The Wall

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“What a dear old wall that is that runs along by the river there! I never pass it without feeling better for the sight of it. Such a mellow, bright, sweet old wall; what a charming picture it would make, with the lichen creeping here, and the moss growing there, a shy young vine peeping over the top at this spot, to see what is going on upon the busy river, and the sober old ivy clustering a little farther down! There are fifty shades and tints and hues in every ten yards of that old wall. . . . It looks so peaceful and so quiet, and it is such a dear old place to ramble round in the early morning before many people are about.” Jerome K. Jerome, “Three Men In A Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)” Ch. 6 (1889)

Such Beauty

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“No spring nor summer-beauty has such grace, 

As I have seen in an autumnal face. 

Of the latter he says, 

In all her words to every hearer fit, 

You may at revels, or at council sit.”


John Donne, writing on the beauty of Magdalen Newport, the youngest daughter of Sir Richard, mother of poet George Herbert, in the early 1600’s

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