I lost the will to live with 'and stare as long as sheep or cows' and had hysterics at squirrels hiding their nuts in grass.

My best poem ever at school was Adlestrop recited by an inspirational English teacher named Braillsford in a rich rolling Yorkshire accent.

Try it

Adlestrop

by Edward Thomas


Yes. I remember Adlestrop—
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop—only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

That's poetry

Stu