AWW 2015-24: West Coast Brings out the Poet in Terry and Alan: 22nd September 2021

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers (according to Will), met at Cafe Andre just south of Aljezur. The cafe was closed, but the sky was blue, despite the threat of thunder storms billowing up later, and there was a song in our hearts.

Alan, Terry (with the knee brace), Frank (with the bad back) and photographer (with his new walking stick)

We strode off with the sun behind us, towards the west, and up the first hill of the day.

Based on the shadows we were heading north, but it is just a bit of poetic license

We passed the Eco Resort: Praia do Canal Nature Resort whose website is beautifull but we thought that from the outside it looked more like a Gulag: fences and grey concrete with few windows. Our path from Alltrails apparently went throught the resort, but we were told that it was no longer passable as they had dug a deep ditch at the far end. We thought it best to ask no more questions but passed on.

After an hour we came down a hill through a valley and there in front of us was the ocean at Praia do Canal

We stood in awe.

The west coast is glorious. Frank's eyes misted over and he became emotional.

Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

However Frank denies that he favours stout, he prefers standard Super Bock and that was what he was thinking about when his eyes misted.

We set out south along the beach towards the mist. Suddenly Alan was overcome and he waxed lyrical.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over

John would have been proud of him.

Terry, he had been talking about his imminent car journey back to the UK and the joys of the ferry to Dover. He was not thinking of stately Spanish galleons.

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rails, pig-lead,
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.

The beach was flat and we made good time.

It was about 3 1/2 kms to Praia de Vale Figeura. It was easy walking and so the conversation turned to education and it was decided that the AWW blog should be used to advance the reader's knowledge.

The Keat's poem is a Petrarchan sonnet, also known as an Italian sonnet, divided into an octave and a sestet, with a rhyme scheme of a-b-b-a-a-b-b-a-c-d-c-d-c-d. After the main idea has been introduced and the image played upon in the octave, the poem undergoes a volta, a change in the persona's train of thought. The volta, typical of Italian sonnets, is put very effectively to use by Keats as he refines his previous idea. While the octave offers the poet as a literary explorer, the volta brings in the discovery of Chapman's Homer, the subject of which is further expanded through the use of imagery and comparisons which convey the poet's sense of awe at the discovery.

As is typical of sonnets in English, the metre is iambic pentameter, though not all of the lines scan perfectly

I apologise to those, whose time we have wasted by this explanation, as they would obviously know this from the Tuesday quiz.

We turned off the beach and started on our journey home.

Home, home on the range
Where the deer and the antelope play
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day

All that sea air had made us hungry and as we moved inland the temperature started to increase, so when we found some shade and the breeze picked up, we stopped for lunch.