• "The History of a Poem", The Dark Horse", Summer 1997

• Angels and absences: child deaths in the nineteenth century, Vanderbilt University Press, 1997, ISBN 9780826512871
• The Victorians, Methuen, 1978, ISBN 9780416562101
• An introduction to English poetry: fifteen poems discussed by Laurence Lerner, Edward Arnold, 1975, ISBN 9780713157895

Here is a poem by Laurence Lerner (not infringing copyright, since submitted by the author, who holds the copyright!)

Kaspar Hauser

All that long time there was the place I was,All that long same, the dark and constant same.I came to being and it bit my eyes.

I want to be a rider like my father.A soldier was my father was a horseman.I want to be a rider and I want

Out of that same he carried me upstairs,Out of that dark and then I stood to lean;The soft ground stood and hit me where I fell.

When it was hunger time they put soft lifeInto my mouth. It moved. The warm flesh toreUnder my teeth. This could be me I'm eating.

I spat and called: I loved that time, those horses,The brittle bread, the water, the soft dark,The stiff floor always there, the always steady

Till I was carried to the bumpy world:The air threw needles at my eyes. I fell.Where were my walls, my horse to push, and where -

I want my floor my bread my dark my always -I want the4 same the only same the only -I want to be a rider like my father