Megalithic Poems

Avebury, north-east quadrant

2011-09-22T14:57:00.003Z

Avebury

2011-09-22T14:54:00.000Z

A cold New Year’s Eve seeps in,
Walking along an unknown path,
Confronted suddenly by giant arcs of ditch and bank
Which draw the eye towards processions of stones.
Rings within rings,
Gauntly chiselled jewels bound by bracelets of mossy grass,
Their ancient faces careworn from witnessing millennia -
Sad, yet proud and wise, these forty ton leviathans.
Echoes of long-forgotten rituals
Intangible yet close, a sense of collective aim.
Slowly we traverse the great circle,
Latter-day invaders, unsure of their purpose.
How much have we forgotten?
Over two hundred generations - what is remembered?

Geoff Butts

The stones are great

2010-09-21T05:14:00.014Z

The stones are great
And magic power they have
Men that are sick
Fare to that stone
And they wash that stone
And with that water bathe away their sickness

Laymond

Indeed the stones are great, and certainly have had the power to capture the imagination of poets and artists down through the centuries. When I first started collecting poems on the megalithic theme, a colleague warned that I'd be hard pressed to find even half a dozen on the structures and prehistoric sites of Britain, Ireland and the European continent. Since then Megalithic Poems has grown out of all expectations, and there are now several hundred poems here, and an equal number of drawings, paintings, prints and photographs to accompany them - perhaps the largest anthology of its kind anywhere.

The poems stretch over a period of some eight hundred years; from Laymon's poem Brut (above) of 1215 describing Stonehenge, to poems written only a few months ago. What does this tell us? Well, perhaps that not only have these structures inspired poets like Blake and Wordsworth (as well as artists such as Constable and Turner) down through the ages but also that this marvellous, mysterious megalithic heritage of ours continues to inspire us even today.

At a time when so much of our heritage is at risk through development and mismanagement (Tara in Ireland for example, even Stonehenge and Avebury) perhaps these poems, and the images that accompany them, will continue to inspire those who would take time out from busy lives to visit and ponder upon this often overlooked aspect of our heritage. Not only that, hopefully this anthology will also act as a warning that these places, built by our forefathers millennia ago, are in constant need of our care and attention lest, after thousands of years having, "...brav'd the continual assaults of weather..." (William Stukeley) they are finally lost for all time through the greed, ignorance and insensitivity of the 21st century.

I hope that the poems and images on the megalithic theme found here will 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. I hope you'll find as much pleasure browsing through the anthology as I've taken in compiling it.

Littlestone

Index of poems, poets, pictures and places.

The Megalithic Poems internal search engine is on the right of the page under Links. Once you've keyed in a search word the relevant information will appear under the Gideon Fidler Stonehenge image above.

So proud to hint

2010-09-17T10:53:00.001Z

Pile of Stone-henge! So proud to hint yet keep
Thy secrets, thou lov'st to stand and hear
The plain resounding to the whirlwind's sweep
Inmate of lonesome Nature's endless year.

William Wordsworth

Adam's Grave, Wiltshire. Image credit Gordon Kingston

2010-09-11T10:50:00.001Z

Their presence

2010-09-11T10:49:00.001Z

‘Neath Adam’s Grave I push “large chips”
down through my teeth and grasping lips...

Didn’t Strabo state that ancients ate
Their fathers’ bodies on a plate;
And drank the fluid that now gets hid
In a silver cup, under a silver lid?
Somehow their presence is up here still;
Watching me watching, on the hill.

Gordon Kingston

It runs like a green ribbon

2010-09-04T13:35:00.003Z

Richard Jefferies was a novelist, naturalist and a mystic; he grew up in a house (now the Richard Jefferies Museum) close to Coate Water on the outskirts of Swindon. In his book, Wildlife in a Southern County, published in 1879, Jefferies writes of the Ridgeway -

A broad green track runs for many a long, long mile across the downs, now following the ridges, now winding past at the foot of a grassy slope, then stretching away through a cornfield and fallow. It is distinct from the wagon-tracks which cross it here and there, for these are local only, and, if traced up, land the wayfarer presently in a maze of fields, or end abruptly in the rickyard of a lone farmhouse. It is distinct from the hard roads of modern construction which also at wide intervals cross its course, dusty and glaringly white in the sunshine... With varying width, from twenty to fifty yards, it runs like a green ribbon... a width that allows a flock of sheep to travel easily side by side.

Richard Jefferies (1848-1887)

Section of the Ridgeway near Wayland's Smithy. Image credit Moss

2010-09-04T13:28:00.004Z

The Cerne Abbas, or Dorset, Giant

2010-09-02T12:13:00.009Z

Image credit LordHarris. Wikipedia Commons

The Cerne Abbas giant is, "...on a hillside near the village of Cerne Abbas, to the north of Dorchester, in Dorset, England. The 180 ft (55 m) high, 167 ft (51 m) wide figure is carved into the side of a steep hill, and is best viewed from the opposite side of the valley or from the air. The carving is formed by a trench 12 in (30 cm) wide, and about the same depth, which has been cut through grass and earth into the underlying chalk. In his right hand the giant holds a knobbled club 120 ft (37 m) in length. A 1996 study found that some features of the image have changed over time; notably, the study concluded that the figure originally held a cloak in its left arm and stood over a disembodied head.

"The figure's origin and age is unknown. Early antiquarians associated it with a Saxon deity, though there is little evidence for such a connection. Other scholars sought to identify it with a Celtic British figure or the Roman Heracles, or some syncretization of the two. The 1996 discoveries strengthened the identification with Heracles, who was often depicted wielding a club and carrying a cloak made from the Nemean Lion. However, since the first descriptions of the figure do not appear until the mid-18th century, many scholars conclude that it is not significantly older than that. Regardless of its age, the Cerne Abbas giant has become an important part of local culture and folklore, which often associates it with fertility."

Source Wikipiedia

The counties

2010-09-02T12:11:00.001Z

But I want to write to an Essex girl,

greeting her warmly.

But I want to write to a Shropshire lad,

brave boy, home from the army,

and I want to write to the Lincolnshire Poacher

to hear of his hare

and to an aunt in Bedfordshire

who makes a wooden hill of her stair.

But I want to post a rose to a Lancashire lass,

red, I'll pick it,

and I want to write to a Middlesex mate

for tickets for cricket.

But I want to write to the Ayrshire cheesemaker

and his good cow

and it is my duty to write to the Queen at Berkshire

in praise of Slough.

But I want to write to the National Poet of Wales at Ceredigion

in celebration

and I want to write to the Dorset Giant

in admiration

and I want to write to a widow in Rutland

in commiseration

and to the Inland Revenue in Yorkshire

in desperation.

But I want to write to my uncle in Clackmannanshire

in his kilt

and to my scrumptious cousin in Somerset

with her cidery lilt.

But I want to write to two ladies in Denbighshire,

near Llangollen

and I want to write to a laddie in Lanarkshire,

Dear Lachlan …

But I want to write to the Cheshire Cat,

returning its smile.

But I want to write the names of the Counties down

for my own child

and may they never be lost to her …

all the birds of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire...

Carol Ann Duffy

Bodowyr, looking eastwards to Snowdonia. Image credit Gordon Kingston

2010-08-03T10:45:00.001Z

Like the strands of an ancient beard

2010-08-03T10:43:00.002Z

Not a poem, but a lovely piece of prose. The rest is here -

http://heritageaction.wordpress.com/2010/08/01/focus-on-bodowyr-anglesey/

...the quartz hangs in droplets on the stones, like the drizzled water on the rails outside - the capstone itself, supported by three (of an original four) uprights, has the scaled contours of a peak in the massive mountain range that the chamber opens towards. Inside, on the surfaces to the rear of that eastern opening, but more ephemerally, suitably perhaps, sheep wool trails white and wispy, like the strands of an ancient beard.

Gordon Kingston

Castlerigg by T Allom & H Alard. circa 1835

2010-07-18T13:33:00.001Z

Although very fine things

2010-07-18T13:30:00.000Z

Although very fine things,
I think some great giant was playing at ninepins,---
And leaving the place, ere his ball he could swing,
Has left all his ninepins stuck up in a ring!

John Ruskin (1819-1900)

The Druid

2010-07-07T18:12:00.004Z

From the opening of autograph unpublished poem by William Stukeley, 1758.

Wheat ready for the sickle

2010-07-04T17:42:00.005Z

Not a poem, but a beautiful piece of prose from the 18th century about Marden Henge - especially relevant in light of the dig presently being undertaken there. See -
http://aveburymatters.blogspot.com/2010/07/visit-to-excavations-at-marden-henge.html

"... near the village of Marden, is a remarkable tumulus called Hatfield-barrow; the only work of the kind, I believe, to be found in this lowland vale, although so very frequent on the elevated downs on both sides. It stands in an enclosure, and is above the usual size, and nearly hemispherical; it is surrounded by a broad circular intrenchment, which, from being constantly supplied with water by innate springs, forms a sort of moat, which does not become dry even in the midst of summer; a circumstance I have never found attending any other barrow. In this water ditch, the Menyanthese trifoliata or bogbean, plentifully grows: a plant which I have not seen elsewhere in that neighbourhood. The whole of the barrow is at present ploughed over, and is said to be more fertile than the surrounding field. I have seen it clothed with wheat ready for the sickle; when the richness of colour, and the beautiful undulations of the corn, formed an object as pleasing as it was uncommon."

From part of a letter by James Norris Esq dated 9 February 1798. Thanks to Rhiannon for her TMA entries on Marden Henge and Hatfield Barrow and to Moss for her info on the six-week dig that started close to the village on June 28.

The unwritten years

2010-06-01T10:31:00.001Z

On every hand lies cromlech, camp, circle, hut and tumulus of the unwritten years. They are confused and mingled with the natural litter of a barren land. It is a silent Bedlam of history, a senseless cemetery or museum, amidst which we walk as animals must do when they see those valleys full of skeletons where their kind are said to go punctually to die. There are enough of the dead; they outnumber the living, and there those trite truths burst with life and drum upon the tympanum with ambiguous fatal voices. At the end of this many barrowed moor, yet not in it, there is a solitary circle of grey stones, where the cry of the past is less vociferous, less bewildering, than on the moor itself, but more intense. Nineteen tall, grey stones stand round a taller, pointed one that is heavily bowed, amidst long grass and bracken and furze. A track passes close by, but does not enter the circle; the grass is unbent except by the weight of its bloom. It bears a name that connects it with the assembling and rivalry of the bards of Britain. Here, under the sky, they met, leaning upon the stones, tall fair men of peace, but half warriors, whose songs could change ploughshares into sword. Here they met, and the growth of the grass, the perfection of the stones (except that one stoops as with age), and the silence, suggest that since the last bard left it, in robe of blue or white or green - the colours of sky and cloud and grass upon this fair day - the circle has been unmolested, and the law obeyed which forbade any but a bard to enter it...

And the inscription on the chair of the bards of Beisgawen was "nothing is that is not for ever and ever" - these things and the blue sky, the white, cloudy hall of the sun, and the green bough and grass, hallowed the ancient stones, and clearer than any vision of tall bards in the morning of the world was the tranquil delight of being thus ' teased out of time' in the presence of this ancientness...

Edward Thomas (1878-1917)

West Kennet Long Barrow. Image credit Willow

2010-05-02T12:07:00.002Z

The Megaliths

2010-05-02T12:05:00.000Z

Heedless, unheeded of the years they stand;
The rain drips off their chins and lichens spread
A moist green skin along each stony hand
That gropes among the bones of the grey dead.

They did not see the forests flow and fall -
Junipers blue wave by the fellside shore -
Nor barley batten by the coddling wall,
Nor purple ploughland swipe across the moor.

They hold death in them. Skulls have moulded ears
That deaf remain to curlew, crow and dove.
The human winds blow past them; each one fears
The hoarded ache of malignant love.

Norman Nicholson (1914-1987)

The High Bridestones, North Yorkshire

2010-04-16T10:23:00.005Z

Image credit Littlestone

Boundless and bare

2010-04-15T21:35:00.001Z

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

P B Shelley (1792-1822)

The London Stone. Image credit AlanS

2010-04-01T11:07:00.002Z

In a cage like throne

2010-04-01T11:05:00.001Z

There once was a London Stone,
sat in a cage like throne,
signed up to Twitter,
complained about litter,
but never his followers did groan!

The Logan Stone on the Rhinns of Kells in Galloway, Scotland by Francis Grose (1731-1791)

2010-03-01T20:10:00.002Z

Caractacus

2010-03-01T20:07:00.002Z

Thither, youths,
Turn your astonish'd eyes; behold yon huge
And unhewn sphere of living adamant,
Which, poised by magic, rests its central weight
On yonder pointed rock: firm as it seems,
Such is the strange and virtuous property,
It moves obsequious to the gentlest touch
Of him whose breast is pure; but to a traitor,
Tho’ ev’n a giant’s prowess nerv’d his arm,
It stands as fixt as Snowdon.

William Mason (1724–1797)

Caherkirky

2010-02-02T06:07:00.002Z

Mene, mene, tekel, u-pharsin

2010-02-02T06:00:00.001Z

Is this as far as we have gone; white stone
or a brazen serpent to look upon?
Such a heavy asp to wrap around a staff
or beam; “Mene, mene, tekel, u-pharsin.”
I shall take a great leap in the air and
hold as long as I can and only then.
Let the piper sound my fall. If he will.

Gordon Kingston

Book reviews: Lucifer Bridge

2010-01-17T07:48:00.006Z

"Lucifer Bridge is the debut poetry collection by Alex Langstone. Featuring modern poetry of a surreal mystical, esoteric and romantic nature, partly inspired by the diverse beauty of the British landscape and also by the dark gothic visionary esoteric-poetic adventures of the author. Alex Langstone has previously seen his work in print through various publications including The Heritage Journal, Meyn Mamvro, Artichoke and The Mirror of Isis and in anthologies published by Forward Press. This debut collection, hand picked by the author promises to inspire, excite, delight and stimulate!"

Published by Spirit of Albion Books. ISBN 978-0-9563554-0-9

More here - http://spiritofalbionbooks.blogspot.com/

Standing evermore at rest. The Stones of Stanton Drew

2010-01-01T00:04:00.002Z

The Song of Stanton Drew

2009-12-31T23:51:00.000Z

Midsummer eve it fell on a Saturday
Sue and William went to be wed
They had music played by a fiddler'
"Let's go dancing!" William said.

They danced and danced and danced around
They danced and danced to the fiddler's sound
They danced with a skip, they danced with a hop,
It seemed that nothing could make them stop.

Midnight struck and then said the fiddler
"Dancing on a Sunday wouldn't be right,"
Sue gave a laugh, "Don't care if I to Hell go
I'll find another fiddler tonight."

They danced and danced and danced around
They danced and danced to the fiddler's sound
They danced with a skip, they danced with a hop,
It seemed that nothing could make them stop.

Off went the fiddler, left them all grumbling,
Then another fiddler came along the way.
"You'd like to dance and I'd like to play for you"
Tunes he played both merry and gay.

They danced and danced and danced around
They danced and danced to the fiddler's sound
They danced with a skip, they danced with a hop,
It seemed that nothing could make them stop.

"Stop" cried the dancers, "NO" cried the fiddler,
He kept on in spite of their moans.
They couldn't stop their jerking and a stumbling,
Then in a flash, he turned them into stones.

They danced and danced and danced around
They danced and danced to the fiddler's sound
They danced with a skip, they danced with a hop,
It seemed that nothing could make them stop.

Stanton Drew in the County of Somerset
That's where the Devil played at Sue's request,
They played the price for dancing on a Sunday,
Now they are standing evermore at rest.

Kim Ravenscroft

West Kennet Long Barrow. Image credit Willow

2009-12-23T15:37:00.001Z

West Kennet Long Barrow

2009-12-22T19:16:00.001Z

“Because of them we are buried. Not spiteful, no.
For the rise of this hill ensures that our souls
will live forever in the light of the stars.”

Watch the young boy rise
from the fields surrounding
He is almost
a silhouette in the cornflower sky

Feel his heart pounding
along the path to the barrow
His courage
barely clings to his heels

See him pressing his bare chest
up against the cold stone
He looks
like he is trying to lift it

Listen to the voices of the dead
whispering their prophecies to him
He knows the secrets
locked inside their bleached bones

Hear the village singing
as the young boy returns to them a man
He is ready now
to lead them into a new world

© Copyright Persephone Vandegrift 2008

Lettergorman South. Image credit Gordon Kingston

2009-12-01T15:29:00.002Z

The Way Stones

2009-12-01T15:20:00.001Z

I passed here often when young, tired and bored
after another long day at the strand
and never looked past the gate, or did and
saw only cattle rubbing against a post.
It would be thirty years before I knew,
of the cobwebs spun in the morning dew.

Gordon Kingston

See also http://heritageaction.wordpress.com/2009/11/29/archaeoastronomy-and-staring-at-the-sun/

Belderg

2009-11-18T16:40:00.002Z

'They just keep turning up
And were thought of as foreign'-
One-eyed and benign,
They lie about his house,
Quernstones out of a bog.

To lift the lid of the peat
And find this pupil dreaming
Of neolithic wheat!
When he stripped off blanket bog
The soft-piled centuries

Fell open like a glib;
There were the first plough-marks,
The stone-age fields, the tomb
Corbelled, turfed and chambered,
Floored with dry turf-coomb.

A landscape fossilized,
Its stone wall patternings
Repeated before our eyes
In the stone walls of Mayo.
Before I turned to go

He talked about persistence,
A congruence of lives,
How stubbed and cleared of stones,
His home accrued growth rings
Of iron, flint and bronze.
So I talked of Mossbawn,

A bogland name 'but Moss'?,
He crossed my old home's music
With older strains of Norse.
I'd told how its foundation
Was mutable as sound

And how I could derive
A forked root from that ground,
Make bawn an English fort,
A planter's walled-in mound.

Or else find sanctuary
And think of it as Irish,
Persistent if outworn.
'But the Norse ring on your tree?'
I passed through the eye of the quern,

Grist to an ancient mill,
And in my mind's eye saw,
A world-tree of balanced stones,
Querns piles like vertebrae,
The marrow crushed to grounds.

Seamus Heaney 1975

The ghost of Sorley

2009-11-01T07:39:00.010Z

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

2009-11-01T07:35:00.002Z

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

2009-10-17T03:53:00.000Z

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

2009-10-17T03:51:00.000Z

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

2009-10-10T11:22:00.001Z

Searching for a picture of the past

2009-10-10T11:21:00.001Z

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

From Cromlech's summit grey. Image credit William Stukeley

2009-10-01T09:43:00.003Z

Beth Pennard or The British Chieftain's Grave

2009-10-01T09:38:00.001Z

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 Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides by James Boswell

2009-09-15T18:59:00.001Z

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'.

Barbury Castle roundhouse

2009-09-01T07:01:00.003Z

Life on the Chalk Downs

2009-09-01T06:50:00.003Z

It is here men dig
and dive under the earth
to dream
like
moths
of who will be
the Winter King

Stones are set in rings of fire
spirals gaze up at the stars
wishing they were closer
Dense forests hide groves
tended by maidens
with limbs
carved
from moonstone
watching Crones
weave the destiny of kingdoms
from the wombs of mothers
writhing on sheepskins
in the dark corners of huts

While out on the chalk downs
eldest sons
with
swords raised
wait to see which of their fathers
will burst forth from the mound

© 2009 Persephone Vandegrift

Interior wall painting at Barbury Castle roundhouse

2009-09-01T06:44:00.001Z

A Turn at Tara

2009-08-25T10:12:00.002Z

Press Release from Susan McKeown.

"The second Feis Teamhra: A Turn at Tara, which features performances by internationally-recognized Irish poets and musicians, will be held between 3 and 5 o’clock on August 30 2009 on the Hill of Tara. Those taking part are Michael Longley, Paul Muldoon, Susan McKeown, Laoise Kelly, and Aidan Brennan."

More here - http://heritageaction.wordpress.com/

Who treads upon the footmarks of his sires

2009-08-07T18:10:00.002Z

Sarsen under the west buttress of the Church of St Nicholas, Fyfield, Wiltshire.

On the same occasion

2009-08-07T17:54:00.004Z

Oh! gather whencesoe'er ye safely may
The help which slackening Pity requires;
Nor deem that he perforce must go astray
Who treads upon the footmarks of his sires.

Our churches, invariably perhaps, stand east and west, but 'why' is by few persons 'exactly' known; nor, that the degree of deviation from 'due' east often noticeable in the ancient ones was
determined, in each particular case, by the point in the horizon, at which the sun rose upon the day of the saint to whom the church was dedicated. These observances of our ancestors, and the causes of them, are the subject of the following stanzas.

WHEN in the antique age of bow and spear
And feudal rapine clothed with iron mail,
Came ministers of peace, intent to rear
The Mother Church in yon sequestered vale;

Then, to her Patron Saint a previous rite
Resounded with deep swell and solemn close,
Through unremitting vigils of the night,
Till from his couch the wished-for Sun uprose.

He rose, and straight--as by divine command,
They, who had waited for that sign to trace
Their work's foundation, gave with careful hand
To the high altar its determined place;

Mindful of Him who in the Orient born
There lived, and on the cross his life resigned,
And who, from out the regions of the morn,
Issuing in pomp, shall come to judge mankind.

So taught 'their' creed;--nor failed the eastern sky
'Mid these more awful feelings, to infuse
The sweet and natural hopes that shall not die,
Long as the sun his gladsome course renews.

For us hath such prelusive vigil ceased;
Yet still we plant, like men of elder days,
Our christian altar faithful to the east,
Whence the tall window drinks the morning rays;

That obvious emblem giving to the eye
Of meek devotion, which erewhile it gave,
That symbol of the dayspring from on high,
Triumphant o'er the darkness of the grave.

William Wordsworth

Ketley Crag © Ian Hobson

2009-07-15T08:14:00.001Z

An unmoving pool of stone

2009-07-15T08:12:00.000Z

Under a safe and ancient overhang
stony raindrops
spreading their unfathomable pattern
across the world
across the ages.

Dropped and patiently chipped away
in an unmoving pool of stone.
In an unresolved pond of another reality.

What does this tell us?

2009-07-05T09:21:00.004Z

Four years ago, when I first started this anthology of Megalithic Poems, a colleague warned that I'd be hard pressed to find even half a dozen on the theme of the megalithic structures and prehistoric sites of Britain, Ireland and the European continent. Three years on and there are now more than 200 poems here and an equal number of drawings, paintings, prints or photographs to accompany them.

The poems stretch over a period of some eight hundred years; from Laymon's poem, Brut, of 1215 describing Stonehenge (see the September 2005 archive) to poems written only a few months ago. What does this tell us? Well, perhaps that not only have these structures inspired poets like Blake and Wordsworth (as well as artists such as Constable and Turner) down through the ages but also that this marvellous, mysterious megalithic heritage of ours continues to inspire us even today.

At a time when so much of our heritage is at risk through development and mismanagement (Tara in Ireland for example, even Stonehenge and Avebury) perhaps these poems, and the images that accompany them, will continue to inspire those who would take time out from busy lives to visit and ponder upon this often overlooked aspect of our heritage. Not only that, hopefully this anthology will also act as a warning that these places, built by our forefathers millennia ago, are in constant need of our care and attention lest, after thousands of years having, "...brav'd the continual assaults of weather..." they are finally lost for all time through the greed, ignorance and insensitivity of the 21st century.

I hope you will find as much pleasure reading this anthology as I have taken in compiling it. Please click on the links above for further information on things megalithic, as well as websites with more pictures, musings and up-to-date news from some of the organizations dedicated to protecting our prehistoric heritage.

Deep beneath an ogham-carven door Newgrange by Oscar Montelius (1843–1921)

2009-07-01T05:30:00.003Z

New Grange

2009-07-01T05:28:00.000Z

The golden hill where long-forgotten kings
Keep lonely watch upon their feasting floor
Is silent now, the Dagda's harp no more
Makes sun and moon move to its murmurous
strings;
And never in the leafy star-led Springs
Will Caer and Aengus haunt the river
shore,
For deep beneath an ogham-carven door
Dust dulls the dew-white wonder of their
wings.
Yet one may linger loving the lost dream
The magic of the heart that cannot die,

Although the Rood destroy the quicken rods;
To him through earth and air and hollow
stream
Wild music winds, as two swans wheeling cry
Above the cromlech of the vanished gods.

Thomas Samuel Jones Jr (1882-1932)

Maulatanvally

2009-06-14T21:30:00.002Z

Where is Eochaidh? A roar through the rushes
as sucking punches follow hooves. Thunder.
A rotting shape under May-shroud bushes
that squirms with a stinking Genesis. Worm.
Eochaidh Bán, does sweat grip your tongue? Does salt
mist form a husk on Meall an tsean baile?
Here’s where you lie under protruding teeth,
an unforgiving weight. What have I done?

gjrk

Here’s where you lie. Image credit gjrk

2009-06-14T21:28:00.002Z

Its tale of ruin tells

2009-06-04T21:15:00.001Z

The harp that once through Tara's halls
The soul of music shed,
Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls
As if that soul were fled.
So sleeps the pride of former days,
So glory's thrill is o'er,
And hearts that once beat high for praise
Now feel that praise no more.

No more to chiefs and ladies bright,
The harp of Tara swells;
The chord alone, that breaks at night,
Its tale of ruin tells.
Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes,
The only throb she gives
Is when some heart indignant breaks,
To show that still she lives.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852)

Hill of Allen. Every stone that sings with memory

2009-05-30T08:38:00.007Z

“And finally” Spat the sage, “When all these things are passed, when every trial and suffering is over, when at last you believe that you are finally free, then people of Erin, only then will the true depth of my spite take form, if it was the Fianna that upheld ye through your countless years of trial, if it was they and their descendents whose sacrifice finally set you free, then thus I will repay them for their foolish loyalty, what are these baubles of loyalty, this child’s talk of honor, those who in their hearts turn away from the truth and the childish innocence and naivety of the kings of Erin they will share with me the riches of the world, gold beyond any dream you have yet dared embrace, even if these riches are to be the bars of their prison, it is a gilded prison I give them, with such splendor as this what fool could possibly say, that the laughing voice of a happy river or the cool majesty of the stars is of more worth to them, for their crime of selfless loyalty this a bequeath the Fianna of Erin, their fortress of Rath Lugh shall be overthrown, though their stand be valiant none shall come to their aid, except the cream of the cream of the men of Ireland and their sons, and these too shall be cast aside by my minions like the dying jetsam on the unstoppable poisoned tide, this too I give them for their daring to defy, that their beloved Tara shall be cast low before the courts of lesser kings, and none but the few of the few will care enough to pick her up from the mud and serve to heal the dishonor intended for her, the white stones of the Dun Allen shall be cast low, and smashed will be transported where once they were the upholders of the pinnacle of virtue now they will be driven beneath the feet of my slaves, now they will be bound to the service of ever greater torments, now they will be nothing more than the stones of the road of toil, the foundation of the road to IKEA...

The lady Caitlin spoke “you who would afflict my children, gloat at all that is base they have become, reveling in their supposed slavery, laughing as they learn to fear the sun. Will feel the hope of all your tyranny, as the proud nonchalant summer first feels the breath of autumn, time and again the clarion call will sound, and as it falls upon the ears of my children they will rise up in peace, every stone that sings with memory, every smashed site and tomb and barrow will spill forth it’s magics till they wash your evil from my land, and finally the dignity with which my children stood in every generation, will shine once more, and the light of that shining will be the spirit of peace, and this time last forever, I have faith in my children my love will never betray them, I know they will rise against you time and time again and so I have no fear."

Come to the Hill of Allen in Kildare today for a guided tour and an afternoon of story telling. Meeting Point Car Park at Allen Church, Saturday 30th of May 2009 at 2pm.

Salisbury Plain

2009-05-01T14:57:00.000Z

And oft a night-fire mounting to the clouds
Reveals the desert and with dismal red
Clothes the black bodies of encircling crowds.
It is the sacrificial altar fed
With living men.

William Wordsworth

The desert and with dismal red

2009-05-01T14:53:00.002Z

Love Among the Ruins

2009-04-18T21:18:00.004Z

Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles
Miles and miles
On the solitary pastures where our sheep
Half-asleep
Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop
As they crop -

II

Was the site once of a city great and gay,
(So they say)
Of our country's very capital, its prince
Ages since
Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far
Peace or war.

III

Now -the country does not even boast a tree,
As you see,
To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills
From the hills
Intersect and give a name to, (else they run
Into one)

IV

Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires
Up like fires
O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall
Bounding all,
Made of marble, men might march on nor be prest,
Twelve abreast.

V

And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass
Never was!
Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'erspreads
And embeds
Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,
Stock or stone -

VI

Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe
Long ago;
Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame
Struck them tame;
And that glory and that shame alike, the gold
Bought and sold.

VII

Now, -the single little turret that remains
On the plains,
By the caper overrooted, by the gourd
Overscored,
While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks
Through the chinks -

VIII

Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time
Sprang sublime,
And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced
As they raced,
And the monarch and his minions and his dames
Viewed the games.

IX

And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eve
Smiles to leave
To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece
In such peace,
And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey
Melt away -

X

That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair
Waits me there
In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul
For the goal,
When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb
Till I come.

XI

But he looked upon the city, every side,
Far and wide,
All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades'
Colonnades,
All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts, -and then,
All the men!

XII

When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand,
Either hand
On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace
Of my face,
Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech
Each on each.

XIII

In one year they sent a million fighters forth
South and north,
And they built their gods a brazen pillar high
As the sky,
Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force - Gold, of course.

XIV

Oh, heart! oh, blood that freezes, blood that burns!
Earth's returns
For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!
Shut them in,
With their triumphs and their glories and the rest.
Love is best!

Robert Browning

Behind your deep eyes

2009-04-16T11:15:00.001Z

One of the Haniwa

2009-04-16T11:09:00.002Z

All emotions as well as quiet,
moss-covered Time
are raining behind your face,
which bears the weight
of two thousand years
behind your deep eyes.
Your mouth is tightened
by a great secret.

You do not cry or laugh
or become angry because
you are always crying,
laughing and angry.

You do not have thoughts
or feelings. You absorb those
continuously. Then they
precipitate in you forever.

Born directly out of the earth,
you were a human thing
before human beings.
There was a shortness
in one of God's breaths,

and therefore, incomplete,
you can take pride
in a beautiful simplicity
and health.
You store away the universe.

Shuntaro Tanikawa

(Translated by Diane Furtney and Asuka Itaya)

Old birch trees. Avebury, south-east quadrant

2009-04-02T10:07:00.001Z

Coming Upon A Stone Circle at Sunset

2009-04-02T09:59:00.002Z

Old Birch trees, whose white branches weave and sift
The brilliant evening twilight, huddle deep
Around these circled stones. The old grove shifts
As leaves and chilly breezes slightly lift
And rustle. But these silent grey stones keep
Their secrets: no wind reveals, no evening shade distills
Why they stand, encircling each other, in these hills.
With ancient reasons more astute than ours
These stones were brought here, then precisely set.
Each in its place. Time moves, things change, rains pour
Suns rise and set, winter storms blow and roar,
These, encircled, change not. Only men forget.
And now we watch as deepened shadows show
How much we've lost of what our fathers' fathers know.

Juleigh Howard-Hobson

To touch them

2009-03-12T15:19:00.004Z

Parts of the little church of St Andrew at Greensted in Essex are estimated to be over a thousand years old, and it is possible that the site has been a place of Christian worship for 1,300 years. It is the oldest wooden church in the world and the oldest wooden building in Europe. The fifty one logs that form the walls of the Anglo-Saxon part of the church are of oak, and to touch them is to be transported back to the forests where they one stood and to the people who cut, shaped and used them for their place of worship. Though somewhat outside the scope of Megalithic Poems the Church of St Andrew is of such antiquity that it deserves a mention here.

Of wood well made this wall

2009-03-12T15:17:00.002Z

Not of stone

2009-03-12T15:13:00.005Z

Heart of oak, cleft down
from top to bottom.
Fastened well in wooden sill
round side out towards winter's winds
flat side in for warmth.

Adze marks made here by a man
more than a thousand years ago.

Naes staenen!
But of wood well made this wall
Once fastened and thatched
A new hall for a new lord of all.

LS

NB Naes staenen - not of stone.

Badger

2009-03-01T11:32:00.003Z

1

Pushing the wedge of his body
Between cromlech and stone circle,
He excavates down mine shafts
And back into the depths of the hill.

His path straight and narrow
And not like the fox's zig-zags,
The arc of the hare who leaves
A silhouette on the sky line.

Night's silence around his shoulders,
His face lit by the moon, he
Manages the earth with his paws,
Returns underground to die.

2

An intestine taking in
patches of dog's-mercury,
brambles, the bluebell wood;
a heel revolving acorns;
a head with a price on it
brushing cuckoo-spit, goose-grass;
a name that parishes borrow.

3

For the digger, the earth-dog
It is a difficult delivery
Once the tongs take hold,

Vulnerable his pig's snout
That lifted cow-pats for beetles,
Hedgehogs for the soft meat,

His limbs dragging after them
So many stones turned over,
The trees they tilted.

Michael Longley (For Raymond Piper)

Coetan Arthur Cromlech. St Davids Head, Wales. Image credit Moss

2009-03-01T11:31:00.006Z

Time’s curtain parts

2009-02-03T10:33:00.002Z

Dusk. The brush of a hare, in flight, flicks the long grass
in a gust of fast-fading foot beats. Time’s curtain parts
and on the hill bulls roar through bronze trumpets and rattles
click, fertile in the writhing flames - dancing thorn-shadow.
What masque is this? Abandon. Whitened faces and rough
breathing blow a swirling cloud to obscure it again.
Saturnalia. A turning word on the wind.

Storms leave a fossil in a pliable mind
and slick, stiff, five fingers grope, grey in the mist.
A terrible Titan lurks under the hand.
Inhumed on the hillside, he feels my flesh drawing close
and hungry horns oscillate the land.

gjrk

The Knockawaddra Alignment. County Cork, Eire. Image credit gjrk

2009-02-03T10:29:00.003Z

Wiltshire Downs

2009-01-22T16:04:00.001Z

The cuckoo's double note
Loosened like bubbles from a drowning throat
Floats through the air
In mockery of pipit, lark and stare.
The stable boys thud by
Their horses slinging divots at the sky
And with bright hooves
Printing the sodden turf with lucky grooves.
As still as a windhover
A shepherd in his napping coat leans over
His tall sheep-crook
And shearlings, tegs and yoes cons like a book.
And one tree-crowned long barrow
Stretched like a sow that has brought forth her farrow
Hides a king's bones
Lying like broken sticks among the stones.

Andrew Young (1885-1971)

The Long Stones Long Barrow at Beckhampton, Avebury

2009-01-22T16:02:00.001Z

Silbury and the Age of Hills. Image credit Willow

2009-01-12T21:23:00.002Z

This mound

2009-01-12T21:19:00.001Z

This mound in some remote and dateless day
Rear'd o'er a Chieftain of the Age of Hills,
May here detain thee Traveller! from thy road
Not idly lingering. In his narrow house
Some Warrior sleeps below: his gallant deeds
Haply at many a solemn festival
The Bard has harp'd, but perish'd is the song
Of praise, as o'er these bleak and barren downs
The wind that passes and is heard no more.
Go Traveller on thy way, and contemplate
Glory's brief pageant, and remember then
That one good deed was never wrought in vain.

Robert Southey (1774–1843)

Under this wide Wiltshire sky. West Kennet Long Barrow. Image credit Willow

2009-01-01T21:10:00.003Z

Prehistoric Burials

2009-01-01T21:04:00.006Z

These barrows of the century-darkened dead,-
Memorials of oblivion, these turfed tombs
Of muttering ancestries whose fires, once red,
Now burn for me beyond mysterious glooms;
I pass them day by day while daylight fills
My sense of sight on these time-haunted hills.

Could I but watch those burials that began
Whole history - flint and bronze and iron beginnings,
When under this wide Wiltshire sky crude man
Warred with his world and augered our world-winnings!
Could I but enter that unholpen brain,
Cabined and comfortless and insecure,
That ruled some settlement on Salisbury Plain
And offered blood to blind primeval powers,-
Dim Caliban whose doom was to endure
Earth's ignorant nullity made strange with flowers.

Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)

Carnac. The Alignment of Menec

2008-12-16T19:18:00.002Z

Carnac. Centre du ciel et de la mer

2008-12-16T19:09:00.004Z

Beaucoup d’hommes sont venus,
Sont restés. Terre d’ossements,
Poussière d’ossements.

Il y avait donc
L’appel de Carnac.

Comment chantaient-ils,
Ceux des menhirs?

Peut-être est-ce là
Qu’ils avaient moins peur.

Centre du ciel et de la mer,
De la terre aussi,
La lumière le dit.

Chantant, eux,
Pas loin de la mer,
Pour être admis par la lumière.

Regardant la mer,
Lui tournant le dos,
Implorant la terre.

Eugène Guillevic

Many men have come,
Have stayed. Land of bones,
Powdered bones.

Thus there was
the call of Carnac.

How did they sing,
The menhir-people?

Perhaps it was there
They knew less fear.

Centre of the sky and of the sea,
Of the land as well,
The light says it.

Singing, they were,
Not far from the sea,
To be let in by the light.

Beholding the sea,
Turning their back to it,
Imploring the land.

Eugène Guillevic. Translated by John Montague

Tara

2008-12-09T20:18:00.001Z

What did you get for cleaning your hands?
A few broad beans and a word from an ass?
There was no sword on the road to Moab
And I can’t see your beanstalk, Jack.
Show me your broken heart.

gjrk

Silbury and West Kennet from East Kennet Long Barrow

2008-12-02T19:02:00.001Z

East Kennet Long Barrow

2008-12-02T19:01:00.000Z

Love me,
will you,
drape your arms around my chest.

Keep me warm
while I sleep,
dreaming of my children to the West.

Do not carve me out
with a desperate hand
or avaricious eye.

But if you must,
keep your voices down
so that I can hear their hearts are still beating.

© Copyright Persephone Vandegrift 2008

Its whispered gift

2008-11-20T05:05:00.001Z

The Sacred Way

2008-11-20T05:03:00.000Z

Stonehenge

Sacred, sacrosanct, sanctuary
In the ruins of what was sacred space that we need back:

These monoliths to moon and sun remind us
That we abandoned the stars to ourselves, only to find
That we have no rite for being human

But now as the breeze stirs, and we slow our steps
Where stone breathes we can receive its whispered gift again

Jay Ramsay

From his longer poem The Sacred Way

Secret as the thoughts of God

2008-11-01T00:02:00.001Z

All sunlit was the earth I trod

2008-11-01T00:00:00.000Z

All sunlit was the earth I trod,
The heavens were frankest blue;
But secret as the thoughts of God
The stones of Stanton Drew.

Sir William Watson (1858-1935)

Upon these eternal hills. Image credit Paul Atlas-Saunders

2008-10-01T03:46:00.004Z

Written Within View of Castlerigg Stone Circle

2008-10-01T03:43:00.002Z

I cannot believe
That in this fateful hour
The infinite beauty
That shall caress mine eyes
Behold!
I cannot believe, that the
Glorious fanfare of strange
Stark contrasts that my gaze
Is upon, so lifts me that
I become overwhelmed by passions
That I have never known.
I cannot believe that
The form of beauty
That the scene foretells
Can (alone) create such an impression
Upon my mind
That primeval memories stir
From depths uncharted territory.
So I am fired up by the glory of
The Holy Spirit
In Her pantheistic ways
Upon these eternal hills of mine.
I cannot believe that
Such variety of colour
And texture can engulf the
Ageless pattern strewn formations
Of fell side and mystic ring
And I cannot believe that Deity
Has not a hand in all of this and more
For surely all life's creation
Emanates from She who is
Sacred Earth's
Goddess Divine.

Alex Langstone

See also Alex Langstone's Spirit of Albion website here - http://www.alexlangstone.blogspot.com/

In dreams

2008-09-26T06:01:00.000Z

Henge of stones and dreams of old

2008-09-26T05:50:00.002Z

I am a fool.
From a distance
An ocean-span shall we say
I thought you were just stone sticks.

On my stomach
I floated
In dreams mind you
down the Avon
to prove my thoughts wrong.

I am jealous of you
I should like to wear a henge
as sophisticated as you do
that would make scholars wonder
and trowels pause in mid air.

And what was burned here?
What was burned?
And no lying
just how old are the ashes found?
No more fairy tales
and alignments
or spiritual ownership.

Come, come now,
these stone sticks
should be full of confessions
and of pride-pocked veins
that do not warrant such fertile
emotional destruction.

If I could grant you one thing
despite the limited power I possess
it would be the freedom
to escape back down the river
and the right to finally collapse
into your parents grieving arms.

© Copyright Persephone Vandegrift 2008

Fair fall on thee the morning light

2008-09-06T04:58:00.002Z

From western lands

2008-09-06T04:55:00.002Z

From western lands beyond the foam,
We sought our English fathers' home
By few or known or sung.
Which 'neath the quiet English skies,
far from all busy haunts it lies
The wide chalk downs among.

Huge druid stones surround the spot,
Which else had almost been forgot
By the great world without.
The mystic ring now scarcely traced
Is by a grassy dike embraced,
Circling the whole about.

Deep hangs the thatch on cottage eaves,
And buried deep in ivy leaves
The cottage windows gleam.
There little birds fly to and fro,
And happy children come and go
With rosy cheek and rustic walk,
They curtsy for the gentle folk,
As they the strangers deem.

With pinks and stocks the beds are gay,
And box and yew their shapes display
Fantastically trimmed.
And each small garden overflows
With scent of woodbine and of rose
Above the borders trim.

The ancient little Norman church,
With quaintly medieval porch,
Stands 'neath the elm tree tall
Sunk in the graveyard plot around,
The moss-grown headstones scarce
are found
Few stoop the lettering to trace
Which time's rude hand will soon efface.
Some there may be of highborn race,
But none the names recall.

The many gabled manor house,
With winking casement sheen,
Seem in the summer light to drowse
And dream of what has been
And we may dream of earlier days,
When the old convent marked the place,
When nuns in gown and coif complete,
Paced the green paths with quiet feet,
And gather herbs and simples small
Beneath the high brick garden wall,
Finding a safe retreat.

Like some small nest securely placed,
With ferns and grass interlaced,
But open to the light,
The hamlets seem to lie at rest
Upon the common's ample breast,
Secure in loneliness of space
From aught that could the charm efface
Of innocence and old-world grace
Worn by ancestral right.

Home of sweet days and thankful nights,
Fair fall on thee the morning light,
Soft fall the evening dews.
Wild winds perchance may sweep the wold
But age, untouched by storm or cold,
In memory's sight thou standest there,
Encircled by serenest air,
In changeless summer hue.

Mary S Cope (1852-1888)

Once in a circle to the seasons

2008-08-28T19:09:00.001Z

At the feet of rubber wheels

2008-08-28T19:08:00.003Z

Displaced
souls of our ancestors
Once in a circle to the seasons
sure security to all who saw them

Buffer stones now on a busy street
where juggernauts thunder by
their secret story
still known
to a few

For the rest
just buffer stones
where our history lies dusty
at the feet of rubber wheels
and on the piled desks
of an immovable bureaucracy

Anon

The Dying Gaul

2008-08-16T05:45:00.000Z

Tara remains

2008-08-16T05:40:00.004Z

Tara remains.

Skryne remains.

The Gabhra River remains.

The spirit of that land remains.

And so long as either of those remain, we FIGHT for it.

Whether by word or by action.

Whether you choose to do it by intellect, or by magick.

By fact or by faith.

We FIGHT for it.

Because it is all worth FIGHTING for.

Our ancestors didnae' fight for the freedom of this land and its people,
only to have us lay down in the wake of another kind of tyrrany.

It has been said by a woman to "Never doubt that a small, determined group of individuals can change the world. In fact, it is the only thing that ever really has."

I, for one, will not give up. And I am but a descendant of the Isle.

I am still her child.

One of millions.

I refuse to give up.

What say the rest of you?

Anon

TARA OF THE KINGS

2008-08-16T05:27:00.002Z

WE MET AT THE SUMMER SOLSTICE
WHEN EVERYTHING STOOD STILL
HER SLOPING AWAY LIKE ISEULT
LEFT ME OVER THE HILL
I RAISED THE CHAMBER IN THE MOUND
THE OAK-FRINGED SACRED SPRING
THAT FEEDS THE STREAMS THAT RUN AROUND
TARA OF THE KINGS

SHE WAS THROUGH WITH CARBON DATING
STAKEHOLDERS WITH NO HAIR
SHE WAS THROUGH WITH MONSTER MEETINGS
IN FLATS OFF PARNELL SQUARE
SHE WAS THROUGH WITH CROWNED AND UNCROWNED
YEW TREES WITH COUNTLESS RINGS
THE DITCH THAT USED TO RUN AROUND
TARA OF THE KINGS

COULD WE WHO ENDURED THE PENAL
AND EDWARD POYNING’S LAWS
(NEVER MIND THE BEEF TRIBUNAL)
NOW SOMEHOW BE IN AWE
OF A ROAD RUNNING THROUGH THE GROUND
ON WHICH STOOD OUR ALTHING
AND NOT ENSURE IT RUN AROUND
TARA OF THE KINGS?

WE KNOW THE STONE OF DESTINY
WAS SET UP IN THIS SOIL
NOW THE SOLDIERS OF DESTINY
ARE SET TO BANK THE SPOILS
AND LEST THEY WISH TO BE RENOWNED
FOR RAPE AND RAVISHING
THEY’LL NOT GIVE US THE RUNAROUND
ON TARA OF THE KINGS

WE’RE FATED TO BE REMEMBERED
AS SPOILERS OF THE DEAD

AND THOUGH WE SEEM QUITE UNHAMPERED
BY HONOUR OR BY DREAD
YET WE ARE DREAD- AND HONOUR-BOUND
TO OUR UNBORN OFFSPRING
TO ENSURE THE M3 RUN AROUND
TARA OF THE KINGS

Paul Muldoon

East Kennet Long Barrow

2008-08-03T05:57:00.002Z