Blob Thing was enjoying his day out immensely. He felt refreshed and renewed after belting out a liturgical chant in the abbey. He felt free, and as he walked up the lane and left the abbey behind he felt that there couldn't possibly be anything wrong in the world. How could there be when humans had such amazingly beautiful places to visit and such songs to sing? How could there be bad things in a world which contained the ice cream he had eaten? It just didn't seem possible.
Blob was reminded that bad things can happen, even before he reached the end of the quiet lane and reached a road. Suddenly there was approaching at very high speed - surely far higher than the speed limit - a police car with its lights flashing. And then there was another one hurtling down the lane to the abbey. Was something bad going on even there? Was that oasis of peace being disturbed by bad people?
Blob's person reminded him that the abbey itself was only a ruin because people a long time ago couldn't get on with each other and had massive arguments and even wars about which one of them was right. The objective reality was of course that they were both wrong but believed their versions of events, of God, of church, of rulership and believed them so stubbornly that others had to suffer and die. The same thing was happening today around the world. Blob could hardly believe that human beings were so stupid that they would act in such a way towards each other.
He couldn't know what was happening back at the abbey and a later internet search didn't tell him anything. So Blob continued along his walk, still feeling very free but a little sad about the utter craziness of so many humans. And then at the end of the lane he saw it. Something else that showed him the way humans can behave towards each other.
He saw high concrete walls. He saw fences. He saw locked gates. What was this? Was this some giant play area that had been constructed so the humans could have fun there? Was this a place where sensible adults could jump and swing and slide and use climbing frames without stupid adults thinking ill of them? Was it a place filled with bubble machines and kites and people dressed as unicorns and playing with hoops and yo-yos and having a good time with each other? Was it a place of free dancing and playing in the puddles? Had the humans constructed a giant fun palace out here? Could it really be true? Blob was quite excited.
But it wasn't true. It wasn't true at all. Blob's person told him that the walls were of a prison. It was a place where humans who have done bad things get put as a punishment, as a way of protecting others, and (ideally) to help those humans reach the point where they can live a better life. Blob learned that the humans were locked up inside those walls for many years.
He could hardly believe it. Blob found a bench and sat down to think. He felt sad. You can tell. If you look very closely you can see that he isn't smiling quite as much as usual. You do have to look very closely though.
Blob Thing walked on. The route took him past the prison and he walked beside the walls rather than on the official path. He had heard a phrase, "Walls do not a prison make." Blob decided that was nonsense. These walls did a prison make. It was a prison and these were its walls. The people being held inside couldn't leave. But Blob, being outside, could go where he wanted to go and could choose. Walls certainly did this prison made. It was a silly phrase.
Blob's person tried to explain that there was a deeper meaning to it. But Blob couldn't see it. He's not good at metaphor. His person said that was perfectly acceptable. She isn't that good at metaphor either but has had many years of practice whereas Blob is still very young.
Blob left the prison behind and soon reached the open countryside again and felt a lot better about life. He loves life. How can you not love life when it contains places such as this?:
When Blob got home his person suggested that they look up the phrase about walls and prisons and find out more about it. Blob learned that it was a line from a poem that was written in 1642 by Richard Lovelace. He wrote it in prison. He'd been locked up as part of the long argument that century and the previous one about who should rule a country and which church people should go to. The same argument that had turned Finchale Priory into a ruin. A very long argument - that had happened a hundred years earlier. Blob read the poem carefully.
When Love with unconfinéd wings Hovers within my gates, And my divine Althea brings To whisper at the grates; When I lie tangled in her hair And fettered to her eye, The birds that wanton in the air Know no such liberty. When flowing cups run swiftly round, With no allaying Thames, Our careless heads with roses bound, Our hearts with loyal flames; When thirsty grief in wine we steep, When healths and draughts go free, Fishes, that tipple in the deep, Know no such liberty. When, like committed linnets, I With shriller throat shall sing The sweetness, mercy, majesty, And glories of my King; When I shall voice aloud how good He is, how great should be, Enlargéd winds, that curl the flood, Know no such liberty. Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage; Minds innocent and quiet take That for a hermitage. If I have freedom in my love, And in my soul am free, Angels alone, that soar above, Enjoy such liberty.
Blob didn't quite understand what a tippling fish might be. He does see that point that there is freedom in love and that our outward circumstances don't remove that freedom unless we let them, even if those outward circumstances are prison walls. But he's firm on one thing still. Stone walls DO a prison make. And he knows. He has seen them.
Blob's research of the poem led him to some music. A band called Fairport Convention had made it into a song. Blob thought that was a funny name. His person said she had grown up listening to that particular band and still listened to the album she has on her phone. She had posted songs from them very recently on Facebook because their fiddle player, Dave Swarbrick, had died. Here's the song, music written by Swarbrick, who plays fiddle and is vocalist on the track too.
[988 words plus poem - I'm sure when we started this, Blob said it would just be him posting a picture every day so the world could, if it chose, share in his exuberant joy. What happened to that idea?]
No comments:
Post a Comment