The Sceptred Isle

The plane ride was long, though I had prepared well for the length. I listened to Dante and watched the single star which had remained in sight all the night, as it slipped further from view. It lasted through the end of the Paradise. The movies and music and every comfort of United Airlines could do little to entertain me. Oxford was coming, but still hours away. Eventually, I settled into watching the map as we passed Greenland and Iceland. While sunlight crossed the western part of Europe, land came into sight. Ireland.

Then, the clouds began. The brown and gray below flitted in and out of sight, slowly replaced by green. Paths wound between sprawling grassy hills and vales, connecting together the grand homes below us. Here had Shakespeare lifted a quill like no man before or since. Here had Cranmer shaped the prayers of generations to the One True King. Here had the Bible first been put in English.

And here would I soon study, eat, breathe. Dwell. These grassy knolls would fill my pages; these aged and crumbling walls would prove that time could never sate my appetite for eternity; these cars and double-decker buses would bear me to the remote places, to nooks the locals did not find enchanting.

We wound between the clouds, my eyes ever roving for the vibrant green of the sceptred isle beyond the soft white.

At last, we landed. I found myself in England. All things were new and bright. The signs were British, the bathrooms were toilets, and the folk who aided me in becoming less lost all called me "love", which is an entirely endearing custom of theirs.

I mounted the coach and easily passed through the rainy countryside, where all things were filled with wonder, and my eyes could not open wide enough to take them in. This was a land of grazing sheep and drizzling clouds. This was a land of streets which refuse the signage of America, which might distract from the countryside.

This was the land of which I had read throughout my life. I could not fully believe that I had come to England.