Oh, Sarah-Rose

And the sunlight sidled, like dewdrops, like dandled diamonds
From The Furl of Fresh-Leaved Dogrose Down

It only took two and a bit years but I finally finally finally found a book his poetry for sale. Previously? I danced around Shakespeare & Co in Paris with a thin worn tome in my hands before finally realising that it was essays about Hopkins’ work and life (he was a jesuit priest and his poems were never published in his lifetime, I don’t think he ever intended them to be published at all!) and nearly crumpling down right then and there.

His poem Spring is one of the two poems I know by heart, word for word, beginning to end.

Nothing is so beautiful as spring—
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden.—Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

The other poem I know off by heart? Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll!

One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

I won’t go on.

indexed.com

It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black …
Last night I saw the most amazing staging of Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas.
It was in at Downstage which is already one of my favourite theatres, but it felt more intimate than usual.
The stage was multi-leveled and included a rotating section of floor which gave the actors room to move and at times it seemed something closer to a dance than a play ostensibly for voices. The Night was evoked using an almost unnoticeable black screen, a smoke machine and near-silhouettes.
All of the actors were just … mind-blowing. They have to portray so many different characters but pulled it together remarkably well. I loved that they didn’t rely on solely one method of characterisation, they changed their clothes, the way they held themselves, their facial expressions and voices. Everything.
I also cannot get over Loren Horsley’s hair. Love.

It’s only running until the 9th September but if you can, I really recommend catching it.

You can hear the dew falling, and the hushed town breathing. Only your eyes are unclosed, to see the black and folded town fast, and slow, asleep. And you alone can hear the invisible starfall, the darkest-before-dawn minutely dewgrazed stir of the black, dab-filled sea where the Arethusa, the Curlew and the Skylark, Zanzibar, Rhiannon, the Rover, the Cormorant, and the Star of Wales tilt and ride.