...Of Poets Philosophy and the Passing of Time
Isolation | Jonathan Ball
Tuesday 7 April 2020
...it was during my AA 1960’s years that the Liverpool poet Brian Patten published an anthology under the title ‘Notes To The Hurrying Man’...it is worth a dip into the title poem at this moment in our journey along life’s way now our hurrying is temporarily halted....and we press the pause button to reflect...
...were we to have been living in Ancient Greece our inspiration at this moment would surely have come from the Muses, the nine goddesses from mythology, daughters of the Greek God Zeus, controlling the magic of inspiration...and choosing only one for this moment it would have to be Calliope, the intellectual Muse and inspiration of epic poetry and philosophy...
...it was Axel Munthe who said the soul needs more space than the body, a philosophical watchword perhaps for our self-isolating times...
...when in quiet reflective moments looking back upon my life beyond parental values there are a small number of people who have influenced my views above all others...a guiding star through my professional career to his life’s end was Bill Allen, Head of School at the AA and Architecture Club luminary...a number of Club members were at his Memorial Day at Waddestone....strolling in the garden with Dennis Sharpe we reflected on how Bill had ended his inaugural address upon his AA Head of School appointment...
...“And finally, deepest of all but always present as our most powerful driving force is our realisation that after the gift of life, which is mankind’s first gift, is the living of it, and it is our proud privilege and humble duty to design for this”...
...this duty remains undiminished when the better days return...
...which brings me to the Poets....and to Thomas Hardy, our first President forging the forward progress of our lofty original Club purpose...two decades earlier Hardy had written what is my own favourite poem...The Darkling Thrush...penned on New Year’s Eve 1900, at the dawn of the Millennium.......
...he speaks of ‘an aged thrush frail gaunt and small, with blast – beruffled plume had chosen thus to fling his soul upon the growing gloom’...
...and the last verse......
“So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around
That I could think there trembled through
His happy goodnight air
Some blessed hope whereof he knew
And I was unaware “
...Thomas Hardy trained at the AA before becoming a writer and poet.....he first married Emma Lavinia Gifford, daughter of the Rector at St Juliot’s Boscastle North Cornwall at the head of the Valency Valley, when there on an architectural commission.....his novel A Pair Of Blue Eyes forever captures Valency’s magic...
...I write down these thoughts in self isolation here in rural & remote North Cornwall looking out on our large garden, south west facing and about a mile inland from the Atlantic Coast ( it mercifully it does not submit to the gales)......and with the morning sun streaming in...
...and I count my blessings in these blast beruffled times.......the bird song and garden spring glories take on a powerful new meaning......looking south west to the horizon it is but a few miles beyond to theValency Valley.....touch points for many happy memories and the serendipitous connectivity back to our Club .......and I give thanks for our first President’s guiding hand and how he has opened all our eyes to nature’s drenching beauty.......
Jonathan Ball words
Bob Willingham, photo
The Architecture Club member