the year
As
distinctly as the shadow
On
the dial the hour of the day.
Green
and thick and sappy to the touch,
They
felt like Summer, soft and elastic,
As
if full of life, mere rushes
Though
they were. On the fingers
They
left a green scent; rushes
Have
a separate scent of green,
So,
too, have ferns,
Very
different from that of grass or leaves.
Rising
from brown sheaths,
The
tall stems enlarged a little in the middle,
Like
classical columns, and
Heavy
with their sap and freshness,
Leaned
against the hawthorn sprays.
From
the earth they had drawn its moisture,
And
made the ditch dry;
Some
of the sweetness of the air
Had
entered into their fibres,
And
the rushes—the common rushes—
Were
full of beautiful Summer.
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