Sunday 29 May 2016

The Holiday Cottage

Dear Reader,



                                                                              May Blossom


I have seen with such pleasure this week beautiful hedges overflowing with hawthorn, a picture of white snow-like flowers, and the trees, their leaves all out now, mossy green and abundant.  So 
I thought you might like to read these two extracts, the first one from D.H. Lawrence in Cornwall (1916) and the second from Francis Kilvert in Wiltshire (1875) on their enjoyment of the lovely month of May.

'The country is simply wonderful, blue, graceful little companies of bluebells everywhere on the moors, the gorse in flame, and on the cliffs and by the sea, a host of primroses, like settling butterflies, and seapinks like a hover of pink bees, near the water.'  

'..........banks and hedges brilliant with pink campion......As I came home the western heavens were jewelled with pure bright sparkling lights of grey silver and pale gold, and overhead a sublime mackerel sky of white and blue in its distant fleecy beauty gave me a more intense and grand sense of infinity and the illimitable than I ever remember to have had before.'


                                                                             *

The Holiday cottage


The lone cottage is whitewashed,
a small wicker fence
with garden gate
leads to the shore,
to the sea.
Before breakfast I take a cup of tea
on to the sand dunes,
breathe in the salt air,
search the horizon
or watch the gannets,
seagulls, terns.
The wind blows softly.

But the cottage is not whitewashed,
does not sit by itself.
And the sea is far off.
This cottage is on an estate,
adjoining houses on either side,
loud music bellows from a window,
cars and trucks fill the drive,
a food store across the road
is the view.

                                                                         *

Very best wishes, Patricia

2 comments:

  1. We certainly have a beautiful spring this year but I can't help thinking how many more bluebells, campion, primroses and other lesser known spring flowers grew wild in Lawrence's time, let alone Kilvert's. Even where we live here in the country, Roundup rules. Sad.
    Do like your poem and wish I could visit that whitewashed cottage! Xx

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