T.S.Eliot Reading "Landscapes"

I found this quite by accident recently, whilst doing a Google search on "no concurrence of bone". Those words were triggered in my memory when discussing with an old friend the last line "And Zero at the Bone" in Emily Dickinson's "A narrow Fellow in the Grass". 

Thanks to this random thread of events, the piece now also appears on the T.S.Eliot Society website at www.tseliotsociety.uk

T.S. Eliot reads Landscapes from Don Yorty on Vimeo.

I. New Hampshire

Children's voices in the orchard
Between the blossom- and the fruit-time:
Golden head, crimson head,
Between the green tip and the root.
Black wing, brown wing, hover over;
Twenty years and the spring is over;
To-day grieves and to-morrow grieves,
Cover me over, light-in-leaves;
Golden head, black wing,
Cling,swing,
Spring,sing,
Swing up into the apple-tree.

II. Virginia

Red river, red river,
Slow flow heat is silence
No will is still as a river
Still. Will heat move
Only through the mocking-bird
Heard once? Still hills
Wait. Gates wait. Purple trees,
White trees, wait, wait,
Delay, decay. Living, living,
Never moving. Ever moving
Iron thoughts came with me
And go with me:
Red river river river.

III. Usk

Do not suddenly break the branch, or
Hope to find
The white hart behind the white well.
Glance aside, not for lance, do not spell
Old enchantments. Let them sleep.
"Gently dip, but not too deep,"
Lift your eyes
Where the roads dip and where the roads rise
Seek only there
Where the grey light meets the green air
The hermit's chapel, the pilgrim's prayer.

IV. Rannoch, by Glencoe

Here the crow starves, here the patient stag
Breeds for the the rifle. Between the soft moor
and the soft sky, scarcely room
To leap or to soar. Substance crumbles, in the thin air
Moon cold or moon hot. The road winds in
Listlessness of ancient war,
Langour of broken steel,
Clamour of confused wrong, apt
In silence. Memory is strong
Beyond the bone. Pride snapped,
Shadow of pride is long, in the long pass
No concurrence of bone.

V. Cape Ann

O quick quick quick, quick hear the song sparrow,
Swamp-sparrow, fox-sparrow, vesper-sparrow
At dawn and dusk. Follow the dance
Of goldfinch at noon. Leave to chance
The Blackburnian warbler, the shy one. Hail
With shrill whistle the note of the quail, the bob-white
Dodging the bay-bush. Follow the feet
Of the walker, the water-thrush. Follow the flight
Of the dancing arrow, the purple martin. Greet
In silence the bullbat. All are delectable. Sweet sweet sweet
But resign this land at the end, resign it
To its true owner, the tough one, the sea-gull.
The palaver is finished.

1933-1934

Peter Green

Peter Green was a brilliant team player. As well as a gentle soul and unique genius.

The original Fleetwood Mac demonstrates this in spades: 3 brilliant guitarists with their own unique styles, with the solid Fleetwood/McVie rhythm section holding it all down.

The Peter Green Splinter Group saw the man re-emerging with all the old powers in place, with a band of musical excellence and mutual nurture.

 Examples:

The original Fleetwood Mac at their zenith  

The Peter Green Splinter Group 2003:

[  YouTube Link:  Copyright reasons disallow the video itself to be embedded here, sorry! ]

Behind the music there are all those stories. And in the music, and its inter-song presentation in the second video, there is food for woke vigilantes to chew on.

None of it matters. There is transcendence here.

Churchill and the World as a Struggle against Totalitarianism

 Oddly enough, though we go to Blenheim Place for a wander quite regularly, yesterday ( June 16th, wedding anniversary) for the first time we wandered in the new memorial garden to Winston Churchill which includes a quite fine bust of him as an old man ( He was born 1874 at the palace of course, and proposed to Clementine near the garden's  location in 1908). Our presence there was not deliberate. This was just serendipity in the current moment of statue-bashing. I didn't know it was there until I saw it.

I suppose I can condense all those conflicting views about Churchill being fed into my  brain, into a simple understanding of something quite important about him. He stood up against totalitarianism, and recognised in the zeitgeist, a misguided sense of virtue. Whatever else once can say about his long life (he was already 64 years old when Chamberlain waved his "Peace in our Time" message  to an adoring public and media)  it gave Churchill the wisdom to see the bigger picture. 

What we can also say is that, after all the sacrifices made in WW2 to defeat a clear and present totalitarian push, our democracy booted him out with a landslide Labour victory. And that, to me anyway, is the point of the country we live in and the power of the democratic system. We have the Great Victorious Leader, but we can chop him down at any time.

Can they do that in China?

We have heard the following argument before, but I have absolutely no doubt that western democracy is now under a huge threat from China. And interestingly, part of that threat is to encourage us not to question what is happening to us as free-thinking people. 

We are encouraged to do battle with each other on who is racist, who is privileged, who is the victim. Because deep down we know - quite rightly - to understand that humanity matters, and so most right-thinking people defend to the hilt those whom we see clearly are wronged. It is when we focus on the detail and not the big picture, we are in trouble. 

And so, for example, it becomes more and more difficult to question the number of Chinese students arriving for extended study in the UK. Because we ask the question, the current zeitgeist confirms us in the view that we have something personal - even racist - against any individual wishing to broaden their horizons with an education in the UK. And so it is difficult to question, for example, how many of these individuals are obliged to be affiliated to the CSSA ( see:  "China: Government Threats to Academic Freedom Abroad". Human Rights Watch. March 21, 2019. https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/03/21/china-government-threats-academic-freedom-abroad (Archived from the original on January 14, 2020. ). 

The hidden problem it seems to me, that however broad their horizons become,  for the individual Chinese person educated in the UK, there is huge pressure on them to be part of the Beijing-sponsored CSSA and conform to its worldview. This affects their ability to think freely and vote independently in student forums, and indeed their ability to behave independently in their own peer group.  

Why is this important? I think it is important because totalitarian regimes are in it for the long haul. Part of that long haul, of course, is to encourage populations to turn  against each other, and especially in matters of "inclusivity" and "diversity". They also insist on a 'right' way of thinking, and an unquestioning obedience. They neglect the creativity of the individual which has every possibility to lead that individual to become the best of themselves as a rounded human being. How to navigate that conundrum is a constant problem.  I think that's why we study history and must be careful not overly to focus on details of it to suit an agenda.

See updates on this Churchill, Confucius and the Question of How We Judge the Past 

and China and the Question of Influence