Autumnal Oasis
A tribute to Keats' ode 'To Autumn'.
Autumn is in the air above England's ancient former capital. So this month's poetry has been chosen purely for its inspirational location and appropriate seasonal theme. Resurrected from a curling, mildewed web page, I think it deserves a new lease of life.
As with all my poetry brought to you here, this verse is free to read for all of my subscribers and passing visitors.
JR
This was a difficult poem to write.
On Sunday 19th September in 1819, John Keats wrote his famous ode ‘To Autumn‘, after returning from one of his regular walks from Winchester city centre to the Hospital of St Cross (you can follow in his footsteps using this detailed guide to the ‘Keats Trail’).
As part of these 200th anniversary celebrations, I took it upon myself to analyse and replicate the ode’s three stanza structure and variable rhyme scheme. Inspired by wandering around the Hospital’s ancient buildings and sitting in its gardens, the words began to flow. It isn’t really a ‘hospital’ at all. At almost 900 years old, it’s Britain’s oldest charitable institution and I can thoroughly recommend a visit.
Autumn arrives later now and my resulting verse assumes some knowledge of the location, but I hope you enjoy the poem. It was exhibited in the Hospital’s grounds in Sept 2019, along with other invited submissions, to help celebrate the bicentennial anniversary.
The poem is also viewable on the Domesday-like ‘Places of Poetry‘ site (the background to which is detailed on the Poetry Society web site).
I’m not sure how closely I've matched Keats’ uplifting and harmonious descriptions, but I think deconstructing his famous ode remains a worthwhile exercise.
Modern life a distant thrum of outsiders in their working lairs. In its place a closer hum, of insects chancing swifts o’er head, the dancers of the air. Forbidding gates still beckon life’s weary rangers, between their winter and prior spring, sensing timeless rhythms of one thousand years. A secular sinecure, a hidden sanctuary of mellow offerings. Like the bees now safe from external danger, men can claim safety offered to human strangers, those of unbroken virtue stymied by misfortune’s tears. Time here shifts to a different beat. Quad walls enclose the Brethren’s solitude, a chimney row proclaiming order, with no outside news those solid gates do entreat. A Master o’er-sees fair play and be history’s recorder. A Christian bulk presides, built with help from Norman hands, converging Brothers with metallic appeals of Hospital. Slanted sunlight in bi-annual transit, claret and black process in with silver cross from distant lands. Within God’s sight they pronounce matins vital, parrot’s head on eagle’s body ensuring no turgid recital, no heelstone lit but Cross in transept. A ghostly lady wanders the grounds, darkness following her rounds. A turgid pump and board-borne bread brings fish and loaf direct to dish, more substance I wager than those spirited rumours unfound, from the hundred mouths that made a founder’s wish. Yet no accrual kept of memories hazed, a patina of modern ways, in dustless rooms where lives of Brethren past do echo, sitting awkward amongst Georgian ladles and medieval seats. Brothers innumerable will rest here until end of days, whilst kings and queens may come and go, these alms to noble poverty shall remain kept in ancient flow, in this hidden sanctuary for those seeking tranquil peace.
I would put Keats as my favourite classic poet, so I can appreciate the homage to his genius.
A place I should put on my list of future outings!