Sep 2017
SOUL OF THE AGE
Now, is the summer
of this. . .our content
made glorious
by love
the sunlight
kiss of leaves
yet through a glass
darkly
I am tolled by old
St. Saviour’s bell
back to
a December’d day
a Thames frozen
from Westminister to London Bridge
where Will
buries brother
young Edmund Shakespeare
on this the last day
of the year
1607.
I stand on the same
flagstones
as the King’s Men
gathered in black
rub shoulders with
Burbage
a Hamlet come
to life
a summer of tourists
walking through us
as the order
from the Book of the Dead
solemnly intoned
as his younger brother
is lowered
into an unmarked
grave.
Ferrymen call
from across the centuries
“Eastward **. . .
. . .Westward **!”
as Time slips
loose of its moorings
mastiffs strain
at the leash
await the bear
to be baited.
Methinks I see
the great Globe itself
flag unfurled
upon an horizon
“the forenoon knell
of the great bell”
as I return
to my self
and Shakespeare
stares at a wall
in Silver
Street.
Now, is the summer
of this. . .our content
made glorious
by love
the sunlight
kiss of leaves
yet through a glass
darkly
I am tolled by old
St. Saviour’s bell
back to
a December’d day
a Thames frozen
from Westminister to London Bridge
where Will
buries brother
young Edmund Shakespeare
on this the last day
of the year
1607.
I stand on the same
flagstones
as the King’s Men
gathered in black
rub shoulders with
Burbage
a Hamlet come
to life
a summer of tourists
walking through us
as the order
from the Book of the Dead
solemnly intoned
as his younger brother
is lowered
into an unmarked
grave.
Ferrymen call
from across the centuries
“Eastward **. . .
. . .Westward **!”
as Time slips
loose of its moorings
mastiffs strain
at the leash
await the bear
to be baited.
Methinks I see
the great Globe itself
flag unfurled
upon an horizon
“the forenoon knell
of the great bell”
as I return
to my self
and Shakespeare
stares at a wall
in Silver
Street.
The Bard’s younger brother, the only one of William Shakespeare’s family to enter the acting profession, lies at an unknown location somewhere in or near Southwark Cathedral.Edmond’s burial at what was then St Saviour’s parish church, is marked by a ledger stone in the choir area. But, unless by an amazing coincidence, Edmond’s remains don’t lie beneath this stone. No-one alive knows exactly where Edmond’s bones are buried, although it’s a fair bet that his brother secured him a prominent resting place. Edmond’s ledger stone is next to stone slabs commemorating Elizabethan and Jacobean playwrights John Fletcher and Philip Massinger. However, their remains are also thought unlikely to be beneath them.
It was from the tower of St Saviour's that the Czech artist Wenceslas Hollar drew his Long View of London from Bankside in 1647, a panorama which has become a definitive image of the city in the 17th century.
It was from the tower of St Saviour's that the Czech artist Wenceslas Hollar drew his Long View of London from Bankside in 1647, a panorama which has become a definitive image of the city in the 17th century.
