After a busily domestic morning of laundry and waxing the kitchen table we went for a little walk. It is a beautiful day, not too hot, very clear and bright with a brilliant blue sky and lots of puffy white clouds. We strolled around the village checking things out and it made us realise what a lot of very wild wildlife there is in this area including lots of lizards, butterflies and many other insects. In particular we saw a number of stunning blue and black dragonflies like the one in my photo. They seem to be quite common in this area and every time I see one I think of a sonnet by Rossetti which was set to music by Vaughan Williams
Silent Noon (Sonnet XIX)
Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass,-
The finger-points look through, like rosy blooms:
Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms
'Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass.
All round our nest far, as the eye can pass
Are golden kingcup fields with silver edge
Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge
'Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass.
Deep in the sun searched groves, a dragon-fly
Hangs, like a blue thread loosened from the sky:-
So this winged hour is dropt to us from above.
Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower
This close-companioned inarticulate hour
When twofold silence was the song of love.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass,-
The finger-points look through, like rosy blooms:
Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms
'Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass.
All round our nest far, as the eye can pass
Are golden kingcup fields with silver edge
Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge
'Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass.
Deep in the sun searched groves, a dragon-fly
Hangs, like a blue thread loosened from the sky:-
So this winged hour is dropt to us from above.
Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower
This close-companioned inarticulate hour
When twofold silence was the song of love.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
2 comments:
Oh that is truly beautiful.
We had a lovely day much like this description, walking up the hill at Salthouse to the Church high on the hill overlooking the salt marshes. There were Budlea bushes all along the path and 2 or 3 butterflies on each flower spike, so engrossed in what they were doing that they would happily crawl onto your finger. Not quite threads of dragonfly sky but kind of close.
P.S. May I please request a poem from you Sally, I'm sure there are lots hiding just waiting to come out like beautiful butterflies. xxxx
Hi Joey, Im working on some poems watch this space. Hope you are both good. Must go I have apricot chutney bubbling away. Love to Riccardo the magnificent and of course to you.
XXX
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