In Sydney Lea s poems, purest joy and woe flash amid the mundane, and beauty knows the full range of nature from the plumed tension of a newborn child twisting away from the ready breast to bright birds lying dead on the winter lawn. Many of these poems are backward looking, savoring the gentle pause at summer s end, recalling with fledgling hope former victories of spring, seeking in the woeful host of memory something that has held its charge."