Crossing the Thames on the new Hungerford Bridge, Waterloo Sunsets

Last November, I went up to see Sophie for lunch at the Battersea Arts Centre - I especially liked the bee mosaics and the mysterious doors in the attics - I welcomed, too, the opportunity to see young creatives with their iPads and moleskines - I felt myself a worn apparatchik by comparison - 

On my way back to Waterloo, I crossed over the Thames by way of one of the Golden Jubilee Bridges, shining structures running alongside the old Hungerford Bridge - I had sent the afternoon in the British Museum, looking at Greek and Roman sculptures -

There was one frieze in particular I studied - it showed a young woman beating a tambourine, or drum - her lovely body was half covered by a loose robe - two young men, almost naked, followed - one was playing a double flute, the other held a staff, with a curiously shaped head, like an artichoke - a leopard stalked with raised paw between the two young men - I was reminded of Lawrence's descriptions of Etruscan tombs - there was the same magical, dreamy, feel about these elegant, shapely, figures - 

I walked southwards, towards the river, in the gathering dark - the buildings each side of the street were like sealed palaces, with brilliantly lit windows - a contrail marked the deepening blue back sky behind Nelson's Column -I glanced up, to see a Victorian caryatid holding up a balcony - I was taken aback by its unsettling beauty -

Upon the bridge, I saw some Japanese school girls making a video - I looked down the Thames - the sun had just set - a jet glinted in the twilight sky, over the London Eye - the river was mysterious and glowing with light -

I heard in my head the Kinks' Waterloo Sunset - tears sprung to my eyes - I thought of the number of times I had crossed this river - how every life is a story, profound and full of promise - I looked into the faces of the people passing by me upon the bridge - a golden roundabout spun under the Eye - I heard the music of the calliope - I could see wonderful shapes in the air -

I was filled with a sudden passion against the wickedness of the world -