I have
just uploaded the second of three Stourhead videos/poems to You Tube, shot by my
close friend Graham Collet and for which I wrote Ode To Apollo (see poem below).
Regular
readers of my poetry will know that I have a strong affinity with Apollo, the
sun god of Greek mythology, not least because he was reputed to be bisexual. The
old gods are the stuff of mythology and legend now, but have we not replaced
them with little tin gods of our own which, incidentally, have far less
gravitas?
The
Temple of Apollo at Stourhead stands high on a hill overlooking the gardens; it
was built in 1765 by Henry Hoare as his finishing touch to the famous landscape
garden. Renovation work was begun by the National Trust in 2009 before which
the Trust spent months gathering historic paintings, family records, accounts,
letters and visitors' diaries to find out how the monument would have
originally appeared.
The temple at Stourhead was designed by Henry Flitcroft and influenced by an
engraving of a circular temple at Baalbec, an ancient Syrian city now part of
the Lebanon, and the Temple of the Sun at Kew Gardens, which was destroyed in a
gale during 1916. A favourite spot for romance, it was used as the location for
a rain-drenched dramatic exchange between Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet in the
2005 remake of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice starring Keira Knightley and
Matthew Macfadyen. Timber from the Stourhead estate was used to form the structure
of the new dome which has been covered in sheets of lead to keep it watertight.
The walls inside the temple have been re-plastered and gilded plasterwork based
on a description in a letter written in 1801 by Reverend Warner, the Rector of
Stourton.
Rev
Warner's letter states: "The roof of the Temple spreads into a dome and
has a double ceiling; in the lower is the aperture, and in the coving of the
other, a splendid gilt representation of the Solar Rays, which, receiving the
real light of this orb by an artful construction, throws into the Temple below
a most splendid reflection when the sun is in its strength."
Well worth a visit on a sunny day.
ODE TO APOLLO, PROFILE OF A LIFE FORCE
Hear old gods mocking us
behind passing clouds
as a defeated foe well might
for observing its enemies
counting the ever rising costs
of victory
Only Apollo (still) brokers
an enduring peace
without taking sides or even
an ulterior motive
besides a voyeur’s delight
in human behaviour
Where the world rides out
its storms over land,
sea and air, find fair Apollo
behind the scenes
busy negotiating its survival,
albeit conditional
Where time wings past us
at a tangent,
see Apollo rein in his chariot
just long enough
to shine hope in our faces,
the rest up to us
For every bitter-sweet smile,
a bitter-sweet tear
at Apollo’s call to nature
and human nature
for nurture, reconciliation,
and regeneration
Meanwhile, all life presses on
with the act of Being;
the Here-and-Now engaging
with us for better,
for worse, ugly or beautiful,
old gods or new
Copyright R. N. Taber 2014
