Early one morning ....

……. just as the sun was rising, ….

I am writing soon after staggering home from a one and a half hour walk, down Smedenstraat and then right along the Buiten Smedenvest. That last stretch is fast becoming a favourite part of Brugge for me, a town which already has a surfeit of beauty but which, particularly now, has the relatively short walk between the Poort and the main E40 enhanced, be-floralled, Spring made visible, in its abundant blossom and, this morning, burnished even more by a wonderful concert from a lone persistent blackbird.

As I left Smedenpoort behind me walking beneath trees, through early morning shadows and looking down on the canal, I noticed another solitary, elderly woman ahead, doing her bit to keep healthy, separate and entertained. We are all doggedly conforming to the official advice! I read an interesting article by a virologist in the weekend New York Times, explaining that Covid19 has no warlike purpose to take over the world, no sinister intention to kill and harm, no aim to make war by other means. No. It is a virus with the sole purpose of replicating itself. And the chief purpose of humans is to prevent that as efficiently as possible. An objective met with varying degrees of skill and transparency by the world’s politicians over the last weeks.

                                                                                A blackbird is definitely visible in this

                                                                      photo on my Ipad!!

But back to my morning wandering. It was the unexpected sight of floral profusion that moved me today and then, beneath a burgeoning canopy of young green foliage above me, to hear a prolonged chorus from a blackbird, was heavenly. And as I stood listening, I ruminated on the unexpected positives of an enforced retreat from normal life. True, I am alone around 95% of the week at present and cannot do several things, activities which I enjoy normally. Presently, my only high-spots are an occasional visit to the supermarket; my daily walk; the weekly trip to the restaurant re-purposed as a super take-away and weekly visit to the newspaper shop. But this enforced physical isolation seems to be compensating me [and others] with a heightened ability to notice and enjoy these smaller facets of life, like sunshine and shadows, often previously overlooked, and now offering such pleasure.  We are appreciating beauty in the every-day background of life.

"And all the chestnut spires are out ...."

A post-script to my title which sprang, unbidden, to mind, no doubt, left there from repeated singing in the primary school! Early One Morning is an English folk-song with lyrics found in publications as early as 1787. A broadside ballad sheet in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, dated between 1828 and 1829 has the title, The Lamenting Maid and refers to the lover leaving to become a sailor. It was first printed by William Chappell in National English Airs, c 1855-9. Chappell wrote that the melody might be derived from an earlier song, The Forsaken Lover. He wrote in his later, Popular Music of Olden Time:

“If I were required to name three of the most popular songs among the servant-maids of the present generation, I should say, from my own experience, that they are Cupid's Garden, I sow'd the seeds of love, and Early one morning. I have heard Early one morning sung by servants who came from Leeds, from Hereford and from Devonshire, and by others from parts nearer to London. The tune... was, I believe first printed in my collection.... from one of the penny song-books collected by Ritson, and it is curious that scarcely any two copies agree beyond the second line, although the subject is always the same- a damsel's distress at losing her love."

Scullery maid. 19th. century,

Guiseppe Maria Crespi.

Scullery maid, 

Jean-Baptiste Simeon Chardin

1738.