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of human experience ignorance and knowledge a dark nightmare of insanity a fantasy dreamland of colour and extremes a sanctuary of calm modest courage and reason its ancient inheritances bubble up here there and everywhere but never expectedly like the ancient artefacts forever being unearthed from its disinterred bowels disturbed for unceasing growth and expansion a blank face to an unknowing world a world drawn by its magnetic influences evil and benign order shields life and chaos for passivity is the toll of death unceasing in international trade since the thames was spanned in the first century ad though its celtic and bronze age relics disclose origins long before its markets for mammon and stomach evolved into markets of money itself secured by the great bullion hoards of the bank of england the spread of wealth to the north south and west and the hegemony of global finance colonised and all but obliterated the massive river port dense with sea traffic and cargo to the east smithfield market site of st bartholomew s fair an independence derives from the power of its commerce relied upon to this day by the country at large the constitutional monarchy and the national government even such that it retains the character say of an italian city state seafaring begat navigation navigation begat astronomy astronomy begat scientific discovery spurred by francis bacon s novum organum see for yourself at greenwich and wealth led to the cleansing and lighting of streets great building projects magnificent public and institutional buildings churches greater in number than any city in europe a city viewed by canaletto from westminster bridge as italianate masking a wretchedness and poverty on every street corner devastated by german bombs the centre of international trade london became the centre of empire but also a dream of democracy freedom justice mercy and equality before the law standards marred by human trafficking and the bloodthirsty spectacle of those public hangings all over the city as well as at the ancient site of tyburn turner paints parliament on fire 1834 a city that rose again many times from the ashes moscow did you know was rebuilt after napoleon burned it on london ash ash gathered from a rubbish dump at king s cross and inevitably sold for profit food stalls with excrement stored beneath ubiquitous scruffy coffee houses requisitioned for business the city guilds the fairs festivals and street musicians all with echoes to the present day so the story must continue and i must continue to read flowerseller in piccadilly circus see the suffering in her eyes images reproduced from the book 10 comments october 9 2014 by richard wordsworth the lucy poems purpose and spontaneity together are the drivers of the poetical art without one or the other there is no illumination no novelty no muse to reconcile the irreconcilable do not try to analyse the poems interpret them or identify to whom they might refer the poet may not himself know he did not write them as a series he is a mere messenger of the divine a purveyor of the balm which eases the shared agony of human awareness and promises the infinite human love nature longing for home all carry the inner pain of unattainable paradise brought to a near unbearable intensity by his imagery we are shown a beautiful maiden the object of an obsessive love there is no rival for she lives in a remote cottage communing only with nature patiently her sole admirer waits as she blossoms into womanhood destiny though decrees that his passion is not to be consummated nature claims her and subdues her will she dies and they blend in earthly union her human lover is left with the embrace of the meadow in which her body lies though now away he will return and never leave again i strange fits of passion have i known and i will dare to tell but in the lover s ear alone what once to me befell when she i loved look d every day fresh as a rose in june i to her cottage bent my way beneath an evening moon upon the moon i fix d my eye all over the wide lea with quickening pace my horse drew nigh those paths so dear to me and now we reach d the orchard plot and as we climb d the hill the sinking moon to lucy s cot came near and nearer still in one of those sweet dreams i slept kind nature s gentlest boon and all the while my eyes i kept on the descending moon my horse moved on hoof after hoof he raised and never stopp d when down behind the cottage roof at once the bright moon dropp d what fond and wayward thoughts will slide into a lover s head o mercy to myself i cried if lucy should be dead ii she dwelt among the untrodden ways beside the springs of dove a maid whom there were none to praise and very few to love a violet by a mossy stone half hidden from the eye fair as a star when only one is shining in the sky she lived unknown and few could know when lucy ceased to be but she is in her grave and oh the difference to me iii three years she grew in sun and shower then nature said a lovelier flower on earth was never sown this child i to myself will take she shall be mine and i will make a lady of my own myself will to my darling be both law and impulse and with me the girl in rock and plain in earth and heaven in glade and bower shall feel an overseeing power to kindle or restrain she shall be sportive as the fawn that wild with glee across the lawn or up the mountain springs and hers shall be the breathing balm and hers the silence and the calm of mute insensate things the floating clouds their state shall lend to her for her the willow bend nor shall she fail to see even in the motions of the storm grace that shall mould the maiden s form by silent sympathy the stars of midnight shall be dear to her and she shall lean her ear in many a secret place where rivulets dance their wayward round and beauty born of murmuring sound shall pass into her face and vital feelings of delight shall rear her form to stately height her virgin bosom swell such thoughts to lucy i will give while she and i together live here in this happy dell thus nature spake the work was done how soon my lucy s race was run she died and left to me this heath this calm and quiet scene the memory of what has been and never more will be iv a slumber did my spirit seal i had no human fears she seem d a thing that could not feel the touch of earthly years no motion has she now no force she neither hears nor sees roll d round in earth s diurnal course with rocks and stones and trees v i travell d among unknown men in lands beyond the sea nor england did i know till then what love i bore to thee tis past that melancholy dream nor will i quit thy shore a second time for still i seem to love thee more and more among the mountains did i feel the joy of my desire and she i cherish d turn d her wheel beside an english fire thy mornings show d thy nights conceal d the bowers where lucy play d and thine too is the last green field that lucy s eyes survey d 2 comments september 28 2014 by richard wordsworth the prelude whether through personal folly or as a result of the heartlessness of others there are times in the journey of life when desperation strikes when all that ever brought meaning is demolished when existence itself or its worth is called into question and there is no apparent path to healing or recovery no doubt william wordsworth endured such from time to time though his works give no hint that this was the case yet any supposition that he was a pretty poet for pretty places is dispelled upon a reading of his autobiographical epic which came to be known as the prelude for a work of this genius one reading is not enough and its magnitude increases with every visit reaching into the knowledge of ourselves and our experiences and bringing to consciousness permanent truths and realities the poet holds a mystical sway with words for words themselves have a destiny and purpose of their own which he uncovers drawing us back again and again so that they form part of our own being inasmuch as words may be uttered or sung or sculpted the muse may reside as well in music or in the graphic arts to all appearances wordsworth s life was of exceptional advantage there were times of poverty unhappiness and grief his father died when he was twelve and his mother when he was eight but his otherwise idyllic childhood the influences of nature in his beautiful cumbrian birthplace and home sufficient resources to attend grammar school at hawkshead to study at st john s college cambridge and to embark upon a tour of europe single him out as one of the few whom the travails of the times largely bypassed inevitably then his time in france before during and after the french revolution and the reign of terror wrought a soul searching revision of his assumptions about human life its struggles and its relation to nature always his homeland restores him and gives him comfort in the face of such agonies for there he was a participant never do we find him subjected to the whims sufferings and misfortunes he undoubtedly understands and describes in his ceaseless iambic pentameters of blank verse for he is a mere observer an inspired observer but an observer nonetheless here he contrasts with that supreme genius of those same times ludwig van beethoven who was robbed of his hearing the only vehicle for his muse and who persisted in defiance to achieve heights of the soul far exceeding those of helvellyn that so enthralled wordsworth given all the spiritual beauties and calms to which i have been exposed i was once uniquely unexpectedly and momentarily felt uplifted as never before or since in a place displaying a quite different aspect from that in the poet s lifetime westminster bridge grant me the indulgence to quote some lines of the poet lines written with his knowledge of everywhere he had visited and lived in the bustle and variety of london stilted cambridge intoxicating france overbearing alps scotland wales and above all his beloved lake district and its people may i say in all humility that it was the precise feelings he gives voice to that i recognise in my moment of magic i was twenty the sun was setting over the river and i had just emerged from the royal festival hall after watching a recital of a beethoven quartet composed upon westminster bridge 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 this city now doth like a garment wear the beauty of the morning silent bare ships towers domes theatres and temples lie open unto fields and to the sky all bright and glittering in the smokeless air never did sun more beautifully steep in his first splendor valley rock or hill ne er saw i never felt a calm so deep the river glideth at his own sweet will dear god the very houses seem asleep and all that mighty heart is lying still william wordsworth 1802 16 comments august 28 2014 by richard the whisper of the river ferrol sams among the marks of a good novel must be the easy presentation of complexity a seamless treatment of ambiguity and a deceiving appeal to the reader s inadequacies the ones that trail every human being on the remorseless and ineluctable trudge towards inevitable oblivion steady on you will say the whisper of the river is a merry romp through three years of college a bumper joke book if you like with a serious moral to make us think to the extent that it may recount to the reader the misspent youth he never had it represents unfulfilled fantasies and curiosities the social life the first casual sexual encounters the early homesickness the ribald if somewhat infantile humour the improbable pranks the glowing academic achievement the close brush with terminal discipline the admiration sometimes grudging of tutors hidden beneath is a dilemma the subject or is he the object of these experiences porter osborne jr sambo is a raw if resilient country boy of sixteen a devout baptist short bespectacled and studious devoted to his family and to his church with all that his father is an anomalous role model he had gone to the same college his son now attends at his expense is a hard working farmer who keeps his fortunes above the poverty line and is virtuous in many ways except for unexpressed boredom in marriage and family life as a whole college has left him no doubt with this legacy of discontent that is another anomaly the college is a baptist foundation early on the novel comes across as superbly executed and amusing a little flat perhaps with a somewhat tedious concentration on bodies and body functions an obsession that recurs throughout the novel the author was after all a doctor enter boston the negro kitchen hand and all suddenly comes to life boston that s an unusual name what s your last name last name s jones what you mean to say is that s a funny name for a nigger ain t it certainly not i was not taught to use that word well don t get prissy with me jest you saying that tells me more n you think about yo self lessee now musta been raised around a heap of us if the subject came up enough for you to have to be taught spect yo pa be called bossman a heap of times spect yo maw an maybe yo granmaw high bawn ladies if they go to the trouble to teach you that none of yo women folks ever held a hoe handle or done nothing more n a little yard work prolly lay down an stretch out a while after dinner ever day uh huh boy you quality an you raised right on a cotton farm somers tween here n atlanta boston how in the world you know all that gotta watch gotta listen in this ole world boy lemme tell you somepin else my full name s boston harbor jones an that is a crazy name for a nigger before you laugh you tell me how come it ain t funny for a white chile ain t big as a bar of soap after a week s washing be named sambo they laughed simultaneously porter felt better than he had since arriving at willingham such is the introduction of porter s new friend full of gentle irony accurate lucid in the vernacular poetic in conciseness the reader is riveted strength of style and humour coupled with an inventive narrative and acute observation amply compensate for the unlikely the intolerable hypocritical albino blind early roommate whom porter cunningly ousts sex in a dusty tower the fat friend eunice tiny yeomans of the unhappy home life who finds romance the falsely justifiable and improbable pranks like the the thick scattering of toilet paper over the campus in readiness for a vip visit and so many other encounters and adventures porter himself is not to be so readily dismissed he has an independent turn of spirit that often rebels at the start he is prevailed upon to join his father s fraternity but is never comfortable he and tiny after an initial clash had found mutual help in their studies and became firm friends to his eternal credit after calling upon his father to rescue her from financial straits in the third year he then when it comes to a squalid issue with ...
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