gjrk
|
Re: Garryglass
May 19, 2008, 16:47
|
Thanks LS, that'd be wonderful. You could check out:
http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/post/67477/garryglass.html
and see if it's ok as a picture.
Ken's picture is filled with the dream atmosphere of that Yeats poem.
|
gjrk
|
Edited Jun 27, 2008, 00:13
Maulatanvally
Jun 02, 2008, 23:30
|
I had a long explanation for this but it just seemed to take from it. It's driven by two sites really - the bull-horned boulder at Tinneel, near the old centre of Ros Alithir and the three quartz stones at Maulatanvally, at the centre of it all. More on that later, maybe...
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?
(Oh, I probably should have said that Eochaidh, or the many parts of him, is Eochaidh Ollathair, or the Dagda.)
|
Littlestone
|
Re: Maulatanvally
Jun 03, 2008, 07:21
|
|
gjrk wrote: I had a long explanation for this but it just seemed to take from it. It's driven by two sites really - the bull-horned boulder at Tinneel, near the old centre of Ros Alithir and the three quartz stones at Maulatanvally, at the centre of it all. More on that later, maybe...
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?
(Oh, I probably should have said that Eochaidh, or the many parts of him, is Eochaidh Ollathair, or the Dagda.)
Thanks g, very nice. Please send me a pic if you have one.
Cheers.
|
Littlestone
|
Edward Thomas: Lob
Jun 05, 2008, 11:49
|
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."
Edward Thomas (1878-1917)
Thanks to moss for this. Seasonally apt and the poem in full to be found at - http://www.northstoke.blogspot.com/ (Thomas goes on to mention Alton Barnes, Alton Priors and other places of interest in the area). See also http://uk.encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_781531805/Thomas_(Philip)_Edward.html for more about Thomas and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lubber_fiend for more about Lob.
|
gjrk
|
Re: Edward Thomas: Lob
Jun 05, 2008, 12:23
|
Wow. Just read the whole thing. It's like an encyclopaedia, or a starting gun. I've been wondering about these things lately and that was just epic, as well as evocative. I particularly liked:
Does he keep clear old paths that no one uses
But once a life-time when he loves or muses?
A motto for this website and the people therein, I think.
Thanks Moss and Littlestone.
|
Littlestone
|
Re: Edward Thomas: Lob
Jun 05, 2008, 21:10
|
|
It's like an encyclopaedia, or a starting gun.
It is indeed, and every time I read it something new appears. This bit ties in well with the Stonehenge road thread -
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.
|
gjrk
|
Re: Edward Thomas: Lob
Jun 05, 2008, 22:59
|
|
Spot on. Nice biog as well - another lost to the war. He was about the same age as me (38 in July) and presumably would have felt that he had a lot still to do. A wonderful poem.
|
Chance
|
Wiltshire Downs
Jun 06, 2008, 19:18
|
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.
Wiltshire Downs - Andrew Young (1885-1971)
|
Littlestone
|
Re: Wiltshire Downs
Jun 07, 2008, 08:06
|
Many thanks for that Chance - never fails to amaze me just how many poems there are out there on the megalith theme.
Wonder which 'tree crowned long barrow' Andrew Young is referring to - could be East Kennet I guess but 'the stable boys thud by' might be hinting at it being the Beckhampton Long Barrow.
|
gjrk
|
Edited Dec 07, 2008, 11:03
Bohonagh
Jun 12, 2008, 13:42
|
The wild circle at Bohonagh, mixed with a certain amount of despair about the future:
Did I hear you whistle, or was it the breeze
blowing through grey lips pursed with nettles? Listen.
Four shrieking blasts and no more; “I am the life.”
Where did I hear that before? In a bellows,
keeping heat to the forge. A false wind perhaps,
to warm your fat cattle for the equinox.
Or were you just their scratching post?
(My apologies, but the last few lines of the poem were bugging me so much I just cut them. Surgery.)
|
