Spotify Sunday: Calmly Magnificent

Here let us sweep
The boundless landscape; not the raptur’d eye,
Exulting swift, to huge Augusta send,
Now to the sister-hills that skirt her plain
To lofty Harrow now, and then to where
Majestic Windsor lifts his princely brow.
In lovely contrast to this glorious view,
Calmly magnificent.

James Thomson, ‘Summer’ from The Seasons, 1727

Everyone has a favourite piece of London.  Mine stands along the Terrace Walk, on the north-west prospect of Richmond Hill, the ‘glorious view’ so little changed in nearly three centuries. In the foreground are the bucolic, sloping Terrace Fields and Petersham Meadows.  A diminutive ait, Glover’s Island, floats upon the Thames.  Over the water is the verdure of Marble Hill and Cambridge Park, buildings veiled by slyvan canopies. Summer is when Richmond Hill comes into its own. The grass grows deep, creating secluded nooks and crannies to sit in and pass hours reading, napping, canoodling.