Cor Cordium

Tags

Adonais, Charles Clairmont, cor cordium, Cricklade, Douglas, dramatic monologue, Holamn Hunt, Isabella and pot of basil, Keats, Lechlade, Mary Shelley, Monty Don, Percy B Shelley, Protestant Cemetery, Robert the Bruce, Rome, Severn Canal, skiff, Thomas Hardy, Thomas Love Peacock, Tripadvisor, Valentine's Day, Walter Raleigh

(P B S’s gravestone in The Protestant Cemetery, Rome.

28/8/04 Author: carptrash  Einar Einarsson Kvaran

transferred from en wikipaedia)

‘Cor Cordium‘ was inscribed on Shelley’s grave and means ‘heart of hearts.‘

Valentine’s Day  seemed an apt time to look into what happened to his

physical heart.

Apparently Mary Shelley kept it wrapped up in white silk and it was

placed between the pages of a book, at her husband’s poem on

Keats: ‘Adonais.‘  It can’t have been the whole organ, so must have been

a sliver which was saved from immolation on the beach at Spezia.

It reminded me of Robert the Bruce’s heart being encased in a lead

casket. It was meant to be taken to The Holy Land, but Douglas failed to

dispose of it there, so it returned to Scotland.

Hearts were often removed and, like Thomas Hardy’s, were buried

separately from the rest of the remains.

It is rather ghoulish to ponder on what Isabella had in her pot of basil,

or what Walter Raleigh’s widow carried around with her in a leather bag.

Yes, sometimes it was a head and not a heart.  People can be weird.

(I don’t know what you have to feed basil, the herb, with, but I never

seem to  have any luck with growing it in a pot.  Isabella seemed to be

quite successful, judging by Holman Hunt’s painting, but I don’t think

Monty Don would prescribe such an extreme compost.)

Anyway, my next dramatic monologue references Mary, in later life,

meditating on their September voyage up the Thames, in the

company of Charles Clairmont and the novelist Thomas Love Peacock.

They failed to reach Cricklade and the source of the river and, in any

case, did not have the £20 to pay the navigation fee for their skiff to

enter The Severn Canal.  So, they stayed two nights in Lechlade and

P B S ( pernicious bowel syndrome- not) wrote a poem in the

churchyard there.

Peacock called the inn ‘comfortable‘ so it would have had a good review

on ‘Tripadvisor,’ had such a site had been in existence.

The day before yesterday I traced the hostelry in which they stayed and

viewed a bedroom which MIGHT have been the one in which they lodged.

Then I walked through the churchyard of St Lawrence’s Church to admire

the snowdrops, which they certainly would not have done, their visit

having been in late summer, 1815.

My poem:

Cor Cordium  (a poem on Valentine’s Day)

see next post…

Manners Makyth Man

Tags

assessment objectives, Blue Badge Guide, Camelot, Clueless, Colin Firth, Dr Johnson, Elinor Dashwood, feretory, Harriet Smith, Jane Austen, Keats, Lady Bertram, Mary Tudor, Occam's razor, Ockham's Razor, Ode to Autumn, ossuaries, Philip of Spain, St Cross, Winchester Cathedral, Wykeham Arms

The third and possibly penultimate excerpt from Jane Austen’s musings from beneath the floor of Winchester Cathedral.

Today an insolent hussy stood on my stone and shrieked to her companion:

Wow!  Get a load of this!  We are standing on that woman whose book we had to read for GCSE.  Except that our teacher just let us watch the DVD.  We had to compare it with “Clueless”, to show evidence of certain assessment objectives, but I got mixed up and was marked down.  It was the teacher’s fault.  She shouldn’t have confused me. My mum appealed, though, and I re-wrote that bit where Mr Thingy exits the lake in a wet t-shirt.  Mum said it was really cool.  Later she came here to give thanks for my success and slipped in a couple of prayer requests to The God of Camelot and a personal one that she might meet Colin Firth, with or without his wet clothing.

All of this was expressed in spite of a metal contraption which was attached to her teeth, so that I was as showered with saliva drops and my stone wetted, as if the Bishop had sprayed me with the rosemary twigs he uses at baptisms.  It isn’t always the best spot here, near the font.

But, at least we haven’t sunk to those adult total immersions yet.

Then the young woman proceeded to light a candle for me, muttering about there being no vanilla or blueberry-scented ones available.

Before I could utter the immortal phrase: It is a truth universally.. she was off, determined to see the feretory, as she loved those furry little creatures- or were they meerkats?  Simples is not the word.

Sometimes I raise my eyes to the metal hooks on the vasty pillars whose original function was to display the nuptial banners of Mary Tudor and Philip of Spain.  Since I cannot suspend myself thereby, I resort to turning over in my grave.  Someone should remind these youngsters of the motto of their local college:  Manners Makyth Man.  (And that is a generic, inclusive term.)

I try not to mind when tourists seem more interested in where Keats precisely commenced his walk to St Cross, before composing Ode to Autumn. 

I could easily interrupt the Blue Badge Guide and inform them that he first procured nuncheon and a pint of porter at The Wykeham Arms.  However, like my creation, Elinor Dashwood, I feel like commenting on his Romantic versification:

It is not everyone who shares your passion for dead leaves!

But, maybe this is somewhat scathing, even for me.

I still feel that a sermon well delivered is as rare as hens’ teeth.  The Evangelical varieties seem livelier, though hardly calculated to earn their exponents a succession to a stall in Westminster.

Some of the homilies could do with a firm shave by the venerable Occam’s razor, since they can be as mangled as the regal bones in the choir ossuaries and as dusty as the said receptacles themselves.  They might do well to remember the less intellectually endowed Harriet Smiths of this world, who do not always decipher obscure riddles and charades.  As Fielding said, however:

Clergy are men as well as other folks.

Personally, I have been able to touch and affect a heterogeneous audience and consequently often have more than half a mind to rise and preach myself, though I heed Dr Johnson’s astute aphorisms regarding the fairer sex and sermonising:

A woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hinder legs.  It is not done well: but you are surprised to find it done at all.

I know that I can be eloquent on points in which my own conduct would have borne ill examination.  However, greater opportunity for inward reflection has led me to direct more of my sense of irony towards my own failings.  As the good doctor also said:

As I know more of mankind, I expect less and less of them and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly.

However, I who have gently mocked the aspirations of others have been glad to be sheltered in the bosom of this place, as comfortably as Lady Bertram’s pug upon her chaise, but- prenez soin!  I am sometimes yet inclined to bare my needle sharp teeth and to sink them into some unsuspecting ankles- metaphorically, of course!

Ode to Autumn

Tags

bonfire smoke, car emissions, depression, Keats, lama, leaves on the line, light box, llama, Ode to Autumn, St Crispin's Day, stalactites, Wolford tights

St Crispin’s Day, sighed Brassie, my close-bosom friend.

The nights are drawing in. This weekend we change the clocks,

don’t we?  Which way?

Fall back; Spring forward, I reminded her.

(She can never remember in which direction to adjust her timekeepers.)

Think about it like this: tights down. Tights, as in stalactites.  My teacher said

they hung down.  But people are hanged. She also recited: One ‘l’ lama he’s a

priest; two ‘l’ llama he’s a priest, but you can bet your silk pyjama, there isn’t

any three ‘l’ lllama.

Why should tights hang down?  Wolford ones don’t. And shouldn’t it have

been ‘pyjamas’? remarked Brassie.  Anyway, what are you

talking about?

Just deliberating on my life and how it has fallen into the sere..

You sound a bit depressed, she stated bluntly.

I can’t help the pathetic fallacy of the season.  Keats was too upbeat in my

opinion.

I wouldn’t exactly have called him a glass half full kind of guy, objected

Brassie.

Suppose he had written about Autumn thus, I volunteered, pushing a

sheet of A4 in her direction.

THE FALL

Season of fogs, mouldy putrefaction,

enemy of the geriatric sun,

bringing depression, dissatisfaction,

blasting the mildewed fruit trees, one by one;

tainting blackberries with lead pollution,

eroding limestone buildings as the air

saturates with sulphuric solution.

Emissions from cars, whose owners don’t care

make children’s lungs bloat as they breathe exhaust

fumes more deadly than poppy opiates:

an inspiration of enormous cost-

harvest to be garnered at future dates.

Who has not seen them oft amid their stores,

stockpiling for Christmas, demented folk?

Those raking rotting leaves: of garden chores

the most thankless.  Resulting bonfire smoke

irritating neighbours, whose dank washing

is ash-specked.  Home-brew enthusiasts start

ineffectual sterilising, squashing

of elderberries….It’s then their wives depart

for evenings out, to let men watch the ooze;

they do lotteries with syndicate friends,

hoping for windfalls; drinking decent booze.

Who hears the songs of Spring?  It all depends

to what you are attuned.  If you have kids,

you’ll hear the first whine of the Christmas list,

as children’s advertising makes its bids-

o’erwhelming, so no parent can resist

its importunities.  The dismal rain

fills gutters blocked by aforementioned leaves,

which de-rail, or delay the British train,

which sceptical commuter scarce believes.

Cold, full-grown lambs may bleat from hilly bourn,

outwith the fold, or a housing bubble.

Reaped fields disappear; crops, livestock we mourn.

Winnowing is gone- designer stubble

the only razing we can recognise.

Clearly Men and Nature are out of synch.

Seasonal disorders rise.

If Keats were here, whatever would he think?

I think that is SAD, said Brassie.

Sad?

Yes, the product of Seasonal Affective Disorder.  Go and get a light

box!

Very helpful.  If the Romantics had been persuaded to get a light box,

we wouldn’t have had all that marvellous poetry.

Interesting subject for a dissertation.

Well, why don’t you write it, instead of all that drivel?

Because we might not be amused. How much are light boxes, anyway?

(re-blog from 2013)

Ode To Autumn

Tags

bonfire smoke, home-brew, Keats, lama, lead pollution, light box, llama, Ode to Autumn, Seasonal Affective Disorder, St Crispin's Day, stalactites, Wolford tights

(Another re-blog as I meant to re-post this yesterday, for

St Crispin’s Day, 25th October)

St Crispin’s Day, sighed Brassie, my close-bosom friend.

The nights are drawing in. This weekend we change the clocks,

don’t we?  Which way?

Fall back; Spring forward, I reminded her.

(She can never remember in which direction to adjust her timekeepers.)

Think about it like this: tights down. Tights, as in stalactites.  My teacher said

they hung down.  But people are hanged. She also recited: One ‘l’ lama he’s a

priest; two ‘l’ llama he’s a priest, but you can bet your silk pyjama, there isn’t

any three ‘l’ lllama.

Why should tights hang down?  Wolford ones don’t. And shouldn’t it have

been ‘pyjamas’? remarked Brassie.  Anyway, what are you

talking about?

Just deliberating on my life and how it has fallen into the sere..

You sound a bit depressed, she stated bluntly.

I can’t help the pathetic fallacy of the season.  Keats was too upbeat in my

opinion.

I wouldn’t exactly have called him a glass half full kind of guy, objected

Brassie.

Suppose he had written about Autumn thus, I volunteered, pushing a

sheet of A4 in her direction.

THE FALL

Season of fogs, mouldy putrefaction,

enemy of the geriatric sun,

bringing depression, dissatisfaction,

blasting the mildewed fruit trees, one by one;

tainting blackberries with lead pollution,

eroding limestone buildings as the air

saturates with sulphuric solution.

Emissions from cars, whose owners don’t care

make children’s lungs bloat as they breathe exhaust

fumes more deadly than poppy opiates:

an inspiration of enormous cost-

harvest to be garnered at future dates.

Who has not seen them oft amid their stores,

stockpiling for Christmas, demented folk?

Those raking rotting leaves: of garden chores

the most thankless.  Resulting bonfire smoke

irritating neighbours, whose dank washing

is ash-specked.  Home-brew enthusiasts start

ineffectual sterilising, squashing

of elderberries….It’s then their wives depart

for evenings out, to let men watch the ooze;

they do lotteries with syndicate friends,

hoping for windfalls; drinking decent booze.

Who hears the songs of Spring?  It all depends

to what you are attuned.  If you have kids,

you’ll hear the first whine of the Christmas list,

as children’s advertising makes its bids-

o’erwhelming, so no parent can resist

its importunities.  The dismal rain

fills gutters blocked by aforementioned leaves,

which de-rail, or delay the British train,

which sceptical commuter scarce believes.

Cold, full-grown lambs may bleat from hilly bourn,

outwith the fold, or a housing bubble.

Reaped fields disappear; crops, livestock we mourn.

Winnowing is gone- designer stubble

the only razing we can recognise.

Clearly Men and Nature are out of synch.

Seasonal disorders rise.

If Keats were here, whatever would he think?

I think that is SAD, said Brassie.

Sad?

Yes, the product of Seasonal Affective Disorder.  Go and get a light

box!

Very helpful.  If the Romantics had been persuaded to get a light box,

we wouldn’t have had all that marvellous poetry.

Interesting subject for a dissertation.

Well, why don’t you write it, instead of all that drivel?

Because we might not be amused. How much are light boxes, anyway?

To A Nightingale

Tags

automata, Beijing, Chengde, Copenhagen, emperor, Jenny Lind, Keats, Longevity, mah jong, T'ai chi, Tivoli Gardens

Tiger-Lily was supposed to be revising for some English exams after the

Easter break.  She had been so taken with her school trip to China, however,

that she sat in her room, reminiscing and doodling on her writing pad

before committing some verse to her tablet.

She had always loved Hans Christian Andersen’s story about the Emperor

and the Nightingale and it had left such a lasting impression on her, so that

she had jumped at the chance to visit Beijing and Chengde with her school

and had paid the deposit and had her injections almost before anyone else

in her class could register an interest.

Of course Hans Christian Andersen himself had had to make do with the

chinoiserie of the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen.  His infatuation with a

nightingale was an expression of his attachment to Swedish soprano, Jenny

Lind.  He had been possessed of a fine soprano voice himself, when he was a

boy and had been termed The Nightingale of Odense.

The Emperor had preferred a mechanical, bejewelled bird to the real creature,

until the toy broke down through overuse and the real bird came to sing for him

when he was ill.

Tiger was not au fait with the biographical details behind the story, nor was

she appraised of its suggestions of sexually arrested development.  No, she

just felt the yearning and, being a bright adolescent, she tuned into the

emotions.

Her poem captured a little epiphany that she had experienced in a park in

Beijing and I am glad that I persuaded her to let me publish it for you to

consider, as I think her work deserves a platform, other than being relegated

to a piece of GCSE coursework.

Just wait till she studies Keats!

To A Nightingale

My heart aches at your sad captivity,

trilling bird, lanterned in the barren boughs

of bleak Beijing park, while Longevity

and ancient friends play mah jong.  You arouse

pity.  I know they once emptied the skies,

leaving a silenced world.  Now you may sing,

rara avis, with clipped wings- exercise

in infinite patience.  Once Ching and Ming

emperors tasted your tongues-feuilletees-

and some preferred the clockwork lifelessness

of a gilded toy.  Your rich song allays

grim reality’s round of weariness;

transports old men, ex-army dressed,

T’ai chi practitioners; seekers of calm.

Do creatures sing best with thorns in their breasts?

Or are such notions mere Romantic sham?

Season of Mists

Tags

Germany, Gleneagles Hotel, Golden Spurtle Award, Keats, Peebles, Porridge, Sassenach, Scotland, St Cross, To Autumn, Water Meadows, Winchester Cathedral

World Porridge Day.

You’d better get out there and sow some oats.

Was horrified to learn that The Golden Spurtle Award  for the best porridge in the world has been won by Benedict Horsburgh, an Englishman who now lives in Germany.  This was the 19^th Championship and it is only the second time that it has been won by a foreigner, or Sassenach. Gleneagles’ Head Pastry Chef, Neil Mugg, was one of the judges and he should know a thing or two about that important first meal of the day, as his hotel won Breakfast of the Year Award (Large Hotel), 2012.

Benedict has graciously acknowledged that he is descended from Scottish roots- so that’s all right then!

I can trace my family back to the 1390s to the Peebles area,

he assured journalists.

And you certainly needed something warming for breakfast these last few misty mornings.  The cathedral near Suttonford felt distinctly chilly on Sunday morning and the walk through the Close reminded me of Keats and his poem: Ode to Autumn, which was inspired by his constitutional through the Close and all the way down the water meadows to St Cross.

Some years ago there was a competition to write a poem inspired by Keats and his walk and I felt the Muse nudge me into this mellow entry:

IF FOR A SEASON

Autumnal infernos blaze through the Close;

crimson creepers lick lintels like tongued flames.

Mellow masonry supports one last rose.

Choristers discover old conker games.

You can’t enjoy such salamandrine shows:

except from your grim ward, through heavy panes.

So many youths ago, Keats waxed verbose

about St. Cross, these misty college lanes.

You yearn for those, but Life has reached the sere,

the burnished leaf, and I suspect you know,

so squeeze your hand and try to transmit cheer:

your shrivelled face flushes a phoenix glow.