London

 Once I saw a Devil in a flame of fire.....

In my ongoing attempts to 'improve' myself - which begs certain questions - I am on a train to London reading John Higgs's little book, William Blake Now, a book which endears itself to me on various levels - not least because it raises questions about the self-importance of Tracey Emin.

I say not least, because that really is an unimportant attraction. But not to worry. I am immersing myself in the metropolis for a day or so, 'bettering' myself as I wander (?)

In, London, published in Songs of Experience in 1794, William Blake, wrote:

 

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.

Times change.  These days perhaps we see masks of weakness, masks 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

But that doesn't stop us looking, and taking pictures.....

I am in Tate Britain.  One of the greatest monuments to slavery yet to be torn down.....

Paula Rego (with whom, incidentally, I share a birthday.... yeah, why should you care, though perhaps you will remember it now?) articulates outrage and  echoes some of Blake's concerns:

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

I know little of Blake.....  But I can, and will, learn....  In America, A Prophecy, he wrote:

The Guardian Prince of Albion burns in his nightly tent:

Sullen fires across the Atlantic glow to America's shore,

Piercing the souls of warlike men who rise in silent night.

Q: Would the world be a better place if the likes of Johnson and Raab had read/taken heed of/understood these lines?  

A: Probably not....

I am in Dulwich, trembling at the thought of Mr Farage (who with a schoolboy smirk haunts the place) and his €70K+ pension from the European Parliament to which he contributed so much:

I am here to see a bunch of flowers:

And assorted photos of plants etc.....

But what really interests me is Rembrandt van Rjin's Girl at a Window, who gazes naturalistically at us from 1645 as if the future was a dream:

And then, just by her is Titus, one of Rembrandt's sons, who died soon after this portrait was finished, in 1668, just a year before the master himself expired.  The haunted, slightly pained, expression contrasts with the girl, and reminds us that to every yin there is a yang - to every upper there is a downer.....  

Or so it seems?

 

Back on the street, I think again of Blake's words:

How the Chimney-sweepers cry

Every blackning Church appalls,

And the hapless Soldiers sigh

Runs in blood down Palace walls

And how, just eight years later, Wordsworth would write:

Earth has not any thing to show more fair:

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

A sight so touching in its majesty:

Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

Though to do him justice, he did also write:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;

The World Is Too Much With Us

So, Once I saw a Devil in a flame of fire.......

I call this selfie, Self-immolation, and append William Blake's poem: A Divine Image

Cruelty has a Human Heart,

And Jealousy a Human Face;

Terror the Human Form Divine.

And Secrecy the Human Dress.

The Human Dress is forged Iron,

The Human Form a fiery Forge,

The Human Face a furnace seal'd,

The Human Heart its hungry Gorge.

 

About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;

Musée des Beaux Arts 

(1940)

W. H. Auden 

*****

There is so much to learn, and I have squandered so much time.  

(But some of it has been fun..... and I will dance with Paula Rego and sing with Blake.....)

*****

RSPB Symonds Yat & The Forest of Dean

If you go down to the woods today...

....You just might see a Goshawk! But you will be lucky, as they aren't common, they can fly through dense forest, rather than over it, and they don't really like posing for photographs.  

However the Forest of Dean, in Gloucestershire, is said to have the highest concentration of these elusive birds in England, and these hopeful birders, above, are keeping their eyes peeled from the old slag heap now known as New Fancy.  

The old slag heap, is a link to the industrial past, as the forest has provided coal, iron and other minerals over the centuries, with a tradition of there being freeminers whose rights were granted by Edward I in return for support in his campaign against the Scots.

There is not much industry left, but there are still freeminers, and not that many years ago I took my daughters into the dark of one of the still extant mines, guided by the miner himself.

The past is still with us, and I return from a walk to find that my car has regressed....

But that's the magic of the woods..... The Forest of Dean is bounded on the north and West by the River Wye, 

And falls away towards the Severn Estuary to the South and East.  The forest was also once a hunting ground for Saxon and then Norman kings and, covering about 45 square miles, it is one of the largest areas of ancient woodlands in England.

The ruins of Tintern Abbey, which stand just by the Wye, inspired William Wordsworth, on his second visit, to write Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798.....

For I have learned 

To look on nature, not as in the hour 

Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes 

The still sad music of humanity, 

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power 

To chasten and subdue.—And I have felt 

A presence that disturbs me with the joy 

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime 

Of something far more deeply interfused, 

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 

And the round ocean and the living air, 

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man......

Wordsworth's influence may even have launched British tourism, educating travellers that there was no need to go on The Grand Tour, when there were such sights as this within our isles.

But I digress.  My main reason for revisiting the area is to stand on Symonds Yat Rock for a week, as a volunteer with the RSPB, watching nesting Peregrine Falcons and chatting with others who have come this way.

Although the Rock is on Forestry Commission land, the viewpoint has been regularly attended during the breeding season by the RSPB since the Peregrines returned in 1982.  

Peregrine Falcons are the fastest creatures in the natural world, with the most recent reported highest speed of over 200 mph in steep power dives (stoops) when hunting their aerial prey.  They live on all continents except Antarctica, and are no longer endangered, but the use of organochloride pesticides such as DDT in the 1950s indirectly led to a serious decline in numbers, with approximately 80% of the UK population being lost.  They were recorded in this area in the Domesday book, and have been continuously nesting on limestone cliffs over the Wye near Symonds Yat since 1982, after an absence of 30 years.

In 1983 a pair tried to breed here, but someone abseiled down the cliff face and stole their eggs, so the following year the RSPB mounted a round-the-clock watch on the site. Since 1986 a progression of pairs have bred here with an average of two fledglings surviving each year.

The RSPB now tries to have a representative on the Rock every day, pointing the birds out to visitors and sharing views through binoculars and telescopes.  It is still a respectable distance from the cliff, and without professional lenses it is very difficult to take portraits of the birds.  I managed the shot above from the meadows by the river below, where you can just make out the female falcon perched on a branch at the top of the cliff.  During my watch I saw them flying and on one occasion the Tiercel (male) flew in a leisurely way pasts me above the river.  Through binoculars I saw him looking at me, an expression on his beak as if to say I know you haven't got your camera ready!

I also regularly saw a pair of Buzzards circling effortlessly over the meadows, 

and watched a Goshawk hunting over the river valley to the north before disappearing into a stretch of pine wood.  Remarkably there was also a Canada Goose nesting in a hole in the cliffs at the same height as the Peregrines.  During my week there was much speculation about how the goslings would fare when the time came to take a leap.  Since they would have to drop well over a hundred feet and then have to make their way through the woods and undergrowth, evading predators like foxes before reaching the river, it seemed unlikely that the choice of nest hole was ideal.  However, the day I left I noted mother goose standing on the edge of the nest hole giving her busy little goslings a pep talk.  And then, suddenly, they were gone.  A minute later and there was a great deal of honking in the woods below.  For ten minutes or so this continued before silence fell, and the woods were quiet. Then, a few minutes later, I witnessed an adult Canada Goose sail across the river with five goslings and another adult in line astern. The rest of the afternoon was spent with one adult in the water, one on the shore and five little balls of fluff playing on the beach and in the shallows!

Peregrines are now doing well in this country, and have adapted to city life, with many nesting on Cathedral Towers and other tall buildings, profiting from street lighting which enables them to hunt later and earlier than in the countryside. There are reckoned to be 1,500 breeding pairs in the UK now, and I have heard that at least seven of these are living in London.

But these are not the only birds to be seen at Symonds Yat.  In between spying on the Peregrine nest, I watched Nuthatches:

Marsh Tits:

Coal Tits:

Dunnocks:

Robins:

and, annoyingly, Grey Squirrels.

The RSPB has two reserves in the area, one at Highnam Woods in the Severn vale, where Nightingales breed, and the other at Nagshead, at Parkend, where Pied Flycatchers and Redstarts live.  Tree nesting Mandarin Ducks are also seen here, 

And the woods are beautiful with bluebells at this time of year.

The forest is full of colour, and life, and is a wonderful natural environment to explore:

Whether you choose to wander:

Or to rest awhile near the river, with a pint of local cider:

After which an ordinary sunset can become a thing of rare beauty!

Who killed the bears?

The Turning World

Poetry walks

Sheep may safely graze on pasture
When the shepherd guards them well.
Where rulers govern well
we may feel peace and rest
and what makes countries happy

The Turning World is the title of an anthology of poems complied by D J Brinley in 1968 when he found, as a young teacher, that there was a total lack of suitable textbooks to interest teenagers in poetry.

At my school, poetry was delivered and consumed in a variety of ways.  At an early stage we were made to memorise The Brook,  in Nigel Molesworth fashion (Peotry is sissy stuff that rhymes.) 

i come from haunts of coot and hern

i make a sudden sally

and-er-hem-er-hem-the fern

to bicker down a valley….

Down with Skool!  

Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle

Though in How to be Topp, Molesworth offers some conciliation to English teachers….

However there are other poems which creep in from time to time there is one which go

Har fleag har fleag har fleag onward

Into the er rode the 600

            There are as well lars porsena of clusium elegy in country churchyard loss of the royal george and chevy chase.  Anything to do with daffodils is also grate favourite of English masters…..

As pupils we were issued with Palgrave’s Golden Treasury, and I still have my copy – it is in remarkably good condition; rarely used, I think a bookseller might say.

So it was that when I became an English teacher myself, the compilation by Mr Brinley was most welcome (pace Palgrave – I do actually treasure it).  I doubt whether I influenced many young minds, but perhaps some of my pupils found words and rhythms in these pages to amuse or console.  I learned that at times the clarity of D H Lawrence worked well:

Climbing through the January snow, into the Lobo canyon

Dark grow the spruce-trees, blue is the balsam, water

sounds still unfrozen, and the trail is still evident.

Mountain Lion

Thomas Hardy’s Christmas: 1924 gave us something to contemplate:

‘Peace upon earth!’ was said.  We sing it,

And pay a million priests to bring it.

After two thousand years of mass

We’ve got as far as poison-gas.

At the going down of the sun...

And T.S.Eliot’s Preludes always led to sparks of creativity:

The winter evening settles down

With smells of steaks in passageways.

Six o’clock.

The burnt-out ends of smoky days….

Red Kite hunting

I did not know it then, but it was Eliot, rehearsing the word burnt, that gave my text-book its name.  In Burnt Norton, the first of  his Four Quartets, written in 1935, he wrote:

At the still point of the turning world.  Neither flesh nor fleshless;

Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,

But neither arrest nor movement…..

Kestrel hunting

One time the world hangs still is the depth of winter, the short days of Christmas in the north, when time seems to stall, and days hardly get off the ground.  There is a sense, just after Christmas, that things have come to a halt; the excesses of the celebrations merge with the darkness and the world seems stuck.  Then, almost suddenly, into the New Year, and days seem to lengthen, the birds seem to sing; the air is more alive…..  Eliot’s theme of air blends with the wood smoke of Burnt Norton’s winter fires, and the dance begins again…..

Sudden in a shaft of sunlight

Even while the dust moves

There rises the hidden laughter

Of children in the foliage

Quick now, here, now, always –

Ridiculous the waste sad time

Stretching before and after.

Peotry (sic) perhaps has had its day – the young, no longer in one another’s arms (though very much online), may not have the time to decipher the codes of learned bards, but the art of composing words into shapes and lines is not yet dead.

There is a green hill....

Wordsworth gave good advice, in Up! Up! My Friend!

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;

Our meddling intellect

Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:-

We murder to dissect.

Enough of Science and of Art;

Close up those barren leaves;

Come forth, and bring with you a heart

That watches and receives.

O still, small voice of calm

So we walk in the turning world, watching birds making the most of air. Winter has not yet done its worst, perhaps, and fortune smiles for a day or two.  While earnest poets compete this weekend for the Poetry Book Society T S Eliot Prize, this year, the fiftieth anniversary of Eliot’s death, amounting to £20,000 for the winner and £1,500 for each of the ten short-listed competitors, we look for poetry in the landscape and wildlife around us.  

Though it is 98 years since the death of Edward Thomas, his words are still alive:

But these things also are Spring’s –

On banks by the roadside the grass

Long-dead that is greyer now

Than all the Winter it was….

While the North blows, and starling flocks

By chattering on and on

Keep their spirits up in the mist,

And Spring’s here, Winter’s not gone.

But These Things Also

The countryside is full of life, and death.  I watch the birds of prey as they scan the fields for voles, unsuspecting lives to take.  

Kestrel hovering

I watch the blackbird as he cleans his beak from wormy residues.  

We scatter flocks of starlings, 

goldfinches, 

fieldfare.  

Larks rise up in alarm, twitter and flit, then fall again to earth.  

Skylark

Pigeons strip the new shoots from the crops; 

Woodpigeon en masse

crows grasp and stab all things they can.  

In the air, flights criss and cross, from late late dawn to early dusk.  The greatest gift, perhaps, is that life goes on.

Words move, music moves

Only in time; but that which is only living

Can only die.

Burnt Norton

Just as we turned for home, I caught a sequence of aerial combat that could have shown real feathers flying, but which, as if to show us how, ended in peace.

Buzzard to Base, tumbleweed, OK?

Bandit on tail

Check six

Locking on, BFM

Dive dive dive

Holding hands?

OK Kestrel, RTB

B-LOC, Bingo

A final image from these walks is these two lovebirds.  Spring is in the air! And poetry is love.....

Jack and Jill Daw

And do not call it fixity,

Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,

Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,

There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where

And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time

Burnt Norton

T S Eliot

However, the final final last word must be Nigel Molesworth's, as he reads to the class from The Burial Sir of Sir John Moore Sir at Corunna Sir (A titter from 2B they are wet and i will tuough them up after.)

Notadrumwasheardnotafuneralnote

shut up peason larffing

As his corse

As his corse

what is a corse sir? gosh is it

to the rampart we carried

(whisper you did not kno your voice was so lovely)

Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot.

PING!

Shut up peason i know sir he's blowing peas at me

Oer the grave where our hero was buried.

(A pause a grave bow i retire and Egad! peason hav placed a dainty pin upon mine seat. Fie!)