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| | e-Pistle News from the University Church |
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Thanks to those who responded to my E-pistle last week on praying about the many crises in the world. I shall try to develop that a bit in my sermon this Sunday. And thanks too for all the positive comments about Elizabeth Nurse’s singing, from ‘Elijah’, last Sunday. Pete McMullin is trying to secure her services for Harvest Festival on 27 September. Since this is becoming newsy, I should add that Judith Maltby has agreed to preach on Sunday 13 September. Not everyone will know that amongst her many duties Judith is elected from General Synod as a member of the Crown Appointments Commission, which is responsible for the appointment of all Diocesan Bishops.
This is the time when the clergy staff put together the term card for the Michaelmas Term. Just as a taster, we have amongst our speakers this term: Dr Giles Fraser, writer and broadcaster (and former Associate Priest at St Mary’s), John Simpson, BBC World Affairs Correspondent, Savitri Grier, violinist, and Dr David Crystal, famous for his work on the English Language and linguistics.
This Sunday there will be the first Family Service of the new term and the German Lutheran Congregation will meet at 3.30pm.
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| | Services this Week
Tuesdays & Thursdays
12.15pm Lunchtime Eucharist
Sunday 30th August Trinity 14
10.30am Sung Eucharist
Address: Canon Brian Mountford |
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Forthcoming Events
Monday 7th Sept, 6-7pm: Poetry Seminar in the Old Library
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Forthcoming Concerts
Looking forward to the Autumn we will be hosting concerts as part of the Oxford Chamber Festival, a performance of Noyes Fludde, and a new play about the Oxford Martyrs. |
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| | Ride and Stride, 12th September
The annual RIDE AND STRIDE in aid of Oxfordshire Historic Churches Trust, will take place on Saturday 12th. September. If you would like to take part on either feet or bicycle, please contact Margaret Chaundy - margaret.chaundy2@btinternet.com Alternatively, if you can spare an hour on the day to welcome visiting participants, your help would be much appreciated. |
| | | Poetry Corner
Vlamertinghe: Passing the Chateau
'And all her silken flanks with garlands drest' -
But we are coming to the sacrifice.
Must those flowers who are not yet gone West?
May those flowers who live with death and lice?
This must be the floweriest place
That earth allows; the queenly face
Of the proud mansion borrows grace for grace
Spite of those brute guns lowing at the skies.
Bold great daisies' golden lights,
Bubbling roses' pinks and whites -
Such a gay carpet! poppies by the million;
Such damask! such vermilion!
But if you ask me, mate, the choice of colour
Is scarcely right; this red should have been duller.
- Edmund Blunden (1 November 1896 – 20 January 1974)
Blunden is grouped among the great War Poets; his name is included in the commemorative stone in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey, headed by Wilfred Owen’s famous remark, “My subject is War and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.” He fought at the Somme and Ypres. This poem was written in July 1917, and takes as its first line a quotation from Keats’ ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’:
“To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?”
But here the sacrificial offerings are the men of the trenches, who ‘live with death and lice’; the poem is full of restrained bitterness. The Vlamertinghe Chateau was the Heavy Artillery Officers’ mess; in this version these officers become those leading the men to sacrifice.
In 1966 Blunden became Professor of Poetry, though resigned after two years when the pressure of lecturing became too great. Despite his experiences, he is said to have had a great sense of humour.
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