The ghost of Sorley

The carving on this post is from the interior of a replica Iron Age roundhouse at Barbury Castle. Sadly the roundhouse was totally destroyed last year in a fire started by vandals.

More here - http://www.heritageaction.org/?page=theheritagejournal&id=214

Sorley's Weather

Yet rest there, Shelley, on the sill,
For though the winds come frorely
I'm away to the rain-blown hill
And the ghost of Sorley.

Charles Hamilton Sorley 1895-1915

Let no hand of man

And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.

Exodus 20:25

Our curious cromlechs! Let no hand of man
Destroy these stony prophets which the Lord
Has placed upon the tarns and sounding downs
With tones for distant ages.

John Harris (1820-1884)

Old Sarum

Searching for a picture of the past

Cathedral, bank and ditch.
Four thousand years at least
of our hands upon the land.

And should a little gold glimmer in the ground
be picked and paraded and brought all about
to this and that or something other
gladly glimpsed and remembered of what went before
for more good gold in fleeting hands
clicking...
while both rewarding and offending.

The wakeful dreamer searching for a picture of the past
lays down his glossy pages
and considers the lost now discovered
and wonders at the wonder of it all...

LS

Index of poems, poets, pictures and places

Megalithic Poems now has its own (internal) search engine (right of page under Links). New poems are usually first posted on The Modern Antiquarian website and then moved here with an image to accompany them. So, while nearly every poem on TMA is also here, it may be slightly easier to locate a specific poem, poet, picture (or even a place with a poem written about it) using Meg Poem's own search engine.

Once you've keyed in a search word the relevant info will appear under the Gideon Fidler Stonehenge image above.

From Cromlech's summit grey. Image credit William Stukeley

Beth Pennard or The British Chieftain's Grave

The feet beneath the verdant glade
by Bards a narrow cist is made
yet ample to contain
Those listless limbs, in speed and force
Which rival'd once the fleetest horse,
Light bounding o'er the plain.
Now filled the hallowed cup of clay
Withdrew from Cromlech's summit grey
Last night procured in locks of wool,
Filled it with care and filled it full,
Such beverage suits etherial sprite
Ere it ascends to realms of light.
Place it contiguous to the head
And o'er its mouth a covering spread...
To a kind chief, who will revere
A chieftains relics buried here
One who with us delights to ken
The ancient works of Celtic man;
Who makes their labours by his own
Survive, when falls each magic stone,
or roaring midst the hills and groves,
View scenes which every Druid loves
The cup our benefactors hand...

John Skinner (1772 – 1839)

The stones are great

Beginning as a forum thread on The Stones Mailing List in 2004 and then on The Modern Antiquarian website in March 2005, Megalithic Poems was subsequently launched here four years ago today on the 21st September 2005. Our first poem and perhaps the oldest (1215) on things megalithic is by Layamon describing Stonehenge and beginning -

The stones are great

And magic power they have -

http://megalithicpoems.blogspot.com/2005/09/layamons-poem-brut-of-1215-describing.html

Indeed the stones are great, and certainly have had the power to capture the imagination of poets and artists through the centuries.

Since September 2005 we've added many more poems and images on the megalithic theme in the hope that they'll become a useful resource for those interested in the poetry, art and the history of our megalithic past - none of which would appear here without the remarkable efforts and creativity of those who have written about megaliths or portrayed them in their work - not forgetting of course those who originally conceived and built these amazing structures!

To everyone, a very big thank you.

LS

The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides by James Boswell

Monday, 30th August 1773: Inverness, Fort Augustus.

About three miles beyond Inverness, we saw, just by the road, a very complete specimen of what is called a Druid's temple. There was a double circle, one of very large, the other of smaller stones. Dr Johnson justly observed, that, 'to go and see one druidical temple is only to see that it is nothing, for there is neither art nor power in it; and seeing one is quite enough'.