Comment verification nonsense !

 

Blogger had put on comment verification I gather . Assume this is standard on " new blogger ".

I have taken it off .

Gammon and Larkin .

 

Larkin , in his poem " An Arundel tomb " makes the point that

" They would not guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
The air would turn to soundless damage ,
How soon succeeding eyes begin
to look not read . "

When the monuments went up ,  the person it commemorates and the person who paid for it were known to the viewer .
Now , we don't read it like that , we concentrate more often on the skill of the maker , the boggling amount of children on the plinth or the beauty of it and what it unexpectedly reveals says Larkin , or something like it .

These lovely things can be a record , a form of respect , vanity , resultant of a promise kept .

A rewriting of the history of a man who was less than he might have been in some areas of his life .

A humorous or political point made and now lost or partially obscure now .

The monument to Sir Anthony Rowley sits in a church I sometimes visit in Suffolk . The poem " a frog he would a wooing go "is about him . 

"A frog he would a wooing go

Hey ho says rowley

Whether his mother would like it or no

With a rowley , powley , gammon and spinach

hey ho says anthony rowley .

There are local families called Rowley , Powley , Gammon and ( unusual ) Spinach .

On Sir Anthony's statue he wears an earring . It is of a frog .

The full significance of the poem and the frog earring are not known .

The Larkin poem is ( of course ) very good  - if you don't know it , have a look .

Serenity .

  

As the light fades the sky is overcast with peach and dark blue clouds . Here and there the sunlight and sky blue of the day show through . On the dull blue water sea gulls sit swaying on the tide . 

When the sunlight breaks through it rests on the white backs of the gulls . It makes them golden and lit up .

In the fading light they look like so many fireflies .