A Poem and Some Sights.

In some reading yesterday I came across this:

'Duns Scotus's Oxford'

TOWERY city and branchy between towers;
Cuckoo-echoing, bell-swarmèd, lark-charmèd, rook-racked, river-rounded;
The dapple-eared lily below thee; that country and town did
Once encounter in, here coped and poisèd powers;
Thou hast a base and brickish skirt there, sours	5
That neighbour-nature thy grey beauty is grounded
Best in; graceless growth, thou hast confounded
Rural rural keeping—folk, flocks, and flowers.
Yet ah! this air I gather and I release
He lived on; these weeds and waters, these walls are what	10
He haunted who of all men most sways my spirits to peace;
Of realty the rarest-veinèd unraveller; a not
Rivalled insight, be rival Italy or Greece;
Who fired France for Mary without spot.

Gerard Manley Hopkins; 1879

Good old Italian Sonnet.

I don't know much about Duns Scotus other than a faint recollection that Heidegger wrote his dissertation on him and that he was apparently an Oxford man. But I especially like the 'branchy between towers' and 'rook-racked, river-rounded' bits.

To illustrate:

This was taken from a foot bridge over a canal just past my flat.

Here's the Thames, long before London and two minute walk from the flat.
St Timothy's Church and Yard; also not far from me.


One of the Colleges; I got a bit lost and can't remember which.
Outside the Sheldonian Theatre.