

Who first thought of planting a garden in Kent?
It is all chalk, clay, coal, flint:
Studded with chill villages, on the chalk ridge
Bean, Bekesbourne, bleak Bladbean and Bridge,
And Patrixbourne. Under the down’s swollen fold
Black seams creak beneath Chislet,
Tilmanstone, Betteshanger, Snowdon, Sibertswold.
White winds bite Coldred and flay Hardres,
Split Thanet’s forelands into spiny shards,
Where the sea in winter sets, a frozen flow.
While South of the sullen Wantsun’s grudging trench
Creeps the Nailbourne’s bed
That wizened river, underfed and rising
Only in times of England’s woe.