Colombine: A Fantasy: And Other Verses

A verse drama from 1911 that threads pure magic through the ordinary English countryside. On Cissbury Beacon at twilight, an old laborer and a boy witness a strange argument: Colombine, the beloved, must choose between two suitors. Harlequin arrives with glittering promises, the Land of Yesterday, a crystal that reveals the future, everything a heart could desire. Pierrot offers almost nothing but his honest self. What unfolds is a quiet fable about what we really want from love, and what lasts. The companion collection of poems moves from wry meditations on art and fate to tender dialect verses about courting, burying, and homesickness. Arkell writes with disarming simplicity about longing and loss, finding beauty in village life and the shadows we carry. This is a book for readers who believe the simplest stories often hold the deepest truths.