One of the Planets

Catching the train that day, there opposite

Was Imogen Holst, by chance, recognised

Quite how I don't know. Laid out between us

Sheets of music paper, all the lines and notes

Under her quick bright eye and poised pen

Held almost like a baton.

I could just make out, on the top margin, the name

Gustav – upside down. What she was up to

I was ignorant of, dear devoted daughter

Making her stabbing, almost nervous marks.

But as we approached London

After those hours of fixed concentration,

She looked up, caught my gaze, and a great smile

Irradiated her small neat serious face;

And in my inner ear there soared that tune

Pulsing through Jupiter, the bringer of joy.

ANTHONY THWAITE

Holst

Marching into prayers at primary school

they used to play a 78 of Mars.

There began my love of music

and of astronomy. The perfect fool

had found his round peg's round hole:

to sing squarely of the stars

to a generation who would lose its

sight and hearing before it had grown old.

JOHN GREENING