Beginning with an account of the simplest-seeming island people and their troubled though productive lives, this work continues with a series of poems about King David, great poet and warrior, which consider the ineffectuality of war and the place of poetry in building towards a just society.

Taking its starting point from John Donne's prose--"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main"--John Deane takes a period of time and trawls through it for meaning and purpose. Beginning with a simple island, each subsequent piece features great figures, such as King David, and examines the futility of war and the place of poetry in fighting for a more just society. The collection's centerpiece, "A Little Book of Hours," journeys through Europe in search of spiritual truth. This collection is a meditation on how the Christian myth is seen to penetrate all of humanity and nature.