Littlestone
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Re: Megalithic Poems
Sep 30, 2005, 22:45
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"Rocks piled on rocks reaching the stars, stretching from pole to pole."
Wonderful, and just about says it all.
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Pilgrim
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Re: Megalithic Poems
Oct 01, 2005, 00:30
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>See above under Valley of Dreams or at http://megalithicpoems.blogspot.com/ (where an illustrated MP seed now grows :-) <
Lovely idea, Littlestone - a little acorn that will have no trouble fulfilling its potential. A nice place to soothe the battered spirit......
Peace
Pilgrim
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Littlestone
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Re: Megalithic Poems
Oct 01, 2005, 08:43
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Thanks Pilgrim (really enjoyed reading your Weblog and profile by the way).
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Littlestone
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Edited Oct 09, 2006, 11:12
Seamus Heaney
Oct 10, 2005, 23:27
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A complete version of Seamus Heaney's A Dream of Solstice (not yet added to http://megalithicpoems.blogspot.com/ but when you have time please see Nigel's The Ridgeway poem there and Jane's illustration which accompanies it) is as follows -
Qual è colüi che sognando vede,
che dopo 'l sogno la passione impressa
rimane, e l'altro a la mente non riede,
cotal son io...
Dante, Paradiso, Canto xxxiii
Like somebody who sees things when he's dreaming
And after the dream lives with the aftermath
Of what he felt, no other trace remaining,
So I live now, for what I saw departs
And is almost lost, although a distilled sweetness
Still drops from it into my inner heart.
It is the same with snow the sun releases,
The same as when in wind, the hurried leaves
Swirl round your ankles and the shaking hedges
That had flopped their catkin cuff-lace and green sleeves
Are sleet-whipped bare. Dawn light began stealing
Through the cold universe to County Meath,
Over weirs where the Boyne water, fulgent, darkling,
Turns its thick axle, over rick-sized stones
Millennia deep in their own unmoving
And unmoved alignment. And now the planet turns
Earth brow and templed earth, the corbelled rock
And unsunned tonsure of the burial mounds,
I stand with pilgrims, tourists, media folk
And all admitted to the wired-off hill.
Headlights of juggernauts heading for Dundalk,
Flight 104 from New York audible
As it descends on schedule into Dublin,
Boyne Valley Centre Car Park already full,
Waiting for seedling light on roof and windscreen.
And as in illo tempore people marked
The king's gold dagger when he plunged it in
To the hilt in unsown ground, to start the work
Of the world again, to speed the plough
And plant the riddled grain, we watch through murk
And overboiling cloud for the milted glow
Of sunrise, for an eastern dazzle
To send first light like share-shine in a furrow
Steadily deeper, farther available,
Creeping along the floor of the passage grave
To backstone and capstone, to hold its candle
Inside the cosmic hill. Who dares say "love"
At this cold coming? Who would not dare say it?
Is this the moved wheel that the poet spoke of,
The star pivot? Life's perseid in the ashpit
Of the dead? Like his, my speech cannot
Tell what the mind needs told: an infant tongue
Milky with breast milk would be more articulate.
Seamus Heaney
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Joolio Geordio
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Edited Oct 09, 2006, 11:12
Traffic: Rollright Stones
Oct 10, 2005, 23:45
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Not strictly a poem
But Rollright Stones by Traffic (Winwood/Capaldi)
'Till I find out, where will I go, where will I go
I don't know, I don't know, I don't know where
The space is between my eyes
Open up the heavenly sky
Death awaits with pearly gates
Those who've been mesmerized
Many years has come and gone
Went to see a standing stone
Some in circles, some alone
Ancient, worn and weather torn
They chill me to my very bone
Many of these can be seen
In quiet places, fields of green
Of hedgerow lanes with countless names
But the only thing that remains are the roll right stones
Space age before my eyes
Opening up the skies
Marches slowly on to the pearly gate
For those who've been mesmerized
Many years has come and gone
But progress marches slowly on
In nature's paint, she hides the stain
'Cos everybody is going insane
The only, the only thing that will sustain are the roll right stones
Went to see an ancient mound
People buried underground
Long ago, will never know
What it was like to hear their sounds
Black crow, I know you've been here
You've see the sights of yesteryear
You steal the grain of the conquered plain
But the only thing that remains are the roll right stones
------------------------------------------------------------------------
F.S. Music Ltd (PRS) & Island Music Ltd. (PRS)
All rights on behalf of F.S. Music Ltd. admin by
Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp (BMI)
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Littlestone
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Re: Megalithic Poems
Oct 11, 2005, 00:09
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Thank you Joolio - duly added to the growing stack of Megalithic Poems.
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PeterH
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Edited Oct 09, 2006, 11:13
Anon: The fort of Rathangan
Oct 12, 2005, 11:04
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This seems to be about an ancient fort at Rathangan in County Kildare. Anyone seen it?
The Fort of Rathangan
The fort over against the oak-wood,
Once it was Bruidge's, it was Cathal's,
It was Aed's, it was Ailill's,
It was Conaing's, it was Cuiline's,
And it was Maelduin's;
The fort remains after each in his turn-
And the kings asleep in the ground.
Anon: translated from the Irish
by Kuno Meyer
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Littlestone
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Re: Megalithic Poems
Oct 12, 2005, 12:39
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Nice one Peter - how on earth did you find that?
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PeterH
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Re: Megalithic Poems
Oct 12, 2005, 12:59
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I am a compulsive buyer of anthologies from junk shops. This one is collected in (believe it or not) "The Faber Book of Children's Verse" 1953.
Imagine what today's text deadened kids would make of it! I wonder if anyone has written an original text message poem.
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moss
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Edited Oct 09, 2006, 11:13
Yeats: the Valley of the Black Pig
Oct 12, 2005, 13:51
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Always curious, found it in "The Cherry Tree" Grigson - he puts the author as Berchan (?-8thC)...
Also found for Meg.Poems following;
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.
and (it does have stone in it)
Welcome to the Moon
Welcome, precious stone of the night,
Delight of the skies, precious stone of the night,
Mother of stars, precious stone of the night,
Child reared by the sun, precious stone of the night,
Excellency of stars, precious stone of the night.
From the Gaelic
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