“As a cloud crosses the sun, silence falls on London; 

and falls on the mind. Effort ceases. Time flaps on the mast. 

There we stop; there we stand.” 

from Mrs. Dalloway

by Virginia Woolf

A New London Rising ?

“London has the trick of making its past, its long indelible past, 

always a part of its present. And for that reason it will always 

have meaning for the future, because of all it can teach about 

disaster, survival, and redemption. It is all there in the streets. 

It is all there in the books.” 

from Imaged London: A  Tour of the World's Greatest

Fictional City

by Anna Quindlen

"I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know,

 than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world."

Samuel Johnson

Detail of a painting at the National Gallery (London)

So how can you tell me you're lonely, 

And say for you that the sun don't shine? 

Let me take you by the hand and lead you through 

the streets of London

I'll show you something to make you change your mind 

Ralph McTell; Streets of London Live

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Whv7MgepUQQ&list=RDWhv7MgepUQQ

Home again, home from our trip to London. 

"By seeing London, I have seen as much of life 

as the world can show."

Samuel Johnson

"and it occurs to me

that if I were to die at this moment

that picture would accompany me

wherever I am going

for part of the way."

from The Last Picture in The World

by Al Purdy

"You're the one who flew down

to that river from the heavens,

as if your form alone were the only

holy message needed."

from Stone Bird

by Pattiann Rogers

"But its real strength lies in the quiet tension of isolation   

And living patiently, without atonement or regret,

In the eternity of the plain moments, the nest of care   

—Until suddenly, all alone, the mind is lifted upward into   

Light and air and the nothingness of the sky,   

Held there in that vacant, circumstantial blue until,

In the vehemence of a landscape where all the colors disappear,   

The quiet absolution of the spirit quickens into fact, "

from There Late Wisconsin Spring

by John Goethe

Went to Kew today. Nowhere near Natural History Museum. We are fine.

"I have been younger in October

than in all the months of spring

… walnut and may leaves the color

of shoulders at the end of summer

a month that has been to the mountain

and become light there

the long grass lies pointing uphill

even in death for a reason

that none of us knows"

W.S. Merwin

"When despair grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things"




from The Peace of Wild Things

by Wendell Berry 

"The moon drops one or two feathers into the field. 

The dark wheat listens. 

Be still. 

Now. 

There they are, the moon's young, trying 

Their wings. "

from Beginnings

by James Wright

"I seem to hear a bar of music float 

And swoon into the west; 

My ear can scarcely catch the whispered note, 

But something in my breast 

Blends with that strain, till both accord in one, 

As cloud and colour blend at set of sun. "

At Sunset

by Pauline Johnson

"And as I take my body back 

the sun lays its warm muzzle on my lap 

as if to make amends."

from I Am Learning to Abandon the World

by Linda Pastan