Naturalist

Up by three, and going by four on my way to London; but the day proves very cold, so that having put on no stockings but thread ones under my boots, I was fain at Bigglesworth to buy a pair of coarse woollen ones, and put them on. So by degrees till I come to Hatfield before twelve o’clock, where I had a very good dinner with my hostess, at my Lord of Salisbury’s Inn, and after dinner though weary I walked all alone to the Vineyard, which is now a very beautiful place again; and coming back I met with Mr. Looker, my Lord’s gardener (a friend of Mr. Eglin’s), who showed me the house, the chappell with brave pictures, and, above all, the gardens, such as I never saw in all my life; nor so good flowers, nor so great gooseberrys, as big as nutmegs.
Back to the inn, and drank with him, and so to horse again, and with much ado got to London, and set him up at Smithfield; so called at my uncle Fenner’s, my mother’s, my Lady’s, and so home, in all which I found all things as well as I could expect. So weary and to bed.

In my cold boots
I come to a field
and a vineyard
and a garden:
no flowers.
Back to the fen
in which I found
all things.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 22 July 1661.

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