Daytime in London seemed shorter —— a moment ago I was rambling alongside Holloway all the way to Primak when suddenly I found 4 hours had sneaked away before dusk befell.
After a quick check-in and tour-around in UCL student residence building —— Stapleton House, I had to go shopping for some necessity cos the quickest online purchase would not be delivered till next Tues. I found a shopping mall and fed myself a local-brand honey-cereal mixed yogurt and a flat cucumber-tuna roll sitting on a high stool facing folk people coming and going behind a French sash in a self-serviced fast food store. Here is a multi-cultured place just like a big zoo converged by so many species, colorful and dynamic, callous and hurried, but not dull at all.
Undoubtedly, I got lost, I knew it, in the urban center, relocated several times thru GPS for Stapleton House and was unfortunately led to a fake one, only be told later by a Uber driver that in London Post code was used for navigation rather than a name (too many sites share the same names). I could do nothing but just kept calm and good thing was indeed for some seconds I found myself quite indulging in this self-lost scenario in such an ancient city bringing about the calling of exotic civilization in my mind and soul, the flowing verses and illuminating British poets' names jumping out from historical eras then leaked through my lips. That was the opening part for Bunhill Fields I bumped into accidentally on the very first rainy day in UK.
Yes, I found the fields where William Blake was buried.
London
by William Blake 1757-1827
I wander thro’ each charter’d street,
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow.
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every Man,
In every Infants cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear
How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls
But most thro’ midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage hears
Besides Blake, there are other well-known people interred in Bunhill, Daniel Defoe, John Bunyun, Thomas Bayes, etc., in aggregation more than 12,000 people used to be buried here; they must have become close friends for they have been day and night so close like huddling in a Chinese green hard-seat train forever : ). And I checked relative info further that the government had a senior designer to give the whole field a new look 60s last century, allowing shrubs and more plantations inside and if you are visiting some time in the future at dusk, you won't miss the saint white flowers in it, which help tint a sense of melancholy, as a widow sobbing as the sun(life) goes down(withering).
A good place for daydreaming and just can't wipe out Blake's most famous line turning over and over—— Love is a red red rose that's newly sprung in June. O, my love's like the melody that's sweetly played in tune.
More for Bunhill Fields please refer to the following link:
https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/green-spaces/city-gardens/visitor-information/Pages/Bunhill-Fields.aspx
Have a good day!
