During my time in London I set a shopping budget for myself. I knew I couldn’t resist the temptation to help our poor economy. So I went to Harrods looking to be seduced by the lovely dresses, perfumes, shoes and handbags. But the minute I walked in, there was people everywhere, like ants, scurrying from one luxury item to another. The atmosphere was so, that I couldn’t even bother to try on a pretty pink and black dress that I quite liked. I walked out in a bad mood.
I thought that would be it for my London Shopping. My mind was in apathy mode. Until I stumbled on to a little street called Cecil Court. It was a collection of little book and print shops. Out of curiousity, I wandered into a print shop. There I found a very special print (which I will natter about in another post) and then this dark yet beautiful Arthur Rackham print. I fell in love with it the minute I saw it.
I know what you’re thinking. You would never have that on your children’s nursery wall! It’s creepy. Threatening! But I love it. It reminds me so much of the horror stories my yaya in the Philippines used to tell me. How fairies will lure children away, drown them and steal their souls, which will serve the fairy court forever.
With this little goody tucked away in my shopping bag, I continued to wander around Cecil Court and found a small bookshop. Their books were quite old, but with a tiny sliver of hope that I might find a book on Tennyson’s poems, I walked in. This is London afterall. Anything can happen.
And it did.
There on the first wall of books, which reached the ceiling, I found a 1917 copy of Poems of Tennyson. Forget the bags. Forget the shoes. Stuff the pretty pink and black dress. This was the height of luxury for me. This is my high. Leatherbound, sweet smelling, beautiful book of poetry that I adore. I hurriedly paid the bookshop owner and the minute I stepped out onto the cobbled stones, felt the crisp autumn air hit my face, I turned to page 48 to find the Lady of Shalott and practically cried.
…
A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley-sheaves,
The sun came dazzling thro’ the leaves,
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A red-cross knight for ever kneel’d
To a lady in his shield,
That sparkled on the yellow field,
Beside remote Shalott.
…
His broad clear brow in sunlight glow’d;
On burnish’d hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flow’d
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down to Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flash’d into the crystal mirror,
‘Tirra lirra,’ by the river’
Sang Sir Lancelot.
This is what romance is made of.
Three Wild Edrics for hedging, two Frau Karl Druschki, one Alan Titmarsh, one Wildeve, one William Shakespeare, one Crocus Rose and one Queen of Sweden. Looking forward to their blooms next year.
