Ye Sundial Booke

Chapter 7: MY DESIRE.

Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

About This Book

This work compiles historical discussion, practical guidance, and artistic renderings related to sundials. It opens with a popular history considering origins and varieties of dials, follows with technical notes on placement and gnomonics, and includes photographs and faithful sketches of surviving examples. A large poetic section offers hundreds of short verses, mottoes, and themed poems accompanied by sketches intended to fit the age of each dial. Additional material lists names and locations of extant sundials, an index to sketches and verses, and examples of garden and architectural sundials from makers. The tone blends antiquarian curiosity, practical instruction, and creative celebration of timekeeping.

MY DESIRE.

O that the gentle Muse would stir my brain,
And give expressive words for me to pen.
Would put in verse great thoughts born to remain,
A wondrous poem prized by Englishmen.

II.

O that before I leave this frail abode,
And talents granted me have passed to clay,
Would that I, too, could claim that I’d bestowed,
Like poets great, a work that lives for aye.

T. G. W. H.