and to the south lies Grantchester’s huddle of rooftops, and above them spires of wood smoke rising to dissipate in the flat blue bowl of the Cambridgeshire sky .
The sky here is like nowhere else I’ve ever seen, so wide and limitless, and yet I have the oddest feeling of belonging, of having been here before . Daphne has been studying comparative religion, and we’ve talked about different philosophies. I’ve found myself wondering lately if there isn’t something to the idea of reincarnation—if that doesn’t shock your good old C. of E. sensibilities, Mummy darling—but it at least provides some explanation of what I feel. And this is not only a matter of space, but of time as well. I quite often feel displaced in the present .
Of course Cambridge itself is bound to give one a sense of continuity, of timelessness, but I seem to have a particular affinity for the years before the Great War. When I read about Rupert Brooke and his friends, it’s as if I can almost see them. I know what it felt like to be there, having tea in the garden at the Orchard, reading poetry aloud to one another before the fire in Rupert’s study at the Old Vicarage, swimming in the Mill Race .
We did just that, Daphne and I—had tea at the Orchard, I mean—sitting in the lawn chairs under the apple trees with our faces turned up to the sun. We had pots of tea and huge slabs of cake to warm ourselves, then when the light began to fade we went inside and had more tea before the roaring fire .
Afterwards we went and peered through the fence at the Old Vicarage next door, watching the lights come on in the dusk. The place looks a bit run-down, and the garden overgrown, but I think Rupert Brooke preferred it that way .
As I watched, I imagined them moving on the dim paths of the garden, arm in arm, the women in long, white, high-collared dresses, the men in tennis whites or striped blazers. Their voices came faintly, fading in and out on the wind, but I thought I recognized their faces. Dudley Ward and Justin Brooke, Ka Cox, the Darwins, James Strachey, Jacques Raverat, and is that little Noel Olivier, perhaps, on Rupert’s arm, her dark head tilted up as she listens to him? They are talking of politics, socialism, art, and I daresay there’s much silliness and teasing as well .
I feel a kinship with Rupert that goes beyond our common name. I share his passion for words and dedication to his craft—and I hope I have his discipline. How little things change. In 1907, Brooke and some of his friends at King’s formed a society called The Carbonari just for the purpose of thinking and talking, a way of sorting out what they thought of the world. One night Brooke said, “There are only three things in the world. One is to read poetry, another is to write poetry, and the best of all is to live poetry.” According to Edward Marsh (from whose biography I just quoted), Brooke said that at rare moments he had glimpses of what poetry really meant, how it solved all problems of conduct and settled all questions of values .
So inspired have I been by these words that I’ve given up all ideas of working for the paper, etc., in short, of doing anything other than practicing my craft. Putting it off until I could schedule big blocks of time for my own work was the worst sort of procrastination, like waiting to live until one’s life is perfect—the day never comes. So I’m writing whenever I can, in between lectures and papers and required reading, and I find everything is fuel for my fires. You can’t separate poetry from life—life insists on bleeding over, in all its myriad and messy ways .
I’ve finished a long poem I think is quite good, called “Solstice,” and I’m enclosing a copy for you. Tell me what you think, Mummy darling, and be honest (but gentle if you think it’s awful). I’ve sent it off to some of the magazines as well, and wait for the inevitable rejections .
Daphne and I plunged home in the almost-dark, arm in arm,
The sky here is like nowhere else I’ve ever seen, so wide and limitless, and yet I have the oddest feeling of belonging, of having been here before . Daphne has been studying comparative religion, and we’ve talked about different philosophies. I’ve found myself wondering lately if there isn’t something to the idea of reincarnation—if that doesn’t shock your good old C. of E. sensibilities, Mummy darling—but it at least provides some explanation of what I feel. And this is not only a matter of space, but of time as well. I quite often feel displaced in the present .
Of course Cambridge itself is bound to give one a sense of continuity, of timelessness, but I seem to have a particular affinity for the years before the Great War. When I read about Rupert Brooke and his friends, it’s as if I can almost see them. I know what it felt like to be there, having tea in the garden at the Orchard, reading poetry aloud to one another before the fire in Rupert’s study at the Old Vicarage, swimming in the Mill Race .
We did just that, Daphne and I—had tea at the Orchard, I mean—sitting in the lawn chairs under the apple trees with our faces turned up to the sun. We had pots of tea and huge slabs of cake to warm ourselves, then when the light began to fade we went inside and had more tea before the roaring fire .
Afterwards we went and peered through the fence at the Old Vicarage next door, watching the lights come on in the dusk. The place looks a bit run-down, and the garden overgrown, but I think Rupert Brooke preferred it that way .
As I watched, I imagined them moving on the dim paths of the garden, arm in arm, the women in long, white, high-collared dresses, the men in tennis whites or striped blazers. Their voices came faintly, fading in and out on the wind, but I thought I recognized their faces. Dudley Ward and Justin Brooke, Ka Cox, the Darwins, James Strachey, Jacques Raverat, and is that little Noel Olivier, perhaps, on Rupert’s arm, her dark head tilted up as she listens to him? They are talking of politics, socialism, art, and I daresay there’s much silliness and teasing as well .
I feel a kinship with Rupert that goes beyond our common name. I share his passion for words and dedication to his craft—and I hope I have his discipline. How little things change. In 1907, Brooke and some of his friends at King’s formed a society called The Carbonari just for the purpose of thinking and talking, a way of sorting out what they thought of the world. One night Brooke said, “There are only three things in the world. One is to read poetry, another is to write poetry, and the best of all is to live poetry.” According to Edward Marsh (from whose biography I just quoted), Brooke said that at rare moments he had glimpses of what poetry really meant, how it solved all problems of conduct and settled all questions of values .
So inspired have I been by these words that I’ve given up all ideas of working for the paper, etc., in short, of doing anything other than practicing my craft. Putting it off until I could schedule big blocks of time for my own work was the worst sort of procrastination, like waiting to live until one’s life is perfect—the day never comes. So I’m writing whenever I can, in between lectures and papers and required reading, and I find everything is fuel for my fires. You can’t separate poetry from life—life insists on bleeding over, in all its myriad and messy ways .
I’ve finished a long poem I think is quite good, called “Solstice,” and I’m enclosing a copy for you. Tell me what you think, Mummy darling, and be honest (but gentle if you think it’s awful). I’ve sent it off to some of the magazines as well, and wait for the inevitable rejections .
Daphne and I plunged home in the almost-dark, arm in arm,
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