The title poem of this accomplished second collection tells the story of the monk who dreamed the death of William II, and sets the key note for a series of meditations on death and destiny. Includes the sonnet sequence on the death of the poet's father which won James Harpur the Poetry Society's 1995 National Poetry Competition. James Harpur was born in 1956, studied Classics and English Literature at Cambridge, has taught in Crete, worked as a lexicographer, and is now a freelance writer and editor living in London. He was awarded an Arts Council bursary in 1996.