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
