Wilderspool Causeway

If Shelley watched Scott McTominay
would his Naples dream have been of healing
even as the breeze from the Tyrrhenian
through holm oaks in the Villa Communale
reached an oriental plane?

Missing peace within and surpassing wealth,
is it that Percy would have lost himself
in the Quartieri Spagnoli under the Hand of God?
By Stadio San Paulo’s then untrampled floor
he may have found tenure in a purple noon

or peace as a visiting lecturer in seaweed
and star-showers, winding around Via Parco Grifeo
to dine at Veritas with despair itself
mild against stainless glory and stanzas of dejection
offset by I Azzuri.

n.b This is written in response to Shelley’s stanzas of dejection:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45140/stanzas-written-in-dejection-near-naples