The Avebury Avenue 1996

The Henge Stones

Atte nyte

They walke

Ye did not noe

That they could goe

They talke

And nod theyr Grizl'd Heads

Leave theyr Mossie Beds

To whisper antient Lore

While the Moone flees from the Shore

And Darknesse reigns as afore.


They maun't be seene

By Mortal Eie

'Tis Death to spie

But when the Sunne

Hath his Race begun

They Silent fale

Stand stille and tall

Agaynst the Skie

None noweth why

Their Secrets they doe keepe

When we waxe wide awake

They

Slepe.


Barbara Tomlinson

Moon over Silbury Hill: Image credit Pam Brophy

Thy True Heritage

What thou lovest well remains,
the rest is dross
What thou lov'st well shall not be reft from thee
What thou lov'st well is thy true heritage
Whose world, or mine or theirs
or is it of none?
First came the seen, then thus the palpable
Elysium, though it were in the halls of hell,
What thou lovest well is thy true heritage
What thou lov'st well shall not be reft from thee

Ezra Pound, Pisan Cantos, LXXXI

Stonehenge by William Camden (1551-1623)

Jerusalem by William Blake

They become like they behold! Yet immense in strength and power,
In awful pomp and gold, in all the precious unhewn stones of Eden
They build a stupendous Building on the Plain of Salisbury, with chains
Of rocks round London Stone, of Reasonings, of unhewn Demonstrations
In labyrinthine arches (Mighty Urizen the Architect) thro' which
The heavens might revolve and Eternity be bound in their chain.
Labour unparallell'd! a wondrous rocky World of cruel destiny,
Rocks piled on rocks reaching the stars, stretching from pole to pole.
The Building is Natural Religion & its Altars Natural Morality,
A building of eternal death, whose proportions are eternal despair.

Mayburgh Henge by John Horsborough: circa 1833

The Bridal Of Triermain

The faithful Page he mounts his steed,
And soon he cross'd green Irthing's mead,
Dash'd o'er Kirkoswald's verdant plain,
And Eden barr'd his course in vain.
He pass'd red Penrith's Table Round,
For feats of chivalry renown'd.
Left Mayburgh's mound and stones of power,
By Druid's raised in magic hour,
And traced the Eamont's winding way,
Till Ulfo's lake beneath him lay.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)

Milton by William Blake

Stonehenge, from A Game of Henge

Those stony backs. A scrum around a whisper:
Hush. Hiss. Who?
Why won't they let you in? No, it's a
secret secret
won't tell YOU . . .
A playground wide as Wessex. Wire barbs
the wind whines through.
You'd wait a hundred years and couldn't ask.
It's secret secret
won't tell YOU.
Don't dare. You dare yourself to dare
and then you do.
They turn and . . . What's the game? You are.
And it's Sticks And Stones
and you're on your own
and it's Piggy in the Middle
and the piggy is YOU.

Philip Gross

Milton by William Blake

Stonehenge, from A Game of Henge

A game of Henge, my masters?
The pieces are set. We lost the box
with instructions years ago.
Do you see Hangman? Or
Clock Patience? Building bricks
the gods grew out of? Dominoes?
It's your move. You're in the ring
of the hills, of the stones, of the walls
of your skull. You want to go?
You want out? Good - that's
the game. Whichever way you turn
are doors. Choose. Step through, so...
And whichever world you stumble into
will be different from all the others, only
what they might have been,
you'll never know.

Philip Gross

Dolmen in the Snow by C D Friedrich (1774-1840)

Close your bodily eye

Close your bodily eye, so that you may see your picture first with your spiritual eye, then bring to the light of day that which you have seen in the darkness so that it may react on others from the outside inwards.

C D Friedrich (1774-1840)

The Wheel of Time. Image credit Charles Philip Kains-Jackson

Fane of the Druids

Time-hallow'd pile by simple builders rear'd!
Mysterious round, through distant times rever'd!
Ordained with earth's revolving orb to last!
Thou bringst to sight the present and the past.
Rapt with her theme, bold Fancy wings her flight
To silent ages long involved in night
Bids clouded forms arise to sight display'd
And scatters light along th' oblivious shade.

John Ogilvie (1733-1813)

The Bridestones

Bridestones (Remains of Elmet)

Scorched-looking, unhewn - a hill-top chapel,
Actually a crown of outcrop rock -
Earth's heart-bone laid bare.

Crowding congregation of skies.
Tense congregation of hills.
You do nothing casual here.

The wedding stones
Are electrified with whispers.

And marriage is nailed down
By this slender-necked, heavy headed
Black exclamation mark
of rock.

And you go
With the wreath of the weather
The wreath of the horizons
The wreath of constellations
Over your shoulders.

And from now on
The sun
Can always touch your ghost
With the shadow of this finger.

From now on
The moon can always lift your skull
On to this perch,
to clean it.

Ted Hughes

The Springfield Cursus: circa 2000bce. Watercolour by Frank Gardiner, © Essex County Council

Smoke rises

Smoke rises
river flows.

Sitting alone
where people once met and smiled
and considered things
hardly to be guessed at now.

Logs crackle.

Shadows still standing between darkness and light
and in the flickering
shifting the soul back to another place.

Where is my life?
Wither does it go?
I sit alone in my hut and meditate quietly.
With all my thinking I know nowhere...
Such is my present
eternally changing, all in emptiness.

Ryokan (1758-1831) Zen monk.