Totus Mundus Agit Histrionem

Tags

All the world's a stage, Bankside, bum bags, Don Paterson TS Eliot prize, groundlings, Hercules, Hermione, Isle of Wight, Jeffrey Archer, London Bridge, plague, Reeboks, Shakespeare, Sir Smile, Southwark, Thames, The Globe, The Wooden O, Winchester geese, Winchester Palace

 

Forgot about this poem which appeared in the Spring Issue of

Poetry Life magazine, 1998.  It was printed on the back cover and

the front cover had a picture of Don Paterson who had just won the

TS Eliot Prize.  So, I was in good company!

With the current Shakespeare celebrations taking place, I thought

I’d better give it another airing.

It was written in July, 1997.

 

TOTUS MUNDUS AGIT HISTRIONEM*

 

(The Globe, July 1997)

 

No kite-picked, severed heads on London Bridge;

no barge with poop of beaten gold, or sails

of purple on the River Thames.  No screams

of baited bears at Bankside, nor whipped whores,

nor the crude cackling of Winchester geese**

by Southwark Bridge- perhaps the stink of drains.

No risk from rat flea plague.  No sign of swans.

But there’s that octagon, that wooden O,

with its fantastic gates and bearded thatch.

I cannot see that flag with Hercules

bearing the world upon his able back.

But, no doubt it is there, or it will be.

No Spaniards landing on the Isle of Wight,

and another Elizabeth still reigns.

It is required that we awake our faith,

for, down below, I see the lineaments

of that first audience, now in Reeboks,

sporting bum bags: a modern cod-piece? No?

It is the heretic that burns the fire;

not she that burns in it, Hermione

instructs the crowd who hears the Irish news.

Helicopters whirr and obscure some lines,

while programme sellers interrupt: Two pounds!

where a penny once secured standing room.

Thousands will trample Jeffrey Archer’s name;

his stone his hope of immortality.

The selfsame sun that shines upon his court

shines on our cottage, but now the dampness

releases the strong smell of new hewn oak.

I think I sense Will’s ghost behind my bench

and trace his footsteps in the dried blood sand.

There’s laughter at the antics of Sir Smile:

hundreds have the disease and feel it not.

The rain falls on the just and the unjust ,

but, as ever, mostly on the groundlings,

who hide their peccadilloes under macs;

on the surface, behave impeccably,

while the elevated in the tarrass

miss the jokes and fall asleep in Act 4,

proving that all is as it was before.

 

*All the world’s a stage

** Prostitutes associated with the area around Winchester

Palace, near The Globe

 

 

Farewell Freshwater Bay

Tags

Arts, Cyllene, Dimbola Lodge, England, Freshwater, Isle of Wight, Julia Margaret Cameron, Lord Tennyson, Recreation and Sports

One last look in the cupboard. Quite empty.

To think I once locked Cyllene in there!

But, on the other hand, it was for Art.

At least she achieved genuine despair.

People always obeyed my injunctions.

I only wanted to arrest Beauty:

Oh, that sweet, sunny-haired little Annie!

How kind of Emily to bring a rose.

She was ever the eye in any storm.

That wretched cow kicked over our coffins

crammed with the household china. I’ll miss those

Freshwater fishermen with staring eyes,

aquiline noses; cobblers’ daughters-and

dear old Alfred posing in my henhouse

as a dirty monk! – That Mermaid headland

and the High Down where we always took our walks.

Dear Charles. Always ready to recite;

ready to receive all those Pomonas,

Aletheas, “his beard dipt in moonlight”,

uncomplaining of domestic clutter;

given to outbreaks of hilarity;

yet willing to suspend his disbelief

and play Lear for conjugal harmony.

Even when I ran through the dining room,

trailing wet pictures, staining our linen

with nitrate of silver, indelibly,

he merely smiled indulgently, dear man!

At one time six men were in love with me:

I’d more poetry than I could deal with.

Charles grimaced when I used those goose wings,

but through my lens they were the props of myth,

of sepia putti and draped idylls:

older husbands are so longsuffering.

I cannot wait to reach Kalutura.

Those silver ghosts will still be hovering,

even in Ceylon. My house will be filled

with rabbits, squirrels, stags. Through the windows

I will hear Charles’ ivory cane tap

on the porch. We are both ready to go.

My last word to you all is, “Beautiful!”

Julia Margaret Cameron (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Julia Margaret Cameron, the Victorian photographer, lived and worked at Dimbola Lodge, Freshwater, Isle of Wight, prior to returning to her husband Charles’ coffee plantation in Ceylon.

(“It may amuse you, Mother, to try to photograph during your solitude at Freshwater.”)- a suggestion by her daughter on giving her a camera.

“The hens were liberated… the society of hens and chickens was soon changed for that of poets, prophets, painters and lovely maidens, who all in turn have immortalised the humble little farm erection.”) J.M.C.

ANNALS OF MY GLASS HOUSE, 1874.