WITH the memorable title For the Unfallen, Hill's first volume of poetry, almost 50 years ago, set him on a path that now sees him widely acclaimed as England's leading poet - "the one certain genius now at work in the English language", in the judgement of one distinguished critic.

Introduced with a medieval poem that begins " Justice now is dead", this latest collection, a coda to Hill's recently published Selected Poems, demands the keenest of mental efforts, not least because it is laced with allusions to various obscure texts. But Hill provides a precious insight into his own craft:

Still
I think of poetry as it was said
of Alanbrooke's war diary: a work done to gain, or regain, possesion of himself as a means of survival and, in that sense a mode of moral life.