Sunday, 26 May 2013

Days of Wine and Rose - cars and cats more like!

The flower bed we're creating where the old shrubs and fence used to be is at last beginning to fill out (long term readers will recognize the evil hedge, slightly reduce by last year's cut back, but growing merrily again now and already the view has disappeared, sigh).

The garden is doing it's best to compensate. I remembered to plant tulips and alliums (spell checker wants to change these to valiums apparently), Ladies' Mantel is spreading around the pots that didn't get planted or lost out to the snow, and the pretty evergreen clematis is flowering obligingly at last. Peonies are looking hopeful too, as are the roses I was given last year for my birthday. I've still about 10 foot of border to fill in and deal with - mostly hiding behind a variegated laurel whose days are numbered; time is short so I do what I can.

Found this sonnet whilst looking for something else. The joy of Shakespeare: one's never read it all. Living, as I do, in an academic household, browsing a bookcase or a website often turns up hidden or forgotten gems. So many people seemed to enjoy last post's poetry - I had several emails as well as the comments, so I include this for them:

SONNET 15

When I consider every thing that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment,
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;
When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheered and cheque'd even by the self-same sky,
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state out of memory;
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay,
To change your day of youth to sullied night;
And all in war with Time for love of you,
As he takes from you, I engraft you new.

William Shakespeare 1564-1616

Back to reality, the car, which I've been delighted with up till now, has developed a fault that is draining the battery. Now I may be uncharitable here, but why does H saying ' I tried everything last night to turn the radio off whilst the satnav was on', fill me with suspicion. Of course, it's bank holiday so it'll be Tuesday before I can do anything, Daughter's away at her in-laws and there's no point getting Green flag out again as I had to at B&Q this morning, as it charges whilst driving and discharges again within half-an-hour of parking. Any trip to the Flea Fair tomorrow will have to be done on Shank's pony.

This is the car park field for Three Counties Showground - about a ten minute walk away - and all uphill on the way home so no buying anything heavy! Bredon Hill and the start of the Cotswolds in the background.

The weather is lovely. (Here's Worcester Cathedral drowsing in misty sunshine about 10 miles away - how green everything looks in between.) Which brings me back to the garden where I should really be shredding branches and power washing the deck......

As I was typing strange sounds alerted me to the visiting cat being comprehensively sick on the top landing - he's already tried the hall and the conservatory. Off to don the rubber gloves again.....

I think I'm going to give up and put my feet up and knit. Just finished this, and a hairy monkey which I'll try and remember to photograph. I'm also busy making felt bunnies from Alicia's pattern - there are patterns for a whole wardrobe and I have several small girls with birthdays to cater for!

Hoping too to knit Little Cotton Rabbits from Julie (this is the one I already have that Julie herself knitted)

and currently knitting a cotton cardi, and trying to finish a Tana lawn dress which has a problem with the sleeve pattern. Now if someone else would just deal with the garage, the cat, tonight's supper and M's pyjamas, I might get somewhere (oh, and could they power wash the deck too?).

Hope your weekend is going rather more successfully.

When I consider every thing that grows (Sonnet 15)

by William Shakespeare

When I consider every thing that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment.
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment.
When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheerèd and checked even by the self-same sky,
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state out of memory;
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay,
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
Where wasteful Time debateth with decay
To change your day of youth to sullied night;
And all in war with Time for love of you,
As he takes from you, I engraft you new.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20313#sthash.6PqMAzQu.dpuf

When I consider every thing that grows (Sonnet 15)

by William Shakespeare

When I consider every thing that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment.
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment.
When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheerèd and checked even by the self-same sky,
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state out of memory;
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay,
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
Where wasteful Time debateth with decay
To change your day of youth to sullied night;
And all in war with Time for love of you,
As he takes from you, I engraft you new.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20313#sthash.6PqMAzQu.dpuf

Friday, 3 May 2013

A. E. Housman (1859–1936). A Shropshire Lad. 1896.

II. Loveliest of trees, the cherry now


LOVELIEST of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

This spring has been worth waiting for hasn't it? The blossom is terrific. I can't but agree with Houseman, though I haven't fifty springs to look forward to, it is the loveliest of trees when in full blossom.

I've always liked 'Carpe Diem' poetry. We should seize the day whenever we can. The most famous must surely be Andrew Marvell's (1621-1678) To His Coy Mistress, a poem I first heard when a teenager and have returned to and often quoted since. (Times winged chariot seems to be frequently at our backs in this house). The delightful Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May by Robert Herrick (1591-1674) with its subtitle (To The Virgins To Make Much of Time), is another favourite. I'd forgotten this poem by Ernest Dowson (1867-1900) - not a poet who is well known these days but we all know the phrase at the start of the second stanza. The title is not Days of Wine and Roses, but the rather more erudite:

Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetat Incohare Longam (The brief sum of life forbids us the hope of enduring long - Horace)

Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetat Incohare Longam

by Ernest Dowson
The brief sum of life forbids us the hope of enduring long. –Horace

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter, 
Love and desire and hate: 
I think they have no portion in us after 
We pass the gate. 

They are not long, the days of wine and roses: 
Out of a misty dream 
Our path emerges for a while, then closes 
Within a dream.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20246#sthash.uTEJ8Tv8.dpuf

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate;
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.

Dowson also gives us the wonderful line 'I called for madder music and for stronger wine' in his poem Cynara.

If you were thinking 'Carpe diem' poetry has gone out of fashion since the Cavaliers, the Metaphysicals and the languid Victorians, Robert Frost and this lovely poem by Sara Teasdale (amongst others) take us into the 20th Century. But the contempory poem that set me off on this train of thought is here It's called You Can't Have It All by Barbara Ras. It won't paste from that site but do go and read it if you've time

And when adulthood fails you,
you can still summon the memory of the black swan on the pond
of your childhood, the rye bread with peanut butter and bananas
your grandmother gave you while the rest of the family slept. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15239#sthash.5nX1WXlz.dpuf

Spend all you have for loveliness, Buy it and never count the cost; For one white singing hour of peace Count many a year of strife well lost, And for a breath of ecstacy Give all you have been, or could be. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20724#sthash.S4cnOza1.dpuf

Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetat Incohare Longam

by Ernest Dowson
The brief sum of life forbids us the hope of enduring long. –Horace

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter, 
Love and desire and hate: 
I think they have no portion in us after 
We pass the gate. 

They are not long, the days of wine and roses: 
Out of a misty dream 
Our path emerges for a while, then closes 
Within a dream.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20246#sthash.3DR0PQ65.dpuf

Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetat Incohare Longam

by Ernest Dowson
The brief sum of life forbids us the hope of enduring long. –Horace

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter, 
Love and desire and hate: 
I think they have no portion in us after 
We pass the gate. 

They are not long, the days of wine and roses: 
Out of a misty dream 
Our path emerges for a while, then closes 
Within a dream.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20246#sthash.3DR0PQ65.dpuf

Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetat Incohare Longam

by Ernest Dowson
The brief sum of life forbids us the hope of enduring long. –Horace

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter, 
Love and desire and hate: 
I think they have no portion in us after 
We pass the gate. 

They are not long, the days of wine and roses: 
Out of a misty dream 
Our path emerges for a while, then closes 
Within a dream.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20246#sthash.3DR0PQ65.dpuf