On Parliament Hill - Part 2. 1879
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gen_storytellerTitle: On Parliament Hill
Author: Cass
Rating: G
Summary: Part 2 finds William looking to the future.
Notes: The quotes are from ‘A life of John Keats’ by Charles Armitage Brown and Keat's 'Ode to a Nightingale'.
1879
“He was small in stature, well proportioned, compact in form, and, though thin, rather muscular;--one of the many who prove that manliness is distinct from height and bulk. There is no magic equal to that of an ingenuous countenance, and I never beheld any human being's so ingenuous as his. His full fine eyes were lustrously intellectual, and beaming (at that time!) with hope and joy.”
It was getting too dark to read now. He closed his book with a sigh, rested his chin on his knees and stared out over the vista before him. London in the twilight at the end of a bright, autumn day. There was just enough of a breeze to shift the miasma of heavy, odorous air that normally clung to the streets, to leave the jumble of buildings, old and new, clear-cut and gold-leafed by the final rays of the day. The evening sun danced on glimpses of the distant river, its light… its light… he frowned in thought… gleaming… yes, gleaming. A good word. He picked up the small brown notebook he always carried, wrote a few lines in his cramped, elaborate hand, and then closed the book again with a satisfied smile.
Somewhere in the distance a bird was singing, the last bastion of day challenging the encroaching night. The notes shrilled bravely, crystal clear in the purple-hazed air of sunset. The young man closed his eyes and listened, rapt.
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe - wards had sunk:
`Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thy happiness, -
That thou, light - winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full - throated ease.
He held his breath as the bird sang on. Perhaps this glad creature was a descendant of the very nightingale that had inspired those glorious words. Perhaps Keats had been sitting upon this very spot sixty years before when the pain of his life was touched by the wonder of the bird’s song, when he wrote of leaving the world unseen, to "Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget." He pressed his own hand to the earth and felt he could reach back through time to touch the poet’s. He breathed a sigh as the final liquid notes dripped into the quiet well of the evening. So beautiful. So heart-rendingly beautiful. No wonder the poet’s soul had been stirred. This was why he walked the heath, to feel this connection with the great who had once done as he did now, found inspiration in this green oasis. Shelley, Coleridge, Keats – all had walked and talked and shared the thoughts of their great minds on this very ground.
But it was Keats he identified with, Keats with whom, here on the hill, he felt connected. He had, he was sure, a special link with the poor misunderstood poet, driven to an early grave by – what was it Brown had called them? “Hirelings, under the imposing name of Reviewers.” Yes, that had been it. A genius judged by fools who could not see the truth. He felt the young poet’s pain. He understood the beauty of a soul touched by Calliope, blessed by Erato. A poet’s soul, a gentle thing, too beautiful for the crass world.
“HERE LIES ONE WHOSE NAME WAS WRIT IN WATER.”
Keat’s own epitaph, given to his closest friend days before his life faded away in the heat of Rome, all hope gone, so far from the cool green fields of his homeland. That one so great should die so young believing those words. The young man shook his head in sorrow. They were brothers in their art. Not, and he smiled self-deprecatingly at the thought, that he considered his feeble scribblings to be in any way a match for the soaring words of the great poet. But they came from his heart, poor thing that it was, and they were his truth as best he could form the words. That truth overflowed its poor vessel, threatened to breech its frail walls. But it must be kept within, unnamed, allowed only a sweet anonymity in his writings, because the time to share that truth had not yet come.
But soon… oh, soon…
Next year he would come into his inheritance, the annuity his careful father had arranged to begin at an age he had felt would befit a man to find a wife. And he would then be able to be open, to finally admit his true feelings.
Cecily.
He breathed the name on the breeze, felt the surge of his heart, the flush of blood to his cheeks at the thought of the sweet and gentle object of his affections. Next year he would be twenty-six years old, the age at which poor Keats had died of a broken heart and lost hope. But his heart was full of hope and swelled in his chest with love and anticipation. His future lay before him, bright with expectation. Next year he would dare to declare his love and his life would begin anew. He would offer her his hope, his heart and his soul.
On Parliament Hill he dreamed of a life full of love given and returned, of peace and calmness and hearth and home.
His future stretched ahead of him.
Next Year.
Author: Cass
Rating: G
Summary: Part 2 finds William looking to the future.
Notes: The quotes are from ‘A life of John Keats’ by Charles Armitage Brown and Keat's 'Ode to a Nightingale'.
1879
“He was small in stature, well proportioned, compact in form, and, though thin, rather muscular;--one of the many who prove that manliness is distinct from height and bulk. There is no magic equal to that of an ingenuous countenance, and I never beheld any human being's so ingenuous as his. His full fine eyes were lustrously intellectual, and beaming (at that time!) with hope and joy.”
It was getting too dark to read now. He closed his book with a sigh, rested his chin on his knees and stared out over the vista before him. London in the twilight at the end of a bright, autumn day. There was just enough of a breeze to shift the miasma of heavy, odorous air that normally clung to the streets, to leave the jumble of buildings, old and new, clear-cut and gold-leafed by the final rays of the day. The evening sun danced on glimpses of the distant river, its light… its light… he frowned in thought… gleaming… yes, gleaming. A good word. He picked up the small brown notebook he always carried, wrote a few lines in his cramped, elaborate hand, and then closed the book again with a satisfied smile.
Somewhere in the distance a bird was singing, the last bastion of day challenging the encroaching night. The notes shrilled bravely, crystal clear in the purple-hazed air of sunset. The young man closed his eyes and listened, rapt.
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe - wards had sunk:
`Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thy happiness, -
That thou, light - winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full - throated ease.
He held his breath as the bird sang on. Perhaps this glad creature was a descendant of the very nightingale that had inspired those glorious words. Perhaps Keats had been sitting upon this very spot sixty years before when the pain of his life was touched by the wonder of the bird’s song, when he wrote of leaving the world unseen, to "Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget." He pressed his own hand to the earth and felt he could reach back through time to touch the poet’s. He breathed a sigh as the final liquid notes dripped into the quiet well of the evening. So beautiful. So heart-rendingly beautiful. No wonder the poet’s soul had been stirred. This was why he walked the heath, to feel this connection with the great who had once done as he did now, found inspiration in this green oasis. Shelley, Coleridge, Keats – all had walked and talked and shared the thoughts of their great minds on this very ground.
But it was Keats he identified with, Keats with whom, here on the hill, he felt connected. He had, he was sure, a special link with the poor misunderstood poet, driven to an early grave by – what was it Brown had called them? “Hirelings, under the imposing name of Reviewers.” Yes, that had been it. A genius judged by fools who could not see the truth. He felt the young poet’s pain. He understood the beauty of a soul touched by Calliope, blessed by Erato. A poet’s soul, a gentle thing, too beautiful for the crass world.
“HERE LIES ONE WHOSE NAME WAS WRIT IN WATER.”
Keat’s own epitaph, given to his closest friend days before his life faded away in the heat of Rome, all hope gone, so far from the cool green fields of his homeland. That one so great should die so young believing those words. The young man shook his head in sorrow. They were brothers in their art. Not, and he smiled self-deprecatingly at the thought, that he considered his feeble scribblings to be in any way a match for the soaring words of the great poet. But they came from his heart, poor thing that it was, and they were his truth as best he could form the words. That truth overflowed its poor vessel, threatened to breech its frail walls. But it must be kept within, unnamed, allowed only a sweet anonymity in his writings, because the time to share that truth had not yet come.
But soon… oh, soon…
Next year he would come into his inheritance, the annuity his careful father had arranged to begin at an age he had felt would befit a man to find a wife. And he would then be able to be open, to finally admit his true feelings.
Cecily.
He breathed the name on the breeze, felt the surge of his heart, the flush of blood to his cheeks at the thought of the sweet and gentle object of his affections. Next year he would be twenty-six years old, the age at which poor Keats had died of a broken heart and lost hope. But his heart was full of hope and swelled in his chest with love and anticipation. His future lay before him, bright with expectation. Next year he would dare to declare his love and his life would begin anew. He would offer her his hope, his heart and his soul.
On Parliament Hill he dreamed of a life full of love given and returned, of peace and calmness and hearth and home.
His future stretched ahead of him.
Next Year.
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