What with one thing and another, the Unwelcome Guest\u00a0 has been claiming just too much of my time and attention recently \u2013 too much time spent driving to hospitals, some far away, too much time being prodded and poked and zapped and pinned and needled. A whole army of experts and specialists is dedicated just to Me \u2013 I\u2019ve never had so much attention in my life. (Ah, if only editors would be so interested…)\u00a0 Last week, we went to a fairly distant hospital, which, as well as a five hour round trip, involved several hours sitting waiting for treatment.\u00a0 The hospital, unlike my local one, was a pretty grim place. Whoever decided it was a good idea to sit cancer patients in a waiting room that resembles the economy lounge of\u00a0an \u00a0airport in a third world country? Luckily a kindly nurse directed us to a Maggie\u2019s drop-in centre just around the corner. Maggie\u2019s centres were the inspiration\u00a0 of Maggie Jencks, who died of cancer in 1995. She believed in the therapeutic qualities of the right environment, and also that cancer patients sometimes needed somewhere to \u2018just go\u2019. \u00a0Here, in a\u00a0 beautifully designed building, lovingly furnished, I was able to\u00a0 spend my several hours sitting calmly and comfortably sipping coffee; certainly an indication of how environment can affect mood.\u00a0 Even the books on the shelves at Maggie\u2019s were books I wanted to read and not the usual junk (yes, I am a literary snob.)\u00a0 I found a copy of Yeats\u2019s poems, which I was glad to do, because this poem had been running through my head for days, having seen many swans on many lakes after all this wet weather. While Yeats\u2019s later poems can be tortuous and obscure, with meanings to be grappled with and teased out, some of the early ones are straightforwardly beautiful. We\u2019ve grown rather suspicious of beauty in art in the last hundred years or so \u2013 we\u2019ve been taught to feel that art\u2019s main role is to startle and shock and unnerve us. As indeed it must, some of the time, or our minds would get flabby and complacent. But\u2026 there is still a place for simple beauty, a Mozart aria, a Piero della Francesco Madonna, a Shakespeare sonnet, a Chinese porcelain dish. \u00a0And this early poem by Yeats, which is\u2026just beautiful.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Wild Swans at Coole\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 William <\/b>Butler<\/b> Yeats<\/b><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n
The trees are in their autumn beauty,<\/p>\n
The woodland paths are dry,<\/p>\n
Under the October twilight the water<\/p>\n
Mirrors a still sky:<\/p>\n
Upon the brimming water among the stones<\/p>\n
Are nine-and-fifty swans<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The nineteenth autumn has come upon me<\/p>\n
Since first I made my count;<\/p>\n
I saw, before I had well finished,<\/p>\n
All suddenly mount<\/p>\n
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings<\/p>\n
Upon their clamorous wings.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,<\/p>\n
And now my heart is sore.<\/p>\n
All\u2019s changed since I, hearing at twilight,<\/p>\n
The first time on this shore,<\/p>\n
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,<\/p>\n
Trod with a lighter tread.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Unwearied still, lover by lover,<\/p>\n
They paddle in the cold<\/p>\n
Companionable streams or climb the air:<\/p>\n
Their hearts have not grown old;<\/p>\n
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,<\/p>\n
Attend upon them still.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But now they drift on the still water,<\/p>\n
Mysterious, beautiful;<\/p>\n
Among what rushes will they build,<\/p>\n
By what lake\u2019s edge or pool<\/p>\n
Delight men\u2019s eyes when I awake some day<\/p>\n
To find they have flown away?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What with one thing and another, the Unwelcome Guest\u00a0 has been claiming just too much of my time and attention recently \u2013 too much time spent driving to hospitals, some far away, too much time being prodded and poked and zapped and pinned and needled. A whole army of experts and specialists is dedicated just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34,"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions\/34"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}