A friend send this on this morning, thinking I was already familiar with. Yet, though Auden is one of my favorites, I had never read his poem Atlantis. What a delightful gift!
ATLANTIS
Being set on the idea Of getting to Atlantis, You have discovered of course Only the Ship of Fools is Making the voyage this year, As gales of abnormal force Are predicted, and that you Must therefore be ready to Behave absurdly enough To pass for one of The Boys, At least appearing to love Hard liquor, horseplay and noise.
Should storms, as may well happen, Drive you to anchor a week In some old harbour-city Of Ionia, then speak With her witty scholars, men Who have proved there cannot be Such a place as Atlantis: Learn their logic, but notice How its subtlety betrays Their enormous simple grief; Thus they shall teach you the ways To doubt that you may believe.
If, later, you run aground Among the headlands of Thrace, Where with torches all night long A naked barbaric race Leaps frenziedly to the sound Of conch and dissonant gong: On that stony savage shore Strip off your clothes and dance, for Unless you are capable Of forgetting completely About Atlantis, you will Never finish your journey.
Again, should you come to gay Carthage or Corinth, take part In their endless gaiety; And if in some bar a tart, As she strokes your hair, should say "This is Atlantis, dearie," Listen with attentiveness To her life-story: unless You become acquainted now With each refuge that tries to Counterfeit Atlantis, how Will you recognise the true?
Assuming you beach at last Near Atlantis, and begin That terrible trek inland Through squalid woods and frozen Thundras where all are soon lost; If, forsaken then, you stand, Dismissal everywhere, Stone and now, silence and air, O remember the great dead And honour the fate you are, Travelling and tormented, Dialectic and bizarre.
Stagger onward rejoicing; And even then if, perhaps Having actually got To the last col, you collapse With all Atlantis shining Below you yet you cannot Descend, you should still be proud Even to have been allowed Just to peep at Atlantis In a poetic vision: Give thanks and lie down in peace, Having seen your salvation.
All the little household gods Have started crying, but say Good-bye now, and put to sea. Farewell, my dear, farewell: may Hermes, master of the roads, And the four dwarf Kabiri, Protect and serve you always; And may the Ancient of Days Provide for all you must do His invisible guidance, Lifting up, dear, upon you The light of His countenance.
I grabbed this post from my travel blog, because this is how I spent August 12 (L'Chaim) this year, and what a delightful and life-affirming experience it was!
Today was a slower day - or at least it was supposed to be - which was rather a relief! I needed some time to process all I had seen and done and learned. We had a booking into Rosslyn Chapel at noon for an hour and a half time slot; a noon booking also meant a nice leisurely morning! I don't know if they've always done bookings or if this is new with the pandemic and with trying to keep the numbers low. Rosslyn Chapel didn't used to be as popular as it is now, but with the advent of Dan Brown's best-selling book The Da Vinci Code, published 18 years ago - and the movie which came out 15 years ago - Rosslyn Chapel has become a massively popular site. Many places suffer when they end up getting this sort of popularity, but Rosslyn Chapel, which was in great need of repair, really benefited from that huge boost in popularity. Even without the mystery and intrigue of Dan Brown's fictionalized version, this place is glorious completely on its own merits. The unique yellow-pink stone of which is it built is beyond beautiful. The stonework both inside and outside is captivating, to say the least.
I had thought (from what I'd read online before going) that the hour and a half time period was the amount of time we got INSIDE the chapel and that then we could have as much time as we wanted to wander around outside. Therefore, I spent all my time in the chapel and then tried to get a few outdoor shots. Boy, was I wrong! I don't know it you can see her on the far right in the picture below, but the poor chapel employee was trying to get all of us out of the grounds so that they could prepare for the next group. I "just" wanted one good picture of the whole outside, and these two girls seemed to want to take selfies at each and every buttress and window and fence post . . . so I was hanging back waiting for them to be done with their selfies so I could get this ONE shot, but, of course the guide was just as frustrated with me as with them. "Won't you please cooperate? We need to prepare the space for the next group of guests." So I snapped this shot with the two (three) ladies in it and went on my way, feeling kind of bad. Because of COVID, they do wipe down all the pews after one group has left, and they carry out other cleaning procedures, and if folks are still hanging around then we could re-enter and contaminate things, so I do get it. I just wish I had known in advance that the hour and a half was for the whole experience inside and out and not just the inside (where you can't take pictures).
Toby and I spent some time in the bookstore and made some purchases and picked up a snack at the café.
I didn't realize that this was a FAMOUS cat that I was taking pictures of. I later learned that this is Rosslyn's "William the Cat." Apparently he's one of a generation of Williams, and there is a book "written by" him, which you can purchase in the bookstore (or an Amazon for that matter), and you can get stuffed animal copies of him to take home. I had just thought it was a friendly cat curled up elegantly in the sun. He was quite friendly -- obviously very used to people.
As we (reluctantly) left, I notice this cool green door just next to the visitor's center:
And thus I took my leave of this most magical of places.
The idea now was that I would have my first free afternoon/evening in 6 or 7 days and that I would be able to use it to reflect on all I'd experienced and to journal and to catch up on blogging and on Facebook, and perhaps to work on setting up my websites for my classes for the fall semester or send out "welcome" emails to my students -- and maybe even take a nap -- just some much-needed down time, just resting or doing some desk-work after a week of go-go-go!
And that's what I really, truly meant to do
BUT I was IN Edinburgh! I can't sit in a room and work on a computer when all this glory that is generally impossibly far away from me was right there at my doorstep, and so back out the door I went for a walk in this glorious place!
As I walked out the door I remembered that there was something I had wanted to be sure to see but hadn't made a point of finding yet. It was just a little thing but a very beautiful thing that I'd seen pictures of on the internet over the years. (I've actually kind of "spoiled" it already by jumping the gun and posting pictures of it on my "Placeholder / Overview" post, and there will be a few other repeats as well, alas, but here goes.)
I headed back out past my helpful landmark:
Back onto Circus Lane:
A black door, and a blue bench -
On toward The Bailie:
And, wait, can it be?! What do I see behind that blue building on the corner? Might those be flowers?
YES!!! It's the "Stockbridge Flower House!" I walked this close to it so many times and didn't notice that it was there!
Yea! I found it! From there on to the heart of Stockbridge and over to the Water of Leith Walkway again. There were three or four days where I walked down Circus Lane and into Stockbridge and along the Water of Leith. I posted about it earlier, but this time I had time (since I decided against updating my school webpages!) to go further and make it to Dean Village and beyond.
And then onward to St. Mary's Cathedral, a place that has really captured my heart since David and I heard the loveliest evensong there two years ago:
I visited St. Mary's more than once, and each time I was there the organ was being practiced. It is becoming a lost art here in the US, so it brings joy to my soul to know it still lives in Europe! (And this has been the case whether I've been in Scotland, England, France or Germany, almost every time I am in a church or cathedral, someone is practicing the organ. I might have to move there.)
Time to turn around and head "home" - and, again, flowers everywhere!
Well, and maybe dinner on the way. This Pizza Express has quite the presence!
And quite the views -
And you can't go wrong with pasta!
Just think of all I would have missed out on if I'd napped or journaled or updated websites! I'm here, and I'm going to focus on HERE!!
I am interested in just about everything: physics, faith, poetry, mathematics, movies, books, eating, card games, board games, strategy games, friendship, mountains, trees, rivers and England.
