Japan link, and poetic thoughts on (not) being in England
honorh has posted her account of the Tsunami and its aftermath in Japan , and I urge you all to read it.
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For no particular reason, today I woke up with a pang and thought that I missed Donna Noble, and her interaction with the Tenth Doctor. Oh Donna, you're still my favourite New Who companion and I suspect will not be dethroned soon. It's not that I love the others less, but you more, to misquote from Brutus who probably never said it anyway, but if Shakespeare writes speeches for you, who cares? Seriously, though. I fell for Donna in The Runaway Bride during the rooftop scene and only loved her more every time she came back on screen. And the dynamic between her and the Doctor was golden. If I can't have more Donna and Ten, I'd love to watch Beatrice and Benedick at least, as as played by Tate 'n Tennant on the London stage, but time and budget are against me, and it is most frustrating.
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It's still poetry month, and my unfulfilled desire for a trip to London as soon as T & T grace the stage of course brings Robert Browning to mind:
Home Thoughts, from Abroad
O, to be in England
Now that April 's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England-now!
And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossom'd pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops-at the bent spray's edge-
That 's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
-Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!
"The first fine careless rapture" is such a great phrase to be used in various contexts. Anyway, that was Browning's sentiment from abroad. A generation earlier, Byron wasn't nearly as homesick when reflecting on England from Italy, and though his was written many years earlier, it almost reads as a parody of the Browning poem. It's witty Byron at his best, from Beppo:
I like on Autumn evenings to ride out,
Without being forced to bid my groom be sure
My cloak is round his middle strapp'd about,
Because the skies are not the most secure;
I know too that, if stopp'd upon my route,
Where the green alleys windingly allure,
Reeling with grapes red waggons choke the way, ---
In England 't would be dung, dust, or a dray.
I also like to dine on becaficas,
To see the Sun set, sure he'll rise tomorrow,
Not through a misty morning twinkling weak as
A drunken man's dead eye in maudlin sorrow,
But with all Heaven t'himself; the day will break as
Beauteous as cloudless, nor be forced to borrow
That sort of farthing candlelight which glimmers
Where reeking London's smoky caldron simmers.
I love the language, that soft bastard Latin,
Which melts like kisses from a female mouth,
And sounds as if it should be writ on satin,
With syllables which breathe of the sweet South,
And gentle liquids gliding all so pat in,
That not a single accent seems uncouth,
Like our harsh northern whistling, grunting guttural,
Which we're obliged to hiss, and spit, and sputter all.
I like the women too ( forgive my folly ),
From the rich peasant cheek of ruddy bronze,
And large black eyes that flash on you a volley
Of rays that say a thousand things at once,
To the high dama's brow, more melancholy,
But clear, and with a wild and liquid glance,
Heart on her lips, and soul within her eyes,
Soft as her clime, and sunny as her skies.
(...)
"England ! with all thy faults I love thee still,"
I said at Calais, and have not forgot it;
I like to speak and lucubrate my fill;
I like the government ( but that is not it );
I like the freedom of the press and quill;
I like the Hapeas Corpus ( when we've got it );
I like a parliamentary debate,
Particularly when 'tis not too late;
I like the taxes, when they're not too many;
I like a seacoal fire, when not too dear;
I like a beef-steak, too, as well as any;
Have no objection to a pot of beer;
I like the weather, when it is not rainy,
That is, I like two months of every year,
And so God save the Regent, Church, and King !
Which means that I like all and everything.
Our standing army, and disbanded seamen,
Poor's rate, Reform, my own, the nation's debt,
Our little riots just to show we are free men,
Our trifling bankruptcies in the Gazette,
Our cloudy climate, and our chilly women,
All these I can forgive, and those forget,
And greatly venerate our recent glories,
And wish they were not owing to the Tories.
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