THE STABLE DOOR
Red bricked arch
Red rose adorned
Frames the entrance
Bringing enchantment
To meet history
In this secluded pile
Once-stabled steeds
Whinny in wonder
From their equine tombs
And boast of
times when
Bridle bit and brace
Had cause to adorn
These ancient crumbling
Cobwebbed stalls
Long left to nature
And to fate
But now in trust
To a Nation which remembers
And celebrates
Its history
Tu Fu ( or Du Fu), who was born in Gongyi in 712 A.D., was one of the foremost poets of the Chinese Tang dynasty. He and Li Bai, are normally thought of as the greatest of all Chinese poets. He died in Changsha, China, in 770 A.D.
I print below, two of his poems, both, as the majority of his poems, exemplify his intense relationship with nature, wildlife, and with the seasons, even amidst the turmoil of the times in which he lived.
(Both designs are my own pen and wash drawings in an attempt at capturing a Chinese style.)
A Spring View
Though a country be sundered, hills and rivers endure;
And spring comes green again to trees and grasses
Where petals have been shed like tears
And lonely birds have sung their grief.
… After the war-fires of three months,
One message from home is worth a ton of gold.
… I stroke my white hair. It has grown too thin
To hold the hairpins any more.
A View of Taishan
What shall I say of the Great Peak? –
The ancient dukedoms are everywhere green,
Inspired and stirred by the breath of creation,
With the Twin Forces balancing day and night.
…I bare my breast toward opening clouds,
I strain my sight after birds flying home.
When shall I reach the top and hold
All mountains in a single glance?
The dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, London, is an incredible structure, a true work of art in the sense of it being both lovely to look at and requiring incredible precision and workmanship in the design and the construction. Sir Christopher Wren, principal architect, originally produced several different designs for his dome before eventually settling on the one we have today, and of course he used a team of architects, who, through seemingly endless discussion, trial drawings, modelling, and debate, eventually produced this, certainly one of the greatest glories of London. (See photograph below).
From 1710, when the present cathedral was completed, until 1962, St.Paul’s Cathedral was London’s tallest building.
The dome of St.Paul’s is built in 3 sections (see side section view below) …
Stage 1: To the Whispering Gallery; 259 steps. Circles the dome’s interior at 30 metres above the floor of the cathedral transept.
Stage 2: Further up to the Stone Gallery; another 119 steps at 53.4 metres above the ground.
Stage 3: To the Golden Gallery, reducing in size as we get higher . This runs around the highest point of the outer dome. It is 85.4 metres (280 ft) from the cathedral floor below and there are another 150 steps to climb to reach it.
That is a total of 528 steps in all!
Having made the journey to the top of St. Paul’s Cathedral only once in my lifetime, and having also once climbed to the top of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, which claims to have the tallest dome in the world, I found it interesting to make some comparisons between these two domed buildings.
St.Peter’s, Rome, has a height of 448 feet (or 136.5 metres) to the top of its cross. It has 551 steps from the floor of the cathedral to the top of the dome
St Paul’s, London, is 365 feet (or 111 metres); It has 528 steps from the ground floor to the top of its dome.
FOOTNOTE:
On the basis of these figures, I calculate that the average height of the steps of St.Peter’s is approximately 8 inches, whilst the steps of St.Paul’s have an average height of about 8 1/2 inches. So with St.Paul’s having 23 fewer steps to climb, but each one requiring your foot to be raised an additional ½ inch, which steps are the easier to climb? . . . AND ANSWER CAME THERE NONE!
There are several videos on YouTube which will take you up and down these steps to the Dome of St.Paul’s and which give panoramic views of London from the top.
DEMOLITION – Man & Boy
What is my joy in destruction?
Why does it give me a kick?
It grants me a sense of elation;
I once thought I was just downright sick.
As a toddler I remember I wanted,
As soon as a tower I’d built,
Just to knock it all over and giggle
Without any feeling of guilt.
Then when I’d taken up Lego,
I’d just love, after building my farm,
To smash it to bits with my mallet;
Didn’t think I was doing it harm.
And when in a History lesson
I said I’d like to have been
One of those men who wrecked churches and abbeys.
The teacher near ruptured his spleen.
He sent me to see the headmaster,
Saying I must be beyond the pale;
For taking part in such Dissolution
He considered me right off the scale.
They decided I must be a vandal,
And said I would pay for my sins.
Abbeys and shrines were verboten,
I mustn’t wantonly damage such things.
Well, now I’ve left school and I’m happy,
My job suits me down to the ground.
I work hard with great satisfaction,
And no one will push me around.
For now I’m a demolition expert,
I can continue my hobby with pride;
Destruction now is my trade
As on top of a huge truck I ride.
Mechanical shovels and drills,
Excavators and large JCBs,
Bulldozers, cranes and dump trucks,
All these I can manage with ease.
And now that I’m married with children
I watch Joe build towers with his bricks,
Then demolish them with glee and I know
He’s a chip off the old block of tricks.
THE GREAT ORME
In the dewy dawn
Atop the Orme
Pen y Gogarth
Viking Sea Monster
Proud promontory
Welsh trees
Swept
By Irish winds
Farmer
And sheepdogs
Treading
The Trust’s territory
Toiling to
Keep faith with
Our heritage
Husbanding
The headland
Midst these
Stalwart
Tenacious
Welsh warriors
Bowed
But not defeated
Forever
Battling
Tempting
The wind’s torment
All
Inherent
Parts of
This heroic
The Great Orme (Pen y Goggarth in Wesh), named originally by the Vikings as ‘Sea Monster’, is a massive limestone headland which dominates the view from Llandudno on the North Wales coastline. It is a wildlife paradise, now designated as a National Country Park and as a Site of Special Scientific Interest and Heritage Coast Its varied features include rich heathland, limestone grassland and woodland, sheer sea cliffs, habitats which support flora and fauna unique to this area. Rarely seen choughs . and the very rare spiked speedwell are found here, as well as the silver-studded butterflies, which can be found only here on the Great Orme. It is the home also to the fearsomely-horned wild Kashmir goat, as well as a large flock of sheep.
The National Trust has recently acquired Parc Farm here and its grazing rights across the headland. A tenant farmer has now been installed here to oversee the protection of the Great Orme’s fragile landscape and the threatened rare plants, insects and wildlife for the future.
The THREE HARES
Three hares, three ears, How can that be?
Look at the picture you will see.
And yet I know that they have two,
So look again … and so they do.
Chasing each other in a circle,
A never ending race eternal.
This ancient image can be seen
In many places you’ll have been.
In Devon churches they are found,
You only have to look around.
Germany too has these three hares,
You may come across them unawares.
All over Europe and in France
You’ll see them do their threesome dance.
They’re found in China and Japan,
And even in Turkmenistan.
In synagogues and Buddhist caves,
New Age revels and Gothic raves.
In Devon where the tin miner inhabits
They oft are called the Tinner’s Rabbits.
From east to west and west to east,
Along the Silk Road as trade increased.
They travelled wide in many guises,
Large and small, in varied sizes.
Yet no one seems precisely sure;
Why they are there is still obscure.
What does it mean to have three hares
Cavorting with six ears in pairs?
Yet only three that we can see,
It seems an oddity to me.
They can be seen as an illusion,
Which often leads to much confusion.
Or is it just they are a puzzle,
Certain to test your thinking muscle?
Some say they have a great affinity
With the Christian symbol of the Trinity.
Or they the three realms do unite
Earth, Sea and Sky together aright.
Others say they pledge fertility,
And that does have some credibility.
Certainly they are mysterious rarities,
Perhaps these hares were ancient deities.
I don’t suppose we’ll ever know,
It’s a mystery of long ago.
A puzzle with no attribution,
No context and no resolution.
But most of us will think, “Who cares?
Let’s not end up splitting hares!”
LEIGH HUNT (1784–1859) was an essayist, journalist and poet of the Romantic Period in English Literature. Not perhaps one of the leading Romanticists, but he, nevertheless, did much to bring their poetry to prominence in the early 19th century, particularly through his friendships with Shelley, Keats and Byron, and by means of his editorship of the influential literary magazine, The ‘Examiner.’
A short poem of his, which I’ve long enjoyed for its sweetness and simplicity, is Leigh Hunt’s verse, originally entitled ‘Rondeau’, but more generally known as ‘Jenny kiss’d Me’.
This charming poem is said to have been inspired by a meeting, following an illness, with the wife of his friend, the eminent historian Thomas Carlyle.
JENNY KISS’D ME . . . By Leigh Hunt (1838
Jenny kiss’d me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I’m growing old, but add
Jenny kiss’d me.
The lessons of history are all around
Etched on death’s memorial
But who looks at memorials?
The war to end all wars ended
But the peace had not been won
Exchanging eyes
Has not proved a workable proposition
And yet the attempt goes on
And mankind is condemned to try again
To seek an end to conflict
By perpetuating conflict itself
Those lessons from the past
Unlearnt
At best misunderstood
Ignored
And so it continues
The errors of the past
Visited on countless future generations
Fear reigns
And stultifies hope
Because mankind remains
Because mankind will not change
Still comatose
Sleepwalking into conflict again
Again
And yet again
Original sin
Casts its sinister shadow
Over hope
And so
The cycle continues
War and peace
Unfeasible bedfellows
History hardly notices the difference
But we do
And suffer for it
The two illustrations above were scanned from my copy of Holbein’s ‘Le Triomphe De La Mort’ published in
1780 … Etchings of Holbein’s originals by Chr.De Michel
LONDON 2017
In all that bright and glorious sunshine,
amongst those trees, those parks, those sculptural delights,
Hidden below that Impressive skyline,
Beneath and among those imposing sights,
How much deprivation is still concealed
As that which was to Blake revealed?
( Pen and Wash drawing and the accompanying verse above are by WHB)
What was revealed to William Blake as he wandered the streets of late 18th and early 19th Century London, he wrote about in the following poem. It was first published in his ‘Songs of Experience’ in 1794
London . . . By William Blake
I wander thro’ each charter’d street
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow.
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every Man,
In every Infants cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear
How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls
But most thro’ midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse
The APPLEGARTH
When morning
meets my melancholy
I must refocus
dispel my clouds
and reconnect to nature
through her glory
The garth gate invites
pledges enchantment
such memories harboured here
once the cloister garden
of my medieval monastery
now still the repository
of the priory’s peace
ancient orchard
now transformed
but still a place
to rejuvenate the soul
to touch
feel and taste
nature’s serenity
The morning mist
lingered low
over the once fallow fields
then no longer virgin earth
but become thick with apple trees
and those
long gone
and autumn dormant now
awaiting its wheat-carpeted
summer season
The morning advances
only half-appreciated
until the
the priory arch
proud against the sky
bursts through the mist
into the weak sun’s gaze
the veiled sky
allowing
the gathering sunlight
slowly
to prove its strength
and bring clarity
to a waiting world
And The pathway
its ancient course
piercing its length
into the shrouded distance
remembrancer now
of those Augustinian brothers
traversing
this ancient orchard
who with such care
tended nature’s gifts
now bare of fruit
but never fruitless
no longer cosseted
by priestly presence
and full of nuanced context still
For me …
The Applegarth
my own memory
of this sanctified place
sings of golden corn
bordering that arrowed path
where also was
the winning post
the last gasp
of those long-past
teenage
distance running races
marking my triumphs
measuring my success
against the countless strides
I had wrenched
from my straining body
to accomplish
to lead the race
the end of endeavours
signifying my own
my personal
accomplishment.
The Applegarth,
a trope
my metaphor
for my life.
Politics. Humour. Stories. Philosophy. Poetry. And all in randomness within this universe and the next, because why not?
This blog is my creative outlet where I can share my photos, my travels, my random thoughts and a bit of myself.
welcome, welcome, welcome to the world of my perspective.
We're all human here, don't ever forget that. Human-Kind, be both.
thoughts, essays, research and fun from a research librarian
There’s never a right time but always a write time....
A Melange, a Miscellany, a Mishmash - of memories, reflections and comment
Where The Eagles Fly . . . . Art Science Poetry Music & Ideas
Ramblings
At a loss for words, i leave myself on paper.
Here and now, with all of it.
A combination of things created and things lived
This is Your Quest - Your Mission to Find Happiness
Dare To Write | Get Wise
Breaking news and thoughtless commentary on the world.
"Life past, present, thoughts about the future, and ever changing world."
Talking with Buddha
Life in words
Roland's Ragbag 