In Pursuit of Spring

This is Edward Thomas in his element: cycling through late March and April of 1913, leaving London behind and heading south and west toward the Quantock Hills, chasing spring as it unfolds across the English countryside. What begins as a simple journey becomes something deeper. Thomas notices everything: the first celandine in a hedgerow, the sound of a stream crossing, the way villages announce themselves from a mile off. His prose has the quality of his best poetry, precise and luminous. The route takes him through Guildford, over Salisbury Plain, past Trowbridge and Shepton Mallet, each landscape rendered with affection and exacting attention. He visits the graves of the Romantic poets, reflects on the nature of Wessex. But the real subject is the journey itself: the rhythm of pedaling, the encounters with weather and road, the deepening quiet as he leaves the city behind. This is England before the Great War, a countryside that would be changed forever by what came after. Thomas would die at the Somme in 1917, making this tender account of searching for renewal feel like a lament for something already lost.