Trees Against The Sky

On National Poetry Day, a poem about trees and nature

Trees Against The Sky

Edge of Wood in Cumbria

Pines against the sky,

Pluming the purple hill;

Pines . . . and I wonder why,

Heart, you quicken and thrill?

Wistful heart of a boy,

Fill with a strange sweet joy,

Lifting to Heaven nigh -

Pines against the sky.

Palms against the sky,

Failing the hot, hard blue;

Stark on the beach I lie,

Dreaming horizons new;

Heart of my youth elate,

Scorning a humdrum fate,

Keyed to adventure high -

Palms against the sky.

Oaks against the sky,

Ramparts of leaves high-hurled,

Staunch to stand and defy

All the winds of the world;

Stalwart and proud and free,

Firing the man in me

To try and again to try -

Oaks against the sky.

Olives against the sky

Of evening, limpidly bright;

Tranquil and soft and shy,

Dreaming in amber light;

Breathing the peace of life,

Ease after toil and strife . . .

Hark to their silver sigh!

Olives against the sky.

Cypresses glooming the sky,

Stark at the end of the road;

Failing and faint am I,

Lief to be eased of my load;

There where the stones peer white

in the last of the silvery light,

Quiet and cold I'll lie -

Cypresses etching the sky.

Trees, trees against the sky -

O I have loved them well!

There are pleasures you cannot buy,

Treasurers you cannot sell,

And not the smallest of these

Is the gift and glory of trees. . . .

So I gaze and I know now why

It is good to live - and to die. . . .

Trees and the Infinite Sky.

 Robert William Service (1874-1958)

Clear Sight - John Ruskin

During a visit to John Ruskin's home at Brantwood, Cumbria, I saw this quote by him on what it means to truly see. 

Photo: Kathy Roscoe taken at Brantwood, Cumbria

Every moment we are awake, our eyes are open. We see the people and things around us and the events of the day unfold in front of our eyes. We look out of the window, at the faces of others, at TV screens, the sky, the street. We say we saw a friend, the neighbourhood, the park, or the people walking past us. The question is- do we see these things or are we just looking at them? Are they merely images, be they human or otherwise, that pass before our eyes and register in our brain? 

From time to time in our lives, something will happen and we find ourselves saying things like, "I did'n see it like that before," or " I see him/her in a whole new light."  These expressions imply that we are now seeing something we thought familiar in a clearer and deeper way.  Up to that point, we were seeing someone or something in a superficial way.  We saw the surface and mistook that for the totality of the person or thing. We failed to see that there was more.  To truly see, we must take our time and give our full attention. then we might see things as they really are.  

If we saw other people and other creatures as they are - their true essence and their reality - we might be more compassionate and see the miracle that is life. We might treat others and the earth in a new way and create a better and kinder world. 

The Relevance of John Ruskin - On the Role of Government

Quotes from John Ruskin on the role government and the State.  Wise words and very relevant today.

(John Ruskin 1819-1900)

"The first duty of government is to see that people have food, fuel, and clothes. The second, that they have means of moral and intellectual education."

 "The first duty of a state is to see that every child born therein shall be well housed, clothed, fed and educated till it attains years of discretion."

“What do we, as a nation, care about books? How much do you think we spend altogether on our libraries, public or private, as compared to what we spend on our horses?”

"Civilisation is the making of civil persons."

The Relevance of John Ruskin - on Nature

John Ruskin (1819-1900)

“Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty if only we have the eyes to see them.” 

“Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. ” 

“Remember that the most beautiful things in life are often the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.” 

"I will not kill or hurt any living creature needlessly, nor destroy any beautiful thing, but will strive to save and comfort all gentle life, and guard and perfect all natural beauty upon the earth."

"Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery." 

"The actual flower is the plant's highest fulfilment, and are not here exclusively for herbaria, county floras and plant geography: they are here first of all for delight."

"There is no climate, no place, and scarcely an hour, in which nature does not exhibit color which no mortal effort can imitate or approach. For all our artificial pigments are,even when seen under the same circumstances, dead and lightless beside her living color; nature exhibits her hues under an intensity of sunlight which trebles their 

brilliancy."

"I would rather teach drawing that my pupils may learn to love nature, than teach the looking at nature that they may learn to draw."

"It is written on the arched sky; it looks out from every star. It is the poetry of Nature; it is that which uplifts the spirit within us."

The Relavnce of John Ruskin - On Wealth

At a time of increasing poverty and widening of the gap between rich and poor, the words of John Ruskin give food for thought.

(Feb 8th 1819 - Jan 20th 1900)

"That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest numbers of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest, who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others.”

"The whole question, respecting not only the advantage, but even the quality of national wealth, resolves itself finally into one of abstract justice."

 "Whereas it has long been known and declared that the poor have no right to the property of the rich, I wish it also to be known and declared that the rich have no right to the property of the poor."

"Large fortunes are all founded either on the occupation of land, or lending, or the taxation of labour."

"... the art of making yourself rich, in the ordinary mercantile economist’s sense, is therefore equally and necessarily the art of keeping your neighbour poor."

"The universal and constant action of justice […] is therefore to diminish the power of wealth, in the hands of one individual, over masses of men, and distribute it through a chain of men."

“What right have you to take the word wealth, which originally meant ''well-being,'' and degrade and narrow it by confining it to certain sorts of material objects measured by money.”

“There is no wealth but life. Life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration..." 

“Lately in a wreck of a Californian ship, one of the passengers fastened a belt about him with two hundred pounds of gold in it, with which he was found afterwards at the bottom. Now, as he was sinking- had he the gold, or the gold him?”

“What is really desired, under the name of riches, is, essentially, power over men; in its simplest sense, the power of obtaining for own own advantage the labour of servant, tradesman, and artist; in wider sense, authority of directing large masses of the nation to various ends.”


"A little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great deal of money."

James Joyce

Irish writer, James Joyce set many of his works in the city of Dublin but nature was never far away. His descriptions of nature are as vivid as his urban scenes. Her is one of my favourites.

James Joyce 

(2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941)

James Joyce was born on this day in 1882. A fellow Dubliner, he is one of my favourite writers since studying him at school. I didn't tackle the hefty Ulysses until a few years ago when I doggedly ploughed through it. It is hard work but worth the effort. On the other hand, Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man are short but don't be fooled. Though concise, their characters are vivid and complex. Joyce, as he does so well, presents us with real people,full of contradictions,confusions, and troubles that are all recognisably human. Though set in a Dublin before my time, he conjures up the unique  spirit of the place and of the timeless issues that face human beings.  Joyce takes the reader on a journey into a story but also into language. His characters are city dwellers but nature is never far away in his narrations. 

To celebrate Joyce's birthday, I offer you a slice of his beautiful writing.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Wintry churchyard, Cumbria

“A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”

 (extract from Dubliners)

Gazing is not seeing....

 "The scenery, when it is truly seen, reacts on the life of the seer. How to live. How to get the most of life.... How to extract its honey from the flower of the world."

(Henry David Thoreau)

 

Often we look at scenery by sweeping the landscape with our eyes commenting on its beauty but without really seeing the objects in front of us.  We tend to glance at things, even other people’s faces, and are unable later to recall the colour of their eyes.  To really see something means taking a little time to stop, be still, and look closely rather than merely forming an impression.  Gaze at a mountain, follow its lines and contours with your eyes, the gashes and chasms cut deep into it flanks, the becks trickling down is side, the rocks and scree strewn at its base, the tree of two bent by the prevailing winds, the grassy knolls, the sheep-folds, the play of the clouds across the top and the changing light and the individual character of the place will make itself known to the seer.  It is only by taking our time and letting the scenery unfold  that we can begin to see it as it is.  Then it will not simply be a fleeting impression but an understanding of the character of the place.