tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19151341.post114623715195047338..comments2024-03-16T16:12:13.296+00:00Comments on some LANDSCAPES: Scottish streamsPliniushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06529481330530614513noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19151341.post-84163520584128824842016-04-02T10:05:23.610+01:002016-04-02T10:05:23.610+01:00What of Charles Tomlinson's superb adaptation ... <br /> What of Charles Tomlinson's superb adaptation in verse, called "Ruskin Remembered"<br /> ("Annunciations", 1989)?<br /><br /> What is it tunes a Scottish stream so fine?<br /> Concurrence of the rock and of the rain.<br /> Much rain must fall, and yet not of a sort<br /> That tears the hills down, carries them off in sport.<br /> The rocks must break irregularly, jagged--<br /> Our Yorkshire shales, carpenter-like, form merely<br /> Tables and shelves for rain to drip and leap<br /> Down from; the rocks of Cumberland and Wales<br /> Are of too bold a cut and so keep back<br /> Those chords their streams should multiply and mingle.<br /> But there must be hard pebbles too--within<br /> The loosely breaking rock, to strew a shingle<br /> Along the level shore--white, for the brown<br /> Water in rippling threads to wander through<br /> In amber gradations to the brink, the ear<br /> Filled with the link on link of travelling sound,<br /> Like heard divisions, crisp above a ground,<br /> Defining a contentment that suffices--<br /> As walking to unblent music, such as this.<br /><br /><br /> It's a poem best read aloud to catch the internal rhymes and spondees--better still if<br /> you hear the poet himself read it in the Charles Tomlinson page of PennSound, with its<br /> Collected Poems link.r.swigg@tiscali. co. uknoreply@blogger.com