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
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Its tale of ruin tells
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)
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)
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Hill of Allen. Every stone that sings with memory
“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.
See also http://www.hillofallen.ie/
Friday, May 01, 2009
Salisbury Plain
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
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
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Love Among the Ruins
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
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
Thursday, April 16, 2009
One of the Haniwa
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)
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)
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Coming Upon A Stone Circle at Sunset
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
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
Thursday, March 12, 2009
To touch them
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 once 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.
http://northstoke.blogspot.com/2009/03/greensted-church-essex.html
Not of stone
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.
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.
Sunday, March 01, 2009
Badger
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)
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)
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Time’s curtain parts
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
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
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Wiltshire Downs
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)
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)
Monday, January 12, 2009
This mound
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)
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)
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Prehistoric Burials
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)
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)
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Carnac. Centre du ciel et de la mer
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
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
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Tara
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
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
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
East Kennet Long Barrow
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
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
Thursday, November 20, 2008
The Sacred Way
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
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
Saturday, November 01, 2008
All sunlit was the earth I trod
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)
The heavens were frankest blue;
But secret as the thoughts of God
The stones of Stanton Drew.
Sir William Watson (1858-1935)
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Written Within View of Castlerigg Stone Circle
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/
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/
Friday, September 26, 2008
Henge of stones and dreams of old
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
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
Saturday, September 06, 2008
From western lands
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)
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)
Thursday, August 28, 2008
At the feet of rubber wheels
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
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
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Tara remains
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
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
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
Sunday, August 03, 2008
The Path and the Poppies
The Path
Silk red poppies edging the green of the wheat field, translucent blue cranesbill flowers lacing their way along a rough grassed path, and pollen clad bees humming in the sun. The open downland spreading out into the distance leading to freedom and unexplored places...
The Poppies
Amongst green fields
Brief moments of scarlet magic
fretted with sky-blue flowers
hanging heavy
with pollened bees
High above grey sarsens
lie hidden amidst trees
guarding the bones.
Anon
Anon
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Stonehenge
Here oft, when Evening sheds her twilight ray,
And gilds with fainter beam departing day,
With breathless gaze, and cheek with terror pale,
The lingering shepherd startles at the tale,
How, at deep midnight, by the moon's chill glance,
Unearthly forms prolong the viewless dance;
While on each whisp'ring breeze that murmurs by,
His busied fancy hears the hollow sigh.
From Stonehenge by Thomas Stokes Salmon. 1823
And gilds with fainter beam departing day,
With breathless gaze, and cheek with terror pale,
The lingering shepherd startles at the tale,
How, at deep midnight, by the moon's chill glance,
Unearthly forms prolong the viewless dance;
While on each whisp'ring breeze that murmurs by,
His busied fancy hears the hollow sigh.
From Stonehenge by Thomas Stokes Salmon. 1823
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Megalithic limericks. The Pied Piper vs The Good Shepherd
There was an old farmer called ‘noch
who frowned at my interest in rock.
“Go on”, he replied
but fenced me inside
and followed me counting his flock.
gjrk
who frowned at my interest in rock.
“Go on”, he replied
but fenced me inside
and followed me counting his flock.
gjrk
Bound for hell?
Under the clouds, grey and sublime,
in a root and branch strangle-like vine,
two stones or three? It's not so easy to tell,
but oh, for neglecting them,
some are sure bound for hell?
CianMcLiam
in a root and branch strangle-like vine,
two stones or three? It's not so easy to tell,
but oh, for neglecting them,
some are sure bound for hell?
CianMcLiam
All things porcine
Said the megarak, “I think I’ve worked out
What A’bry was really about;
All things porcine
Inspired the design
‘Twas built as a pigpen no doubt.”
Nigel Swift
What A’bry was really about;
All things porcine
Inspired the design
‘Twas built as a pigpen no doubt.”
Nigel Swift
It's kebabs from now
The pigpen at Avebury were a goodun
it came to an end of a sudden;
The chief priest he did say,
tis better this way,
it's kebabs from now made o' mutton.
LS
it came to an end of a sudden;
The chief priest he did say,
tis better this way,
it's kebabs from now made o' mutton.
LS
Said the Devil
There was an Old Sarsen on Salisbury,
That got lost on the road out of Avebury;
Said the Devil to 'ee,
It's a posset for me,
Or I'll bury thee deep under Silbury.
LS
(The Devil should sound like John Laurie :-)
That got lost on the road out of Avebury;
Said the Devil to 'ee,
It's a posset for me,
Or I'll bury thee deep under Silbury.
LS
(The Devil should sound like John Laurie :-)
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Touching the sky
Blue dragonfly spiralling down
A glade etched in darkness
Sun splintering through
Great tumulus
touching the sky
Jewelled day echoing softly...
Anon
A glade etched in darkness
Sun splintering through
Great tumulus
touching the sky
Jewelled day echoing softly...
Anon
Monday, June 23, 2008
Lob
AT hawthorn-time in Wiltshire travelling
In search of something chance would never bring,
An old man's face, by life and weather cut
And coloured,--rough, brown, sweet as any nut,--
A land face, sea-blue-eyed,--hung in my mind
When I had left him many a mile behind.
All he said was: "Nobody can't stop 'ee. It's
A footpath, right enough. You see those bits
Of mounds--that's where they opened up the barrows
Sixty years since, while I was scaring sparrows.
They thought as there was something to find there,
But couldn't find it, by digging, anywhere."
To turn back then and seek him, where was the use?
There were three Manningfords,--Abbots, Bohun, and
Bruce:
And whether Alton, not Manningford, it was,
My memory could not decide, because
There was both Alton Barnes and Alton Priors.
All had their churches, graveyards, farms, and byres,
Lurking to one side up the paths and lanes,
Seldom well seen except by aeroplanes;
And when bells rang, or pigs squealed, or cocks crowed,
Then only heard. Ages ago the road
Approached. The people stood and looked and turned,
Nor asked it to come nearer, nor yet learned
To move out there and dwell in all men's dust.
And yet withal they shot the weathercock, just
Because 'twas he crowed out of tune, they said:
So now the copper weathercock is dead.
If they had reaped their dandelions and sold
Them fairly, they could have afforded gold.
Many years passed, and I went back again
Among those villages, and looked for men
Who might have known my ancient. He himself
Had long been dead or laid upon the shelf,
I thought. One man I asked about him roared
At my description: "'Tis old Bottlesford
He means, Bill." But another said: "Of course,
It was Jack Button up at the White Horse.
He's dead, sir, these three years." This lasted till
A girl proposed Walker of Walker's Hill,
"Old Adam Walker. Adam's Point you'll see
Marked on the maps."
"That was her roguery,"
The next man said. He was a squire's son
Who loved wild bird and beast, and dog and gun
For killing them. He had loved them from his birth,
One with another, as he loved the earth.
"The man may be like Button, or Walker, or
Like Bottlesford, that you want, but far more
He sounds like one I saw when I was a child.
I could almost swear to him. The man was wild
And wandered. His home was where he was free.
Everybody has met one such man as he.
Does he keep clear old paths that no one uses
But once a life-time when he loves or muses?
He is English as this gate, these flowers, this mire.
And when at eight years old Lob-lie-by-the-fire
Came in my books, this was the man I saw.
He has been in England as long as dove and daw,
Calling the wild cherry tree the merry tree,
The rose campion Bridget-in-her-bravery;
And in a tender mood he, as I guess,
Christened one flower Love-in-idleness,
And while he walked from Exeter to Leeds
One April called all cuckoo-flowers Milkmaids.
From him old herbal Gerard learnt, as a boy,
To name wild clematis the Traveller's-joy.
Our blackbirds sang no English till his ear
Told him they called his Jan Toy 'Pretty dear.'
(She was Jan Toy the Lucky, who, having lost
A shilling, and found a penny loaf, rejoiced.)
For reasons of his own to him the wren
Is Jenny Pooter. Before all other men
'Twas he first called the Hog's Back the Hog's Back.
That Mother Dunch's Buttocks should not lack
Their name was his care. He too could explain
Totteridge and Totterdown and Juggler's Lane:
He knows, if anyone. Why Tumbling Bay,
Inland in Kent, is called so, he might say.
"But little he says compared with what he does.
If ever a sage troubles him he will buzz
Like a beehive to conclude the tedious fray:
And the sage, who knows all languages, runs away.
Yet Lob has thirteen hundred names for a fool,
And though he never could spare time for school
To unteach what the fox so well expressed,
On biting the cock's head off,--Quietness is best,--
He can talk quite as well as anyone
After his thinking is forgot and done.
He first of all told someone else's wife,
For a farthing she'd skin a flint and spoil a knife
Worth sixpence skinning it. She heard him speak:
'She had a face as long as a wet week'
Said he, telling the tale in after years.
With blue smock and with gold rings in his ears,
Sometimes he is a pedlar, not too poor
To keep his wit. This is tall Tom that bore
The logs in, and with Shakespeare in the hall
Once talked, when icicles hung by the wall.
As Herne the Hunter he has known hard times.
On sleepless nights he made up weather rhymes
Which others spoilt. And, Hob being then his name,
He kept the hog that thought the butcher came
To bring his breakfast 'You thought wrong,' said Hob.
When there were kings in Kent this very Lob,
Whose sheep grew fat and he himself grew merry,
Wedded the king's daughter of Canterbury;
For he alone, unlike squire, lord, and king,
Watched a night by her without slumbering;
He kept both waking. When he was but a lad
He won a rich man's heiress, deaf, dumb, and sad,
By rousing her to laugh at him. He carried
His donkey on his back. So they were married.
And while he was a little cobbler's boy
He tricked the giant coming to destroy
Shrewsbury by flood. 'And how far is it yet?'
The giant asked in passing. 'I forget;
But see these shoes I've worn out on the road
And we're not there yet.' He emptied out his load
Of shoes for mending. The giant let fall from his spade
The earth for damming Severn, and thus made
The Wrekin hill; and little Ercall hill
Rose where the giant scraped his boots. While still
So young, our Jack was chief of Gotham's sages.
But long before he could have been wise, ages
Earlier than this, while he grew thick and strong
And ate his bacon, or, at times, sang a song
And merely smelt it, as Jack the giant-killer
He made a name. He too ground up the miller,
The Yorkshireman who ground men's bones for flour.
"Do you believe Jack dead before his hour?
Or that his name is Walker, or Bottlesford,
Or Button, a mere clown, or squire, or lord?
The man you saw,--Lob-lie-by-the-fire, Jack Cade,
Jack Smith, Jack Moon, poor Jack of every trade,
Young Jack, or old Jack, or Jack What-d'ye-call,
Jack-in-the-hedge, or Robin-run-by-the-wall,
Robin Hood, Ragged Robin, lazy Bob,
One of the lords of No Man's Land, good Lob,--
Although he was seen dying at Waterloo,
Hastings, Agincourt, and Sedgemoor too,--
Lives yet. He never will admit he is dead
Till millers cease to grind men's bones for bread,
Not till our weathercock crows once again
And I remove my house out of the lane
On to the road." With this he disappeared
In hazel and thorn tangled with old-man's-beard.
But one glimpse of his back, as there he stood,
Choosing his way, proved him of old Jack's blood
Young Jack perhaps, and now a Wiltshireman
As he has oft been since his days began.
Edward Thomas (1878-1917)
In search of something chance would never bring,
An old man's face, by life and weather cut
And coloured,--rough, brown, sweet as any nut,--
A land face, sea-blue-eyed,--hung in my mind
When I had left him many a mile behind.
All he said was: "Nobody can't stop 'ee. It's
A footpath, right enough. You see those bits
Of mounds--that's where they opened up the barrows
Sixty years since, while I was scaring sparrows.
They thought as there was something to find there,
But couldn't find it, by digging, anywhere."
To turn back then and seek him, where was the use?
There were three Manningfords,--Abbots, Bohun, and
Bruce:
And whether Alton, not Manningford, it was,
My memory could not decide, because
There was both Alton Barnes and Alton Priors.
All had their churches, graveyards, farms, and byres,
Lurking to one side up the paths and lanes,
Seldom well seen except by aeroplanes;
And when bells rang, or pigs squealed, or cocks crowed,
Then only heard. Ages ago the road
Approached. The people stood and looked and turned,
Nor asked it to come nearer, nor yet learned
To move out there and dwell in all men's dust.
And yet withal they shot the weathercock, just
Because 'twas he crowed out of tune, they said:
So now the copper weathercock is dead.
If they had reaped their dandelions and sold
Them fairly, they could have afforded gold.
Many years passed, and I went back again
Among those villages, and looked for men
Who might have known my ancient. He himself
Had long been dead or laid upon the shelf,
I thought. One man I asked about him roared
At my description: "'Tis old Bottlesford
He means, Bill." But another said: "Of course,
It was Jack Button up at the White Horse.
He's dead, sir, these three years." This lasted till
A girl proposed Walker of Walker's Hill,
"Old Adam Walker. Adam's Point you'll see
Marked on the maps."
"That was her roguery,"
The next man said. He was a squire's son
Who loved wild bird and beast, and dog and gun
For killing them. He had loved them from his birth,
One with another, as he loved the earth.
"The man may be like Button, or Walker, or
Like Bottlesford, that you want, but far more
He sounds like one I saw when I was a child.
I could almost swear to him. The man was wild
And wandered. His home was where he was free.
Everybody has met one such man as he.
Does he keep clear old paths that no one uses
But once a life-time when he loves or muses?
He is English as this gate, these flowers, this mire.
And when at eight years old Lob-lie-by-the-fire
Came in my books, this was the man I saw.
He has been in England as long as dove and daw,
Calling the wild cherry tree the merry tree,
The rose campion Bridget-in-her-bravery;
And in a tender mood he, as I guess,
Christened one flower Love-in-idleness,
And while he walked from Exeter to Leeds
One April called all cuckoo-flowers Milkmaids.
From him old herbal Gerard learnt, as a boy,
To name wild clematis the Traveller's-joy.
Our blackbirds sang no English till his ear
Told him they called his Jan Toy 'Pretty dear.'
(She was Jan Toy the Lucky, who, having lost
A shilling, and found a penny loaf, rejoiced.)
For reasons of his own to him the wren
Is Jenny Pooter. Before all other men
'Twas he first called the Hog's Back the Hog's Back.
That Mother Dunch's Buttocks should not lack
Their name was his care. He too could explain
Totteridge and Totterdown and Juggler's Lane:
He knows, if anyone. Why Tumbling Bay,
Inland in Kent, is called so, he might say.
"But little he says compared with what he does.
If ever a sage troubles him he will buzz
Like a beehive to conclude the tedious fray:
And the sage, who knows all languages, runs away.
Yet Lob has thirteen hundred names for a fool,
And though he never could spare time for school
To unteach what the fox so well expressed,
On biting the cock's head off,--Quietness is best,--
He can talk quite as well as anyone
After his thinking is forgot and done.
He first of all told someone else's wife,
For a farthing she'd skin a flint and spoil a knife
Worth sixpence skinning it. She heard him speak:
'She had a face as long as a wet week'
Said he, telling the tale in after years.
With blue smock and with gold rings in his ears,
Sometimes he is a pedlar, not too poor
To keep his wit. This is tall Tom that bore
The logs in, and with Shakespeare in the hall
Once talked, when icicles hung by the wall.
As Herne the Hunter he has known hard times.
On sleepless nights he made up weather rhymes
Which others spoilt. And, Hob being then his name,
He kept the hog that thought the butcher came
To bring his breakfast 'You thought wrong,' said Hob.
When there were kings in Kent this very Lob,
Whose sheep grew fat and he himself grew merry,
Wedded the king's daughter of Canterbury;
For he alone, unlike squire, lord, and king,
Watched a night by her without slumbering;
He kept both waking. When he was but a lad
He won a rich man's heiress, deaf, dumb, and sad,
By rousing her to laugh at him. He carried
His donkey on his back. So they were married.
And while he was a little cobbler's boy
He tricked the giant coming to destroy
Shrewsbury by flood. 'And how far is it yet?'
The giant asked in passing. 'I forget;
But see these shoes I've worn out on the road
And we're not there yet.' He emptied out his load
Of shoes for mending. The giant let fall from his spade
The earth for damming Severn, and thus made
The Wrekin hill; and little Ercall hill
Rose where the giant scraped his boots. While still
So young, our Jack was chief of Gotham's sages.
But long before he could have been wise, ages
Earlier than this, while he grew thick and strong
And ate his bacon, or, at times, sang a song
And merely smelt it, as Jack the giant-killer
He made a name. He too ground up the miller,
The Yorkshireman who ground men's bones for flour.
"Do you believe Jack dead before his hour?
Or that his name is Walker, or Bottlesford,
Or Button, a mere clown, or squire, or lord?
The man you saw,--Lob-lie-by-the-fire, Jack Cade,
Jack Smith, Jack Moon, poor Jack of every trade,
Young Jack, or old Jack, or Jack What-d'ye-call,
Jack-in-the-hedge, or Robin-run-by-the-wall,
Robin Hood, Ragged Robin, lazy Bob,
One of the lords of No Man's Land, good Lob,--
Although he was seen dying at Waterloo,
Hastings, Agincourt, and Sedgemoor too,--
Lives yet. He never will admit he is dead
Till millers cease to grind men's bones for bread,
Not till our weathercock crows once again
And I remove my house out of the lane
On to the road." With this he disappeared
In hazel and thorn tangled with old-man's-beard.
But one glimpse of his back, as there he stood,
Choosing his way, proved him of old Jack's blood
Young Jack perhaps, and now a Wiltshireman
As he has oft been since his days began.
Edward Thomas (1878-1917)
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Garryglass
Please won't you grind me from this ground?
I can't hear them. Are they gone?
A last dance made holy by the flames.
A last breath made sacred by the bonds.
Please, it's the dark that's choking me.
I can't see. Where are they gone?
gjrk
I can't hear them. Are they gone?
A last dance made holy by the flames.
A last breath made sacred by the bonds.
Please, it's the dark that's choking me.
I can't see. Where are they gone?
gjrk
Sunday, June 01, 2008
Turning Ground
I see the first ones lately much more clearly
Spilling blood along the turning ground
Diving...
In your eyes...
Will you feel the softly spoken lies
Will you find what lives behind my eyes...
Lyrics by Caroline Lavelle from her song, Turning Ground. Video by Matthew De Haven, Ode to Stonehenge at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq3QS4W2uBQ
Spilling blood along the turning ground
Diving...
In your eyes...
Will you feel the softly spoken lies
Will you find what lives behind my eyes...
Lyrics by Caroline Lavelle from her song, Turning Ground. Video by Matthew De Haven, Ode to Stonehenge at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq3QS4W2uBQ
Sunday, May 18, 2008
The Valley of the Black Pig
The dews drop slowly and dreams gather; unknown spears
Suddenly hurtle before my dream awakened eyes,
And then the crash of fallen horsemen and the cries
Of unknown perishing armies beat about my ears.
We who still labour by the cromlech on the shore,
The grey cairn on the hill, when day sinks drowned in dew.
Being weary of the world's empires, bow down to you,
Master of the still stars and of the flaming door.
W B Yeats (1865-1939)
Suddenly hurtle before my dream awakened eyes,
And then the crash of fallen horsemen and the cries
Of unknown perishing armies beat about my ears.
We who still labour by the cromlech on the shore,
The grey cairn on the hill, when day sinks drowned in dew.
Being weary of the world's empires, bow down to you,
Master of the still stars and of the flaming door.
W B Yeats (1865-1939)
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Found objects
A reindeer bone carved
In the reindeer's likeness
Saddle quern
Loom-weight
Spindle whorl.
A chalk phallus
A lump of chalk
With heavy curves bearing
The image of woman.
A necklace with blue beads
of Egyptian faience, black ones
of Kimmeride shale.
Slingstone
Cannon ball
Cartridge.
A phallus carved on the church wall.
A statuette of the virgin.
A coin worn headless,
with a disarticulate horse
Cartwheel
Crankshaft
flash bulb
a bust of the death-god
cast in imperishable alloy.
Jeremy Hooker
In the reindeer's likeness
Saddle quern
Loom-weight
Spindle whorl.
A chalk phallus
A lump of chalk
With heavy curves bearing
The image of woman.
A necklace with blue beads
of Egyptian faience, black ones
of Kimmeride shale.
Slingstone
Cannon ball
Cartridge.
A phallus carved on the church wall.
A statuette of the virgin.
A coin worn headless,
with a disarticulate horse
Cartwheel
Crankshaft
flash bulb
a bust of the death-god
cast in imperishable alloy.
Jeremy Hooker
Saturday, April 19, 2008
The Great Leader
An eye on the hilltop, bristling with trees,
whose dark lashes blink in the shuddering breeze -
a lingering witness of a day long past,
when that petrified carcass first rose from the grass.
It waited for legends to grow in the tomb
and pulse through this salmon-flesh quartz-speckled room,
where I sit dreaming of spines of stones,
of flakes of life once picked from their bones.
Mixed with soil in a corn-coloured powder,
Olill Olum lies, the people's great leader.
"Place me on high, over the valley's soft breath,
where I can see and be seen, even in death."
g
whose dark lashes blink in the shuddering breeze -
a lingering witness of a day long past,
when that petrified carcass first rose from the grass.
It waited for legends to grow in the tomb
and pulse through this salmon-flesh quartz-speckled room,
where I sit dreaming of spines of stones,
of flakes of life once picked from their bones.
Mixed with soil in a corn-coloured powder,
Olill Olum lies, the people's great leader.
"Place me on high, over the valley's soft breath,
where I can see and be seen, even in death."
g
Saturday, April 05, 2008
The Tollund Man
Some day I will go to Aarhus
To see his peat-brown head,
The mild pods of his eye-lids,
His pointed skin cap.
In the flat country near by
Where they dug him out,
His last gruel of winter seeds
Caked in his stomach,
Naked except for
The cap, noose and girdle,
I will stand a long time.
Bridegroom to the goddess,
She tightened her torc on him
And opened her fen,
Those dark juices working
Him to a saint's kept body,
Trove of the turfcutters'
Honeycombed workings.
Now his stained face
Reposes at Aarhus.
II
I could risk blasphemy,
Consecrate the cauldron bog
Our holy ground and pray
Him to make germinate
The scattered, ambushed
Flesh of labourers,
Stockinged corpses
Laid out in the farmyards,
Tell-tale skin and teeth
Flecking the sleepers
Of four young brothers, trailed
For miles along the lines.
III
Something of his sad freedom
As he rode the tumbril
Should come to me, driving,
Saying the names
Tollund, Grauballe, Nebelgard,
Watching the pointing hands
Of country people,
Not knowing their tongue.
Out here in Jutland
In the old man-killing parishes
I will feel lost,
Unhappy and at home.
Seamus Heaney
To see his peat-brown head,
The mild pods of his eye-lids,
His pointed skin cap.
In the flat country near by
Where they dug him out,
His last gruel of winter seeds
Caked in his stomach,
Naked except for
The cap, noose and girdle,
I will stand a long time.
Bridegroom to the goddess,
She tightened her torc on him
And opened her fen,
Those dark juices working
Him to a saint's kept body,
Trove of the turfcutters'
Honeycombed workings.
Now his stained face
Reposes at Aarhus.
II
I could risk blasphemy,
Consecrate the cauldron bog
Our holy ground and pray
Him to make germinate
The scattered, ambushed
Flesh of labourers,
Stockinged corpses
Laid out in the farmyards,
Tell-tale skin and teeth
Flecking the sleepers
Of four young brothers, trailed
For miles along the lines.
III
Something of his sad freedom
As he rode the tumbril
Should come to me, driving,
Saying the names
Tollund, Grauballe, Nebelgard,
Watching the pointing hands
Of country people,
Not knowing their tongue.
Out here in Jutland
In the old man-killing parishes
I will feel lost,
Unhappy and at home.
Seamus Heaney
Friday, March 14, 2008
.jpg)
Maiden Castle
They said it could not be conquered
guarded by silent eyes and fierce hearts.
~ How tight is your grip son
thrust here – strike low
find the tendon release it from the bone ~
Who comes to such a place
there was no prize here.
Why did you come
across Poseidon’s plateau?
This castle was not the heart of the people!
The fort may have been their body
ringed
in complex configuration
but each blade of grass was their soul
planted
in rapacious repetition.
~ For it will come to pass
mark my words true
Belatucadros has spoken
All hail the god’s vengeance!
We may slip into his arms this day
but our souls will never be taken
We look out to our enemy and know
that for every one of their victories
we take two for our own! ~
Persephone Vandegrift
guarded by silent eyes and fierce hearts.
~ How tight is your grip son
thrust here – strike low
find the tendon release it from the bone ~
Who comes to such a place
there was no prize here.
Why did you come
across Poseidon’s plateau?
This castle was not the heart of the people!
The fort may have been their body
ringed
in complex configuration
but each blade of grass was their soul
planted
in rapacious repetition.
~ For it will come to pass
mark my words true
Belatucadros has spoken
All hail the god’s vengeance!
We may slip into his arms this day
but our souls will never be taken
We look out to our enemy and know
that for every one of their victories
we take two for our own! ~
Persephone Vandegrift
Saturday, March 01, 2008
A dark enigma to the memory
...and when you die, I will erect a monument,
Upon the verdant plains of Salisbury,
No king shall have so high a sepulchre,
With pendulous stones, that I will hang by art,
Where neither lime nor mortar shall be used,
A dark enigma to the memory,
For none shall have the power to number them;
A place that I will hallow for your rest;
Where no night-hag shall walk, nor were-wolf tread,
Where Merlin's mother shall be sepulchred.
William Rowley (1690–1768)
Upon the verdant plains of Salisbury,
No king shall have so high a sepulchre,
With pendulous stones, that I will hang by art,
Where neither lime nor mortar shall be used,
A dark enigma to the memory,
For none shall have the power to number them;
A place that I will hallow for your rest;
Where no night-hag shall walk, nor were-wolf tread,
Where Merlin's mother shall be sepulchred.
William Rowley (1690–1768)
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Standing stones
BLOWS the wind to-day, and the sun and the rain are flying,
Blows the wind on the moors to-day and now,
Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying,
My heart remembers how!
Grey recumbent tombs of the dead in desert places.
Standing stones on the vacant wine-red moor,
Hills of sheep, and the homes of silent, vanquished races,
And winds austere and pure:
Be it granted to me to behold you again in dying,
Hills of home! And to hear again the call;
Hear about the graves of the martyrs the peewees crying,
And hear no more at all.
Vailima
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)
Blows the wind on the moors to-day and now,
Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying,
My heart remembers how!
Grey recumbent tombs of the dead in desert places.
Standing stones on the vacant wine-red moor,
Hills of sheep, and the homes of silent, vanquished races,
And winds austere and pure:
Be it granted to me to behold you again in dying,
Hills of home! And to hear again the call;
Hear about the graves of the martyrs the peewees crying,
And hear no more at all.
Vailima
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Silbury Hill
I think Gaia was a virgin
when the men came
took their dreams out
and buried them deep inside her
Then they wandered the fields bewildered
carved circles on rocks
and built stone chambers
trying to decipher
What is this great mound?
Surely it holds such plunder?
Oh you silly men
with your measuring strings
sandals tattered and torn
Everyone knows
this mound
is just a belly full of gods
waiting to be born
Persephone Vandegrift
http://www.thisisby.us/index.php/content/silbury_hill
when the men came
took their dreams out
and buried them deep inside her
Then they wandered the fields bewildered
carved circles on rocks
and built stone chambers
trying to decipher
What is this great mound?
Surely it holds such plunder?
Oh you silly men
with your measuring strings
sandals tattered and torn
Everyone knows
this mound
is just a belly full of gods
waiting to be born
Persephone Vandegrift
http://www.thisisby.us/index.php/content/silbury_hill
Saturday, January 19, 2008
In the Seven Woods
I HAVE heard the pigeons of the Seven Woods
Make their faint thunder, and the garden bees
Hum in the lime-tree flowers; and put away
The unavailing outcries and the old bitterness
That empty the heart. I have forgot awhile
Tara uprooted, and new commonness
Upon the throne and crying about the streets
And hanging its paper flowers from post to post,
Because it is alone of all things happy.
I am contented, for I know that Quiet
Wanders laughing and eating her wild heart
Among pigeons and bees, while that Great Archer,
Who but awaits His hour to shoot, still hangs
A cloudy quiver over Pairc-na-lee.
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
Make their faint thunder, and the garden bees
Hum in the lime-tree flowers; and put away
The unavailing outcries and the old bitterness
That empty the heart. I have forgot awhile
Tara uprooted, and new commonness
Upon the throne and crying about the streets
And hanging its paper flowers from post to post,
Because it is alone of all things happy.
I am contented, for I know that Quiet
Wanders laughing and eating her wild heart
Among pigeons and bees, while that Great Archer,
Who but awaits His hour to shoot, still hangs
A cloudy quiver over Pairc-na-lee.
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
Thursday, January 17, 2008
.jpg)
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Lettergorman South
Beal's eye planting with a gaze and reaping with a glance.
From the breast of a lover, into his breath I went spinning.
Twisting, turning and entranced, unmoving onto this.
From the top of the dog's hill, into his stop I sit staring.
Face my brothers to the mountains and my sister to the stream.
Mad minds melted by the years, pouring their grief into raving.
While the whispers of my kinfolk, hissed as this dance moved the sun,
are now faint in the distance, and taunt this terrible waiting.
gjrk
From the breast of a lover, into his breath I went spinning.
Twisting, turning and entranced, unmoving onto this.
From the top of the dog's hill, into his stop I sit staring.
Face my brothers to the mountains and my sister to the stream.
Mad minds melted by the years, pouring their grief into raving.
While the whispers of my kinfolk, hissed as this dance moved the sun,
are now faint in the distance, and taunt this terrible waiting.
gjrk
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Faintly, and as if from a great distance
Faintly, and as if from a great distance.*
Fall steps along the hallowed, hollowed whitened path
that began four millennia ago
and end today
in a pile of rusted iron struts
and rotting Merewether timbers.
Cast sarsen souls on pallets of 21st century dust.
Words fail
voids fill
then open up on another dismal collapsing surface
of another dark day of dismal lies.
And all the time they paint another rosy watercolour
of consolidation and restoration and not-in-the-book conservation.
Epithets for the spineless.
Phoney photographs for the future.
While a thousand plastic bags pad out their stupidities.
LS
* Thanks to gjrk for this line.
Fall steps along the hallowed, hollowed whitened path
that began four millennia ago
and end today
in a pile of rusted iron struts
and rotting Merewether timbers.
Cast sarsen souls on pallets of 21st century dust.
Words fail
voids fill
then open up on another dismal collapsing surface
of another dark day of dismal lies.
And all the time they paint another rosy watercolour
of consolidation and restoration and not-in-the-book conservation.
Epithets for the spineless.
Phoney photographs for the future.
While a thousand plastic bags pad out their stupidities.
LS
* Thanks to gjrk for this line.
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Suggested by the opening made in Silbury Hill, Aug 3rd 1849
Bones of our wild forefathers, O forgive,
If now we pierce the chambers of your rest,
And open your dark pillows to the eye
Of the irreverent Day! Hark, as we move,
Runs no stern whisper through the narrow vault?
Flickers no shape across our torch-light pale,
With backward beckoning arm? No, all is still.
O that it were not! O that sound or sign,
Vision, or legend, or the eagle glance
Of science, could call back thy history lost,
Green Pyramid of the plains, from far-ebbed Time!
O that the winds which kiss thy flowery turf
Could utter how they first beheld thee rise;
When in his toil the jealous Savage paused,
Drew deep his chest, pushed back his yellow hair,
And scanned the growing hill with reverent gaze, -
Or haply, how they gave their fitful pipe
To join the chant prolonged o'er warriors cold. -
Or how the Druid's mystic robe they swelled;
Or from thy blackened brow on wailing wing
The solemn sacrificial ashes bore,
To strew them where now smiles the yellow corn,
Or where the peasant treads the Churchward path.
Emmeline Fisher (1825–1864)
If now we pierce the chambers of your rest,
And open your dark pillows to the eye
Of the irreverent Day! Hark, as we move,
Runs no stern whisper through the narrow vault?
Flickers no shape across our torch-light pale,
With backward beckoning arm? No, all is still.
O that it were not! O that sound or sign,
Vision, or legend, or the eagle glance
Of science, could call back thy history lost,
Green Pyramid of the plains, from far-ebbed Time!
O that the winds which kiss thy flowery turf
Could utter how they first beheld thee rise;
When in his toil the jealous Savage paused,
Drew deep his chest, pushed back his yellow hair,
And scanned the growing hill with reverent gaze, -
Or haply, how they gave their fitful pipe
To join the chant prolonged o'er warriors cold. -
Or how the Druid's mystic robe they swelled;
Or from thy blackened brow on wailing wing
The solemn sacrificial ashes bore,
To strew them where now smiles the yellow corn,
Or where the peasant treads the Churchward path.
Emmeline Fisher (1825–1864)
Thursday, December 27, 2007
All that remains
A tree, a branch
roots that curl and burrow
through the chalk.
A whisper in the leaves
a skylark's glorious
defiant song.
Snails along the path
rain that washes all away
and wheat again as tall as ever.
A life, a smile
reaching out and touching others
changing imperceptibly
the fabric of our universe.
LS
roots that curl and burrow
through the chalk.
A whisper in the leaves
a skylark's glorious
defiant song.
Snails along the path
rain that washes all away
and wheat again as tall as ever.
A life, a smile
reaching out and touching others
changing imperceptibly
the fabric of our universe.
LS
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
The Ridgeway
like a friend
I hated you at times
the paces you put me through
each time I go further and faster
so I always know how the pilgrims felt on their way
south
to silbury
and the stones of Avebury and
beyond
mindweed
I hated you at times
the paces you put me through
each time I go further and faster
so I always know how the pilgrims felt on their way
south
to silbury
and the stones of Avebury and
beyond
mindweed
Saturday, December 08, 2007
.jpg)
Tuppence worth of imagination
I am told that there are people who do not care for maps, and find it hard to believe. The names, the shapes of the woodlands, the courses of the roads and rivers, the pre-historic footpaths of man still distinctly traceable up hill and down dale, the mills and the ruins, the ponds and the ferries, perhaps the Standing Stone or the Druid Circle on the heath; here is an inexhaustible fund of interest for any man with eyes to see, or tuppence worth of imagination to understand with.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
The Broken Circle
I STOOD On Sarum's treeless plain,
The waste that careless Nature owns;
Lone tenants of her bleak domain,
Loomed huge and gray the Druid stones.
Upheaved in many a billowy mound
The sea-like, naked turf arose,
Where wandering flocks went nibbling round
The mingled graves of friends and foes.
The Briton, Roman, Saxon, Dane,
This windy desert roamed in turn;
Unmoved these mighty blocks remain
Whose story none that lives may learn.
Erect, half buried, slant or prone,
These awful listeners, blind and dumb,
Hear the strange tongues of tribes unknown,
As wave on wave they go and come.
"Who are you, giants, whence and why?"
I stand and ask in blank amaze;
My soul accepts their mute reply
"A mystery, as are you that gaze.
"A silent Orpheus wrought the charm
From riven rocks their spoils to bring;
A nameless Titan lent his arm
To range us in our magic ring.
"But Time with still and stealthy stride,
That climbs and treads and levels all,
That bids the loosening keystone slide,
And topples down the crumbling wall,--
"Time, that unbuilds the quarried past,
Leans on these wrecks that press the sod;
They slant, they stoop, they fall at last,
And strew the turf their priests have trod.
"No more our altar's wreath of smoke
Floats up with morning's fragrant dew;
The fires are dead, the ring is broke,
Where stood the many stand the few."
My thoughts had wandered far away,
Borne off on Memory's outspread wing,
To where in deepening twilight lay
The wrecks of friendship's broken ring.
Ah me! of all our goodly train
How few will find our banquet hall!
Yet why with coward lips complain
That this must lean, and that must fall?
Cold is the Druid's altar-stone,
Its vanished flame no more returns;
But ours no chilling damp has known,--
Unchanged, unchanging, still it burns.
So let our broken circle stand
A wreck, a remnant, yet the same,
While one last, loving, faithful hand
Still lives to feed its altar-flame!
O H Holmes (1887)
The waste that careless Nature owns;
Lone tenants of her bleak domain,
Loomed huge and gray the Druid stones.
Upheaved in many a billowy mound
The sea-like, naked turf arose,
Where wandering flocks went nibbling round
The mingled graves of friends and foes.
The Briton, Roman, Saxon, Dane,
This windy desert roamed in turn;
Unmoved these mighty blocks remain
Whose story none that lives may learn.
Erect, half buried, slant or prone,
These awful listeners, blind and dumb,
Hear the strange tongues of tribes unknown,
As wave on wave they go and come.
"Who are you, giants, whence and why?"
I stand and ask in blank amaze;
My soul accepts their mute reply
"A mystery, as are you that gaze.
"A silent Orpheus wrought the charm
From riven rocks their spoils to bring;
A nameless Titan lent his arm
To range us in our magic ring.
"But Time with still and stealthy stride,
That climbs and treads and levels all,
That bids the loosening keystone slide,
And topples down the crumbling wall,--
"Time, that unbuilds the quarried past,
Leans on these wrecks that press the sod;
They slant, they stoop, they fall at last,
And strew the turf their priests have trod.
"No more our altar's wreath of smoke
Floats up with morning's fragrant dew;
The fires are dead, the ring is broke,
Where stood the many stand the few."
My thoughts had wandered far away,
Borne off on Memory's outspread wing,
To where in deepening twilight lay
The wrecks of friendship's broken ring.
Ah me! of all our goodly train
How few will find our banquet hall!
Yet why with coward lips complain
That this must lean, and that must fall?
Cold is the Druid's altar-stone,
Its vanished flame no more returns;
But ours no chilling damp has known,--
Unchanged, unchanging, still it burns.
So let our broken circle stand
A wreck, a remnant, yet the same,
While one last, loving, faithful hand
Still lives to feed its altar-flame!
O H Holmes (1887)
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Unchanged it stands
Unchanged it stands: it awes the lands
Beneath the clear dark sky;
But at what time its head sublime
It heavenward reared, and why -
The gods that see all things that be
Can better tell than I.
Rev A C Smith
Beneath the clear dark sky;
But at what time its head sublime
It heavenward reared, and why -
The gods that see all things that be
Can better tell than I.
Rev A C Smith
Monday, November 26, 2007
How many words
How many words has it taken to describe so briefly the feelings and the thoughts that came to me by the tumulus; thoughts that swept past and were gone, and were succeeded by others while yet the shadow of the mound had not moved from one thyme-flower to another, not the breath of a grass blade... The silk grass sighs as the wind comes carrying the blue butterfly more rapidly than his wings, A large humble-bee burrs round the green dome against which I rest; my hands are scented with thyme. The sweetness of the day, the fullness of the earth, the beauteous earth, how shall I say it?
Richard Jefferies
Richard Jefferies
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
No sitting on fences
Our Silbury, chalky old pile
Was concerned with a threat to defile
But no sitting on fences
Brought EH to their senses
Now the hill can sleep on for a while
Slumpystones
Was concerned with a threat to defile
But no sitting on fences
Brought EH to their senses
Now the hill can sleep on for a while
Slumpystones
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