To Robert Southey

I'm writing this from Robert Southey's study in Greta Hall. The place where he did basically all his writing in the last 40 years of his life. It's quite an honour to have this opportunity. Had the National Trust made the highest offer rather than Jeronime and Scott (who now have 7 charming children - 4 at the time of purchase!) I would not have this opportunity. I am extremely grateful to have been able to spend many hours in this room today.



I wrote a poem, addressing Southey, while sitting in here earlier today. I then took the opportunity to video myself reciting it. Here is the poem and video;



To Robert Southey

You are here - I know you to be
In as much as your spirit lives on inside me
For through the blood of five generations has passed
This passion I'm now celebrating at last

And it fills me with pride, this day finally here,
That I may be writing, my heart filled with cheer
And not gravely obsessed on the trials of my past
But rejoicing - I am truly living at last

And this small secret so long I have kept
This poetry that on pages silently slept
Is now being exhibited for people to see
That all may know this special facet of me

For though few may read, much less care for my rhyme
It puts joy in my heart, as it did you in your time


Note that I also did a video of yesterday's poem and have posted that video to yesterday's post, so take a look at that if you're interested.

It was very windy overnight after a lovely day yesterday, so there was a fresh fall of snow on the "fells" (hills/mountains) today. Below are some photos that I took.







We also went to the Lodore Waterfall, known in Southey's day by the more antiquated title of the Cataract of Lodore. He wrote a quite celebrated children's rhyme about this waterfall, which has been turned into a number of different illustrated books, such as this one - http://www.amazon.com/Cataract-Lodore-Robert-Southey/dp/0805019456



Being a very unique opportunity I also took video of myself reciting 2 of Southey's Metrical Tales, directed at children largely, as I fondly remember my Grandfather reciting these to me from memory when I was young. I also took photos of these poems from the book I read them out of - a complete collection of Southey's works from 1845.

Here are the aforementioned for those who are interested;



















I'll post more photos from yesterday when I post tomorrow, such as photos of Southey's effigy, so people can inspect the similarities in our faces.