Unruly Sun

"Greet the unruly sun",
Words on black tarred weatherboard,
Shout at the east wind.

..... day two of our trip to Hythe. We ventured out to the photographer paradise of Dungeness. Many many pictures were taken some of which can bee seen here.

I knew that Derek Jarman had lived here and famously created a wonderful garden reflecting the natural landscape. I knew about the black weatherboarded house with the yellow paintwork .... but I didn't know about the John Donne poem in raised wood carvings on the wall ....

... although there were many competing images from the day, how could I resist this poem and the poetic heart which caused it to be there ...

The full poem is here (in modern day language) ... with the parts used ont eh wall on bold.

Busy old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late schoolboys and sour 'prentices,
Go tell court huntsmen that the King will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams, so reverend and strong
Why shoulds't thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long;
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,
Whether both th'Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me?
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, 'All here in one bed lay.'

She's all states, and all princes, I;
Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world's contracted thus;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here, to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy centre is, these walls, thy sphere.

John Donne