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Saturday 30 May 2020

The Aberystwyth Mystery

About forty years ago, my great-aunt died, the last of my grandparents' generation, and various keepsakes and trinkets came into our possession, including this box. A good, solid, well-made box, but there was, apparently, nothing of real interest in it, just a few beads and buttons.

At the bottom, presumably put there as extra lining, was a small sheet of yellowing paper, which we ignored. The box was used for various things over the years - playing cards, spare fuse wire, keys, monopoly houses fished out from under sofas and kept for safety until someone could remember where the monopoly box had been put, and those little bits you find that must surely be a part of something so you don't want to risk throwing them away in case they're vital.

Years later, I finally fished out the yellowing paper - no idea why - and discovered that it was a double page torn from a pocket notebook in which someone, in faded pencil, had kept a journal of a most exciting visit to Aberywyth. I have no idea who wrote it, or when. Early in the 20th century or maybe in Victorian times. My great aunt was born in 1900, but she lived and died in the Cardiff house that had also been occupied by her sister, my grandmother, and their parents, back to the 1880s, so it could have been written any time since then.

Some of it, I guess, was written on a knee, and is nearly illegible, but here is the thrilling transcript.
...........
Got to Aberys at 5.30, went to our Lodge — out for a walk, returned at 8.30, found our host drunk. Left there to look for another place, found one, returned to bed at 10.10pm. Could not sleep until morning. Found another young man in bed in the same room. Got up, had ham and eggs for breakfast. Went to the Congregational Chapel at 11.0am. Had a very good sermon but the singing was very inferior. Came home, had dinner, green peas and potatoes and mutton. Went out for a walk around promenade. Came to tea at 5.0. Went to the Welsh Baptist Chapel at 6.0. Very good sermon and splendid singing.

Rheidol Valley at Devil's Bridge (c) Trevor Rickard
Monday
.
Went to Tregaron. Aber at 8.30, Llanrhystyd Road, Llanfair, Trawscoed, Strata Florida, Tregaron 9.30 am. Left Tregaron 4.5pm. (Ate?) at the Talbot Hotel, had a (illegible), and went to D. Rowlands the (illegible) Man. Returned at 5pm. Meet JJ and GH at the train.

Tuesday.
Went to Devil’s Bridge 11am in a cab. 5 of us had food at Devil’s B. Returned at 7pm from the most beautiful scenery I ever saw. Went to concert at 8pm in the Pier Pavilion.

Wens
.
Went around town in the morning and to Constitution Hill at 2pm, a lovely place. Returned at 5pm and then to Flower show in the Pier pavilion. Grand show of vegetables and flowers.

Suit of clothes, 3 / 1 / 0½
For Constipation  6 / 5
For grave and T?  15 / 0
Miss Broad  10 / 6
Charles  5 / 0
........

This mysterious journal raises so many questions besides the identity of the writer. Why was he so anally obsessed with time-keeping, but couldn't think of a thing to say about Tregaron? Who was D Rowlands and what did he do? What exactly did the writer have at the Talbot Hotel? Who won the flower and veg show? And what did Miss Broad do to earn ten shillings and sixpence?
One thing is obvious, though. They certainly knew how to have a good time back then. Whenever Then was.

Saturday 9 May 2020

Dances on the Head of a Pin

Since I mentioned the monument in the middle of Haverfordwest in my last post, I thought I might as well slip in the short story I wrote about it.
So here it is...


DANCES ON THE HEAD OF A PIN

‘Well, man. And you are?’
    ‘I am? I don’t understand you, sir.’
    ‘I am asking your name, man. What is your name?’
    ‘Oh, I am William. That is my name, sir. Yes. William.’
    ‘Very well, William. Let us begin this examination.’

……….

There’s a lump of stone. A heavy piece of uninspiring Edwardian workmanship. You’ll find it in the cleft of the road, a little way below the church. It’s an unpleasant red, like steak that has begun to go off. It is polished like prized linoleum and shaped much like the pillar box that stands close by, along with a green plastic litter bin, a grey cubist telephone booth and a lamppost bearing traffic prohibitions. It’s surrounded by a low stone wall and a flight of slate-slab steps that connect one fork of the road to the other. Wall and steps provide a useful perch for the inevitable colonisers of street corners.
    Like the adolescent couple who sit there now, smoking. He finishes a can of lager and crushes it into a ball.
    ‘I’m doing a survey. Can I ask you some questions?’
    The boy shuffles away, along the step, but the girl is more curious. ‘Yeah, okay. Right. Go on then.’
    ‘Do you visit the town centre often?’
    ‘Yeah, well, sometimes.’
    ‘You live in the area?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘What concerns you?’
    ‘What you mean?’
    ‘What questions keep you awake at night? What tugs at your heart and soul? What worries you?’
    ‘Oh. Right.’ She nudges her boyfriend. She thinks she knows the answer I want. ‘You mean jobs and stuff, right?’
     ‘Aren’t no jobs,’ mutters the boy.
    ‘Jobs,’ I jot down.
    ‘And housing. Yeah, ‘cos we can’t find nothing.’
    ‘Housing.’
    ‘And…’ She’s being tentative, trying to gauge my reactions. ‘Is it drugs? Is that right?’
    ‘What about transubstantiation?’
    ‘You what?’
    ‘Transubstantiation.’
    ‘Is that like, trannies? Gays, like?’
    ‘Not really.’
    ‘Don’t know nothing about it, then,’ says the boy. He’s had enough. He scrambles to his feet, dragging the girl with him, and tosses the crushed can over his shoulder. It lands at the base of the polished red stone, not far from the litter bin.

A businessman trots hurriedly down the steps, cutting off the corner as he hurries to his office.
    ‘Can I ask you your views on transubstantiation?’
    ‘No time, no time.’ He shoos me away.

An old lady, puffing up the hill, takes the opportunity to pause for breath.
    ‘Have you any thoughts about transubstantiation?’
    ‘No use asking me, love. Haven’t got any thoughts except about getting home and putting the kettle on. Electricity substations, was it? I don’t know anything about that, except my bills are too high.’
    She wheezes on her way. A lorry passes and a cloud of acrid fumes envelops the polished red stone.

……….

‘William, you must answer us,’ says Justice Horne. ‘Do you understand?’
    ‘Oh yes. You ask things and I answer.’
    ‘That is right. So listen to Father Gregory’s questions and answer him honestly.’
    ‘Yes. I am an honest man.’
    Father Gregory leans forward, eyes big and dark, almost pleading. ‘But are you an honest Christian, William? Do you believe in your soul’s salvation through the sacrifice of our Lord, Jesus Christ and the intercession of the Catholic church?’
    William gapes. ‘I go to church,’ he says, slowly.
    ‘Very good. And when you attend Mass, and the priest raises up the host, before the high altar of God, do you know what he is doing?’
    ‘He’s holding it up.’
    ‘Yes, yes, but this is important, William. The holy Eucharist. That is what we are speaking of. The bread and wine of the Mass. Do you believe that the blessed sacrament is truly the body and blood of Christ, Our Lord?’
    ‘Oh no,’ says William, cheerfully. ‘It is only bread and wine. I was told that.’
    A hiss.
    ‘Do you understand what you say, man?’
    ‘I know it is bread and wine.’
    ‘But in the course of the Mass, it becomes the actual flesh and blood of Christ, is that not so?’
    ‘No, no, I don’t eat man flesh. That would be wicked. It is only bread and wine. I was told.’
    ‘You were told wrong. Who told you this wicked lie?’
    ‘I was told. I must believe it is only bread and wine, or my soul will burn in Hell.’
    ‘You are wrong, William. Your soul will burn in Hell if you do not acknowledge, here, before us all, that the blessed sacrament is the very body and blood of Christ. Say it!’
    William’s slack lower lip hardens and juts out. His dazed eyes narrow as he tenses with a flood of obstinacy. It is, doubtless, the unthinking obstinacy that comes to his rescue when he is jostled in the street, or when bullies order him around. ‘Will not! It is only bread and wine. I was told.’
    Father Gregory sits back, shaking his head, his face racked with misery.
    Justice Horne knits his brows as he surveys William. ‘A sad business. Take him back to his cell. We can do nothing with him.’

Father Gregory clasps his hands in fervent, silent prayer. Justice Horne waits for him to finish, then crosses himself.
    ‘A bad business.’
    ‘A terrible business, Justice. A terrible heresy that will claim countless souls if it is not rooted out.’
    ‘He is a simpleton, of course.’
    ‘Clearly, but a misguided one, and those who taught him to spout these vile lies will surely feel God’s wrath. But it is his soul that is our business now.’
    ‘He is a mere child in a man’s body, is he not? Talium est enim regnum caelorum. Such is the Kingdom of Heaven.’
    ‘Yes. Yes, he is a child. Sinite parvulos et nolite eos prohibere ad me venire. Suffer the little children and forbid them not to come unto me. It is for us to lead him back to the true God, and let the simple soul enter the gates of Paradise.’
    ‘Quite so,’ says Justice Horne. ‘A child, most dear to God. Better to have found a home and refuge in a monastery than be cast adrift in this busy and relentless world.’
    ‘Indeed. In the bosom of Mother Church, he could have found true sanctuary.’
    ‘But alas, there are no monasteries now, for such simple souls and it is left to us to give him peace – us to decide what must be done with him.’
    ‘Yes. A solemn duty.’
    ‘We’ll burn him, of course.’
    ‘Of course! He must burn. Better for him to face the agonising purification of the flames now and, in them, find repentance, than to face the fires of Hell for all eternity. I would be betraying my duty for the care of his soul, otherwise. For his own salvation, he must burn.’
    Justice Horne nods politely. ‘And for the salvation of this land – for the sake of peace and order. As our noble Queen Mary and the law have decreed, so shall it be enforced. Heresies will be rooted out. We cannot permit beliefs contrary to the law—’
    ‘To the teachings of Holy Mother Church.’
    ‘To the teachings of the church, as decreed by the law. There must be one understanding of truth in this state, or how can the centre hold? If it were seen that a simple man could defy the law, with wayward views, there would be anarchy. There would be chaos. The rabble would rise and gentlemen would never be safe again. Peaceful order is everything and it is for us to enforce. If only to teach others the wisdom of obedience, he must burn.’
    ‘Amen.’


‘William. Look there. Do you see the stake they have prepared for you? The chains to bind you to it? Do you see the faggots that will be piled around you? Do you hear the baying crowd, come to see you burn?’
    William stares, vacantly. Does he understand?
    ‘Repent, William. Stand up before this crowd and recant your heresies. Acknowledge the teachings of the true church, as established by the law. Tell them you admit the truth, that the bread and wine of the Eucharist is truly the body and blood of Christ. Tell them that, William, and you will not burn. Do you want to burn, William?’
    ‘No! I don’t want to burn. I don’t like being burnt.’
    ‘So tell them.’
    ‘But if I tell a lie, I will burn in Hell, forever. I don’t want that. No. This will be quicker, will it not?’
    ‘So be it, William. If you will not repent… Take him. Let us do this thing, before the crowd grows restless.’

‘These clouds look black, Father Gregory. Is that a drop of rain? I hope so. Better that sodden faggots will smoke and smother him. I confess, I take no pleasure in the sound of these screams.’
    ‘No, Justice. Don’t pray for rain. Pray rather that the fire burns and his screams continue in unabated agony to the end, for in them pour forth his pleas for mercy to Our Lord and his blessed mother, who will lead his soul to salvation. Only thus is a soul saved and the truth maintained.’
    ‘Even thus,’ agrees Justice Horne, settling back in his chair, to watch to the finish.

……….

Two middle-aged women, well-dressed, heels clicking, are winding up the hill, pausing at the lump of stone.
    ‘Excuse me, would you be willing to answer a question or two? It will take no time at all.’
    One looks wary, lips pinched, prepared to brush me aside, but the other is too polite. I don’t look like a mugger, or foreign, so perhaps I am all right.
    ‘Well, maybe. What is it about?’
    ‘Could you tell me your views on transubstantiation?’
    ‘On, er…’ They look at each other. The reluctant one is unwilling to voice her ignorance. The polite one gives an embarrassed laugh. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what that is.’
    ‘It’s something to do with the EU,’ snaps the other. ‘More typical bureaucracy.’
    ‘Not quite,’ I say. ‘Do you go to church?’
    The reluctant one nods. The other repeats her embarrassed laugh. ‘Not at often as I should.’
    ‘Transubstantiation is the belief that, in the celebration of the Eucharist, the bread and wine becomes the actual body and blood of Christ.’
    ‘Oh. Well. I’ve never really thought about it. Um. Why?’
    ‘You will have noticed this monument here.’ I point to the lump of stone. ‘It commemorates the burning at the stake of a man who refused to accept the principle of transubstantiation.’
    Their gaze follows my pointing finger and they read. “On this spot, William Nichol, of this town, was burnt at the stake for the truth. April 9th 1558.”
    ‘Well I never. Horrible. I mean, horrible to think they did things like that.’
    ‘The priest who helped to condemn him died a martyr, certain of his place in heaven. He was hanged, drawn and quartered, for refusing to deny transubstantiation.’
    ‘Oh nasty. I don’t know which is worse.’
    ‘This burning is listed in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. “The suffering and martyrdom of William Nichol, put to death by the wicked hands of the papists.”’
    ‘Well, fancy!’ says the polite one.
    ‘Oh, papists,’ says the other. ‘I don’t care much about them. It’s the Muslims I worry about. And the Poles.’
    ‘Of course,’ I say, and let them depart.
    I look again at the lump of stone. A small dog, running loose, is sniffing around it. He cocks a leg, pees and scampers on.
    William Nichol’s ashes were dispersed long ago, mingling with the stardust of creation. So too were the remains of Father Gregory. Different agonies, but the same stardust. Whereas I – I merely fell asleep in my bed, having gone on, for many years, to administer justice in the name of Good Queen Bess, the Anglican communion and the laws of the land.
    I don’t seem to have mingled with anything. I linger. It’s the world around me that shimmers and transforms. Did the centre hold? It shifts. I no longer know where it lies. What is it we believe, these days? I am out of touch. Some days, I no longer remember why I had to burn William Nichol, but I know it must have been important. So I come here, clip board in hand to remind myself. Of course he had to burn. Didn’t he?
    No matter. Times have moved on. There will always be another cause worth dying for. Worth killing for.
    Who shall we burn today?


Friday 10 April 2020

Isolated Thoughts

any excuse for a cat picture
Like everyone else, I am in isolation. It means I don’t get off the property day after day. I don’t see anyone, apart from two members of my family here with me, except the postman, from a distance, and my sister who delivers our shopping once a week.

It worries me, which is odd because it’s actually no different to the way I normally live. I’m in the country, down a farm lane in the middle of nowhere, quarter of a mile from the nearest house, a mile from the nearest village, I work from home and someone else does the shopping. I love it. Most days the postman delivers something and occasionally I drive off to see a friend, but otherwise I live in splendid isolation. Now, apart from not being able to see a friend, nothing has changed. So the worry is born solely of the fact that my isolation is now compulsory, not merely voluntary. I am a bit like my cat Mitsy, who will settle anywhere and not move all day, just as long as the door is left open. Shut it and she'll be up and scratching at it. A case of sheer perversity for both of us.

Thinking about it, not only have I embraced isolation for years, but it has also been a major theme in my writing, because a sense of isolation, physical and emotion, is a compelling dramatic theme, a gift for any writer.


 In A Time For Silence, Gwen’s physical isolation, in a cottage in a remote dark valley, amplifies the emotional isolation that traps her, and the isolation of her community also plays a significant part in the story. In Shadows, Kate is isolated, wherever she goes, by the knowledge that she has feelings that no one else shares, and it has raised impenetrable bars around her. In The Unravelling, Karen is isolated by mental derangement (or re-arrangement). Regarded as a freak and pariah, she isolates herself in fiction.

I’m not the only one, of course. Authors have always dwelt on isolation, accidental or chosen, enforced or embraced. Hansel and Gretel, Robinson Crusoe, Dickens' Miss Havisham, Jane Austen’s Fanny Price and Anne Elliot, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Waugh’s Tony Last in A Handful of Dust, Naipaul’s Salim in A Bend in the River, Gollum, Harry Potter… Could I include Adam and Eve?

Wuthering Heights
Isolated houses are irresistible as setting for novels. Wuthering Heights! Agatha Christie was the mistress of trapping a whole cast of suspects within one country house. I can’t resist isolated houses either. Give me an empty window in shadows and I'm off, whether I'm peering into a tiny cottage like Cwmderwen or a mansion like Llysygarn.


Isolation is not always a bad thing in literature. In my set of novellas, Long Shadows, my medieval girl, Angharad, longs to escape from her suffocating life at Llysygarn and see the world, but finishes up embracing confinement, while the 17th century girl, Elizabeth Bowen, wants nothing more than to be left alone with her isolated house.

I have no real cause to complain about my isolation and as a writer I can feed on it, inflicting it on my characters. But even in the best of times, there are people abandoned in loneliness and people who feel most alone when surrounded by crowds. My sympathy is for all those out there isolated in desperation, anxiety and loneliness, shut up away from family, in homes or hospital wards, trapped in their own heads. We are in territory beyond fiction now.

Thursday 2 April 2020

Block

It was bound to happen. I am disappointed but not surprised. My new novel, The Covenant, which was to have been published on July 16th, has now been put on ice until August 20th (fingers crossed). By then, I hope, bookshops will have reopened, distributors will be operating their warehouses again and Amazon will have books back as no.1 essentials. Meanwhile, of course, I can always get on with another book, except...

I can’t write. Well I can, because I’m writing this, but otherwise I am faced with a brick wall.

All I ever wanted to do was write (and read). I turned down very sensible career advice from my headmaster (study law, get rich), because I didn’t want to do anything except be a writer. I made a mess of my first degree because I’d virtually given up on studying in order to write instead. For years my primary occupation, when not having to work for a living, was writing. My secondary occupation was watching for the postman to deliver rejection letters. I never, ever, considered giving up.

And now, with Covid 19, I am confronted with insurmountable inertia. I’ve never experience writer’s block before. I’ve had times when I’ve had to put things aside while I worry over why something isn’t working, or where it will go next, or if I’m bored with it, but I’ve never been faced with such a total lack of desire to write until now.

It isn’t that I am too terrified of imminent death to think of anything else. It isn’t that I am sick with worry, about falling ill, about my nearest and dearest falling ill (which I am), about whether we’ll go mad in isolation (not me, I’m used to it). I am nursing pangs of guilt that I’m not worrying about where the next meal is coming from, whether the house will be repossessed, whether the shops will have anything in or whether my money will run out. I know how lucky I am not to be worrying about those things.

So why can’t I write? Everything else is on hold. I have the perfect excuse to sit at my laptop, without interruption, and write non-stop from dawn till dusk. But I can’t, because everything I was writing, with a contemporary setting, seems now so utterly irrelevant. How can I write about a world that, when we eventually come out of all this, will no longer exist? Should I turn to writing historical drama? Somehow everything historical is now imbued with a heavy weight of inevitability, leading to an inexorable present that is sinking like a stone. All I can see, looking back, is greed, stupidity, bigotry, pointless conflicts and an endless stream of futile mistakes, peppered with plague and disease. Plus ça change. Should I write about the future? It will be dystopian, won’t it? It always is, and that now seems a little pointless, when faced with the actual thing.

I think I shall just have to dig the garden, plant seeds and crawl back inside the 1530s with Hilary Mantell. It’s going to end with a decapitation; if that doesn't cheer me up, nothing will. Then, when it’s all over and the world has decided which way up to land, I’ll start again.

Friday 27 March 2020

Threnody

I sing of Pippin, family friend,
Window yowler,
Loving lap-warmer,
Soothing snuggler.

Lean lady of the lane, she did not rest
Sleek sable-suited sentinel of the high hedges.
Purring prey pouncer,
Mistress of mangled mice,
Sharp-toothed shrew shredder,
Wren-wrangler,
Fierce foe of pheasants (or would be, had they been smaller).

Eighteen Easters, she held sway,
Mitsy’s mentor with firm paw.
Provisioner of the Pear Tree,
She did not hold back:
Gift-giver (mostly spleens).

Weary now, wait no longer.
Marooned in maidenhood (my doing),
Diana's new moon bow bends, beckoning.
Stellar dust once more, stream star-ward.
Hunt now the high ways with Orion.

Friday 28 February 2020

TV detectives on the page.

I have been watching TV crime dramas since I was knee-high to a bank robber. I’ve taken in everything from Dixon of Dock Green to White House Farm. These days, now that I have 150 TV channels to make my heart glad, I am usually stuck on ITV3, with endless repeats of Poirot, Frost, Midsummer Murders and Morse. Although the BBC has produced many, and American TV even more, you can't beat the ITV series for haunting and stylish theme tunes and opening credits.

I know that authors can have very different attitudes to adaptations of their books. Colin Dexter was obviously happy with having Morse taken out of his hands, since he appeared in every episode, whereas R D Wingfield wasn't so happy with A Touch of Frost. It must be disappointing to find your work ripped up and remodelled by other hands, although I defy any author to say they wouldn't love to be in a position to risk the disappointment.

It has recently occurred to me, tearing myself away from the screen, that though many of my favourites began as novels, I had never read any apart from a few Agatha Christies. So I decided to try a few and see how they compared with the TV series they spawned.

I began with Last Bus to Woodstock, by Colin Dexter, the first novel to introduce Chief Inspector Morse. I don’t expect TV adaptations to stick to the book, so I wasn’t expecting the Morse in the book to be identical to the Morse of John Thaw, and he isn’t. Which is fine. I would have been interested to explore a different character, though I can’t say I like him. The phrase ‘dirty old man’ comes to mind. I didn't particularly like this Morse and there wasn't really anything about poor Lewis to like or dislike.

I found myself put off by the style of writing, though I suppose it's what you would expect of Oxbridge. Do people perambulate? "Impatient at the best of times, and this was not the best of times, he waited restlessly and awkwardly, pacing to and fro, consulting his watch and throwing wicked glances as the portly woman inside the kiosk who appeared ill-equipped to face the triangular threat of the gadgeted apparatus before her, an uncooperative telephone exchange and her own one-handed negotiations with the assorted coinage in her purse." ... And breathe. I can't help thinking of Disraeli's description of Gladstone as being inebriated by the exuberance of his own verbosity.

The real problem though was the fact that although I had seen the TV version many times (admittedly a totally reconstructed story), the day after finishing the book, I couldn’t actually remember who had done it in the end. Nor did I really care. It petered out into an over-long explanation or who, what, why, when and where, going interminably over ground already covered, and I longed for the improbable simplicity of Poirot herding all his characters into a drawing room and revealing all over a nice tisane. I shall happily go back to watching every rerun of Morse (and Lewis and Endeavour), regardless of their unbelievable plots, but probably not bother with another of the books.

Next was The Killings at Badger’s Drift by Caroline Graham, the first Midsomer Murders. Very different in style, of course, being classified as Cosy Crime and, to my mind, much more readable. The setting is as delightfully absurdly twee at the TV version and the characters are larger than life, their physical appearance described in intricate detail, while their characters and motivations are left comfortably untroubled.

Unlike the Morse book, the TV version of this Midsomer Murder didn’t seem to deviate from the book at all, so I knew who was who and what was coming, which slightly deflated the surprise element. The only thing that did surprise me was the difference between the Barnaby of the book, who is unexpectedly dour and grumpy, and the John Nettles version who seemed to revel in Gothic gore amongst the thatch and shrubberies of rural England.
It did leave me thinking how the world has changed in a relatively short time. The Killings at Badger’s Drift was published in 1987, a world when villagers relied on telephone boxes for communication, policemen recorded details on index cards, and no one had a Facebook profile.

The last book I tried was The Crow Trap by Anne Cleeves, the first Vera Stanhope book. Entirely different. I can’t say if it compares with the TV version because it must be the one episode I have failed to catch, but  I found  the Vera in the book sufficiently similar to Brenda Blethyn's portrayal, except that the book has no reference to her sounding like a boy, whose voice is breaking, strangling a cat in a high wind.

What struck me most was that it was simply an excellent book, defying genre definition as the best crime novels do, knee-deep in atmosphere and perceptive character studies. In fact, as Vera doesn’t actually come into it until about halfway through, I’d forgotten what sort of book I was reading and her sudden appearance startled me. Of the three, it’s the only one that left me wanting to move on to the next book in the series.

Now, back to ITV3, while waiting for the call to adapt one of my books...

Sunday 16 February 2020

My Favourite Poems XII: Gerard Manley Hopkins

Favourite poem, no.12 of a dozen, although really it's no.1. Actually I could have picked 12 of GMH's poems as my favourites, but if there's just one, it has to be this one. I know a windhover is really a kestrel, but I think of this poem whenever I see buzzards playing on thermals above my garden for the sheer hell of it. Or when I'm watching the last flicker of a dying fire.

Windhover

I caught this morning morning's minion, kingdom of daylight's
Dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, - the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shèer plòd makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold vermilion.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Thursday 13 February 2020

My favourite poems XI: Edward Thomas (and me)

A short delicious poem painting a picture and capturing a moment perfectly... and my slightly longer story capturing the previous moments.

Adlestrop


Yes, I remember Adlestrop --
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop -- only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

Edward Thomas

AND

It Was Late June


O yes, I remember him. The man, not the name, of course. Just the man and his notebook, rounding off a funny old day.

It began with a crystalline summer dawn. The world was at peace with itself.  Dew on the grass, shreds of mist on the woods, a fox sidling by and then…

Funny how some tiny trigger can set the ball rolling. Or, in this case, Tommy Bradley, who came rolling out of the woods amidst a cacophony of thrashed leaves and pheasant calls. A happy boy, Tommy Bradley, ginger-haired and gap-toothed, but not the most law-abiding of children. I watched him pelt across the field and pause, carefully opening the gate instead of vaulting over it. I could see why. His pockets were bulging with stolen eggs and he was determined not to break them.

They must have been a treasure indeed, for Tommy to take such care. He was so intent on examining the contents of his pockets, to ensure they had come to no harm, that he clean forgot to shut the gate behind him. Hence the chain of interesting events that followed, as I can bear witness.

I am not usually up at such an hour, you understand, but on this occasion we had a little crisis to resolve at the White Hart, where I work. An unexpected guest had arrived, a French gentleman who, being French, was ridiculously picky with his food. He had volubly expressed dissatisfaction with Mrs. Tyler’s Gloucestershire brawn hotpot with mashed swedes, and with her boiled tripe. This was difficult. Mrs Tyler, excellent in many ways, but limited in imagination, had only two recipes in her repertoire: Gloucestershire brawn hotpot, and boiled tripe. She was at a loss, until Jack Spry assured her that the French only ate frogs, snails and larks. Mrs Tyler drew the line at frogs and snails, but larks would do and I was dispatched, before dawn, to catch some.

I hadn’t had any luck with larks, though I had managed to bag a couple of starlings and a rather sickly sparrow, but once they were encased in Mrs Tyler’s soggy suet pastry, I doubt if M. LeClerc would notice the difference.

I was creeping up on a recalcitrant blackbird, which had cheekily evaded me twice before, when I saw Isaac Drew herding a beast into the field that Tommy had just vacated.  The blackbird fluttered out of my clutch yet again, as I watched Isaac Drew’s prize bull, Maximus galumph heavily across the field, spy the open gate and charge straight through, onto the lane leading directly to the village High Street.

I decided to give up on the blackbird and take my catch back to the White Hart. I crept in through the back and Mrs Tyler dished me up a large breakfast in payment, so it was some time before I stepped out of the front door, and beheld Maximus, in possession of the High Street, pawing the ground beneath the George III oak in whose branches Mrs. Tavistock and the curate were precariously perched.

I always say that it takes a crisis to show the true metal of men. Mr. Bellingham the butcher showed his by firmly closing the door of his shop.  He did this in a nonchalant manner, muttering loudly about flies swarming, and humming a few lines of Abide With Me as if he had no inkling of the drama, but no one was deceived.  His faggots plummeted from that day.

Sidney Watts, pushing past me from the White Hart, having ready consumed his usual five-pint breakfast, was no such coward. He declared as much to anyone within earshot, including the bull. Maximus turned to study his challenger, with an expression that sent the rest of us scurrying for the nearest doorway, but Sidney stood his ground.  Nay, he even advanced, as true to the Matador stance as his unsteady feet could manage.  He gave a valiant roar, seizing Agnes Pultney’s red petticoat and flaunting it with gusto before the enraged beast.

Maximus charged.

I suppose Sidney should have earned some praise for showing such spunk. But the flaw in his plan, as critics were quick to point out, was that Agnes Pultney’s petticoat still had Agnes Pultney in it. A universal groan went up.  Agnes was of Rubenesque build and her terminal goring was extraordinarily squidgy.

I believe I caught some mutterings about Agnes having her just deserts for giving short measure in mint humbugs, but when it became clear that any one of a dozen totally innocent folk could be next, panic set in. The bull’s appetite for a fight was whetted, and he was looking for a target.

It was Fred Appleby who saved the day, with his idea of releasing Hubert Grimes’ 67 strong dairy herd into the High Street to divert the bull’s attention.  Everyone knew Fred was nursing a serious grievance, because Hubert had fired him, only the week before. You would have thought Fred would want nothing more to do with Grimes livestock, but, in this moment of crisis, grudges were forgotten.

His ruse worked. Maximus instantly turned his attention to the cows.  However, it seemed that some of the bovine ladies, however, were more interested in sightseeing and it was Sybil Cole’s attempt to shoo them from the bakery with a broom and a wrought-iron oven peel that led to the stampede.

Everyone leapt for cover. The vicar usually confined his morning ministry to counselling sessions at the bar of the White Hart, but on this occasion the Grimes herd persuaded him, fatally, to change his ways.  He strode, one might even say cantered, for the church porch and disappeared behind the three-inch thick cow-proof doors, just two yards ahead of Daisy May II at the gallop.

And so it came to pass that the Reverend Pettifer chanced upon a dozen hassocks, M.leClerc and Mrs. Pettifer, neatly stacked, in that order, on the baptistery floor.
The surprise of finding Mrs. Pettifer in the throes of adultery was shock enough, coming on top of the Reverend’s contretemps with Daisy May II.  Coming as it did on top of M.leClerc, it was all too much.   Was it possible that the wife of his bosom, his own Hilda, that model of matronly Christian chastity and decorum, could contemplate anything other than the missionary position?

Something within the Reverend must have snapped.  Mumbling Ezra II, verses 3-35, he ran into the bell tower and promptly hanged himself with one of the bell ropes.

The sudden and unscheduled clanging of the church bell was heard far and wide. It alerted Major Barnaby at the Manse, who concluded that an invasion had begun.  Never a man to stand by while England was in peril, the Major acted, firing the beacon he had constructed in an iron basket over the clock on the disused stable block, to summon his well-trained reservists to the defence of the realm.

Mrs. Pettifer, meanwhile, was seized by shame and remorse, though no longer by M. leClerc who fled in embarrassment, tail not quite between his legs.  Hilda’s anguish was unbounded.  Her guilt had been exposed and her husband had died, in a deafening manner, without expounding on the significance of Ezra II v.3-35.  Screaming with shock and vexation, Mrs Pettifer ran naked down the length of the High Street – no mean feat, as it was still heaving with cows.

Hearing her garbled explanation as she ran, we were too stunned to react.  Ezra II, v.3-35?  What could it mean?  Fortunately Zechariah Postlethwaite was at hand.  Zechariah was a grim pious man, who had been rescued as a child from a local cult of practising Methodists, and had had the adamantine enthusiasm of a convert ever since.  Being churchwarden, he felt perhaps a privileged interest in the fate of the vicar and his erring wife, and immediately began interpreting Ezra II v.3-35 in tongues, which, fortunately, all sounded like Gloucestershire English, so we were able to gather the general gist.

Much later, when I had a chance, I did check Ezra II v.3-35 for myself and, to be honest, I could find no reference in it to justify burning Mrs. Pettifer at the stake. But of course, I am no theologian, and Zechariah had made a study of these things – although it is an odd coincidence that all his biblical interpretations to date had involved burning someone at the stake. This, though, was the first time that his exhortations were equalled by the slightly hysterical stirrings of community spirit.

I will say this for our village. It does have a gift for concerted action. No sooner had the idea been raised than Mr. Richards donated an eight foot length of 4x4 for the stake and Harry Carboys and the Fanshawe twins set about erecting it, under Zechariah’s supervision, in front of the church porch, while cohorts from the W.I. organised the gathering of wood and binding of faggots.

Mrs Turby, thrice winner of the biennial  St. Theodora’s floral tribute competition, was, naturally, to be in charge of the faggot-arranging, but she feared a timetable clash. Could the burning not be rescheduled for the afternoon?  Zechariah would not be swayed, so Mrs. Turby was obliged to knock on the door of the room over the post office and interrupt the lodge meeting of the Seventh Seal Black Pentangle Satanists Society, to tell them she wouldn’t be bringing them morning coffee and biscuits as usual.

The Seventh Seal Etceteras were a very hush-hush society, although Mrs. Turby gave us regular updates of Lodge activities over the post office counter, and once or twice she had persuaded Grand Warlock Moloch (a.k.a. Mr. Turby) to offer a brief résumé of Lodge business for the village newsletter.  As a result, the bickerings, feuds and petty rivalries in our local Satanic circle were well known, so what followed was hardly surprising.  For Mrs. Turby’s absence from the lodge coincided critically with the Grand Warlock Moloch’s summons, as volunteer fire-fighter, to the blaze at the Manse, which had already demolished the abandoned stable block and was establishing a firm grip on the delightful Queen Anne west wing.

With both Turbys absent, the rest of the coven was wide open to mutiny.  Ill feelings had been smouldering ever since the Beltane Black Mass ritual sacrifice, when Mrs. Enwright’s Tiddles had escaped up the chimney at the critical moment and Grand Warlock Moloch had decided to substitute Sister Ashtaroth’s pet goldfish.  He claimed he’d had no other choice, with Sister Frig forbidding the use of her Johnny because he had his piano exam the next day.  Sister Ashtaroth, however, still bore a grudge, and with the Turbys gone, she promptly nominated Brother Beelzebub (Mr. Ashtaroth, as ‘t’were) to challenge for the role of Grand Warlock.

There was no real opposition to the move. Grand Warlock Moloch had aggravated a lot of people with his rigid adherence to official Post Office opening hours.  Nevertheless, rules being rules, Brother Beelzebub had to establish his credentials in the approved manner, by leading the coven three times widdershins round the church at midnight, to summon Satan.

This was tricky.  The various fires, at the Manse and under Mrs. Pettifer, would surely be out by midnight and the Turbys would be back, demanding to know what was going on. The Grand Warlock Moloch might be browbeaten by a show of unanimity, but everyone could recall his good lady warding off a critical post officer inspector with a corkscrew and a pair of silver sugar tongs.  Better, surely, if the Turbys could be presented with a fait accomplis.  Brother Osiris remarked that 12 noon here must be 12 midnight on the other side of the globe, and just how picky was Satan anyway?
So, at 11.50 a.m., the coven of the Seventh Seal Etcs emerged from the post office in full regalia and made its ceremonial way to the church, through the still milling cows and a slightly deflated Maximus.

It was certainly a magnificent sight, but it failed to quell the unusual tetchiness abroad that day.  The Seventh Seal Etcs, in their energetic tramp widdershins round the church, succeeded in demolishing the beautifully arranged faggots erected by the W.I. round the stake and Mrs. Pettifer, prompting Zechariah Postlethwaite to pursue the quasi-Grand Warlock Beelzebub into the vestry and there smite him hip and thigh with the parish register.  Sides were taken, and the level of violence exhibited by both the W.I. and the Seventh Seal Etcs dispelled any notion that this was just a Friendly.

In the end it was Mrs. Pettifer’s surprisingly colourful exhortations to the Satanists to crucify the bloody W.I. bastards that really helped to pacify the situation.  The vicar’s errant widow had been all but forgotten in the skirmish, but Mrs. Rearden pointed out that if they all got on with the burning of Mrs. Pettifer, the Seventh Seal Etcs could in turn get on with their widdershins parade, without having to clamber over the pyre en route.  A delay was unavoidable, but as Brother Osiris pointed out, 1p.m. would do just as well, it being midnight somewhere or other.

So a compromise was reached and all went well, to everyone’s satisfaction.  It was unanimously agreed that Mrs. Pettifer’s immolation was a great improvement on the shabby and rather disappointing Michaelmas ox roast, where lack of an ox had been a serious handicap.  Satisfied with a job well done, the Seventh Seal Etcs were left to their widdershins parade and Zechariah Postlethwaite led the W.I. off in a pilgrimage of flagellation round the adjoining parishes.

The smoke had barely dispersed from the church porch when the chain of events sparked off by that carelessly opened gate reached a most unfortunate crisis.  Isaac Drew came face to acrimonious face with Hubert Grimes in the High Street.  It was Isaac Drew’s contention that prize bull Maximus’s favours were a valuable commodity and that Hubert Grimes owed him an arm and a leg for the servicing of 67 cows.  In his turn, Hubert Grimes was demanding compensation for the ravishing of his herd of pedigree Jerseys by a Hereford bull.

Neither bull nor cows seemed disposed to join in the quarrel.  Appeased or exhausted, they wended their way peacefully homeward, leaving an empty expanse of High Street between the two fuming farmers.  Neither would give way, neither would listen to reason and when Isaac went for his shotgun, it was hardly surprising that Hubert should do the same.

Isn’t it odd how coincidences happen?  Isaac and Hubert had always vied for the honour of Worst Shot in Gloucestershire, and there wasn’t a rabbit or crow in the county in the remotest danger of being hit by either of them, and yet that day they both managed to score a perfect bull’s eye.

Fortunately, the fire-fighters arrived triumphant from the gutted Manse shortly after, in search of refreshment at the White Hart, and were persuaded, in return for a free helping of cider and starling suet pudding garni all round, to turn their hoses on the High Street and swab down the gutters.  It was high time.  What with the goring of Agnes Pultney, two shot farmers, a surprising amount of ash from Mrs. Pettifer and the deposits of 67 over-excited Jerseys, those gutters had become pretty messy.
Soon our cobbles were back to their usual pristine state and the village, washed clean, was sparkling in the afternoon sunshine.  As I remarked to Ethelrede Pode, things were looking set fair for a remarkably pleasant summer.  A stroll, I thought, would do me good, clear the lungs which were a little choked with ash.  I turned up the lane to the railway station and waved to Mrs. Jakes as she alighted from the 3.03, back from her wrestling match in Fladbury.

It was a charming afternoon, disturbed only by the distant alarms of shell-shocked birds marking the progression of Zechariah’s flagellation party.  Then I saw that my blackbird had returned to taunt me.  How appropriate it would be to nab it at last by way of rounding off such a glorious day.  I was just creeping up on it, round the edge of the platform, when a non-stopping express train forgot itself and stopped.  Only briefly, delayed by the obstruction of a couple of hearses down on the level crossing, which had raced too forcefully to be first through the gates.

I waited, curious, but no one alighted.  One passenger did wind down his window and peer with interest at the station sign.  It seemed to inspire him.  He sat back and took out a notebook and pen, and my heart leapt.  A journalist?  How thrilling for our quiet little community to make the news at last?  I racked my brain for something that might interest a journalist, but it was no good.  The world wants more excitement than the domestic doings of a parochial backwater like Adlestrop.

Copyright Thorne Moore 2009

Tuesday 11 February 2020

My favourite poems X: Irene McLeod

Another poem from my childhood, one long quote imprinted on my memory, and wonderfully defiant.

Lone Dog

I’m a lean dog, a keen dog, a wild dog and lone,
I’m a rough dog, a tough dog, hunting on my own!
I’m a bad dog, a mad dog, teasing silly sheep;
I love to sit and bay the moon and keep fat souls from sleep.

I’ll never be a lap dog, licking dirty feet,
A sleek dog, a meek dog, cringing for my meat.
Not for me the fireside, the well-filled plate,
But shut door and sharp stone and cuff and kick and hate.

Not for me the other dogs, running by my side,
Some have run a short while, but none of them would bide.
O mine is still the lone trail, the hard trail, the best,
Wide wind and wild stars and the hunger of the quest.

Irene McLeod

Sunday 9 February 2020

My favourite poems IX: Robert Browning

Another poem, a pure party piece, to be recited with sneering arrogance by candlelight. Just for fun. Or listen to Julian Glover reading it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5AoZY6a_kE

My Last Duchess

That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said
“Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not
Her husband’s presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek; perhaps
Fra Pandolf chanced to say, “Her mantle laps
Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat.” Such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart—how shall I say?— too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, ’twas all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace—all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men—good! but thanked
Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech—which I have not—to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, “Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark”—and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse—
E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master’s known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

Robert Browning


Saturday 8 February 2020

My favourite poems VIII: W J Turner, Romance

Another of my favourite poems. Poetry can be intellectual or it can be a gut thing. As a child I never understood this one, and as an adult I still don't understand it, but it still gets me every time. I only have to hear "Popocatapetl" and I am jelly.

Romance


When I was but thirteen or so
  I went into a golden land,
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
  Took me by the hand.

My father died, my brother too,
  They passed like fleeting dreams,
I stood where Popocatapetl
  In the sunlight gleams.

I dimly heard the master's voice
  And boys far-off at play,—
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
  Had stolen me away.

I walked in a great golden dream
  To and fro from school—
Shining Popocatapetl
  The dusty streets did rule.

I walked home with a gold dark boy
  And never a word I'd say,
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
  Had taken my speech away.

I gazed entranced upon his face
  Fairer than any flower—
O shining Popocatapetl
  It was thy magic hour:

The houses, people, traffic seemed
  Thin fading dreams by day;
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi,
  They had stolen my soul away!

W.J.Turner

Thursday 6 February 2020

My Favourite Poems VII: Stevie Smith


Another poem. Again, another lesson so cheery I could weep.

Alone in the woods


Alone in the woods I felt
The bitter hostility of the sky and the trees
Nature has taught her creatures to hate
Man that fusses and fumes
Unquiet man
As the sap rises in the trees
As the sap paints the trees a violent green
So rises the wrath of Nature's creatures
At man
So paints the face of Nature a violent green.
Nature is sick at man
Sick at his fuss and fume
Sick at his agonies
Sick at his gaudy mind
That drives his body
Ever more quickly
More and more
In the wrong direction.

Stevie Smith

Tuesday 4 February 2020

My favourite poems VI: Seamus Heaney

Another poem. I've read many attempts to analyse this, mostly concluding that it's about the need not to be sentimental when living in the country. I think that rather ignores the blindingly obvious hint of the title. You don't purge animals, you purge people. You start with small cruelties and you end up herding children into gas chambers.

The Early Purges 

I was six when I first saw kittens drown.
Dan Taggart pitched them, 'the scraggy wee shits',
Into a bucket; a frail metal sound,

  Soft paws scraping like mad. But their tiny din
  Was soon soused. They were slung on the snout
  Of the pump and the water pumped in.

'Sure, isn't it better for them now?' Dan said.
Like wet gloves they bobbed and shone till he sluiced
Them out on the dunghill, glossy and dead.

  Suddenly frightened, for days I sadly hung
  Round the yard, watching the three sogged remains
  Turn mealy and crisp as old summer dung

Until I forgot them. But the fear came back
When Dan trapped big rats, snared rabbits, shot crows
Or, with a sickening tug, pulled old hens' necks.

  Still, living displaces false sentiments
  And now, when shrill pups are prodded to drown
  I just shrug, 'Bloody pups'. It makes sense:

'Prevention of cruelty' talk cuts ice in town
Where they consider death unnatural
But on well-run farms pests have to be kept down.

Seamus Heaney

Sunday 2 February 2020

My Favourite Poems V: R S Thomas

It's Sunday so why not have a poem by a vicar? This is not the most complimentary poem about the land of my mothers, but it does sum up what I've been intensely aware of, ever since I moved back here in 1983.

Welsh Landscape

To live in Wales is to be conscious
At dusk of the spilled blood
That went into the making of the wild sky,
Dyeing the immaculate rivers
In all their courses.
It is to be aware,
Above the noisy tractor
And hum of the machine
Of strife in the strung woods,
Vibrant with sped arrows.
You cannot live in the present,
At least not in Wales.
There is the language for instance,
The soft consonants
Strange to the ear.
There are cries in the dark at night
As owls answer the moon,
And thick ambush of shadows,
Hushed at the fields' corners.
There is no present in Wales,
And no future;
There is only the past,
Brittle with relics,
Wind-bitten towers and castles
With sham ghosts;
Mouldering quarries and mines;
And an impotent people,
Sick with inbreeding,
Worrying the carcase of an old song.

R S Thomas


Thursday 30 January 2020

My favourite poems IV: George Herbert

I am not religious. I don't pray. I know a lot of Christians who do and I'm not sure what they get out of it. Sometimes it seems to be a shopping list of requirements, sometimes a request for an answer confirming what they've already decided, sometimes a buttering up of a strangely narcissistic God, sometimes just ritual. George Herbert managed to come up with a definition that makes it far more meaningful. And I love the way the poem is just a string of mystical metaphors.
I'll post this one today, because this, of all days, needs all the prayers going as the doors slam shut.

Prayer 

Prayer the Church’s banquet, angels’ age,
  God’s breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
  The Christian plummet sounding heaven and earth;
Engine against the Almighty, sinner’s tower,
  Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
The six-days-world-transposing in an hour,
  A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;
Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,
  Exalted manna, gladness of the best,
Heaven in ordinary, man well dressed,
  The milky way, the bird of paradise,
Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul’s blood,
  The land of spices; something understood.

George Herbert

Monday 27 January 2020

My favourite poems III: escape

Another poem, which everyone knows. If, like me, you are sitting for hours on a hard hospital chair, waiting for a bed to become available for your mother, the thought of being anywhere else at all is wonderful.
It also taught me how to use rhythm to paint a picture.
I do wonder, though, how a rowed ship owned by Nineveh (access Persian Gulf) can make it from Ophir (possibly Sri Lanka or Red sea port) to Palestine (Mediterranean) before the building of the Suez canal. This sort of thing worries me.

Cargoes

Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,
With a cargo of ivory,
And apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.

Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,
With a cargo of diamonds,
Emeralds, amethysts,
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rails, pig-lead,
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.

John Masefield

Saturday 25 January 2020

My Favourite Poems II

Here's another poem, which is an entire Dystopian/Utopian novel in miniature, by Edwin Muir. Very green.

The Horses

Barely a twelvemonth after
The seven days war that put the world to sleep,
Late in the evening the strange horses came.
By then we had made our covenant with silence,
But in the first few days it was so still
We listened to our breathing and were afraid.
On the second day
The radios failed; we turned the knobs; no answer.
On the third day a warship passed us, heading north,
Dead bodies piled on the deck. On the sixth day
A plane plunged over us into the sea. Thereafter
Nothing. The radios dumb;
And still they stand in corners of our kitchens,
And stand, perhaps, turned on, in a million rooms
All over the world. But now if they should speak,
If on a sudden they should speak again,
If on the stroke of noon a voice should speak,
We would not listen, we would not let it bring
That old bad world that swallowed its children quick
At one great gulp. We would not have it again.
Sometimes we think of the nations lying asleep,
Curled blindly in impenetrable sorrow,
And then the thought confounds us with its strangeness.
The tractors lie about our fields; at evening
They look like dank sea-monsters couched and waiting.
We leave them where they are and let them rust:
'They'll molder away and be like other loam.'
We make our oxen drag our rusty plows,
Long laid aside. We have gone back
Far past our fathers' land.
And then, that evening
Late in the summer the strange horses came.
We heard a distant tapping on the road,
A deepening drumming; it stopped, went on again
And at the corner changed to hollow thunder.
We saw the heads
Like a wild wave charging and were afraid.
We had sold our horses in our fathers' time
To buy new tractors. Now they were strange to us
As fabulous steeds set on an ancient shield.
Or illustrations in a book of knights.
We did not dare go near them. Yet they waited,
Stubborn and shy, as if they had been sent
By an old command to find our whereabouts
And that long-lost archaic companionship.
In the first moment we had never a thought
That they were creatures to be owned and used.
Among them were some half a dozen colts
Dropped in some wilderness of the broken world,
Yet new as if they had come from their own Eden.
Since then they have pulled our plows and borne our loads
But that free servitude still can pierce our hearts.
Our life is changed; their coming our beginning.
Edwin Muir

Thursday 23 January 2020

My favourite poems I

I'm going to share my favourite poems, just because I feel like it.


This one, because I spent a particularly beautiful day in Laugharne this year, although I saw no herons or cockle-women. And I am long past being thirty.

POEM IN OCTOBER

It was my thirtieth year to heaven
Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
And the mussel pooled and the heron 
Priested shore
The morning beckon
With water praying and call of seagull and rook
And the knock of sailing boats on the webbed wall
Myself to set foot
That second
In the still sleeping town and set forth.

My birthday began with the water-
Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
Above the farms and the white horses
And I rose
In a rainy autumn
And walked abroad in shower of all my days
High tide and the heron dived when I took the road
Over the border
And the gates
Of the town closed as the town awoke.

A springful of larks in a rolling
Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
Blackbirds and the sun of October
Summery
On the hill's shoulder,
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
To the rain wringing
Wind blow cold
In the wood faraway under me.

Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
And over the sea wet church the size of a snail
With its horns through mist and the castle
Brown as owls
But all the gardens
Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales
Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.
There could I marvel
My birthday
Away but the weather turned around.

It turned away from the blithe country
And down the other air and the blue altered sky
Streamed again a wonder of summer
With apples
Pears and red currants
And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's
Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
Through the parables
Of sunlight
And the legends of the green chapels

And the twice told fields of infancy
That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.
These were the woods the river and the sea
Where a boy
In the listening
Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy
To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.
And the mystery
Sang alive
Still in the water and singing birds.

And there could I marvel my birthday
Away but the weather turned around. And the true
Joy of the long dead child sang burning
In the sun.
It was my thirtieth
Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.
O may my heart's truth
Still be sung
On this high hill in a year's turning.

Dylan Thomas