With Great Pleasure

As a regular listener to Radio Four, I occasionally stumble upon the programme With Great Pleasure.  The presenter, often someone from the acting or otherwise artistic professions, present readings from literature or poetry that most appeals to them.  Similar I suppose to Desert Island Discs, but in this case words rather than music.  As I am unlikely to be invited to present the programme I have opted for second best and decided to write down sections of readings that have some meaning and appeal to myself.

I begin with a relevant poem only coming to my attention in recent times and I think appropriate for a naturalist’s blog.  I was introduced to the works of John Clare in recent years and he has become a favourite poet of mine.  His eye for the natural world around him is, in my opinion, unsurpassed.  Born in 1793 into poverty and in most aspects self-taught, Clare watched in some despair as great changes in society and the countryside occurred around him and this is often reflected in his poetry and other writings.   If any naturalist is seeking the works of a poet to study, John Clare is the man.  Clare’s output of poetry continued during his final years when he was incarcerated in an asylum.  His work runs into thousands of poems,  and he also wrote prose and songs.  I admit I have so far only touched upon the tip of the iceberg.  I have picked out lines for his poem The Nightingale’s Nest and hope readers will seek out the whole poem to read.  This poem gives me the feeling that I am with the author on his quest to find the Nightingales nest, the detail is superb, and it also reminds me of my own awe when on quests to see birds.  I would only add, how important it is not to disturb birds’ nests!   Here, I’ve included the last lines of the poem.

How curious is the nest ; no other bird
Uses such loose materials, or weaves
Its dwelling in such spots : dead oaken leaves
Are placed without, and velvet moss within,
And little scraps of grass, and, scant and spare,
What scarcely seem materials, down and hair ;
For from men’s haunts she nothing seems to win.
Yet Nature is the builder, and contrives
Homes for her children’s comfort, even here ;
Where Solitude’s disciples spend their lives
Unseen, save when a wanderer passes near
That loves such pleasant places. Deep adown,
The nest is made a hermit’s mossy cell.
Snug lie her curious eggs in number five,
Of deadened green, or rather olive brown ;
And the old prickly thorn-bush guards them well.
So here we’ll leave them, still unknown to wrong,
As the old woodland’s legacy of song.

Literature didn’t seem to be given a high profile on the curriculum at my school, but some things have stuck in my mind all these years later, so perhaps I underestimate the teaching I received.  The first book I really remember from schooldays with any detail was The Hobbit written by J R R Tolkien.  At least in part, read to us by Mrs Westgarth as we sat in our portacabin classroom during the first year of junior school.  Who could forget the hobbit, Bilbo Baggins?  One of Bilbo Baggins adversaries was Gollum, a slimy creature also not to be forgotten.  The book brings back very clear memories of hot afternoons in class, being read to.  Gollum was introduced in the following paragraph.

Deep down here by the dark water lived old Gollum, a small slimy creature.  I don’t know where he came from, or what he was.  He was Gollum – as dark as darkness, except for two big round pale eyes in his thin face.  He had a little boat, and he rowed around quietly on the lake; for lake it was, wide and deep and deadly cold.  He paddled it with large feet dangling over the side, but never a ripple did he make.  Not he.  He was looking out of his pale lamp-like eyes for blind fish, which he grabbed with his long fingers as quick as thinking.  He liked meat too.  Goblin he thought good, when he could get it, but he took care they never foundhim out.  He just throttled them from behind, if they ever came down alone anywhere near the water, while he was prowling about.  They very seldom did, for they had a feeling something unpleasant was lurking about down there, down at the very roots of the mountain.  They had come on the lake, when they were tunnelling down long ago, and they found they could go no further; so their road ended in that direction, and there was no reason to go that way – unless the Great Goblin sent them.  Sometimes he took a fancy for fish from the lake, and sometimes neither goblin nor fish came back.

Both Bilbo and Gollum are characters which appeal to both children and adults.  I read the Hobbit many years later as an adult and intend to read it again.

A little later in junior school I was introduced to William Wordsworth’s I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.  I smile to myself when I think how hard it must have been for the teacher to gain the interest of us kids who had priorities, which did not include poetry.  It must have been like knocking rubber nails into concrete.   Still, it must have had some effect on my young mind otherwise I would not remember the lesson so clearly all these years later.  Perhaps because it was around this time in my childhood that I began to visit the Lake District on a regular basis has something to do with these memories.  I visited the house in Cockermouth where Wordsworth spent his early childhood years and of course Dove Cottage in Grasmere.  The poem must be known to most people, and now I have reached the age I have it is the last few lines that I most appreciate.  Your stage of life certainly does influence taste for poetry as with other reading material.

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon the inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

Early in my senior schooling coincided with celebrations in respect of William Shakespeare.  Each pupil was given a Shakespearean play to study.  My teacher, Mrs McAvoy, incidentally the wife of the Union Leader Doug McAvoy who taught at our school too, must have though me a bit of a romantic as I was given Romeo and Juliet.  I envied some of the lads given plays with titles such as Macbeth and Richard 111, but I just had to get on with it.  Shakespeare didn’t mean much to me then, but years later when the Royal Shakespeare Company began to visit Newcastle I was a regular attender at performances.  I must admit it wasn’t the words of the great man that attracted me, but more the atmosphere, the lights and the excitement of live performances.  One of my best experiences was in the front row during a Richard the 111 performance when the lead actor Alan Howard was rattling his chains and making a grand speech.  Thank goodness there was no pandemic then, as his spittle flew all around us.  I really felt as though I was in the performance with the actors.   I saw some great acting and actors at the Theatre Royal including Derek Jacobi, Timothy West, Juliet Stevenson, Donald Sinden, Judi Dench, Alun Armstrong, Bob Peck, Alan Howard who played Richard 111, Mark Rylance as a young man and many, many more.  Shakespeare had an eye for the natural world and the following lines are brilliant.

But, soft!  What light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,

Who is already sick and pale with grief,

That thou her maid art far more fair than she:

Her vestal livery is but sick and green,

And none but fools do wear it: cast it off.

It is my lady; O! it is my love:

O! that she knew she were.

I still have the book of the play that I purchased for five shillings and sixpence at the School of Furnishings in Newcastle in the early 1960s.  I know Mrs McAvoy would be pleased if she knew that!  A lovely woman.

Poetry was to play little part in my life until I began studies with The Open University in the 1970s, when as Harold Wilson had intended, it was really open, and not charging prices out of reach of many as it does now.  I came across a poem by Wilfred Owen, one of the great war poets of the First World War, perhaps the greatest.  Wilfred died in battle on 4^th November 1918, but not before writing some magnificent poetry.  Few words have touched me as much as the words of Dulce et Decorum Est.

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—

Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

    This poem for me says everything about the futility and horror of war.   Having said that I do think at times we have to stand up to and fight.  The world is inhabited by a good number of bullies and psychopaths.   Over the years I have come to appreciate many of the great war poems, but none more so than this one.  This poem made me appreciate the power of poetry, much as my first hearing of the adagio in Mahler’s fifth symphony made me appreciate the power of classical music.  The Latin text translates to, It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.  Who can think that after reading such a poem?

   Edward Thomas was another war poet killed during the first world war, although perhaps better known for his other poetry and writings.  Edward Thomas loved nature, walking and the landscape of southern England, which sadly is so much altered now by agriculture and building.  Perhaps one of his best-known works is the book In Pursuit of Spring in which he describes a walk from his home near London towards the west of England where he gradually finds aspects of spring approaching.  It is a book to be read slowly and the prose enjoyed.  I pick from it a piece that is not nature connected, but nevertheless a wonderful account of a London site seen soon after the author sets out from home.  The situation of the poor man contrasted against the wealthy can be witnessed today and the prose always brings to my mind the lyrics of Ralph Mctell’s Streets of London, a song I was introduced to in the early 1970s.  Nothing is new under the sun.

Once in the intense light of a jeweller’s shop, spangled with pearls, diamonds and gold, a large red hand, cold and not quite clean, appeared from within, holding in three fearful, careful fingers a brooch of gold and diamonds, which it placed amongst the others, and then withdrew itself slowly, tremulously, lest it should work harm to those dazzling cressets.  The eyes of the women watched the brooch: the red hand need not have been so fearful; it was unseen – the soul was hid.  Straight through the women, in the middle of the broad pavement, and very. slowly, went an old man. He was short, and his patched overcoat fell in a parallelogram from his shoulders almost to the pavement.  From underneath his little cap massive gray curls sprouted and spread over his upturned collar.  Just below the fringe of the coat his bare heels glowed red.  His hands rested deep in his pockets.  His face was almost concealed by curls and collar; all that showed itself was the glazed red cheeks and large, straight nose, and the glitter of gray eyes that looked neither to left nor to right. but ahead and somewhat down.  Not a sound did he make, save the flap of rotten leather against feet he scarcely raised less the shoes should fall off.  Doubtless the composer of the harmonies of the day could have made use of the old man- doubtless he did; but as it was a feast day of the gods, not of men, I did not understand.  Around this figure. Clad in complete hue of poverty, the dance of women in violet and black, cinnamon and green, tawny and gray, scarlet and slate, and the browns and golden browns of animals’ fur wove itself fantastically.  The dance heeded him not, nor he the dance.  The sun shone bright.  The wind blew and waved the smoke and the flags wildly against the sky.  The horses curved their stout necks, showing their teeth, trampling, massing rank by rank in cluster, a frieze as magnificent as the procession of white clouds gilded, rolling along the horizon.

    

   For my next piece I’ve chosen another work by Edward Thomas, the poem Adelstrop.  Written prior to World War One it describes a scene that in a sense now seems lost in our over cluttered and overpopulated country.  I used this poem in a recent presentation I gave for beginner birdwatchers at a local country park to bring up the topic of lost bird populations.  I’m not sure if all of the participants took much notice of the poem, if they didn’t I think they lost the opportunity to study a beautifully written and atmospheric work.  I can close my eyes and imagine myself at Adelstrop in the early twentieth century, and with the door open, even hear the Blackbird singing.  The station no longer exists, which I believe was the responsibility of Dr Beecham.  I sign still exists in the village.

Yes. I remember Adlestrop—

The name, because one afternoon

Of heat the express-train drew up there

Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.

No one left and no one came

On the bare platform. What I saw

Was Adlestrop—only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,

And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,

No whit less still and lonely fair

Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang

Close by, and round him, mistier,

Farther and farther, all the birds

Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

   The only non-British writer I have included in my chosen works is American poet Robert Frost, a friend of Edward Thomas.  I believe Frost had his poems published in England before being recognised in the United States.  I have chosen what may appear to be a simple poem that I came across in the waiting room at hospital as I waited for my first bout of radiotherapy in 2019.  I was on edge, not knowing what to expect that day and in the longer term.  Staying positive doesn’t mean that all worries can be brushed aside.  I read this poem and felt more relaxed and the last four lines were very pertinent to me.  As it happened the treatment was straight forward enough and each day over the next seven weeks I met some genuinely nice people, all going through the same thing and I’m sure sharing many of my own thoughts and concerns.  Nevertheless, we had many a laugh and the treatment was successful.  We all need support at times in our lives and I’ll be forever grateful to family, my close friends and fellow patients, one of whom has become a true friend.  The poem is entitled Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.  Here it is, and its dedicated to those who offered support.

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

  

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

    I never thought this guy who attended Walkergate School would ever be a poetry nerd, let alone include a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in a list of readings I am fond of.  I discovered Frost at Midnight by Coleridge after having read a book recently about the relationship between Coleridge and William Wordsworth over a period of two years when they wrote some of their finest poetry.  Vastly different personalities with different styles, but as the saying goes, opposites attract.  Sadly, their friendship did turn sour in later years, not helped by Coleridge’s use of opium.  In the poem Coleridge sits alone, apart from his baby son, on a winter’s night, as frost makes patterns on the window.  His guests have gone to bed.  He looks back on his own youth and considers positively the experiences his child will have in the future.  Well, it is a complicated and deep meaning poem, but I like to keep things simple.  I include only the last verse here.

Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,

Whether the summer clothe the general earth

With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing

Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch

Of mossy apple-tree, while the night-thatch

Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall

Heard only in the trances of the blast,

Or if the secret ministry of frost

Shall hang them up in silent icicles,

Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.

     I must include another John Clare poem.  There are so many I could choose.  I’ve chosen one which Clare wrote whilst in the asylum, where in fact he died.  Clare didn’t use punctuation, as he simply didn’t think it necessary so some of his original work can be at first sight a little difficult to follow But I’ve found it very much worth the effort.  Many editors put in their own punctuation to make the work more accessible to the readership, as is the case with the Clare poems I have included here.  I think I Am is a brilliant piece of work and is probably one of the better-known poems from Clare’s output.

  

I am—yet what I am none cares or knows;

My friends forsake me like a memory lost:

I am the self-consumer of my woes—

They rise and vanish in oblivious host,

Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes

And yet I am, and live—like vapours tossed

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,

Into the living sea of waking dreams,

Where there is neither sense of life or joys,

But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems;

Even the dearest that I loved the best

Are strange—nay, rather, stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man hath never trod

A place where woman never smiled or wept

There to abide with my Creator, God,

And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,

Untroubling and untroubled where I lie

The grass below—above the vaulted sky.

   Now, you may not think it, but I’m a moderate left winger in the political sense.  I have never had a great liking for Robbie Burns, even though I love Scotland.  One of his poems/songs which I do really like and which reflects my left wing leanings is A Mans a Man For A’ That.   I believe Burns was a bit of a revolutionary in the political sense, amongst many other things and I’ve read that this poem reflects this.  I simply read it as meaning without pomp, money, superior education etc etc that a man is a man for all that.  No one chooses the position they are born into and so I don’t have any dislike of the ‘upper classes’ per se, as let’s face it, I know people from my own ‘class’ who can be both pompous, arrogant and untrustworthy.  I deplore arrogance especially.  I fell in love with Burns words when I heard and watched Paulo Nutini sing the song.  I think Paulo was drunk at the time (my apologies if you weren’t Paulo) which added to the effect.  Great lyrics, and Paulo Nutini is a great performer.  I have included a couple of verses only.  I suggest you have a listen to Paulo knock this one out.

Is there for honest Poverty
That hings his head, an’ a’ that;
The coward-slave, we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a’ that!
For a’ that, an’ a’ that.
Our toils obscure an’ a’ that,
The rank is but the guinea’s stamp,
The Man’s the gowd for a’ that.

What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin grey, an’ a that;
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine;
A Man’s a Man for a’ that:
For a’ that, and a’ that,
Their tinsel show, an’ a’ that;
The honest man, tho’ e’er sae poor,
Is king o’ men for a’ that.

I hope you enjoyed.