‘St David’s Day’ – a poem by Stanley Cook

The land returns from Winter
like the Saint from pilgrimage
Bringing with him a bird and a flower
Over mountains like dragons turned to stone

Today repeats the yearly miracle
Along the valleys of the daffodil
And in the brightening sky above
St David’s emblem is the dove

Stanley Cook (1922-1991) was much admired in his lifetime but he never achieved the popular audience and critical reputation his work deserved. Cook went his own way, sanguine about the fashions of the poetry establishment, and quietly writing some of the most readable, intelligent and vividly achieved poems of our time.