Patrick Kavanagh 21/10/1904-30/11/1968

[lonndubh]

Hi musicmania
Great pictures
You are in with the celebs

[musicmania]

Hi musicmania
Great pictures
You are in with the celebs

Thanks lonndubh. One still evades me though

[lonndubh]

For the many times I have opened
Patrick Kavanagh- Collected Poems
And especially today on his birth Date
This is one that gives me faith

The Gift

One day I asked God to give
Me perfection so I'd live
Smooth and corteous,calmy wise
All the world's virtuous prize.

So I should not always be
Getting into jeopardy
Being savage,wild and proud
Fighting ,arguing with the croud .

Being poor,sick depressed
Everywhere an awful pest ,
Bring too right ,being too wrong,
Being too weak ,being too strong .

Being every hour fated
To say the things that made me hated;
Being a failure in the end-
God perfection on me send.

And God spoke out of Heaven.
The only gift in My giving
Is yours-Life.Seek in hell
Death ,perfect,wise,comfortable.

[lonndubh]

Innocence

They laughed at one I loved-
The triangular hill that hung
Under the Big Forth. They said
That I was bounded by the whitethorn hedges
Of the little farm and did not know the world.
But I knew that love's doorway to life
Is the same doorway everywhere.
Ashamed of what I loved
I flung her from me and called her a ditch
Although she was smiling at me with violets.

But now I am back in her briary arms
The dew of an Indian Summer lies
On bleached potato-stalks
What age am I?

I do not know what age I am,
I am no mortal age;
I know nothing of women,
Nothing of cities,
I cannot die
Unless I walk outside these whitethorn hedges.

[Diane]

I enjoy what you post in this thread, L. (Are there any poems about November, I wonder?)

[lonndubh]

Hi Diane
I think he has mentioned almost every month . This one has November in the title .Others on the same theme are Late Autumn and Winter. He also published a book of prose titled November Haggard

Hope you like this one where love that once shouted goes whispering
Of fearful mysteries.
Its funny you should ask about November poem as I was just contemplating Loves mysteries earlier.



November Song

He is training his colt,
The Man in the Moon
I can see where the hooves have beaten down
A clear round ring ,
Can it be this thing
Forbodes rainfall soon?

Now I must hurry away for the brown
Leaves fall from November's tragic trees
And love that once shouted goes whispering
Of fearful mysteries.

There shall be rain
Soon on the naked fields
Yet shall the Spartan's fight again
Here be their shields.

And Love shall come shouting in
The meadows once more.
But tomorrow -a mortal sin!
The rain shall pour.

[Diane]

You rose to that challenge pretty well, L:-) Thanks. Great poem, really evocative of November - mournful, but still with the awareness of the the cycle of renewal that everything is a part. I like rain, and whispering, though, don't you? Re. the mysteries of love: The Mystery of Love is Greater Than the Mystery of Death (Jackie Leven album title).

[lonndubh]

The Mystery of Love is Greater Than the Mystery of Death .

Was it our own Oscar Wilde who said this

I like rain, and whispering, though, don't you?

Indeed Diane I also love rain and we have lots in Ireland tonight .

[Diane]

The Mystery of Love is Greater Than the Mystery of Death .

Was it our own Oscar Wilde who said this

So it was! Didn't know that. It's true what they say then - you learn something every day.

Yes we've had a drop or three of rain here in Wales this weekend also...

[lonndubh]

PS Diane
Love your pics on
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dianemwilliams/
That Autumn leaf says a lot to me tonight

[Diane]

Thank you! I likely wouldn't have seen that leaf had you not inspired me.

[lonndubh]

Thank you! I likely wouldn't have seen that leaf had you not inspired me.

Hi Diane
i feel a Nov poem coming on !!!

[Diane]

Hi there L. Another Nov one?! You are prolific. You have a couple of weeks to come up with a December one, too...

[lonndubh]

Ah Diane I can feel Advent coming on !!
But will not allow myself to read it until December,
Even the thought of it now brings me hope .

[lonndubh]

Ah Diane I can feel Advent coming on !!
But will not allow myself to read it until December,
Even the thought of it now brings me hope .

It appears that I had to read it before December
So here it is .
I will now take my leave to see if I 'in the Advent darkened room 'can 'charm back the luxury of a child's soul '

Advent

We have tested and tasted too much, lover-
Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder.
But here in the Advent-darkened room
Where the dry black bread and the sugarless tea
Of penance will charm back the luxury
Of a child's soul, we'll return to Doom
The knowledge we stole but could not use.

And the newness that was in every stale thing
When we looked at it as children: the spirit-shocking
Wonder in a black slanting Ulster hill
Or the prophetic astonishment in the tedious talking
Of an old fool will awake for us and bring
You and me to the yard gate to watch the whins
And the bog-holes, cart-tracks, old stables where Time begins.

O after Christmas we'll have no need to go searching
For the difference that sets an old phrase burning-
We'll hear it in the whispered argument of a churning
Or in the streets where the village boys are lurching.
And we'll hear it among decent men too
Who barrow dung in gardens under trees,
Wherever life pours ordinary plenty.
Won't we be rich, my love and I, and please
God we shall not ask for reason's payment,
The why of heart-breaking strangeness in dreeping hedges
Nor analyse God's breath in common statement.
We have thrown into the dust-bin the clay-minted wages
Of pleasure, knowledge and the conscious hour-
And Christ comes with a January flower.