News From Nowhere

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chloral, Cotswolds, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Guinevere, hollyhocks, Janey Morris, Julia Margaret Cameron, Kelmscott, La Belle Iseult, Lancelot, mille-fleurs, shape-changers, Topsy, William Morris

(The Parting of Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere

by Julia Margaret Cameron)

 

Since I live in the vicinity of Kelmscott now, here is an

old poem, re-blogged…

 

William:

I raised a latch of a door in the wall

and immediately knew this was home.

The garden’s rosy superabundance

was a mille-fleurs embroidery stitching

raucous cawing of rooks from those high elms, the

swifts wheeling, doves’ cooing and blackbird song.

A mulberry tree was central. Pastel

hollyhocks nodded their welcome and men

scythed reeds and floated them down the river

under the willow trees’ gray-green flickers.

Lead waterspouts were limply supported

from the mellow masonry and woodworm

pricked the panelling. I felt not sadness,

but a beauty born of melancholy.

Leaving my charcoal overcoat downstairs,

I inspected the quaint garrets where once

tillers and herdsmen slept under the eaves.

The sloping floorboards creaked under my feet.

I realised she had never loved me.

How could she? Women are all shape-changers.

This house is an E with its tongue cut out,

so it will never prattle its scandal.

Betrayal’s woven in its tapestries:

Samson with his eyes gouged out for his love.

Please, dear Janey, be happy…I cannot

paint you, but I love you – and now leave you.

Janey:

Some called it amitie amoureuse.

They dubbed me Guenevere, La Belle Iseult.

Once in this lost riverland, out of depth,

we drowned in our adulterous passion.

I heard carriages arriving at night,

so the cob’s harsh hooves had to be silenced

by leather shoes. I had no energy

when William was here, but took long walks

with Gabriel, who said our leaky punt

was not a poetic locomotion.

I keep my thoughts locked in my casket

in my bedroom. It was kind of Topsy

to bring me back that fine Icelandic smock.

Gabriel said it served his purposes well.

When they had Mouse the babes were not tiresome,

but Jenny’s impairment grows every day.

Tomorrow someone must trim the dragon.

In the studio I hear faint crying

over a stillborn child. He took chloral,

alcohol and would stay awake till five.

What was I to do with his exhumed verse?

Sir Lancelot had welded us as one.

I suppose I never loved him at all.

Tonight I left a pansy in Blunt’s room.

I am past sobbing that he does not come.

Sleeping Dogs

Tags

Big Ben, Bishop's Move, Camelot, How To Handle a Woman, I Loved You Once in Silence, If ever I would leave you, Lancelot, non-PC, Royal School of Church Music, sleeping dogs, The Lusty Month of May, Timex, Today programme

Diana, Dru and Gus sat in that hostelry which was run by a dyslexic

landlord, namely, The Running Sore and digested their two course

meal.

It had been a special midweek offer: a discount if orders were taken

before seven pm.

They had slid into a corner table two minutes before the deadline, only

to be told that it was two minutes past.

Gus summoned mein host, who couldn’t tell the time anyway, but he was

soon persuaded that Mr Snodbury’s watch was regulated every morning by

Big Ben‘s chimes before the Today programme and that the school bell was

synchronised by this ancient timepiece- Snod’s Timex, that is.

Okay, okay, you can have the special offer, he conceded.  There was no

point in arguing with a bunch of teachers, or they who must be obeyed.

They were too used to getting their own way.

He clawed back the reduction by substituting a cheaper bottle of house

red and they didn’t notice.

Well, we’ve missed the funeral, sadly, Gus said.

Yes, but we can go down next week and make an appointment to see

the solicitors.  Also, Aunt Augusta wants to be taken out again, remarked

Dru, somewhat ruefully.

I suppose so.  She never even commented on me going to see him with

Berenice when I was little, Gus said a little bitterly.

She’s old now.  It was a long time ago and she’s forgotten, soothed Diana.

Better let sleeping dogs lie, she advised.

Mum, can you manage your removal on your own?  Have you got storage

arranged?

I’ve got Bishop’s Move- that removals firm that sounds like a chess

strategy. They do everything for you.  I’m going to put everything into a

secure barn near Suttonford. Don’t worry.  You go with your father.

The Royal School of Church Music, hmmm.  He was musical then.  I must

have taken after him.  Snod looked down.  He looked pensive, but he

had just noticed a soup stain on his tie.

He should have heard you take the lead role in Camelot, said Diana.  ‘If

Ever I should Leave you’-such a moving song.  He would have been so

proud of you.

‘Would’.  ‘Would leave you’. That was Lancelot’s song, Snod corrected her.

Yes, but you would have sung it even better.

He let it go.

It’s a blessing that Berenice is gone in a way, Dru observed.  What she didn’t

know didn’t hurt her.  I don’t suppose he remembered her in his will.

I loved you once in silence, said Diana.  That was anther good one.

And Snod looked down again.  But this time it was a tear that had stained

his tie.

The Lusty Month of May.. Diana began, but Dru signalled to her to shut

up. It was too much information and at completely the wrong time. How to

Handle a Woman didn’t even come into it.  Those were non-PC times and

Snod was still living in them.  He was one of the Old School.

Surprised By Joy

Tags

agape, Bradford on Avon, C S Lewis, centaur, Cubist painting, Evac chair, Galahad, Inkling, James May, Jeremy Clarkson, jousting, Lancelot, Lothario, Monteverdi, Mr Tumnus, petrol head, Stannah stairlift, Surprised By Joy, The Four Loves, Thora Hird, Top Gear

Nigel Milford-Haven was rushing down the stairs which led to the school

vestibule when he almost bumped into Augustus Snodbury, Senior Master,

who was struggling with two suitcases on the landing.  Nigel was just about

to volunteer to sherpa at least one of them, since Old Snod seemed to be

moving in a curiously painful fashion, but then the erstwhile boy scout noticed

the damsel in distress and offered to take her arm and hold her crutch while

she zoomed down the flight on one of those institutional Evac chairs, like a

marginally more attractive Thora Hird going in the opposite direction to her

usual demonstration of a Stannah Stairlift.

He thankfully failed to observe Augustus’ clutching of his own bruised

and battered crotch as he descended the stairwell like a Cubist painting

in motion.

You know, I think we’ve met, the Junior Master said thoughtfully when he

reached the bottom and unstrapped Dru from the safety belt, in a curiously

intimate gesture of assistance.

Yes, it was at the joint schools’ evensong, Drusilla replied, holding onto

the polished banister with both hands, now that they were free. I teach

at St Vitus’.

Mr Milford-Haven, my daughter, Drusilla.

Nigel nearly lost his footing on the last step.  Daughter!  He hadn’t known

that Snod was a married man.  Oh, maybe he wasn’t!  Nigel knew that he,

himself, was rather conventional when it came to that sort of thing.  But who

would have guessed that Old Snod had hidden fires.  Maybe he was a

widower?

Nigel had always viewed Gus as a kind of non-Christian Inkling, if that wasn’t

an oxymoron.  He would ask Matron, Fount of All Information, if she had any

inkling about it. (He was rather pleased with that joke.)

Hmm, Snod as Lothario! Mind you, he was a law unto himself. He had been

known to skip Assembly and Hymn Practices when the Spirit did not move him,

so any level of debauchery was theoretically possible.

Now that he was able to glimpse the woman, she did bear a resemblance

around the jawline.  Did women have jowls?  Would it have mattered to C S

Lewis if they did?  He would probably have still married anyone who needed

a British passport, out of sheer agape.

But it was one of the stronger Four Loves than agape that struck the youthful

form teacher.  He felt Surprised By Joy.

Enchante, he said in his best Franglais. You do seem to have been in the

wars somewhat. I trust that the injury is not too severe?  He shook her hand

vigorously, forgetting that her equilibrium was not yet steady.

He glanced at Snod, but decided to say nothing about the old boy’s

wounded expression.

Let me carry your cases out to your car, sir, he offered in his new-found role

as Sir Galahad.  You look as if someone has kicked you in the..

Yes, all right, Milford-Haven, Snod interrupted, nodding towards Dru, to remind

Nigel that he was in the presence of a female.  Sir Galahad and Lancelot

would not have been employing such non-courtly language, so Snod wasn’t

about to award his daughter as jousting prize to a Knight with No Garter of

Gentilesse.

Having safely stowed Snod behind his own steering-wheel, like Polonius behind

an arras, Nigel carefully took Dru’s crutches from her and placed them in the

boot.

Going anywhere nice then? he enquired, according to the textbook of chat-up

lines.

We are going to my mother’s house in Bradford-upon-Avon, she volunteered.

It’s to be a nice surprise.

Well, that is a surprise indeed, said Nigel, who was completely on the ball

now that the term was over.  You see, I’m going to Bath with Mr Poskett,

the choirmaster, to take part in a Monteverdi workshop for countertenors.

Perhaps you could all come to the final concert on the Saturday?  He felt in

his pocket and took out a crumpled flyer.

Drusilla accepted it and couldn’t help thinking that her father should join

the class as his voice had been elevated by a couple of octaves after the

attack on his crown jewels.  However, she suppressed this amusing thought.

Can’t say it’s my cup of tea, said Gus, winding down the car window and

signalling his eagerness to depart.

Having helped Dru to swivel her fairly attractive legs into the small car, Nigel

mimed a telephone call as Gus reversed.

Call me, he shouted enthusiastically.  The number of the music school is on

the back of the leaflet.

He leapt out of reach of a spray of gravel as Snod pretended to be James May,

or Jeremy Clarkson.  He was showing off to his daughter, who actually

detested Top Gear and all it stood for.  She preferred centaurs to petrol

heads.

I’m surprised that he’s lasted more than a term here, said Snod, a shade

ungraciously, given the logistical assistance that they had just been given.

But Dru had always found the counter tenor voice very alluring.

What is he called? she asked airily.  I didn’t catch his name.

Secretly he reminded her of Mr Tumnus.  Bless!

News from Nowhere

Tags

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Guenevere, Guinevere, Janey, Kelmscott, La Belle Iseult, Lancelot, Si Je Puis, Topsy, William Morris

William:

I raised a latch of a door in the wall

and immediately knew this was home.

The garden’s rosy superabundance

was a mille-fleurs embroidery stitching

raucous cawing of rooks from those high elms, the

swifts wheeling, doves’ cooing and blackbird song.

A mulberry tree was central. Pastel

hollyhocks nodded their welcome and men

scythed reeds and floated them down the river

under the willow trees’ gray-green flickers.

Lead waterspouts were limply supported

from the mellow masonry and woodworm

pricked the panelling. I felt not sadness,

but a beauty born of melancholy.

Leaving my charcoal overcoat downstairs,

I inspected the quaint garrets where once

tillers and herdsmen slept under the eaves.

The sloping floorboards creaked under my feet.

I realised she had never loved me.

How could she? Women are all shape-changers.

This house is an E with its tongue cut out,

so it will never prattle its scandal.

Betrayal’s woven in its tapestries:

Samson with his eyes gouged out for his love.

“Please, dear Janey, be happy..I cannot

paint you, but I love you – and now leave you.”

Janey:

Some called it amitie amoureuse.

They dubbed me Guenevere, La Belle Iseult.

Once in this lost riverland, out of depth,

we drowned in our adulterous passion.

I heard carriages arriving at night,

so the cob’s harsh hooves had to be silenced

by leather shoes. I had no energy

when William was here, but took long walks

with Gabriel, who said our leaky punt

was not a poetic locomotion.

I keep my thoughts locked in my casket

in my bedroom. It was kind of Topsy

to bring me back that fine Icelandic smock.

Gabriel said it served his purposes well.

When they had Mouse the babes were not tiresome,

but Jenny’s impairment grows every day.

Tomorrow someone must trim the dragon.

In the studio I hear faint crying

over a stillborn child. He took chloral,

alcohol and would stay awake till five.

What was I to do with his exhumed verse?

Sir Lancelot had welded us as one.

I suppose I never loved him at all.

Tonight I left a pansy in Blunt’s room.

I am past sobbing that he does not come.

Rest then and rest and think. The floods encroach.

They say the frost has killed all our moorhens.

I’ll try to sleep: si je puis, si je puis..

Morris’s painting La belle Iseult, also inaccurately called Queen Guinevere, is his only surviving easel painting, now in the Tate Gallery. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)