Butterflies, Oasis

 It's been a pretty terrible year for butterflies, one of the worst I can remember – and for the usual reason: the English weather.  A cool, wet spring was followed by a cool, wet early summer, with far too few sunny intervals. When proper summer weather finally arrived, it was too late for many species; the damage had been done. What made my butterfly year more painful was the weather divide that developed in high summer, with the Southeast often basking in warm sunshine while up here in Mercia we were having no such luck – and unfortunately I wasn't able to get down to my old butterfly haunts in the hills and downs of Surrey. I don't miss much about 'down South', but I certainly miss those landscapes and those butterflies... However, one species has been keeping my spirits up all through this disappointing season – the Speckled Wood, which has been as abundant as ever (that's one in my picture above, feeding on Astrantia in my garden). Speckled Woods have been flying, feeding and basking in the garden every vaguely sunny day since April, from early in the morning to the last evening sun, and I never cease to wonder at the beauty of this common, but uncommonly lovely, butterfly. When I was a boy it was still a woodland specialist, flying in the dappled sunlight of woodland rides and margins, but over the years it has hugely extended its range, and is now adding its little touch of beauty to virtually every environment, even urban and suburban. A reason to be cheerful, if ever there was one. 

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Not that I care, but I can't help noticing that the proposed comeback of Oasis (a popular beat combo, m'lud) is causing a mighty stir among the commentariat, with many pitching in to tell us how much they've always loathed the band and all their works. I noticed yesterday, on the Spectator website, that Marcus Berkmann has decided that Wonderwall is 'the worst song ever written'. A large claim. Then, that same evening, in a repeat episode of the rather wonderful This Country on BBC2, Kerry Mucklowe came up with the perfect origin story for that very song: her dad, she declared, wrote it on a beermat one evening at The Keeper's Arms, then threw it away because it was rubbish. As it happened, two brothers were in the pub that night – Matt and Luke Goss, aka Bros. They picked up the beermat, took one look and threw it away – but then in walked the Gallagher brothers, and the rest in history. Sounds quite plausible to me. 

Rebecca Clarke

 A musical anniversary today: Rebecca Clarke, one of a number of women composers who are now getting their due in terms of recognition and airplay, was born on this day in 1886. She had a tough start in life and in music, thanks to her abusive father, who often beat her, and who withdrew her from the Royal Academy of Music after her harmony teacher, Percy Hilder Miles, proposed to her. She later studied at the Royal College of Music under Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, who arranged for her to study the viola under Lionel Tertis. However, while still at the college, she angered her father by criticising his extramarital activities, and in response he turned her out of the house and cut off her funds. Fortunately by then Clarke was able to support herself as a professional violist, becoming one of the first female professional orchestral musicians, and performing with all the greats of the day – Schnabel, Heifetz, Casals, Rubinstein, etc. In 1916 she moved to the United States to continue her performing career, and began to perform her own works. She later returned to London, then found herself stranded in the States when war broke out in 1939. It was while living in America that she wrote this piece, her Passacaglia on an Old English Tune, which seems to me impressive and rather beautiful – 

Altitudes

 The more I read of Richard Wilbur, the more I admire him. Here is a poem I happened upon while browsing last night – a brilliant evocation of two strongly contrasted 'altitudes': the painted dome populated by complacent, pleasure-loving gods, sustained by the prayer of mortals; and the little square 'cupola' to which  Emily Dickinson could climb and find 'a wild shining of the pure unknown'.  

Altitudes

                       1
    Look up into the dome:
It is a great salon, a brilliant place,
   Yet not too splendid for the race
Whom we imagine there, wholly at home

    With the gold-rosetted white
Wainscot, the oval windows, and the fault-
    less figures of the painted vault.
Strolling, conversing in that precious light,  

    They chat no doubt of love.
The pleasant burden of their courtesy
    Borne down at times to you and me
Where, in this dark, we stand and gaze above.

     For all they cannot share,
All that the world cannot in fact afford,
    Their lofty premises are floored
With the massed voices of continual prayer.

 
                         2

     How far it is from here
To Emily Dickinson’s father’s house in America;
     Think of her climbing a spiral stair
Up to the little cupola with its clear

     Small panes, its room for one.
Like the dark house below, so full of eyes
     In mirrors and of shut-in flies,
This chamber furnished only with the sun

      Is she and she alone,
A mood to which she rises, in which she sees
     Bird-choristers in all the trees
And a wild shining of the pure unknown

     On Amherst. This is caught
In the dormers of a neighbour, who, no doubt,
     Will before long be coming out
To pace about his garden, lost in thought.

Henley

 Born  on this day in 1849 was the poet William Ernest (W.E.) Henley. I've written before about his most famous poem, the indestructible 'Invictus', and about his classic anthology Lyra Heroica. 
From the age of 12, Henley was dogged by tuberculosis in his bones, which resulted in the amputation of his left leg below the knee. The disease persisted, causing him long periods of intense pain, but he had tremendous vitality and resilience, and a huge presence. His friend Robert Louis Stevenson told him, after the publication of Treasure Island, that he had been the inspiration for Long John Silver, 'the maimed man ruling and dreaded by the sound'. He died at the age of 53 after a fall from a railway carriage caused a fatal flare-up of the tuberculosis. His ashes were buried with his beloved daughter Margaret, who had died at the age of five. (It was Margaret who had inspired J.M. Barrie to name his heroine in Peter Pan 'Wendy', the infant Margaret having habitually greeted Barrie as 'fwendy-wendy'.)
  With so much to contend with in his life, it is no wonder that Henley's poems tend to be muscular exercises in sinew-stiffening, but he had a considerable range, writing sometimes in a stark social-realist style, at other times favouring a quieter, melancholic manner, as in this piece, set, like Gray's 'Elegy', in the English twilight – 

A lark twitters from
the quiet skies:
And from the west,
Where the sun, his day's work ended,
Lingers as in content,
There falls on the old, grey city
An influence luminous and serene,
A shining peace.

The smoke ascends
In a rosy-and-golden haze. The spires
Shine and are changed. In the valley
Shadows rise. The lark sings on. The sun,
Closing his benediction,
Sinks, and the darkening air
Thrills with a sense of the triumphing night—
Night with her train of stars
And her great gift of sleep.

So be my passing!
My task accomplish'd and the long day done,
My wages taken, and in my heart
Some late lark singing,
Let me be gather'd to the quiet west,
The sundown splendid and serene,
Death.

And sometimes Henley could be playful, as in this jolly villanelle, written at a time when everyone was writing them –

A dainty thing's the Villanelle.
Sly, musical, a jewel in rhyme,
It serves its purpose passing well.

A doublc-clappered silver bell
That must be made to clink in chime,
A dainty thing's the Villanelle;

And if you wish to flute a spell,
Or ask a meeting 'neath the lime,
It serves its purpose passing well.

You must not ask of it the swell
Of organs grandiose and sublime –
A dainty thing's the Villanelle;

And, filled with sweetness, as a shell
Is filled with sound, and launched in time,
It serves its purpose passing well.

Still fair to see and good to smell
As in the quaintness of its prime,
A dainty thing's the Villanelle,
It serves its purpose passing well.

Henley's chief cultural legacy is of course 'Invictus', but a more surprising borrowing was the title and theme of Joe Orton's breakthrough play, The Ruffian on the Stair, taken from Henley's bleak 'Madam Life's a piece in bloom' – 

Madam Life's a piece in bloom
    Death goes dogging everywhere:
  She's the tenant of the room,
    He's the ruffian on the stair.
    You shall see her as a friend,
  You shall bilk him once or twice;
    But he'll trap you in the end,
  And he'll stick you for her price.
  With his kneebones at your chest,
  And his knuckles in your throat,
You would reason — plead — protest!
  Clutching at her petticoat;
  But she's heard it all before,
Well she knows you've had your fun,
  Gingerly she gains the door,
And your little job is done.

But let's end with something jollier. Here is 'In Rotten Row' –

In Rotten Row a cigarette
I sat and smoked, with no regret
For all the tumult that had been.
The distances were still and green,
And streaked with shadows cool and wet.

Two sweethearts on a bench were set,
Two birds among the boughs were met;
So love and song were heard and seen
In Rotten Row.

A horse or two there was to fret
The soundless sand; but work and debt,
Fair flowers and falling leaves between,
While clocks are chiming clear and keen,
A man may very well forget
In Rotten Row.

Footnote: I have been informed that the photo above is not of Henley but of another extravagantly bearded poet, Joaquin Miller. Whoops. Here is Henley –

'Here lies my dog...'

 The excellent local history website Lichfield Discovered yesterday carried a piece about a dog's gravestone found behind a former solicitors' offices on one of the older streets. It commemorates a dog called Purchaser, born 1897, died 1907 – a dog whose 'gentle manners and reasonable disposition endeared him to all who knew him'. He was a bulldog owned by one of the solicitors, and had won first prize at the Birmingham and Midland Counties bulldog show in 1900. The gravestone carries, at its foot, an epitaph in verse which the Lichfield Discovered reporter hadn't managed to decipher in full. So, unable to resist the lure of a good epitaph, I went in search of the stone and, with the help of a man who is looking after the now vacant property, found it and got to work uncovering the verse epitaph at the foot of the stone, the last lines of which were obscured by earth and vegetation. After a little scrabbling and squinting, I had them. Here is Purchaser's verse epitaph: sweet, effective and touching...

           Here lies my dog
           Who now without my aid
           Hunts through the shadow land
           Himself a shade
           Or couched intent
           Before some ghostly gate
           Waits for my step
           As here he used to wait.

I think, in its simple way, it's as good as Byron's famous epitaph for his dog Boatswain, inscribed on his monument at Newstead Abbey – 

Near this Spot
are deposited the Remains of one
who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferocity,
and all the virtues of Man without his Vices.
This praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery
if inscribed over human Ashes,
is but a just tribute to the Memory of
Boatswain, a Dog
who was born in Newfoundland May 1803
and died at Newstead November 18th 1808.

Boatswain died of rabies, which Byron reportedly nursed him through, without fear of injury or infection. I hope Purchaser's end was more peaceful. 

Dryden and Purcell

 Born on this day in 1631 was the poet and critic John Dryden, the dominant literary figure of Restoration England. Among many other activities, he collaborated with the greatest composer of his time, Henry Purcell, notably on the semi-opera King Arthur, which included one of the most beautiful songs in all of English music – 'Fairest Isle':

Dryden recognised Purcell's musical genius, and on his death wrote this ode:

Mark how the Lark and Linnet sing,
With rival Notes
They strain their warbling Throats,
To welcome in the Spring.
But in the close of Night,
When Philomel begins her Heav'nly lay,
They cease their mutual spite,
Drink in her Music with delight,
And list'ning and silent, and silent and list'ning,
And list'ning and silent obey.

II

So ceas'd the rival Crew when Purcell came,
They Sung no more, or only Sung his Fame.
Struck dumb they all admir'd the God-like Man,
The God-like Man,
Alas, too soon retir'd,
As He too late began.
We beg not Hell, our Orpheus to restore,
Had He been there,
Their Sovereign's fear
Had sent Him back before.
The pow'r of Harmony too well they know,
He long e'er this had Tun'd their jarring Sphere,
And left no Hell below.

III

The Heav'nly Choir, who heard his Notes from high,
Let down the Scale of Music from the Sky:
They handed him along,
And all the way He taught, and all the way they Sung.
Ye Brethren of the Lyre, and tuneful Voice,
Lament his Lot: but at your own rejoice.
Now live secure and linger out your days,
The Gods are pleas'd alone with Purcell's Lays,
Nor know to mend their Choice.

It's a notably musical ode, one that seems to be crying out to be set to music. And so it was, by John Blow. It begins thus – 

 

The Head of the Jaeger School of Literature

 As you might expect of a book 'written under considerable difficulty', Edith Sitwell's autobiography, Taken Care Of, is something of a mess – but, most of the time, it's a richly enjoyable mess. As is invariably the case with autobiographies, the early chapters are the best, the most vivid and interesting, and things tail off later (for a classic example of this, see Charles Chaplin's My Autobiography). As Taken Care Of goes on, it becomes a collection of more or less random memories, vignettes, critiques savage and laudatory, and short miscellaneous essays, hung on the flimsiest of autobiographical frameworks, but it does manage to come in to land in the near present, with Edith's memories of America, including accounts of a hair-raising visit to Los Angeles's Skid Row (which sounds even worse than LA today) and of a conversation with Marilyn Monroe, with whom she had an instant and genuine rapport. 
  Along the way Miss Sitwell airs her views on poetry, and quotes far too much of her own verse, which had always struck me as strident, self-conscious and hollow, but of which she herself clearly thought very highly. She also regarded both Dylan Thomas and Roy Campbell as great poets – wrong on both counts, I'd say. As promised in the Preface, she lambasts Wyndham Lewis and D.H. Lawrence (who 'looked like a plaster gnome on a stone toadstool in some suburban garden. At the same time he bore some resemblance to a bad self-portrait by Van Gogh.') Though she praises some of Lawrence's poetry, she delivers a well deserved kicking to that terrible novel, Lady Chatterley's Lover, observing that Lawrence's 'loathing for Sir Clifford Chatterley amounted practically to a mania. Sir Clifford was so criminally offensive as to be a Baronet, and he, with most men, fought like a tiger in the First World War, instead of remaining safely at home, fornicating and squealing, shrilly, about the oppression from which he had suffered.' As for the notorious sex scenes, Edith describes some of these with due distaste, and concludes: 'I do not think the four-letter words in this book are as harmful as the descriptions of sexual intercourse, which in my opinion would freeze any impulse to love between boy and girl.' In a lecture at Liverpool, Miss Sitwell dubbed Lawrence 'the head of the Jaeger school of Literature since he was soft, hot and woolly.
  Messrs Jaeger protested mildly. "We are soft," they wrote to me, "and we are woolly, but we are never hot, owing to our system of slow conductivity."
  I replied, begging them to invent a system of slow conductivity for Lawrence, adding that I regretted having made the comparison, since their works are unshrinkable by Time, whereas the works of Mr Lawrence, in my opinion, are not.'