Gwyllm

November 26, 2008

Ella Young

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Just a quick note… I have been assembling this for a couple of days, and have had remarkable ill luck finding images etc., so I have had to wing it a bit, and bring in one of my favourite Victorians: Albert Joseph Moore. I hope you like his work.
This edition revolves around Ella Young, friend of Maude Gonne, and William Butler Yeats, and later Ansel Adams and others of his colony. Ella was a true radical, Anglo-Irish who sided with the uprising, and went to jail for it. One of the great relayers/tellers of the Irish Myth Cycle, she is much beloved by those who know her work and poetry.
Hope you have a good Thanksgiving!
Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm

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On The Menu:

The Links

Palya Bea Quintett – 1

The Quotes

The Luck-Child – Ella Young

Ella Young Poetry

Ella Young Bio

Palya Bea – Transylvania

The Artwork – Albert Moore

Albert Joseph Moore (4 September 1841 25 September 1893) was an English painter, known for his depictions of langorous female figures set against the luxury and decadence of the classical world.
He was born in York in 1841, the youngest of the fourteen children of the artist William Moore of York who in the first half of the 19th century enjoyed a considerable reputation in the North of England as a painter of portraits and landscape.
In his childhood Albert Moore showed an extraordinary love of art, and as he was encouraged in his tastes by his father and brothers, two of whom afterwards became famous as artists John Collingham Moore and Henry Moore, and he was able to begin the active exercise of his profession at an unusually early age.
His first exhibited works were two drawings which he sent to the Royal Academy in 1857. A year later he became a student in the Royal Academy schools; but after working in them for a few months only he decided that he would be more profitably occupied in independent practice. During the period that extended from 1858 to 1870, though he produced and exhibited many pictures and drawings, he gave up much of his time to decorative work of various kinds, and painted, in 1863, a series of wall decorations at Coombe Abbey, the seat of the Earl of Craven; in 1865 and 1866 some elaborate compositions: The Last Supper and The Feeding of the Five Thousand on the chancel walls of the church of St. Alban’s, Rochdale; and in 1868 A Greek Play, an important panel in tempera for the proscenium of the Queen’s Theatre in Long Acre.
His first large canvas, Elijah’s Sacrifice, was completed during a stay of some five months in Rome at the beginning of 1863, and appeared at the Academy in 1865. A still larger picture, The Shunamite relating the Glories of King Solomon to her Maidens, was exhibited in 1866, and with it two smaller works, Apricots and Pomegranates. In these Albert Moore asserted plainly the particular technical conviction that for the rest of his life governed the whole of his practice, and with them he first took his place definitely among the most original of British painters.

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The Links:
Life Beyond…

Organ Donor Consciousness

Buddhas skull found in Nanjing

The World’s Unsung Hero?

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Palya Bea Quintett – 1

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The Quotes:

George Bernard Shaw | “Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.”

Laurence J. Peter | “Competence, like truth, beauty and contact lenses, is in the eye of the beholder.”

Jean-Luc Picard | “Things are only impossible until they’re not.”

Gertrude Stein | “In the United States there is more space where nobody is than where anybody is. That is what makes America what it is.”

Eric Hoffer | “The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.”

Jane Wagner | “Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it.”

Oscar Wilde | “Why was I born with such contemporaries?”

Evan Esar | “Character is what you have left when you’ve lost everything you can lose.”

Cullen Hightower | “Those who agree with us may not be right, but we admire their astuteness.”

Casey Stengel | “The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided.”

Oscar Levant | “There’s a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.”
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The Luck-Child – Ella Young
Aidan, Osric, and Teigue, were the cow-herds of Eterscel, the High King of Ireland. Aidan was old and gentle, Osric was young and fierce, Teigue was an omadhaun–a fool–they watched the cattle of the king and chased the wild beasts from them. At night they slept in little wicker huts on the edge of the forest.
One day as Teigue was gathering dry sticks for his fire he saw a very young child lying wrapped in a mantle at the foot of a pine tree. He went over to the child and it smiled in his face. He left off gathering sticks and sat down beside it. Osric came to see what was keeping Teigue.
“A fool’s errand is long a-doing,” he said. “What are you loitering here for, when the meat is waiting for the fire and the fire is waiting for the sticks? “
“I have here,” said Teigue, “what is better than meat, a gift from the Hidden People.”
Osric looked at the child.
“We have little use for a nine-months’ infant,” he said.
The child smiled at him.
“Where could we keep it? ” he asked Teigue. ” I will make a house for it,” said Teigue, “a little house in the middle of the forest, that no one can find but myself.”
“‘Tis a pity the child should perish in the forest,” said Osric. ” Of a truth the house must be built.”
Aidan came. He lifted the child in his arms and looked at the mantle wrapped about it. The mantle was thickly embroidered with gold flowers.
“This is the child of some queen,” he said. “One day great folk will come seeking her.”
“I will not let the great folk take her away,” said Teigue. “She is my Luck-Child. She is Osric’s Luck-Child too, and we are going to make a house for her, and she will bring us good luck every day of our lives.”
“She is my Luck-Child too,” said Aidan. “We three will make a secret house in the forest, and there we will keep her from prying eyes.”
They sought out a place, a hidden green spot in the forest. They made a house, and there they nurtured the child in secret. Year by year she throve and grew with them. Teigue brought her berries and taught her to play on a little reed flute. When she made music on it the wild creatures of the woods came about her. She played with the spotted fawns, and the king of the wolves crouched before her and licked her hands. Osric made a bow for her, and taught her how to shoot with arrows, but she had no wish
to kill any beast, for all the forest-creatures were her friends. Aidan told her stories. He told her how the sun changed into a White Hound at night, and Lugh the Long-Handed put a silver chain on it and led it away to his Secret Palace, and it crouched at his feet till the morning, when he loosed it and let it run through the sky again. He told her how Brigit counted the stars so that no littlest one got lost, and how she hurried them away in the morning before Lugh’s great hound came out to frighten them. He said that Brigit came in the very early mornings to gather herbs of healing, for it was she who gave the secret of healing to wise physicians, and it was she gave power and virtue to every herb that grows. He said that once the High King’s Poet had seen Brigit and had made a song about her and called her ‘The Pure Perpetual Ashless Fire of the Gael.’
The Luck-Child loved to hear Aidan’s Stories. She loved them even when she had grown quite tall and wise and was no longer a child.
Teigue was sorry that she grew up so quickly. He sat down one day and began to lament and cry Ochone! about it.
“Why are you lamenting and crying Ochone?” said Osric.
“Because my Luck-Child has grown up and the Hidden People will see that she is no longer a child. They will take her and make her a queen amongst them, and she will never come back to us. Ochone! Ochone!”
“If the chiefs and warriors of King Eterscel do not see her,” said Osric, ” she is safe enough: and if they do come to take her I will not let her go without a fight.”
Aidan heard them talking.
“Do not speak of trouble or sorrow when you speak of the Luck-Child,” he said. “One day she will come to her own, and then she will give each of us his heart’s wish.”
“I will wish for a robe all embroidered with gold,” said Teigue. “What will you wish for, Osric?”
“For a shield and spear and the right to go into battle with warriors.”
“What will you wish for, Aidan?
“I will wish, O Teigue, to sit in the one dun with the Luck-Child, and hear the poets praising her.
“I will go and tell the Luck-Child our wishes,” said Teigue, “so that she may know when she comes to her own.”
He ran to the little hut in the forest, and the Luck-Child came out to meet him. She laughed to hear of the wishes, and said she would have a wish herself in the day of good fortune, and it would be to have Teigue, Osric, and Aidan, always with her. She took a little reed flute and began to play on it.
“Listen now,” she said to Teigue, “and I will play you music I heard last night when the wind swept down from the hills.”
Teigue sat under a pine tree and listened.
A great white hound came through the wood, and when it saw Teigue it stood and bayed. The hound had a gold collar set with three crystal stones.
“O my Luck-Child,” said Teigue, “a king will come after this hound. Go quickly where he can get no sight of you.”
She had the will to go, but the hound bayed about her feet and would not let her move. A clear voice called the hound, and through the trees came the High King of Ireland: there was no one with him but his foster-brother.
The king had the swiftness and slenderness of youth on him. ‘Tis he that was called the Candle of Beauty in Tara of the Kings–and nowhere on the yellow-crested ridge of the world could his equal be found for hardiness and high-heartedness and honey-sweet wisdom of speech.
His foster-brother had a thick twist of red gold in his hair, and he was the son of a proud northern king. The Luck-Child seemed to both of them a great wonder.
“What maiden is this? ” said the king, and stood looking at her.
“She is my Luck-Child, O King,” said Teigue. “She is no child of thine!” said the king’s foster-brother.
“She is a child of the Hidden People,” said Teigue, “and she has brought me luck every day since I found her.”
“Tell me,” said the king, “how you found her.”
“I found her under a pine tree, a nine-months’ child wrapped in a mantle all sewn over with little golden flowers. She is my Luck-Bringer since that day.”
“She is mine to-day!” said the king. “O Luck-Child,” he said, “will you come and live in my palace and bring me good fortune? It is you will be the High Queen of Ireland, and you will never have to ask a thing the second time.”
“Will you give Teigue a gold-embroidered robe and let him stay always with me?”
“I will do that,” said the king.
“Will you give Osric a sword and let him go into battle like a warrior? “
“Who is Osric?”
“It was Osric who built the house for me and taught me to shoot with arrows and speared salmon in the rivers for me. I will not go with you without Osric.”
“I will give Osric what you ask,” said the king, “let him come to me.”
“I will bring him,” said Teigue, and he ran to find Osric and Aidan.
“O Foster-Brother,” said the king, “it is well we lost our way in the woods, for now I have found the q
ueen the druids promised me. ‘Good luck,’ said they, ‘will come to King Eterscel when he weds a queen of unknown lineage.’ It is this maiden who will bring me luck.”
He took the Luck-Child by the hand, and they went through the wood with the hound following them.
Soon they met Teigue, Osric, and Aidan, coming together. The Luck-Child ran to them and brought them to the king.
“Here is Osric,” she said, “and Aidan who told me stories.”
“I will give Osric one of my own war-chariots and his choice of weapons,” said the king. “What am I to give to Aidan?”
“Is there a carved seat in your palace where lie can sit and listen to your poet who made the song about Brigit?”
“There are many carved seats in my palace, and he shall sit in one,” said Eterscel. “All the three shall sit in seats of honour, for they will be the Foster-Fathers of the High Queen of Ireland.”
He turned to the three cow-herds.
“On the day ye built the little hut in the forest for your nurseling ye built truth into the word of my druids, and now I will build honour into your fortune. Ye shall rank with chiefs and the sons of chiefs. Ye shall drink mead in feast-halls of your own, and while I live ye shall have my goodwill and protection.”
“May honour and glory be with you for ever, O King,” said Aidan. “In a good hour you have come to us.”
“We are all going to the palace,” said the Luck-Child. “Teigue, where is your flute?”
“It is in the little hut,” said Teigue. ” I will go back for it.”
“Nay,” said the king, “there are flutes enough in the palace! I will give you one of silver, set with jewels.”
The Luck-Child clapped her hands for joy.
“I love you,” she said to the king. “Come, let us go!”
She took Teigue by the one hand and the king by the other, and they all went to the palace. Every one wondered at the Luck-Child, for since the days of Queen Ethaun, who came out of Fairyland, no one so beautiful was seen in Ireland. The king called her Ethaun, and all the people said that in choosing her he had done well.
There was feasting and gladness on the day they swore troth to each other, and Teigue said the sun got up an hour earlier in the morning and stayed an hour later in the sky that night for gladness.

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Ella Young Poetry:
The Red Sunrise
(Moraig’s Song*)

O, it’s dark the land is, and it’s dark my heart is,

But the red sun rises when the hour is come.

O, the red sun rises, and the dead rise; I can see them,

And my own boy and Conn, who won the battles,

And the lads who lost.

They have bright swords with them that clash the battle welcome.

A welcome to the red sun that rises with our luck.
*In Irish mythology Moraig (variously Morrigu / Morrigan) was a goddess of war.

—–

Greeting
Over the wave-patterned sea-floor,

Over the long sunburnt ridge of the world,

I bid the winds seek you.

I bid them cry to you

Night and morning

A name you loved once;

I bid them bring to you

Dreams, and strange imaginings, and sleep.

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MY LADY OF DREAMS.
ONE night the beauty of the stars

Made magic for me white and still,

I climbed the road above the hill
The road no waking footstep mars.
I met my Lady in the wood
The black pine wood above the hill,

Dream-fair her beauty, white and still ;
I knelt as one before the Rood.
White Dream that makes my life a war

Of wild desires and baffled will

Once more my soul with beauty fill
Rise through the darkness, O my Star.

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THE HOUSE OF LOVE.
I BUILT for you a house of joy,
A dun close-walled and warm within ;
Strong-fossed without, lest foe destroy

Or creeping sorrow entrance win.
The wind that wails about the world
Came with you through the open door
My joy-dun into ruin hurled

Lay desolate for evermore.
I built for you a house of dream

Fair as the pearly light of morn ;
Its pillars caught an opal gleam
From skies where night was never born.
The wind that blows the stars to flame

Blew through my house and left it bare :
The beauty vanished when it came,

The columns melted into air.
The next house that I build for you
I’ll build with stars and moon-fire white :
Vaster than those the wind swept through,

Its halls, star-paved, shall front the night.
Mayhap you’ll come and wander there

When all the winds are laid to rest,

i o
And find its sun-bright beauty fair

Beyond the glow in East or West,
Mayhap its radiant fire must fade
Before the wind that wakes the dawn,
The light from Heaven’s heart out-rayed

When suns and moons are all withdrawn.
The wind that beats the stars to dust

May sweep my star-built courts away :
Let my dun fall if fall it must

Its glory lasted for a day.
I care not how I lose anew,
Or round the wreck what winds may wail-

Since God’s own dun was built for you,
You are not houseless, though I fail.

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NIAMH.
WHEN the dawn-radiance flushes pearly skies

With faintest rose, and the dawn-beauty fills

The earth with life, you come across the hills

Of gold and ivory where the dawn-wind dies.

O pale you are, and sweet, and in your eyes

The shadow of a dream that daylight kills,

Woven while you lingered by the crystal rills

Between the apple-trees of Paradise.

You gather as you pass with quiet hands

The dawn-white blossoms, ere their beauty
cease :
The frail, pale blossoms that we see unclose

One moment, when our hearts have drawn
the peace

Of twilight round them and the enchanted
lands

Glimmer before us, amethyst and rose.

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Ella Young Bio

Ella Young was born in County Antrim. She grew up in Dublin where she studied Law and Political Science at the Royal University. She joined the Theosophy Society and later the Hermetic Society which included W.B. Yeats and Æ [George Russell] among its members. After University Young went to live in the West of Ireland where she studied Irish. In 1906 she published her first volume of poetry entitled Poems and in 1909 her first volume of folk tales The Coming of Lugh which was followed by Celtic Wonder Tales (1910).
Young joined Sinn Féin in 1912 and in 1914, while sharing a flat with Maud Gonne, she became a founder member of Cumann na mBan. Young was active in Cumann na mBan during the Easter Rising and the War of Independence when she smuggled guns for the republicans. Young was opposed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty and fought on the republican side during the Irish Civil War. She was imprisoned by the Free State in Mountjoy Gaol and in the North Dublin Union Internment Camp. On her release Young emigrated to America where she became a lecturer in the University of California. In 1929 Young published a series of short stories based on the Fenian Cycle of Irish mythology entitled The Tangle-Coated Horse. Young published many volumes of short stories for children, the best remembered of which is The Unicorn with Silver Shoes (1932). Her memoirs Flowering Dusk were published in 1945. Young’s poem The Red Sunrise was first published in Red Hand Magazine Vol.1 No.1 September, 1920.

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Palya Bea – Transylvania

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November 20, 2008

The River

“Evening at the River” by Christoph Gerber (2002 and 2004)

“It was better, he thought, to fail in attempting exquisite things than to succeed in the department of the utterly contemptible.”

-Arthur Machen
No truer words… I have a life that can like many, be measured out by ones many failures, and on occasion, some success. I have never met a deadline that I haven’t had to race against and then some. Yet, these failures seem to push the art along. I fail towards the side of aesthetics, willing to sacrifice the whole for the detail, for the nuance and a bit more. The latest Invisible College is within this realm. It has been a fretful event. The publisher has raised the price for printing so I am looking for another on-line printer, or a way to change the whole model.
It gets to be a bit of a challenge; it is all on a shoestring, and there really isn’t any fiscal reward for the efforts. That though shouldn’t be the guide. (though it would be nice to see more people pick up the magazine/journal) This is a labour of love IMPOV, and the fruits that it has and will bear are not all discernible at this point, but they are there and will continue to emerge over time.
We are always on the look-out for articles, artist, and hints that you’d find interesting for the Invisible College…
I have been working on this Turf for a few days, and it is just about right… Today’s Turf covers the Poetry of Kathleen Raine, renowned British Poet and Mystic. Her poetry sings, and rises up in a most beautiful way. We also have some great Arthur Machen quotes, and article on Kathleen Raine, and 3 videos from Nitin Sawhney… I just recieved the new album, and it is a wonderful one (Thanks Peter!)
Hope you enjoy this edition,
Gwyllm
Oh yeah give the Radio a listen!
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On The Menu:

Arthur Machen Quotes

Nitin Sawhney – Koyal

In Memoriam: Kathleen Raine 1908-2003

Nitin Sawhney – Letting Go (with the wonderful Tina Grace)

Her Poetry: Kathleen Raine

Biography of Kathleen Raine

Nitin Sawhney – Sunset

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Arthur Machen Quotes:
Every branch of human knowledge if traced up to its source and final principles vanishes into mystery
“For, usually and fitly, the presence of an introduction is held to imply that there is something of consequence and importance to be introduced.”
“Now, everybody, I suppose, is aware that in recent years the silly business of divination by dreams has ceased to be a joke and has become a very serious science.”
“I dream in fire but work in clay.”

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Nitin Sawhney – Koyal

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In Memoriam: Kathleen Raine 1908-2003

-Christopher Bamford
Kathleen Raine was one of Britain’s deepest and most spiritual poets. A scholar of Blake and Yeats, she was also the founder of the Temenos Academy and Journal which have done much to keep alive in the modern world the vital link between the imagination and the sacred. When she died recently, we lost a champion of the sacred tradition in Western literature. She left behind four volumes of memoir plus a unique legacy of poetry and scholarship.
Kathleen Jesse Raine was British a poet, scholar, critic, philosopher and tireless worker for the spirit, who died on July 7, 2003, at the ripe old age of 95. She was the author of more than twelve books of poetry, an autobiography in four volumes, and many works of scholarly and philosophical criticism whose central concern was always the reaffirmation of what she believed to be the perennial, true and spiritual ground of poetry and inspiration. In the service of this truth, she delivered her seminal Mellon Lectures on Blake and Tradition and, more recently, in the 1970′s gave her “Summa Blakeana”-her lectures on Blake’s Illustrations of the Book of Job.
In such projects, as in all her work, Kathleen Raine constantly strove to elucidate the sacramental wisdom of the imagination, that wisdom inherent in reality, immanent in nature and in mind, which the poet, when he or she is most truly “original,” only uncovers or remembers. This symbolic gnosis, “of form and beauty inviolate,” in which “inner and outer reality are at one, the world in harmony with the imagination,” is, Dr. Raine believes, humanity’s original and natural state. It is the Earthly Paradise or Eden, which each must recover or else perish, but which once restored becomes its own joy, true science, and true poetry:
Sleep at the tree’s root,

where the night is spun Into the stuff of worlds,

listen to the winds,

the tides, and the night’s harmonies,

and know All that you knew before you began to forget…
Message from Home

She was convinced of the primacy of the imagination-that “mental things alone are real.” Her life and work were concerned with tracing, learning, and practicing the one journey of remembrance. This is the narrow track the soul must tread, from Eden to Eden, through all the hells until, end and beginning joined once more, hells transcended and illusion dropped away, the perfection of the original sphere”the cell and seed of life”is wrought again.
“Poetry,” she stated repeatedly, “is the language of the soul,” invoking by this distinction the traditional tripartite anthropology of body, soul and spirit (or intellect). For it is the soul, in Christianity and in Platonism, whose descent becomes a fall through self-love when, as an image enamoured of itself, it becomes entangled in the suffering that follows from thinking that it is substantial in itself, its own source. Thus for her it was the soul and its world, fallen and de-symbolized, which must be purified and educated. Once, raised up and reunited with its celestial double, its true original, the soul can then raise the world itself up, transforming its veil of illusion into the diaphanous and redemptive play of symbols:
Bright cloud,

Bringer of rain to far fields,

To me, who will not drink that water

fall nor feel
Wet mist on my face,

White gold and rose

Vision of light,

Meaning and beauty immeasurable.

That meaning is not rain, nor that

beauty mist.
Bright Cloud

For her the drama of the soul, whose language is poetry, is that of life itself, of created things and of our earthly being, of the struggle to recall and, recalling, to unite with that higher principle which, following Plato and Yeats, she calls the Daimon. Kathleen Raine felt with Plato that if they do not recall and lead us back to Eden-if they do not partake of the “inner journey”-poetry and life are abused and have no true place in the ideal Republic. For her, as for all Platonists, life and art-social, ethical and aesthetic (as also biological physical) forms-have but one function, the perfection of being, which is the knowledge and remembrance of the Eternal Kingdom:

Their only task to recollect

Originals laid up in heaven…
Ninfa Revisited
Her first guide in this was life itself, inscribed like a palimpsest with the century’s great themes of loss and anguish, rootlessness and passion, reductionism and materialism. She bore witness to these, overcame and transformed then by a continuous striving to be in all things true to herself, her vision and sacred calling. Next, her guides were Blake and Yeats (and to a lesser degree Keats, Shelley, Coleridge, Dante, Spenser and Milton). They led her to drink deeply at the “ancient springs” of Platonism, Hermeticism and Kabbalah, teaching her to attend closely to such perennial “singing masters of the soul” as Orpheus, Plato, Hermes, Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, Proclus, Paracelsus, Boehme, Swedenborg and Thomas Taylor. Long labor in this school confirmed that Blake and Yeats were not at all “original” in the modern sense, but were fully so in the ancient one. They were not innovators, except in the precise etymological sense of those who “renewed,” that is made new again for their time what was perennially and continuously new: the wisdom and process of creation itself.
Realizing this, Kathleen Raine worked to recover the possibility of such a “renewal” or gnosis-that remembering which Plato called a “not-forgetting”-both for herself and for her age. It was always this that spurred her on; and her study and her scholarship were always secondary to it -”always incidental to the needs of a poet for knowledge of a certain kind.” Therefore she never fitted easily into an academic role and worked mostly on her own, independently and for the sake of the greater good. “Like Thomas Taylor,” she writes, “I read the books of wisdom for the sake of that wisdom, seeing scholarship always as a means to an end, never as an end in itself”:
Stone into man must grow,

the human word carved by our whispers in the passing air is

the authentic utterance of cloud,

the speech of flowing water, blowing wind,

of silver moon and stunted juniper.
Night in Martindale
Kathleen Raine was perhaps most precious to us because she was so much what she taught-which means that one cannot agree with her philosophy and remain untouched by her life, or admire her scholarship but deplore her philosophy. Her poetry, her life, her metaphysics, her aesthetics, her cosmology were all of one piece, a single seamless cloth. It was this wholeness that has allowed her to be one of those to perform for our time the same function that Pythagoras, Plato, Plotinus, Proclus, Eriugena, Ficino and Thomas Taylor performed for their times: the living transmission of Orphic Teaching. By this count the eighth in the succession, she may be said to mark the beginning of a new octave; and this, though fanciful, is at least metaphorically apt. For she became the prophet of that “new age” of the spirit in which the only true authority is the wisdom of the heart, Blake’s “True Man,” the Imagination.
Led to this “New Age” view by her life as by her study, she was also brought to confront its logical complement, the simultaneous reality of an ending, of what she calls “the leaf-fall of a civilization”-the natural end of European Christendom. From this stance on the cusp, she faced the end of the twentieth century with both hope for a new civilization and the fear of a terrible barbarism. She saw hope in “the seeds, the living among the dead, those who do not participate in the collective disintegration, but guard their secret of immortality, the essence of what has been and may be again.” But she feared the barbarism, the chaotic disintegration within which these seeds will germinate, lying among those who have no knowledge of “what has been and may be again,” and so have no past or ground, either ontological or historical:
To be a barbarian is to have no past;

For the past is the present of the

future, the human kingdom;

Some known to us, others unknown,

you, I, that still continuing few

To whose hearts the remembered and

forgotten dead are presences,

Ripening in memory the seed of cities

To scatter for what meagre crop this

poisoned stricken earth may bear,

Or harvest into that native land

we desire and remember,

Keep France, keep Christendom,

keep Athens in mind.
Letter to Pierre Emmanuel
Here she deeds us another gift: her understanding of culture as that net of truths that a society must hold permanent so that others may be changed, as the society itself changes, endures change, and yet remains the same. These are the qualities that ensure continuity and order. They are the invisible bonds of shared value, humanly honed and perfected and passed on in innumerable ways, whose embodiment is both a practice and a gnosis. They are a living access to the knowledge sub specie aeternitatis that myth, ritual, history and literature transmit and evoke. Without such a cultural tradition, as the Russian poet Mandelstam realized when he underwent what Dr. Raine calls “the Marxist variant of our Western materialism,” history (and evolution) becomes “mere progress””the mechanical movement of a clock-hand, not the sacred succession of interlinked events.”
Most precious of all, there is her poetry in which for more half a century she has kept true to herself in language true to itself. She wrote poetry not dictated by the fashions of the moment but inwardly determined by what she experienced as the unifying links that bind the human soul to the larger cosmos whose she is and must strive to reveal. Her’s, in a sense, is sacred poetry, the paradox and promise of which is prophetically revealed in her first collected poem-which, as it should, resumes and stands as an introduction to the rest:

A bird sings on a matin tree

‘Once such a bird was 1.’
The sky’s gaze says

‘Remember your mother.’
Seas, trees and voices cry

‘Nature is your nature.’
I reply

‘I am what is not what I was.

Seas, trees, and bird, alas!

Sea, tree, and bird was I.’
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Nitin Sawhney – Letting Go (with the wonderful Tina Grace)

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Her Poetry: Kathleen Raine

Love Poem
Yours is the face that the earth turns to me,

Continuous beyond its human features lie

The mountain forms that rest against the sky.

With your eyes, the reflecting rainbow, the sun’s light

Sees me; forest and flower, bird and beast

Know and hold me forever in the world’s thought,

Creation’s deep untroubled retrospect.
When your hand touches mine it is the earth

That takes me–the green grass,

And rocks and rivers; the green graves,

And children still unborn, and ancestors,

In love passed down from hand to hand from God.

Your love comes from the creation of the world,

From those paternal fingers, streaming through the clouds

That break with light the surface of the sea.
Here, where I trace your body with my hand,

Love’s presence has no end;

For these, your arms that hold me, are the world’s.

In us, the continents, clouds and oceans meet

Our arbitrary selves, extensive with the night,

Lost, in the heart’s worship, and the body’s sleep.

—
The River
In my first sleep

I came to the river

And looked down

Through the clear water –

Only in dream

Water so pure,

Laced and undulant

Lines of flow

On its rocky bed

Water of life

Streaming for ever.
A house was there

Beside the river

And I, arrived,

An expected guest

About to explore

Old gardens and libraries –

But the car was waiting

To drive me away.
One last look

Into that bright stream –

Trout there were

And clear on the bottom

Monster form

Of the great crayfish

That crawls to the moon.

On its rocky bed

Living water

In whorls and ripples

Flowing unbended.
There was the car

To drive me away.

We crossed the river

Of living water –

I might not stay,

But must return

By the road too short

To the waiting day.
In my second dream

Pure I was and free

By the rapid stream,

My crystal house the sky,

The pure crystalline sky.
Into the stream I flung

A bottle of clear glass

That twirled and tossed and spun

In the water’s race

Flashing the morning sun.
Down that swift river

I saw it borne away,

My empty crystal form,

Exultant saw it caught

Into the current’s spin,

The flashing water’s run.

—
The Ancient Speech
A Gaelic bard they praise who in fourteen adjectives

Named the one indivisible soul of his glen;

For what are the bens and the glens but manifold qualities,

Immeasurable complexities of soul?

What are these isles but a song sung by island voices?

The herdsman sings ancestral memories

And the song makes the singer wise,

But only while he sings

Songs that were old when the old themselves were young,

Songs of these hills only, and of no isles but these.

For other hills and isles this language has no words.
The mountains are like manna, for one day given,

To each his own:

Strangers have crossed the sound, but not the sound of the dark oarsmen

Or the golden-haired sons of kings,

Strangers whose thought is not formed to the cadence of waves,

Rhythm of the sickle, oar and milking pail,

Whose words make loved things strange and small,

Emptied of all that made them heart-felt or bright.

Our words keep no faith with the soul of the world.

—

Transit of the Gods
Strange that the selfs continuum should outlast

The Virgin, Aphrodite, and the Mourning Mother,

All loves and griefs, successive deities

That hold their kingdom in the human breast.

Abandoned by the gods, woman with an ageing body

That half remembers the Annunciation

The passion and the travail and the grief

That wore the mask of my humanity,

I marvel at the souls indifference.

For in her theatre the play is done,

The tears are shed; the actors, the immortals

In their ceaseless manifestation, elsewhere gone,

And I who have been Virgin and Aphrodite,

The mourning Isis and the queen of corn

Wait for the last mummer, dread Persephone

To dance my dust at last into the tomb.

_____

Biography of Kathleen Raine

Kathleen Raine Kathleen Raine was born in London in 1908, where she grew up; taking on a number of unsatisfactory jobs. Through one of her later jobs she met the nephew of the Indian mystic Rama Coomaraswamy Tambimuttu, who invited her to contribute to his new magazine, Poetry London, she did of course, and soon developed a lifelong passion for all things Indian. Raine began to seriously write toward her late twenties, and by 1943 she had published her first collection of poetry Stone and Flower, which was illustrated by Barbara Hepworth. Three years later the collection Living in Time was released, followed by The Pythoness in 1949.
Raine married twice, each time unhappily due to dissatisfaction with domesticity. She was even quoted as saying she felt “as if I were living in someone else’s dream. This unhappiness led to an affair with a gay writer named Gavin Maxwell. This affair helped to inspire the works in The Year One 1952, which she released in 1952. Raine stayed frequently with Maxwell on the island of Sandaig in the Scottish Islands. The relationship

ended in 1956 when Raine lost his pet otter, Mijbil, who inspired Maxwell’s best-selling book Ring of Bright Water. She published a book of poems called Collected Poems that same year.
She began her autobiography 1973 and it was out in 1977. Four years later Raine had founded her own magazine, called Temenos, to help articulate her views. Raine went on to win several awards, including the Harriet Monroe Prize, Edna St. Vincent Millay Prize from the American Poetry Society, and the Queens Gold Medal for Poetry in 1992. In 2000, she was made a Commander of the British Empire. ..

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Sweet Return… one more time

Nitin Sawhney – Sunset

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November 14, 2008

Petôfi Sándor

I have been working on this for a few days, I was happy to discover the poetry of Petôfi Sándor, a poet of national standing in Hungary. I stumbled on him and saw some of his work… fascinating how a poet/person can have such an effect on their people/country. One poem, and the world changed for an empire. Well worth checking out…
It has been incredibly beautiful up here as of late. Heavy rains earlier this week, and now just sheer beauty; sunny skies, crisp air, falling leaves… (lots and lots)
Peter, Jake and Margo came down from Olympia on Monday, and Peter took us to dinner at the local Afghan Restaurant, Kabobi. Wonderful food, good times and it was sweet meeting Margo. Peter’s choice of musics grace this edition of of Turfing. Peter has great taste, I have yet to find a duff tune in any of his suggestions.
We said goodbye this week to Kyle and Trish as they move back to San Francisco, Oh… we shall miss them! Trish is 5 months pregnant, radiant and eager for that change that the little ones bring. Our loss, San Francisco’s gain. Tuesday was bittersweet with their departure.
The Land Cruiser is in the shop, what started as a tune up has turned into rear axle work (broken seal) and new brakes… ack! 400.USD more than I expected, a low blow indeed.
We have been doing the computer trade around the house… As I have now gotten the new Quad-Core up with the massive dosage of Ram, the old work-horse 2.6 has migrated to Rowan, and his Ram from his old system now resides in Mary’s machine. Rowan’s old computer is heading to his friend Ryan, who with college needs a system. Nothing wasted, a perfectly little circle of equipment recycling… The new system is now stable, and runs a charm. I take everything back that I ever said about Vista, oh I do.
Have a brilliant weekend…!
Gwyllm

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On The Menu:

The Quotes

Sebestyén Márta – Született világ megváltója

The Nine Pea-Hens and the Golden Apples

Petôfi Sándor Poetry…

Sebestyén Márta – Live

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The Quotes:
Jules Renard | “Look for the ridiculous in everything and you will find it.”

Mark Twain | “When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.”
George F. Will | “The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised. “
Sydney Smith | “You must not think me necessarily foolish because I am facetious, nor will I consider you necessarily wise because you are grave.”
Jean Kerr | “I’m tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. That’s deep enough. What do you want, an adorable pancreas?”
Hughes Mearns | “As I was walking up the stair / I met a man who wasn’t there. / He wasn’t there again today. / I wish, I wish he’d stay away.”
Oscar Wilde | “There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.”
Bill Vaughan | “We learn something every day, and lots of times it’s that what we learned the day before was wrong.”
Lester B. Pearson | “Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.”
Elbert Hubbard | “Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.”

_____________________

Both of the Sebestyén Márta tracks were suggested by Peter…

Sebestyén Márta – Született világ megváltója

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A Hungarian Folk Tale….
The Nine Pea-Hens and the Golden Apples

Once upon a time there stood before the palace of an emperor a golden apple tree, which blossomed and bore fruit each night. But every morning the fruit was gone, and the boughs were bare of blossom, without anyone being able to discover who was the thief.
At last the emperor said to his eldest son, ‘If only I could prevent those robbers from stealing my fruit, how happy I should be!’
And his son replied, ‘I will sit up to-night and watch the tree, and I shall soon see who it is!’
So directly it grew dark the young man went and hid himself near the apple tree to begin his watch, but the apples had scarcely begun to ripen before he fell asleep, and when he awoke at sunrise the apples were gone. He felt very much ashamed of himself, and went with lagging feet to tell his father!
Of course, though the eldest son had failed, the second made sure that he would do better, and set out gaily at nightfall to watch the apple tree. But no sooner had he lain himself down than his eyes grew heavy, and when the sunbeams roused him from his slumbers there was not an apple left on the tree.
Next came the turn of the youngest son, who made himself a comfortable bed under the apple tree, and prepared himself to sleep. Towards midnight he awoke, and sat up to look at the tree. And behold! the apples were beginning to ripen, and lit up the whole palace with their brightness. At the same moment nine golden pea-hens flew swiftly through the air, and while eight alighted upon the boughs laden with fruit, the ninth fluttered to the ground where the prince lay, and instantly was changed into a beautiful maiden, more beautiful far than any lady in the emperor’s court. The prince at once fell in love with her, and they talked together for some time, till the maiden said her sisters had finished plucking the apples, and now they must all go home again. The prince, however, begged her so hard to leave him a little of the fruit that the maiden gave him two apples, one for himself and one for his father. Then she changed herself back into a pea-hen, and the whole nine flew away.
As soon as the sun rose the prince entered the palace, and held out the apple to his father, who was rejoiced to see it, and praised his youngest son heartily for his cleverness. That evening the prince returned to the apple tree, and everything passed as before, and so it happened for several nights. At length the other brothers grew angry at seeing that he never came back without bringing two golden apples with him, and they went to consult an old witch, who promised to spy after him, and discover how he managed to get the apples. So, when the evening came, the old woman hid herself under the tree and waited for the prince. Before long he arrived and laid down on his bed, and was soon fast asleep. Towards midnight there was a rush of wings, and the eight pea-hens settled on the tree, while the ninth became a maiden, and ran to greet the prince. Then the witch stretched out her hand, and cut off a lock of the maiden’s hair, and in an instant the girl sprang up, a pea-hen once more, spread her wings and flew away, while her sisters, who were busily stripping the boughs, flew after her.
When he had recovered from his surprise at the unexpected disappearance of the maiden, the prince exclaimed, ‘What can be the matter?’ and, looking about him, discovered the old witch hidden under the bed. He dragged her out, and in his fury called his guards, and ordered them to put her to death as fast as possible. But that did no good as far as the pea-hens went. They never came back any more, though the prince returned to the tree every night, and wept his heart out for his lost love. This went on for some time, till the prince could bear it no longer, and made up his mind he would search the world through for her. In vain his father tried to persuade him that his task was hopeless, and that other girls were to be found as beautiful as this one. The prince would listen to nothing, and, accompanied by only one servant, set out on his quest.
After travelling for many days, he arrived at length before a large gate, and through the bars he could see the streets of a town, and even the palace. The prince tried to pass in, but the way was barred by the keeper of the gate, who wanted to know who he was, why he was there, and how he had learnt the way, and he was not allowed to enter unless the empress herself came and gave him leave. A message was sent to her, and when she stood at the gate the prince thought he had lost his wits, for there was the maiden he had left his home to seek. And she hastened to him, and took his hand, and drew him into the palace. In a few days they were married, and the prince forgot his father and his brothers, and made up his mind that he would live and die in the castle.
One morning the empress told him that she was going to take a walk by herself, and that she would leave the keys of twelve cellars to his care. ‘If you wish to enter the first eleven cellars,’ said she, ‘you can; but beware of even unlocking the door of the twelfth, or it will be the worse for you.’
The prince, who was left alone in the castle, soon got tired of being by himself, and began to look about for something to amuse him.
‘What CAN there be in that twelfth cellar,’ he thought to himself, ‘which I must not see?’ And he went downstairs and unlocked the doors, one after the other. When he got to the twelfth he paused, but his curiosity was too much for him, and in another instant the key was turned and the cellar lay open before him. It was empty, save for a large cask, bound with iron hoops, and out of the cask a voice was saying entreatingly, ‘For goodness’ sake, brother, fetch me some water; I am dying of thirst!’
The prince, who was very tender-hearted, brought some water at once, and pushed it through a hole in the barrel; and as he did so one of the iron hoops burst.
He was turning away, when a voice cried the second time, ‘Brother, for pity’s sake fetch me some water; I’m dying of thirst!’
So the prince went back, and brought some more water, and again a hoop sprang.
And for the third time the voice still called for water; and when water was given it the last hoop was rent, the cask fell in pieces, and out flew a dragon, who snatched up the empress just as she was returning from her walk, and carried her off. Some servants who saw what had happened came rushing to the prince, and the poor young man went nearly mad when he heard the result of his own folly, and could only cry out that he would follow the dragon to the ends of the earth, until he got his wife again.
For months and months he wandered about, first in this direction and then in that, without finding any traces of the dragon or his captive. At last he came to a stream, and as he stopped for a moment to look at it he noticed a little fish lying on the bank, beating its tail convulsively, in a vain effort to get back into the water.
‘Oh, for pity’s sake, my brother,’ shrieked the little creature, ‘help me, and put me back into the river, and I will repay you some day. Take one of my scales, and when you are in danger twist it in your fingers, and I will come!’
The prince picked up the fish and threw it into the water; then he took off one of its scales, as he had been told, and put it in his pocket, carefully wrapped in a cloth. Then he went on his way till, some miles further down the road, he found a fox caught in a trap.
‘Oh! be a brother to me!’ called the fox, ‘and free me from this trap, and I will help you when you are in need. Pull out one of my hairs, and when you are in danger twist it in your fingers, and I will come.’
So the prince
unfastened the trap, pulled out one of the fox’s hairs, and continued his journey. And as he was going over the mountain he passed a wolf entangled in a snare, who begged to be set at liberty.
‘Only deliver me from death,’ he said, ‘and you will never be sorry for it. Take a lock of my fur, and when you need me twist it in your fingers.’ And the prince undid the snare and let the wolf go.
For a long time he walked on, without having any more adventures, till at length he met a man travelling on the same road.
‘Oh, brother!’ asked the prince, ‘tell me, if you can, where the dragon-emperor lives?’
The man told him where he would find the palace, and how long it would take him to get there, and the prince thanked him, and followed his directions, till that same evening he reached the town where the dragon-emperor lived. When he entered the palace, to his great joy he found his wife sitting alone in a vast hall, and they began hastily to invent plans for her escape.
There was no time to waste, as the dragon might return directly, so they took two horses out of the stable, and rode away at lightning speed. Hardly were they out of sight of the palace than the dragon came home and found that his prisoner had flown. He sent at once for his talking horse, and said to him:
‘Give me your advice; what shall I do–have my supper as usual, or set out in pursuit of them?’
‘Eat your supper with a free mind first,’ answered the horse, ‘and follow them afterwards.’
So the dragon ate till it was past mid-day, and when he could eat no more he mounted his horse and set out after the fugitives. In a short time he had come up with them, and as he snatched the empress out of her saddle he said to the prince:
‘This time I will forgive you, because you brought me the water when I was in the cask; but beware how you return here, or you will pay for it with your life.’
Half mad with grief, the prince rode sadly on a little further, hardly knowing what he was doing. Then he could bear it no longer and turned back to the palace, in spite of the dragon’s threats. Again the empress was sitting alone, and once more they began to think of a scheme by which they could escape the dragon’s power.
‘Ask the dragon when he comes home,’ said the prince, ‘where he got that wonderful horse from, and then you can tell me, and I will try to find another like it.’
Then, fearing to meet his enemy, he stole out of the castle.
Soon after the dragon came home, and the empress sat down near him, and began to coax and flatter him into a good humour, and at last she said:
‘But tell me about that wonderful horse you were riding yesterday. There cannot be another like it in the whole world. Where did you get it from?’
And he answered:
‘The way I got it is a way which no one else can take. On the top of a high mountain dwells an old woman, who has in her stables twelve horses, each one more beautiful than the other. And in one corner is a thin, wretched-looking animal whom no one would glance at a second time, but he is in reality the best of the lot. He is twin brother to my own horse, and can fly as high as the clouds themselves. But no one can ever get this horse without first serving the old woman for three whole days. And besides the horses she has a foal and its mother, and the man who serves her must look after them for three whole days, and if he does not let them run away he will in the end get the choice of any horse as a present from the old woman. But if he fails to keep the foal and its mother safe on any one of the three nights his head will pay.’
The next day the prince watched till the dragon left the house, and then he crept in to the empress, who told him all she had learnt from her gaoler. The prince at once determined to seek the old woman on the top of the mountain, and lost no time in setting out. It was a long and steep climb, but at last he found her, and with a low bow he began:
‘Good greeting to you, little mother!’
‘Good greeting to you, my son! What are you doing here?’
‘I wish to become your servant,’ answered he.
‘So you shall,’ said the old woman. ‘If you can take care of my mare for three days I will give you a horse for wages, but if you let her stray you will lose your head’; and as she spoke she led him into a courtyard surrounded with palings, and on every post a man’s head was stuck. One post only was empty, and as they passed it cried out:
‘Woman, give me the head I am waiting for!’
The old woman made no answer, but turned to the prince and said:
‘Look! all those men took service with me, on the same conditions as you, but not one was able to guard the mare!’
But the prince did not waver, and declared he would abide by his words.
When evening came he led the mare out of the stable and mounted her, and the colt ran behind. He managed to keep his seat for a long time, in spite of all her efforts to throw him, but at length he grew so weary that he fell fast asleep, and when he woke he found himself sitting on a log, with the halter in his hands. He jumped up in terror, but the mare was nowhere to be seen, and he started with a beating heart in search of her. He had gone some way without a single trace to guide him, when he came to a little river. The sight of the water brought back to his mind the fish whom he had saved from death, and he hastily drew the scale from his pocket. It had hardly touched his fingers when the fish appeared in the stream beside him.
‘What is it, my brother?’ asked the fish anxiously.
‘The old woman’s mare strayed last night, and I don’t know where to look for her.’
‘Oh, I can tell you that: she has changed herself into a big fish, and her foal into a little one. But strike the water with the halter and say, “Come here, O mare of the mountain witch!” and she will come.’
The prince did as he was bid, and the mare and her foal stood before him. Then he put the halter round her neck, and rode her home, the foal always trotting behind them. The old woman was at the door to receive them, and gave the prince some food while she led the mare back to the stable.
‘You should have gone among the fishes,’ cried the old woman, striking the animal with a stick.
‘I did go among the fishes,’ replied the mare; ‘but they are no friends of mine, for they betrayed me at once.’
‘Well, go among the foxes this time,’ said she, and returned to the house, not knowing that the prince had overheard her.
So when it began to grow dark the prince mounted the mare for the second time and rode into the meadows, and the foal trotted behind its mother. Again he managed to stick on till midnight: then a sleep overtook him that he could not battle against, and when he woke up he found himself, as before, sitting on the log, with the halter in his hands. He gave a shriek of dismay, and sprang up in search of the wanderers. As he went he suddenly remembered the words that the old woman had said to the mare, and he drew out the fox hair and twisted it in his fingers.
‘What is it, my brother?’ asked the fox, who instantly appeared before him.
‘The old witch’s mare has run away from me, and I do not know where to look for her.’
‘She is with us,’ replied the fox, ‘and has changed herself into a big fox, and her foal into a little one, but strike the ground with a halter and say, “Come here, O mare of the mountain witch!”‘
The prince did so, and in a moment the fox became a mare and stood before him, with the little foal at her heels. He mounted and rode back, and the old woman placed food on the table, and led the mare back to the stable.
‘You should
have gone to the foxes, as I told you,’ said she, striking the mare with a stick.
‘I did go to the foxes,’ replied the mare, ‘but they are no friends of mine and betrayed me.’
‘Well, this time you had better go to the wolves,’ said she, not knowing that the prince had heard all she had been saying.
The third night the prince mounted the mare and rode her out to the meadows, with the foal trotting after. He tried hard to keep awake, but it was of no use, and in the morning there he was again on the log, grasping the halter. He started to his feet, and then stopped, for he remembered what the old woman had said, and pulled out the wolf’s grey lock.
‘What is it, my brother?’ asked the wolf as it stood before him.
‘The old witch’s mare has run away from me,’ replied the prince, ‘and I don’t know where to find her.’
‘Oh, she is with us,’ answered the wolf, ‘and she has changed herself into a she-wolf, and the foal into a cub; but strike the earth here with the halter, and cry, “Come to me, O mare of the mountain witch.” ‘
The prince did as he was bid, and as the hair touched his fingers the wolf changed back into a mare, with the foal beside her. And when he had mounted and ridden her home the old woman was on the steps to receive them, and she set some food before the prince, but led the mare back to her stable.
‘You should have gone among the wolves,’ said she, striking her with a stick.
‘So I did,’ replied the mare, ‘but they are no friends of mine and betrayed me.’
The old woman made no answer, and left the stable, but the prince was at the door waiting for her.
‘I have served you well,’ said he, ‘and now for my reward.’
‘What I promised that will I perform,’ answered she. ‘Choose one of these twelve horses; you can have which you like.’
‘Give me, instead, that half-starved creature in the corner,’ asked the prince. ‘I prefer him to all those beautiful animals.’
‘You can’t really mean what you say?’ replied the woman.
‘Yes, I do,’ said the prince, and the old woman was forced to let him have his way. So he took leave of her, and put the halter round his horse’s neck and led him into the forest, where he rubbed him down till his skin was shining like gold. Then he mounted, and they flew straight through the air to the dragon’s palace. The empress had been looking for him night and day, and stole out to meet him, and he swung her on to his saddle, and the horse flew off again.
Not long after the dragon came home, and when he found the empress was missing he said to his horse, ‘What shall we do? Shall we eat and drink, or shall we follow the runaways?’ and the horse replied, ‘Whether you eat or don’t eat, drink or don’t drink, follow them or stay at home, matters nothing now, for you can never, never catch them.’
But the dragon made no reply to the horse’s words, but sprang on his back and set off in chase of the fugitives. And when they saw him coming they were frightened, and urged the prince’s horse faster and faster, till he said, ‘Fear nothing; no harm can happen to us,’ and their hearts grew calm, for they trusted his wisdom.
Soon the dragon’s horse was heard panting behind, and he cried out, ‘Oh, my brother, do not go so fast! I shall sink to the earth if I try to keep up with you.’
And the prince’s horse answered, ‘Why do you serve a monster like that? Kick him off, and let him break in pieces on the ground, and come and join us.’
And the dragon’s horse plunged and reared, and the dragon fell on a rock, which broke him in pieces. Then the empress mounted his horse, and rode back with her husband to her kingdom, over which they ruled for many years.
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Hungarian Poet: Petôfi Sándor

I’ll be a tree
I’ll be a tree, if you are its flower,

Or a flower, if you are the dew –

I’ll be the dew, if you are the sunbeam,

Only to be united with you.
My lovely girl, if you are the Heaven,

I shall be a star above on high;

My darling, if you are hell-fire,

To unite us, damned I shall die.

—

[From The Clouds ]
Sorrow? a great ocean?

Joy?

A little pearl in the ocean.Perhaps,

By the time I fish it up, I may break it.

—
The Farmer puts his field under the plow,

Then he harrows it even.

Time puts our features under the plow,

But won’t harrow them even.

—
How many drops has the ocean sea?

Can you count the stars?

In human heads how many hairs can there be?

And sins within human hearts?

—

The shepherd rides in donkey-back
The shepherd rides in donkey-back,

His feet are dangling wide,

The lad is big, but bigger still

His bitterness inside.
He played his flute, he grazed his flock

Upon a grassy hill

When he was told his sweetheart girl

Was desperately ill.
He rides his donkey in a flash

And races to her bed,

But by the time he reached the house

His precious one was dead.
The lad was bitter, hoped to die,

But what he did instead:

He took a stick and struck a blow

Upon the donkey’s head.

—
After reading this poem to a crowd of his countrymen, Hungary rose up in revolt against the Austro-Hungarian Empire for independence. (the revolution failed…) But such is the power of poetry that they can move us to greatness…. 80)
National Song
Rise up, Magyar, the country calls!

It’s ‘now or never’ what fate befalls…

Shall we live as slaves or free men?

That’s the question – choose your ‘Amen”!