Sunday, January 10, 2010

Spruced up ...

... London's St. Paul's is 300 years old but looks brand-new. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)


"... what the Brits call the 'tercentenary' "- what the hell is that supposed to mean?

1 comment:

  1. Hello Bryan,

    Doubtless you know Hardy's fine old poem "In St. Paul's A While Ago." Blogger may force some odd line breaks, but I reprint it here nonetheless. It was collected in his volume "Human Shows: Far Phantasies, Songs, and Trifles."

    IN ST. PAUL'S A WHILE AGO (Hardy)
    Summer and winter close commune
    On this July afternoon
    As I enter chilly Paul's,
    With its chasmal classic walls.
    —Drifts of gray illumination
    From the lofty fenestration
    Slant them down in bristling spines that spread
    Fan-like upon the vast dust-moted shade.
    Moveless here, no whit allied
    To the daemonian din outside,
    Statues stand, cadaverous, wan,
    Round the loiterers looking on
    Under the yawning dome and nave,
    Pondering whatnot, giddy or grave.
    Here a verger moves a chair,
    Or a red rope fixes there:—
    A brimming Hebe, rapt in her adorning,
    Brushes an Artemisia craped in mourning;
    Beatrice Benedick piques, coquetting;
    All unknowing or forgetting
    That strange Jew, Damascus-bound,
    Whose name, thereafter travelling round
    To this precinct of the world,
    Spread here like a flag unfurled:
    Anon inspiring architectural sages
    To frame this pile, writ his throughout the ages:
    Whence also the encircling mart
    Assumed his name, of him no part,
    And to his vision-seeing mind
    Charmless, blank in every kind;
    And whose displays, even had they called his eye,
    No gold or silver had been his to buy;
    Whose haunters, had they seen him stand
    On his own steps here, lift his hand
    In stress of eager, stammering speech,
    And his meaning chanced to reach,
    Would have proclaimed him as they passed
    An epilept enthusiast.

    ReplyDelete