Adderbury is the swifts’ citadel
whose skirmishers skim Oxfordshire subways
and tchures before their chasse spirituelle
reaches Africa and Great Zimbabwe
Woodstock is their suburb - there a bishop
battled Hobbes for some punk in a plight
the priest got the scoop and deathbed gossip
Hobbes won the mind - but one flies out by night
Mars is the spinel burning to the south
the Moon will go black as soft summer dark
never is - while weeks of the dog days’ drouth
would lie doubly hidden in the park
all will go out - yet harvest’s done in time
seed flies on the yellow wing of lime
“The Bell” Adderbury
25 July 2018
Oxford
26 July 2018
John Wilmot 2nd Earl of Rochester died on 26 July 1680 at High Lodge, Woodstock, now at the Combe Gate of Blenheim Palace. Hobbes had died the previous December. Rochester’s seat was at Adderbury. Gilbert Burnet, who was subsequently made Bishop of Salisbury by William and Mary in 1689, attended and publicised Rochester’s deathbed.
The astronomical features refer to the summer night as it is now on 26 July 2018. There will be a total eclipse of the Full Moon tomorrow 27 July with Mars adjacent. Apparently a thin crescent moon was waning in the sky when Rochester died at around 2 am. A spinel is a precious stone the colour of which approximates that of Mars low on the horizon these nights.
A tchure is an Oxfordshire word for a lane that was an open sewer. Deddington has ” The Tchure”. Buckingham in Buckingham has the ” Chewar”. Chadlington, Charlton-on-Otmoor, Steeple Aston, Upper Heyford and Souldern all have tchures or chewars. And yes the harvest is beng brought in, and in a matter of days, the swifts will be gone. The lime or linden trees have ceased to flower and their seeds are falling on yellow pairs of wings, which are often down to a single wing by now on the Adderbury Green.