The Sleeping Dragon

After our regular family morning get together, I transplanted a rosemary plant, that was looking rather sorry for itself in its pot, into the ground in a sunny corner of the garden.

We then took a walk on Street Hill, finding a footpath we hadn't tried before through a lovely stretch of sunlit woodland. This was the view from the top of the hill just before we entered the wood, looking in the general direction of the Somerset coast.

On another glorious Spring day, the view (is that distant hill sleeping dragon shaped?) seemed to fit well with this poem celebrating St George's Day, by the Liverpool poet Brian Patten.

The True Dragon

St George was out walking
He met a dragon on a hill,
It was wise and wonderful
Too glorious to kill

It slept amongst the wild thyme
Where the oxlips and violets grow
Its skin was a luminous fire
That made the English landscape glow

Its tears were England’s crystal rivers
Its breath the mist on England’s moors
Its larder was England’s orchards,
Its house was without doors

St George was in awe of it
It was a thing apart
He hid the sleeping dragon
Inside every English heart

So on this day let’s celebrate
England’s valleys full of light,
The green fire of the landscape
Lakes shivering with delight

Let’s celebrate St George’s Day,
The dragon in repose;
The brilliant lark ascending,
The yew, the oak, the rose


Edit: (Oh and, of course, it's the day of Shakespeare's birth and death. Patten's deliberately made a reference to lines from a Shakespeare play in his poem)