Elgar's Enigma Variations Poem by Sheena Blackhall

I am listening to Elgar's Enigma Variations
Musically back-pedalling through time

I reflect that each one bears a cryptic subtitle
Picked from the bones of his life
His publisher
An organist's bulldog, Dan
His loyal wife

With his handlebar moustache
He sits on his Royal Sunbeam bike named Mr. Phoebus

And what of his places of work? What of them?
Conductor at the Worcester & CountyLunatic Asylum
Did he orchestrate the downs of melancholia?
Did he write crescendos for the highs ofmania?
Did he empathise with a world gone lickety splat?

I imagine him striding off in the rain
Professor of violin, the grand musician
At the College for the blind sons of gentlemen
With his high starched collar, elegant gloves
With his noble brow, every inch the groomed patrician
Chemist, composer, cyclist
Three odd strings to his bow

His music shall not grow old in the Land of Hope and Glory
The Dream of Gerontius, Nimrod

Sixty five roads in England are named after him
And one grand locomotive, now withdrawn