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Taking Names: ‘I’m not your friend anymore?’ / 2 weeks in Jerusalem / Hardy: Nobody Comes: 8 Poems / Mercy (Cats of Osaka)

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Undercover Israeli security personnel detain a Palestinian demonstrator during clashes at a protest near the Jewish settlement of Beit El, near the West Bank city of Ramallah December 13, 2017.: photo by Mohamad Torokman / Reuters, 13 December 2017

 

‘I’m not your friend anymore?’

 


Palestinians throw a molotov cocktail and stones towards Israeli forces on the other side of a barrier at the Qalandia checkpoint in the occupied West Bank. Photo @TomCOEX: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 20 December 2017



A knife, a fake bomb belt, a death: Reuters photographer Goran Tomasevic describes photographing a Palestinian protester shot by Israeli police on Friday's 'Day of Rage': image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 18 December 2017
 
 

Clashes continue in the West Bank between Israeli forces and Palestinians protesting Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 20 December 2017

 
 
Clashes continue in the West Bank between Israeli forces and Palestinians protesting Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 20 December 2017

 
Palestinian demonstrators throw stones towards Israeli security forces during clashes near a checkpoint in the city centre of the West Bank town of #Hebron #Jerusalem Photo @hazemjbader1: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 20 December 2017



Clashes with Israeli forces near the Qalandia checkpoint in the occupied West Bank as protests continue following the US president's controversial recognition of #Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Photo @Abbasmomani: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 20 December 2017



Clashes with Israeli forces near the Qalandia checkpoint in the occupied West Bank as protests continue following the US president's controversial recognition of #Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Photo @Abbasmomani @TomCOEX: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 20 December 2017



Clashes with Israeli forces near the Qalandia checkpoint in the occupied West Bank as protests continue following the US president's controversial recognition of #Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Photo @Abbasmomani @TomCOEX: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 20 December 2017


Son of Salam Rabaa, Palestinian owner of Rabaa restaurant, gestures with hand imitating poster of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, at venue entrance in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza strip on December 17, 2017. #GAZA #NORTHKOREA #ISRAEL Photo by
 @mohmdabed/@AFPphoto: image via Amir Makar @amakar, 17 December 2017



So now the #US and #Israeli #UN mouthpiece #NikkiHaley is openly THREATENING sovereign, independent countries! "On Thurs there'll be a vote criticizing our choice. The US will be taking names," she wrote on #Twitter, following her Führer, #Drumpfs example!: image via Damanda C_Palestine #amanda_damanda, 20 December 2017

U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley at U.N. Security Council meeting, where she vetoed a resolution seeking to rescind U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. December 18, 2017. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

 U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley at U.N. Security Council meeting, where she vetoed a resolution seeking to rescind U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. December 18, 2017.: photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images, 18 December 2017
 

Haley Warns Diplomats on Jerusalem: Trump Is Watching You: “We will take note of each and every vote on this issue.”: Colum Lynch, Foreign Policy, 19 December 2017


That was the message U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley emailed to scores of members of the U.N. who are weighing whether to vote Thursday in favor of a General Assembly resolution urging the United States to rescind its decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

“As you consider your vote, I want you to know that the President and U.S. take this vote personally,” Haley wrote in an email that was obtained by Foreign Policy. “The President will be watching this vote carefully and has requested I report back on those countries who voted against us. We will take note of each and every vote on this issue.”

Haley said the U.S. is not asking other countries to follow its lead and move their embassies to Jerusalem, “though we think it would be appropriate.”

The U.S. ambassador’s remarks follow President Donald Trump’s Dec. 6 announcement that the United States would recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, reversing nearly seven decades of U.S. foreign policy and shattering the U.N. consensus that the status of Jerusalem would be settled as part of a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

Trump’s decision drew expressions of condemnation from capitals around the world. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said the president’s decision disqualified Washington as a Middle East mediator, saying “a crazy person wouldn’t accept” the United States as a peace broker after Trump’s announcement.

The tough rhetoric hinted that the United States was weighing retaliating against those who defy America’s wishes. But several diplomats said any such threat would likely be empty, as the vast majority of U.N. members, including close allies like Britain and France, are likely to vote yes.

The letter went out a day after the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution, introduced by Egypt, that also urged the United States to reverse course, saying the decision by any government, including the United States, to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital would “have no legal effect” and is “null and void and must be rescinded.” The resolutions, which gained the support of all 14 other U.N. Security Council members, left the Americans diplomatically isolated.

The United States portrayed its decision as a purely sovereign matter that merely codified decades of congressional support for moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.

“At the UN we’re always asked to do more & give more,” Haley tweeted Tuesday. “So, when we make a decision, at the will of the American ppl, abt where to locate OUR embassy, we don’t expect those we’ve helped to target us. On Thurs there’ll be a vote criticizing our choice. The US will be taking names.”

In her letter to U.N. states, Haley noted that 22 years ago the U.S. Congress first declared “Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of Israel, and that the U.S. Embassy should be located in Jerusalem. President Trump affirmed that declaration by officially recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.”

The president’s decision, she noted, does “not prejudge final status negotiations in any way, including the specific boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem.”

She also noted that the president still supports “the status quo at Jerusalem’s holy sites.”

U.N. diplomats saw Trump’s action as an affront to the United Nations and the rule of law, a blunt repudiation of 10 previous U.N. Security Council resolutions on Jerusalem adopted since 1967, including a 1980 resolution calling on states that had already established diplomatic missions in Jerusalem to withdraw them.

Haley’s letter dominated diplomatic chatter at U.N. receptions at the residences of the Finnish and Japanese ambassadors.

“This is just political theater,” said one ambassador.

“Cowboy diplomacy,” said another diplomat who considers himself a friend of Haley’s.

“What, is she saying, ‘I’m not your friend anymore?’”

 

Israeli policemen detain a Palestinian protestor after Friday prayers in Jerusalem's Old City, as Palestinians call for a "day of rage" in response to President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital December 15, 2017 REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 15 December 2017



Israeli policemen detain a Palestinian protestor after Friday prayers in Jerusalem's Old City, as Palestinians call for a "day of rage" in response to President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital December 15, 2017 REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 15 December 2017



Israeli policemen detain a Palestinian protestor after Friday prayers in Jerusalem's Old City, as Palestinians call for a "day of rage" in response to President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital December 15, 2017 REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 15 December 2017

 

Israeli policemen detain a Palestinian protestor after Friday prayers in Jerusalem's Old City, as Palestinians call for a "day of rage" in response to President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital December 15, 2017 REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 15 December 2017


Palestinians scuffle with Israeli police during a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City December 11, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 11 December 2017


Palestinians scuffle with Israeli police during a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City December 11, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 11 December 2017


Palestinians scuffle with Israeli police during a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City December 11, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 11 December 2017


Palestinians scuffle with Israeli police during a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City December 11, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 11 December 2017


Israeli policemen detain a man in a street during a demonstration in east Jerusalem December 9, 2017 REUTERS/Ammar Awad7: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 9 December 2017

 

Israeli policemen detain a man in a street during a demonstration in east Jerusalem December 9, 2017 REUTERS/Ammar Awad7: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 9 December 2017 

 

Israeli policemen detain a man in a street during a demonstration in east Jerusalem December 9, 2017 REUTERS/Ammar Awad7: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 9 December 2017

 

Israeli policemen detain a man in a street during a demonstration in east Jerusalem December 9, 2017 REUTERS/Ammar Awad7: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 9 December 2017

 

Israeli border policemen and a Palestinian youth scuffle after Friday prayers in Jerusalem's Old City, as Palestinians call for a "day of rage" inresponse to U.S. President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital December 8, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 8 December 2017


Israeli border policemen and a Palestinian youth scuffle after Friday prayers in Jerusalem's Old City, as Palestinians call for a "day of rage" in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital December 8, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 8 December 2017
 

Israeli border policemen and a Palestinian youth scuffle after Friday prayers in Jerusalem's Old City, as Palestinians call for a "day of rage" in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital December 8, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 8 December 2017
 

Reuters #AmmarAwad #Jerusalem: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 8 December 2017 

 
Reuters #AmmarAwad #Jerusalem: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 8 December 2017
  

Reuters #AmmarAwad #Jerusalem: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 8 December 2017 

 

Reuters #AmmarAwad #Jerusalem: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 8 December 2017


A Palestinian man argues with an Israeli border policewoman during a protest, near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City December 7, 2017. #REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 7 December 2017


A Palestinian man argues with an Israeli border policewoman during a protest, near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City December 7, 2017. #REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 7 December 2017


A Palestinian man argues with an Israeli border policewoman during a protest, near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City December 7, 2017. #REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 7 December 2017


A Palestinian man argues with an Israeli border policewoman during a protest, near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City December 7, 2017. #REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 7 December 2017


#REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 7 December 2017: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 7 December 2017


#REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 7 December 2017: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 7 December 2017


#REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 7 December 2017: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 7 December 2017


#REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 7 December 2017: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 7 December 2017


A general view shows part of Jerusalem's Old City and the Dome of the Rock December 5, 2017 REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 5 December 2017


A general view shows part of Jerusalem's Old City and the Dome of the Rock December 5, 2017 REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 5 December 2017


A general view shows part of Jerusalem's Old City and the Dome of the Rock December 5, 2017 REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 5 December 2017


A general view shows part of Jerusalem's Old City and the Dome of the Rock December 5, 2017 REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 5 December 2017

 

People sit together next to a camel at the look-out point of Mount Olives opposite to the Dome of the Rock and Jerusalem's Old City December 4, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 4 December 2017

 


People sit together next to a camel at the look-out point of Mount Olives opposite to the Dome of the Rock and Jerusalem's Old City December 4, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 4 December 2017
 


People sit together next to a camel at the look-out point of Mount Olives opposite to the Dome of the Rock and Jerusalem's Old City December 4, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 4 December 2017
 


People sit together next to a camel at the look-out point of Mount Olives opposite to the Dome of the Rock and Jerusalem's Old City December 4, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 4 December 2017
 
Thomas Hardy: Nobody Comes

File:Corning Conaphore y.jpg

Early automotive headlamp equipped with Corning Conaphore lens: photo by Schweinwerfermann, 21 December 2007

.....Tree-leaves labour up and down,
..........And through them the fainting light
..........Succumbs to the crawl of night.
.....Outside in the road the telegraph wire
..........To the town from the darkening land
Intones to travelers like a spectral lyre
..........Swept by a spectral hand.


.....A car comes up, with lamps full-glare,
..........That flash upon a tree:
..........It has nothing to do with me,
.....And whangs along in a world of its own,
..........Leaving a blacker air;
And mute by the gate I stand again alone,
.....      And nobody pulls up there.
.............................
                                                                                     9 October 1924
 

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928):Nobody Comes, from Human Shows, Far Phantasies, Songs and Trifles(1925)
 
File:In Came Wood - geograph.org.uk - 621333.jpg

In Came Wood, Dorset. The bridleway towards Warren Barn runs for a short way inside Came Wood, a deciduous woodland: photo by Graham Horn, 19 November 2007

File:Bridleway towards Warren Barn - geograph.org.uk - 621354.jpg

Bridleway towards Warren Barn. The northern part of Came Wood is to the left. The bridleway drops to a minor valley before continuing towards Warren Barn. Arable land to the right: photo by Graham Horn, 19 November 2007


Dorset woodland: photo by cjb22, 28 December 2010
Mercy (cats of Osaka)

Cat's house | by masamiy21

Cat's House [Osaka]: photo by Masami Yamada, 27 November 2017

Siesta | by masamiy21

Siesta[Osaka]: photo by Masami Yamada, 3 December 2017

Fuji-Color C-200 | by masamiy21

Untitled [Osaka]: photo by Masami Yamada, 11 December 2017

Fuji-Color C-200 | by masamiy21

Untitled [Osaka]: photo by Masami Yamada, 11 December 2017

Blind cat | by masamiy21

Blind Cat [Osaka]: photo by Masami Yamada, 3 December 2017

Patrolling | by masamiy21

Patrolling [Osaka]: photo by Masami Yamada, 3 December 2017

Alley | by masamiy21

Alley: photo by Masami Yamada, 16 December 2017

 Thomas Hardy: Neutral Tones


today the snow (edge of Heron Pond, Munroe Falls Metro Park, Summit County, Ohio): photo by wood_owl, 26 January 2014

We stood by a pond that winter day,
And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,
And a few leaves lay on the starving sod;
        -- They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.

Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
Over tedious riddles of years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro
         On which lost the more by our love.

The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing
Alive enough to have strength to die;
And a grin of bitterness swept thereby
         Like an ominous bird a-wing….

Since then, keen lessons that love deceives,
And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me
Your face, and the God curst sun, and a tree, 
         And a pond edged with grayish leaves.

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928): Neutral Tones, 1867, in Wessex Poems and Other Verses (1898)

 In this Monday, Jan. 23, 2017 photo, horses graze in a paddock with fog enveloping the trees behind them, as seen from Leith Hill in Surrey, south west of London. Thick fog has caused numerous flight delays and cancellations at London Heathrow and other area airports. The Met Office issued a severe weather warning for London and most of southern England as driving conditions were also hazardous and slippery. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

In this Monday, Jan. 23, 2017 photo, horses graze in a paddock with fog enveloping the trees behind them, as seen from Leith Hill in Surrey, south west of London. Thick fog has caused numerous flight delays and cancellations at London Heathrow and other area airports. The Met Office issued a severe weather warning for London and most of southern England as driving conditions were also hazardous and slippery.: photo by Matt Dunham/AP, 23 January 2017 


It would seem that the statue of #ThomasHardy in #Dorchester acquired a new hat last night...!: image via Summer Strevens @SummerStrevens, 30 November 2017

Thomas Hardy: I Said to Love


Woman at mirror, Seattle, 1930s: hand-colored slide, photographer unknown (Seattle Municipal Archives)
=        I said to Love,
'It is not now as in old days
When men adored thee and thy ways
         All else above;
Named thee the Boy, the Bright, the One
Who spread a heaven beneath the sun,'
         I said to Love.

         I said to him,
'We now know more of thee than then;
We were but weak in judgment when,
         With hearts abrim,
We clamoured thee that thou would'st please
Inflict on us thine agonies,'
         I said to him.

         I said to Love,
'Thou art not young, thou art not fair,
No faery darts, no cherub air,
         Nor swan, nor dove
Are thine; but features pitiless,
And iron daggers of distress,'
         I said to Love.

         'Depart then, Love! . . .
-- Man's race shall perish, threatenest thou, 

Without thy kindling coupling-vow?
The age to come the man of now
         Know nothing of? --
 

We fear not such a threat from thee;
We are too old in apathy!
Mankind shall cease. -- So let it be,'
         I said to Love.


Thomas Hardy (1840-1928): I Said to Love, from Poems of the Past and the Present, 1901


Couple in living room, Seattle, 1930s: hand-colored slide, photographer unknown (Seattle Municipal Archives)

Thomas Hardy: Channel Firing

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Idylls_of_the_King_3.jpg
   
Camelot: Gustave Doré, illustration in Lord Alfred Tennyson: Idylls of the King, 1868: image by Holger Thölking, 2 April 2006

That night your great guns, unawares,
Shook all our coffins as we lay,
And broke the chancel window-squares,
We thought it was the Judgment-day

And sat upright. While drearisome
Arose the howl of wakened hounds:
The mouse let fall the altar-crumb,
The worms drew back into the mounds,

The glebe cow drooled. Till God called, “No;
It’s gunnery practice out at sea
Just as before you went below;
The world is as it used to be:

“All nations striving strong to make
Red war yet redder. Mad as hatters
They do no more for Christés sake
Than you who are helpless in such matters.

“That this is not the judgment-hour
For some of them’s a blessed thing,
For if it were they’d have to scour
Hell’s floor for so much threatening....

“Ha, ha. It will be warmer when
I blow the trumpet (if indeed
I ever do; for you are men,
And rest eternal sorely need).”

So down we lay again. “I wonder,
Will the world ever saner be,”
Said one, “than when He sent us under
In our indifferent century!”

And many a skeleton shook his head.
“Instead of preaching forty year,”
My neighbour Parson Thirdly said,
“I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer.”

Again the guns disturbed the hour,
Roaring their readiness to avenge,
As far inland as Stourton Tower,
And Camelot, and starlit Stonehenge.


File:Stonehenge with farm carts, c. 1885.jpg

Ground view of Stonehenge, Wiltshire, with two farm carts, two horses and men: photographer unknown, c. 1885; image scan by Moonraker, 16 June 2011

 File:Stonehengea117875.jpg

10th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, marches past Stonehenge, winter 1914-1915
: photographer unknown (Library and Archives Canada)


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/KingAlfredsTowerFromEast.png

King Alfred's Tower in Brewham, Somerset, near Stourhead, Wiltshire. View of the entrance from the southeast: photo by Interesting wiki, 7 November 2007
 
Thomas Hardy: Channel Firing, April 1914, from Satires of Circumstance (1914)

Channel Firing is another Hardy poem that begins with an immediate experienced moment: the sound of naval gunfire from the British Grand Fleet, conducting gunnery exercises in the Channel. The poet's home in Dorchester was only a few miles from the coast, and if, in the poem, the big guns' roar is loud enough to wake the dead, the reverberation seems to have also been enough to keep the septuagenarian poet from sleeping. All those ghosts, past and to come. This historically premonitory poem was writ a few months before the outbreak of hostilities, and broadens out in implication, as it goes along, from history to a fantasia of prehistory to myth -- Stourton Tower, Camelot, Stonehenge, increasingly remote realms.It has a way of continuing to echo. The awakened graveyard inhabitants were to witness the sacrifice of an entire generation of young men, soon coming to join them in their restless place. 

Thomas Hardy: In Time of "The Breaking of Nations"


#China Sheep walk in a field between Karamay and Urumqi. Photo @franck_fife #agriculture
: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 16 July 2017
I

Only a man harrowing clods
In a slow silent walk
With an old horse that stumbles and nods
Half asleep as they stalk.

II

Only thin smoke without flame
From the heaps of couch-grass;
Yet this will go onward the same
Though Dynasties pass.

III

Yonder a maid and her wight
Come whispering by:
War’s annals will cloud into night
Ere their story die.

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928): In Time of "The Breaking of Nations", first published in Saturday Review, January 1916; collected in Late Lyrics and Earlier, 1922


#China A tractor is seen in a field between Karamay and Urumqi. Photo @franck_fife #agriculture: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 16 July 2017

Thomas Hardy: Afterwards



01671. concentrated cornish coloration hues (flock of starlings... I think): photo by Junk Male (borrowed_time), 9 November 2007


When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay,
   And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings,
Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say,
    "He was a man who used to notice such things"?

If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid's soundless blink,
   The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alight
Upon the wind-warped upland thorn, a gazer may think,
   "To him this must have been a familiar sight."

If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm,
   When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn,
One may say, "He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm,
   But he could do little for them; and now he is gone."

If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door,
   Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees,
Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more,
   "He was one who had an eye for such mysteries"?


And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom,
   And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its outrollings,
Till they rise again, as they were a new bell's boom,
   "He hears it not now, but used to notice such things"?

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928): Afterwards, from Moments of Vision, 1917



01719. concentrated cornish coloration hues: photo by Junk Male (borrowed_time), 26 November 2007



02155. this land: photo by Junk Male (borrowed_time), 28 March 2008


01765. concentrated cornish coloration hues: photo by Junk Male (borrowed_time), 7 December 2007
Thomas Hardy: The Walk

File:Crumbling Rusey Cliff - geograph.org.uk - 437355.jpg

Crumbling Rusey Cliff, 3 km from Tresparett, Cornwall: photo by Jon Coupland, 18 May 2007

You did not walk with me

Of late to the hill-top tree

    By the gated ways,

    As in earlier days;

    You were weak and lame,

    So you never came,

And I went alone, and I did not mind,

Not thinking of you as left behind.

I walked up there to-day

Just in the former way;

    Surveyed around

    The familiar ground

    By myself again:

    What difference, then?

Only that underlying sense

Of the look of a room on returning thence. 


Thomas Hardy (1840-1928): The Walk from Poems of 1912-1913, in Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries (1914)
 
I rode my pretty mare Fanny and he walked by my side and I showed him some more of the neighbourhood -- the cliffs, along the roads, and through the scattered hamlets, sometimes gazing down at the solemn small shores below where the seals lived, coming out of great caverns very occasionally. We sketched and talked of books: often we walked down the beautiful Valency Valley to Bodcastle harbour where we had to jump over stones and climb over a low rail by rough steps, or get through by narrow pathways to come out on great wide spaces suddenly, with a sparkling little brook going the same way, into which we once lost a tiny picnic tumbler, and there it is to this day no doubt between two small boulders.


-- Emma Hardy: from Some Recollections, ed. Evelyn Hardy and Robert Gittings, 1961

 
Not till his first wife had died could Hardy's love poetry for her have been written, and then it was mixed with a flood of regret and remorse for what he had lost. This kind of paradox is inseparable from poetic creation, and indeed from life altogether. At times it almost appears a sort of basic insincerity in human affection. At others it seems a flaw built deeply into the working of the emotions, creating an inevitable bias in life towards unhappiness.


-- Philip Larkin: from Mrs Hardy's Memories, 1962, in Required Writing: Miscellaneous Pieces 1955-1982 (1982)



File:St Juliot, ford through the river Valency - geograph.org.uk - 90471.jpg 

St Juliot: ford through the river Valency. On a side road from Tresparrett to Lesnewth: photo by Martin Bodman, May 1997


File:Beeny Cliff - geograph.org.uk - 437370.jpg

Beeny Cliff, looking down the steep steps to Seals Hole: photo by Jon Coupland, 18 May 2007
 
File:Beeny Cliff - geograph.org.uk - 1493032.jpg

Beeny Cliff. Looking north along the cliffside from a point on the coast path just above Seals Hole: photo by Tony Atkin, 13 September 2009



File:A Long Way Down - geograph.org.uk - 1490763.jpg 

A Long Way Down. If you approach High Cliff on the coast path from the south the ascent is very steep indeed: photo by Tony Atkin, 13 September 2009
 
File:Coastal footpath at North Lodge junction - geograph.org.uk - 437365.jpg 

Coastal footpath at North Lodge junction. We met these birders who were watching a Peregrine falcon: photo by Jon Coupland, 18 May 2007

File:Buckator Cliff and Gull Rock - geograph.org.uk - 1492996.jpg

Buckator Cliff and Gull Rock. Sheer black cliffs on the westwards facing headland: photo by Tony Atkin, 13 September 2009

 File:Gull Rock and Buckator cliff - geograph.org.uk - 437360.jpg

Gull Rock and Buckator Cliff: photo by Jon Coupland, 18 May 2007

File:Voter Run - geograph.org.uk - 437338.jpg

Voter Run. Amazing folded rocks just like molten toffee: photo by Jon Coupland, 18 May 2007

Thomas Hardy: At Castle Boterel



New Road, Boscastle, Cornnwall, ca. 1895
: photochrome print by Photoglob Zürich, between 1890 and 1910; image by trialsanderrors (Library of Congress)


As I drive to the junction of lane and highway,
   And the drizzle bedrenches the waggonette,
I look behind at the fading byway,
   And see on its slope, now glistening wet,
         Distinctly yet

Myself and a girlish form benighted
   In dry March weather. We climb the road
Beside a chaise. We had just alighted
   To ease the sturdy pony’s load
         When he sighed and slowed.

What we did as we climbed, and what we talked of
   Matters not much, nor to what it led, ―
Something that life will not be balked of
   Without rude reason till hope is dead,
         And feeling fled.

It filled but a minute. But was there ever
   A time of such quality, since or before,
In that hill’s story ? To one mind never,
   Though it has been climbed, foot-swift, foot-sore,
         By thousands more.

Primaeval rocks form the road’s steep border,
   And much have they faced there, first and last,
Of the transitory in Earth’s long order;
   But what they record in colour and cast
         Is—that we two passed.

And to me, though Time’s unflinching rigour,
   In mindless rote, has ruled from sight
The substance now, one phantom figure
   Remains on the slope, as when that night
         Saw us alight. 

I look and see it there, shrinking, shrinking,
   I look back at it amid the rain
For the very last time; for my sand is sinking,
   And I shall traverse old love’s domain
         Never again.
 
Thomas Hardy: At Castle Boterel, March 1913, from Poems of 1912-13, in Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries (1914)

File:Boscastle DSC 7390.jpg 

In Boscastle (Kastell Boterel), Cornwall: photo by Dietrich Krieger, 25 May 2010


File:Boscastle from Penally Hill - geograph.org.uk - 1566735.jpg
 
Boscastle from Penally Hill. The centre of Bascastle viewed from the coast path on Penally Hill photo by Phillip Halling, 29 September 2009

File:Boscastle, the village from Penally Point - geograph.org.uk - 1466309.jpg
 

Boscastle: the village from Penally Point. A view up the Valency valley from the west: photo by Chris Downer, 25 August 2009

File:Boscastle - geograph.org.uk - 1478786.jpg
 

Boscastle. Looking down on Boscastle from the coast path above the harbour: photo by Tony Atkin, 7 September 2009

File:Boscastle - geograph.org.uk - 107179.jpg   

Boscastle. From Penally Point: photo by Rob Taylor, 24 July 2003

File:Merlin's Cave viewed from Barras Nose - geograph.org.uk - 481244.jpg 

Merlin's Cave viewed from Barras Nose. With the bridge across to Tintagel Castle to the left: photo by Trevor Rickard, September 1986

File:Barras Nose - geograph.org.uk - 1478901.jpg
 
Barras Nose. Barras Nose is one of the many promontories on this coastline: photo by Tony Atkin, 7 September 2009
 
File:Quartz on the cliff, Boscastle - geograph.org.uk - 1325045.jpg
 
Quartz on the cliff, Boscastle. The quartz is found as veins in the slate, and occasionally in what appear to be large chunks, but in some cases at least there is only a veneer of quartz over the slate. In effect, these are exposed veins: photo by Humphrey Bolton, 7 May 2009

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