#ploughmen poet

[scotianostra]

On 21st July 1796 Robert Burns died passed away in Dumfries.

Robert Burns only lived to the age of 37. There has been much speculation over how Robert Burns died, and due to lack of scientific evidence from the time, no one can be certain. Many have pointed towards alcohol abuse as a contributing factor to his failing health and untimely death, although this too has been widely disputed

This has been a long-held belief first put forward by Dr James Currie, who was tasked with putting together an anthology of Burns’ work following his death.

However, Currie’s account of Burns’ death has been debated for years, with many believing he exaggerated Burns’ drinking habits due to his own dislike for the habit, as Currie himself was a recovering alcoholic.

It is also believed that Burns’ may have had an unknown rheumatic heart condition, that a heavy-drinking lifestyle could well have aggravated.

What is known is that he died in Dumfries in a two-storey red sandstone house on Mill Hole Brae, which is now known as Burns Street

His home is now a museum in his memory, and he was first laid to rest in Dumfries’ St. Michael’s Churchyard in Dumfries.

His body was eventually moved to its final location in the same cemetery to the Burns Mausoleum in September 1817. The body of his widow Jean Armour was buried with him in 1834.

[libidomechanica]

“I might seemed shee knew”

With eager gentle rainbow’s glory in fire, would     under other, had I sang of its luteous feeling, waved her heart to be shown for the     land, without recourse. While he cleft from

her path to rise liked it now vnnethes the ploughmen’s     loose gossamer embryos into the next selfe my mate in Armes he sworn to striction     can overhaile. And forgot not

be toom, weel aff, whose charms by accepting, asking     a living poets and out both the teeth but zombie-like face was a moment they letting     the painted in love’s ne’er at either

head has a crush on Myrna Loy. It was but     few. All her lists with her from their own to allot each other, who since my old ere there     be thing to look behind a bill the

world,—which doth rehearse making a state more, is happens     in thee, and it strife are were stand a fresh aray? Also arose, like tapers clear     as crystal eyes—’and don’t know not while

down the sun. I love, disgrace: knowing old, I should     be quenchers of some here all thing;—a dove for, but die the moonlight her, and slow, of comely     fair; the earth was to you growes

neere than answer, or adamant, to dazzled downe     hurt or heart-strings folde, their doubting communed with jellies fitte, but do not just proportion     wanting. Attend to win ye, O:

nae ither used by that first and favours light, hoodwink’d     with the walks with her about thee were but listen’d to inhale thunder. Gentlemen     my Muse; I teach heights connubial make

the stone cuckoo! The dimness of the head, and by     clear raindrops in you birth the vaunted a pieces shivered fair to none. As those two lovely     woe, there, for no sound that upstairs

neighbours’ land, the aged creation, till I take!     This good vse doth tuch those gaynen with large drops fell our heart! Star by his eyes: from moonlight     well-built housetop lonely spent, in

the eye and tomorrow, have a haram is in     thy voiceless truth and she said, Ruined.— But always at all mirrhor, as I do to the     good satire, Fair day I read—two

letters. Only the dore special jury of some     parallels in the poets between us and thee embrace; and were all we feed? But     on high classes bleach time, great least to

be lov’d, neglected and begg’d that if he hateful     for death in that after all my nest is made the slept, since all felt himself in eyes sparkle,     and coughing ships, and my breast: her

future was the years. I might seemed shee knew you loved     well knew could will the dust in the park is most modestly call’d on behind yon shrine, he     drank. The joys of ecstatic worships

its breathed for the tumbling made in the rights there were     final sign the starving home. Both pype play, be assured stormy seas and my fingers that     you sleep I never say suppose metal

the doubt! Is no dream a rich old lineage:     not one spake, an affluent orators, quakes, is happier men may not there, heaping     vp waues of nature’s willes entices,

louers pitie: looke a little black weeds of too subtle     Censor scrutinize. And girl and deter a second not missile, would not know she’s honest     man, there fedde. Even slowly strangers

the sicken noodle soul it circumspection     which where half impair’d? In which is occasion lose his breathe my pype, albeit turn back     at us, and is apt to catches

o’ her lordly left to do, the Queen, with iron     burned they in the held it till triumphantly. His should understand. As thus medled him     out. I know; and without mirth and test!

[nvsrworld]

17/1/2024: FARMERS' DAY.

None can give greater tributes to the farmers and Farming other than Tamil Saint  Poet Thiruvalluvar whose day was celebrated  on 16th including  a post in this Blog! The following ten couplets -chapter 104 of the Magnum Opus: Farming though hard is foremost tradeMen ply at will but ploughmen lead                 kural 1031 Tillers are linch-pin of mankindBearing the rest who cannot tend.     …

[edharrisdaily]

Ed Harris talks Kodachrome, Westworld and the state of America

Riding high with his killer role in television’s Westworld, Ed Harris continues to bring the flinty characters that have been the hallmark of his career to the stage and the big screen.

Ed Harris has become something of a symbol for the single-minded American man. He’s used his resonant voice and intense blue-eyed gaze to play cowboys and astronauts, soldiers and sheriffs, artists and assassins.

That means he’s worn many hats: a beret as Kristof, the genius reality-television puppetmaster in The Truman Show; helmets – diving ones and space ones – in The Abyss and The Right Stuff respectively. The latter, in which he played Mercury astronaut John Glenn, proved a career breakthrough: a shot of him as Glenn made the cover of Newsweek just as the real Glenn headed into politics.

There have been plenty of Stetsons, too. He wears a big black one as the merciless Man in Black in the television series Westworld. That character could be a distant relative of the black-hatted title character he played in 1987’s Walker, the craziest movie of his career – well, until last year’s Mother! – about the American who appointed himself president of Nicaragua in the 1850s. It lives on in cult infamy.

On the line from New York, Harris laughs at the millinery-oriented overview of his career. “Ha, ha, ha. I just like wearing hats – especially as I don’t have any hair on top of my head.”

In his new film, Kodachrome, he sports a jaunty Panama to play a famous photographer who embarks with his estranged adult son on a road trip from New York to Kansas, to the last laboratory still processing the colour-slide film of the title.

It’s a relatively low-key role for Harris, not least because his prickly character is dying. “It was a great character to play. I had a really good time doing it.”

He is a man who, it must be said, sounds much friendlier than some of the characters he plays. “How are things in New Zealand?” he asks. Good, thanks. How are things in the US? “Good God almighty,” he chuckles. “Pretty pitiful situation, I guess, at the moment, eh? It’s embarrassing.”

At 67, Harris is a man whose career remains on a steady roll. In the past couple of decades, he’s appeared in plenty of big films but also managed to direct two of his own – notably the acclaimed Pollock, a biopic of the abstract artist Jackson Pollock, in which he also played the title role – and spend time treading the boards of Off-Broadway theatres.

When we talk, he and his wife of 35 years, Amy Madigan, are coming to the end of the season of the David Rabe play Good for Otto in New York. They were on stage together in London early last year, too, in Buried Child by the late Sam Shepard, who was also a Right Stuff alumnus. Do husband and wife come as a package?

“We have of late. It’s been really fun, you know.”

Born in New Jersey, Harris was a high-school athlete and football star before he attended Columbia University, and didn’t take up acting until his family shifted to New Mexico. He studied drama at Oklahoma University, then in Los Angeles, where he’s been based ever since.

He met Madigan when they were both cast in the Depression-era film Places in the Heart, starring Sally Field. They’ve since appeared in nine movies together, including Pollock, in which she played art collector Peggy Guggenheim.

The idea for the film was sparked when Harris’ father gave him a copy of a biography of the artist, but it took 10 years for the actor to get it to the screen.

It won him a best-actor Oscar nomination (co-star Marcia Gay Harden lifted the statuette for best supporting actress) and cemented Harris’ reputation as a single-minded tough nut. He famously smashed a chair on set to give Harden’s performance a jolt.

The film took its toll on the Harris-Madigan family finances. “I spent a ton of my own money on that film. You know I didn’t need to, but I had to. So I wouldn’t have changed that for the world.

“I had spent so much time working on developing the script and working on this guy and painting and getting to know people that knew him and getting the rights to his works … I was totally immersed in it. And I didn’t care what I had to do to make the film right.

“I mixed that film twice completely and went to three different composers. I would have done whatever I had to do to get it what I wanted it to be. I didn’t even think about it. I mean, my wife was kind of going ‘Ed, what are you doing?’. But we survived.”

If Pollock was an artistic triumph in step with his challenging stage work, in the movies Harris remains better known as a go-to guy for a voice of authority: in Apollo 13, he was mission controller Gene Kranz (“Failure is not an option”), and he’s played a fair few sheriffs, colonels and generals.

Nasa – the real one – has asked him a few times to perform narration duties on commemorations. He can’t get away from it in the movies, either. When Sandra Bullock’s stranded astronaut calls Houston in Gravity, that’s Harris responding.

“I mean, I am fascinated by space but it’s not something that’s like a major thing in my life.”

Harris’ commanding tones haven’t always been that commanding. “I used to have a really thick Jersey accent when I was going to college,” he says, “and just over the years, you know, part of my craft is to be able to use my voice appropriately for whatever given character.

“And I actually feel really good about the whole vocal stuff in Kodachrome, because it’s lower-register and pretty relaxed.”

The last time he played a dying man on screen – a poet with Aids in The Hours in 2002 – he got the fourth of his four Oscar nominations for it. Playing another one – and another difficult artist – in Kodachrome was harder than it looks.

“He might not be that active but physically it’s really challenging because he’s hurting, he’s aged, he’s frail. His mind is still sharp. Even to play an invalid you have to be in pretty good shape because you have to be able to use your body in a way that allows you do that.”

The film is also a meditation on the cultural change that has come with an increasingly digitised world. So where does Harris, a man who plays a robot-killing cowboy on television, sit on the digital-analogue spectrum?

“I’m a bit of a dinosaur, I’m afraid. You know it’s passing me by big-time. I am decent on the computer and that kind of thing but first of all I really like film films.

“I take a few decent photos I have a great old Leica camera that I actually used in the movie and I’ve taken some pretty good photographs. But I haven’t done much of late. I’ve been toying with the idea of building a little darkroom and getting to shoot some black and white but that’s just in my head at the moment.”

Presumably the photos would go up on the wall chez Harris-Madigan next to the Pollocks he painted in character.

“Well, a couple of friends got some, and one of the things about making that movie was you would shoot what he might be doing on canvas and you see that. But then to save time and canvas they put the camera back on me painting, and I will be painting over stuff that I thought was actually not so bad and just totally f---ing it up. So there wasn’t that much work left that I thought was decent.”

Harris is hoping to direct a psychological thriller based on Kim Zupan’s 2015 book The Ploughmen, about a Montana deputy sheriff and a local serial killer. Until then, Westworld gives him a regular pay cheque and keeps him busy for most of the year. So does figuring out what is going on in the show.

No, he didn’t know the twist about his character – that another regular character in the wild west android theme park was actually the Man in Black too, at a younger age. And that he owns the place. It was all bit of a surprise.

“You never know where they are going to take you. I’ve never worked on something where you find out in episode six something very basic about your character that might have been nice to know in episode one.

“I think they think that it’s going to keep the actors fresh or something. I told them, ‘Well, you know, last year I did 125 performances of Buried Child, and I knew what the script was going to be and what was going to happen with the character, and the 125th performance was just as fresh and alive as the first one. I don’t have a problem understanding and knowing what is going to happen to my character.’ But whatever.”

He’s not complaining. He has steady work in a high-profile show that is kind of a western, a genre he loves. He directed his own very good one, Appaloosa, in 2008. That one featured Viggo Mortensen, Jeremy Irons, Renée Zellweger and no killer robots. In Westworld he’s enjoying being a gun for hire and wearing that hat of his.

“I like putting on my Man in Black outfit. It makes me feel good.”

[justforbooks]

Homer, Iliad 18.468-607

In this passage, Homer describes the making of the shield of Achilles, and, in particular, an elaborate picture engraved by the god Hephaestus, depicting a wide range of human activities. At this point in the Iliad, Achilles has moved to a new level of rage: beyond the insult to his honor that originally motivated his withdrawal from the Greek effort, Achilles is now seething because his dearest companion, Patroclus, has been killed by Trojan Hector while fighting in Achilles' own armor. Achilles once again enters the war, clad in some new armor (including the shield) from Thetis, his divine mother, and Hephaestus, but he's burning with savage revenge, which drives him to some horrific actions. Homer's audience was supposed to remember the shield as they listened to the blood-soaked marauding of enraged Achilles in battle, and the stark contrast it presents to the warrior ethic typically celebrated in Greek culture.

Keep in mind as well the long oral tradition associated with the composition of Homeric epic: it's clear that material from the Late Bronze Age has been preserved in these poems and handed down to a later period of time.

Consider:

what kind of world is depicted on the shield? what basic features of human society are represented? what aspects does the poet emphasize?

what kind of conflict is shown on the shield? what impact does it have on human society?

(478) First of all he forged a shield that was huge and heavy,

elaborating it about, and threw around it a shining

triple rim that glittered, and the shield strap was cast of silver.

There were five folds composing the shield itself, and upon it

he elaborated many things in his skill and craftsmanship.

(483) He made the earth upon it, and the sky, and the sea's water,

and the tireless sun, and the moon waxing into her fullness,

and on it all the constellations that festoon the heavens,

the Pleiades and the Hyades and the strength of Orion

and the Bear, whom men give also the name of the Wagon,

who turns about in a fixed place and looks at Orion

and she alone is never plunged in the wash of the Ocean.

(490) On it he wrought in all their beauty two cities of mortal

men. And there were marriages in one, and festivals.

They were leading the brides along the city from their maiden chambers

under the flaring of torches, and the loud bride song was arising.

The young men followed the circles of the dance, and among them

the flutes and lyres kept up their clamour as in the meantime

the women standing each at the door of her court admired them.

The people were assembled in the market place, where a quarrel

had arisen, and two men were disputing over the blood price

for a man who had been killed. One man promised full restitution

in a public statement, but the other refused and would accept nothing.

Both then made for an arbitrator, to have a decision;

and people were speaking up on either side, to help both men.

But the heralds kept the people in hand, as meanwhile the elders

were in session on benches of polished stone in the sacred circle

and held in their hands the staves of the heralds who lift their voices.

The two men rushed before these, and took turns speaking their cases,

and between them lay on the ground two talents of gold, to be given

to that judge who in this case spoke the straightest opinion.

(509) But around the other city were lying two forces of armed men

shining in their war gear. For one side counsel was divided

whether to storm and sack, or share between both sides the property

and all the possessions the lovely citadel held hard within it.

But the city's people were not giving way, and armed for an ambush.

Their beloved wives and their little children stood on the rampart

to hold it, and with them the men with age upon them, but meanwhile

the others went out. And Ares led them, and Pallas Athene.

These were gold, both, and golden raiment upon them, and they were

beautiful and huge in their armour, being divinities,

and conspicuous from afar, but the people around them were smaller.

These, when they were come to the place that was set for their ambush,

in a river, where there was a watering place for all animals,

there they sat down in place shrouding themselves in the bright bronze.

But apart from these were sitting two men to watch for the rest of them

and waiting until they could see the sheep and the shambling cattle,

who appeared presently, and two herdsmen went along with them

playing happily on pipes, and took no thought of the treachery.

Those others saw them, and made a rush, and quickly thereafter

cut off on both sides the herds of cattle and the beautiful

flocks of shining sheep, and killed the shepherds upon them.

But the other army, as soon as they heard the uproar arising

from the cattle, as they sat in their councils, suddenly mounted

behind their light-foot horses, and went after, and soon overtook them.

These stood their ground and fought a battle by the banks of the river,

and they were making casts at each other with their spears bronze-headed;

and Hate was there with Confusion among them, and Death the destructive;

she was holding a live man with a new wound, and another

one unhurt, and dragged a dead man by the feet through the carnage.

The clothing upon her shoulders showed strong red with the men's blood.

All closed together like living men and fought with each other

and dragged away from each other the corpses of those who had fallen.

(541) He made upon it a soft field, the pride of the tilled land,

wide and triple-ploughed, with many ploughmen upon it

who wheeled their teams at the turn and drove them in either direction.

And as these making their turn would reach the end-strip of the field,

a man would come up to them at this point and hand them a flagon

of honey-sweet wine, and they would turn again to the furrows

in their haste to come again to the end-strip of the deep field.

The earth darkened behind them and looked like earth that has been ploughed

though it was gold. Such was the wonder of the shield's forging.

(550) He made on it the precinct of a king, where the labourers

were reaping, with the sharp reaping hooks in their hands. Of the cut swathes

some fell along the lines of reaping, one after another,

while the sheaf-binders caught up others and tied them with bind-ropes.

There were three sheaf-binders who stood by, and behind them

were children picking up the cut swathes, and filled their arms with them

and carried and gave them always; and by them the king in silence

and holding his staff stood near the line of the reapers, happily.

And apart and under a tree the heralds made a feast ready

and trimmed a great ox they had slaughtered. Meanwhile the women

scattered, for the workmen to eat, abundant white barley.

(561) He made on it a great vineyard heavy with clusters,

lovely and in gold, but the grapes upon it were darkened

and the vines themselves stood out through poles of silver. About them

he made a field-ditch of dark metal, and drove all around this

a fence of tin; and there was only one path to the vineyard,

and along it ran the grape-bearers for the vineyard's stripping.

Young girls and young men, in all their light-hearted innocence,

carried the kind, sweet fruit away in their woven baskets,

and in their midst a youth with a singing lyre played charmingly

upon it for them, and sang the beautiful song for Linos

in a light voice, and they followed him, and with singing and whistling

and light dance-steps of their feet kept time to the music.

(573) He made upon it a herd of horn-straight oxen. The cattle

were wrought of gold and of tin, and thronged in speed and with lowing

out of the dung of the farmyard to a pasturing place by a sounding

river, and beside the moving field of a reed bed.

The herdsmen were of gold who went along with the cattle,

four of them, and nine dogs shifting their feet followed them.

But among the foremost of the cattle two formidable lions

had caught hold of a bellowing bull, and he with loud lowings

was dragged away, as the dogs and the young men went in pursuit of him.

But the two lions, breaking open the hide of the great ox,

gulped the black blood and the inward guts, as meanwhile the herdsmen

were in the act of setting and urging the quick dogs on them.

But they, before they could get their teeth in, turned back from the lions,

but would come and take their stand very close, and bayed, and kept clear.

(587) And the renowned smith of the strong arms made on it a meadow

large and in a lovely valley for the glimmering sheepflocks,

with dwelling places upon it, and covered shelters, and sheepfolds.

(590) And the renowned smith of the strong arms made elaborate on it

a dancing floor, like that which once in the wide spaces of Knossos

Daidalos built for Ariadne of the lovely tresses.

And there were young men on it and young girls, sought for their beauty

with gifts of oxen, dancing, and holding hands at the wrist. These

wore, the maidens long light robes, but the men wore tunics

of finespun work and shining softly, touched with olive oil.

And the girls wore fair garlands on their heads, while the young men

carried golden knives that hung from sword-belts of silver.

At whiles on their understanding feet they would run very lightly,

as when a potter crouching makes trial of his wheel, holding

it close in his hands, to see if it will run smooth. At another

time they would form rows, and run, rows crossing each other.

And around the lovely chorus of dancers stood a great multitude

happily watching, while among the dancers two acrobats

led the measures of song and dance revolving among them.

(606) He made on it the great strength of the Ocean River

which ran around the uttermost rim of the shield's strong structure.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[baptonbooks]

Mr Pyle writes in:

I am pleased to be able to present you with, as a sample, the first two scenes of the first chapter of Mr Wemyss’ Ordinary Time, to whet your appetites:

Professor Millicent, The Baroness Lacy (of Merryhill and Mansell Lacy in the County of Herefordshire, for her life), looked out of the window at the frosty day – and smiled. It was an excellent day for muffins and lashings of tea, and very much not the sort of day one wished to see in the digging season, which this most assuredly was not. She was eminently comfortable where she was, in the Coursing Lodge hard by Somerford Tout Saints, there upon the Downlands in Wildest Wilts.

The old Coursing Lodge had been one of the hiding places of the Second Charles – whose many-times-great-nephew, Charles duke of Taunton, Lady Lacy was soon to marry – after Worcester; the new and present lodge, by James Gibbs, housed her, for now, and housed also the various offices of His Grace’ agent; His Grace’ steward; and her own Great Archaeological Dig there in the Downlands and the Vale. The Coursing Lodge of the present was very characteristically a classic sample of that secret recusant’s – and secret Jacobite’s – Gibbs’ work: and Lady Lacy was accordingly quite at home there, Gibbs having (after all) been the architect for the Rad Cam (and for All Souls’ Codrington Library) at Oxford and for the Senate House at Cambridge, and Professor The Baroness Lacy having taken degrees at both Universities and being a Quondam Fellow of All Souls.

Millicent Lacy was one of the greater lights in ‘Hist.-&-Arch.’. Her ducal husband-to-be was equally a notable and celebrated historian.

It was, all the same, largely by a sort of osmosis, rather than by research quâ research, and by some odd, unspoken, hedgerow-telegraph communication from no one in particular, out of the oldest memories and forgotten tales, that she came, had come, to acquire, all unconsciously, a deep knowledge of her new countryside.

It had been, after all, very much the same in Mansell Lacy. One simply knew, when quite young, that an old field, just there, had been the holding of a villein under Ulfkil, and, here, long since reverted to the plough, the cottage long ago of a cottar whose lord had been Godric; and that both had, afterward, been in the hands – quite likely the same hands, or those of a son or grandson – of someone owing suit and feudal service to Gruffydd Puer, who had cynically snapped up, Welshly, a Marcher trifle through a shrewd accommodation with the new Norman overlords of England.

That the curious declivity in Farmer Eckley’s fields, over towards Foxley and Yarsop, beyond Nash Wood, was the last trace of a German bomber which had careened away, fatally damaged, from the bombing of Dudley in November of 1940, and had made it remarkably far from the place of its doom, directionless and blind, was simply understood; and one could hardly say when – or, indeed, if, or how – one had been specifically told so.

That there’d been Pembers and Isbells, Triggs and Likes and Stalkers and Baynhams, who’d survived – or not – the Mutiny, who’d fallen at Ladysmith, and at Gallipoli, and at the Somme, and at Caen and at Arnhem, and in Korea, one knew without being told; just as Baynhams and Stalkers and Likes, Triggs, Isbells, and Pembers, had seen Bangalore, and Vimeiro, and Flushing and Salamanca, and Dunkirk and the Western Desert … and Culloden and Falkirk and Lauffeld and Belle Île and battles innumerable and forgotten, over many ages. Some had come safe home; others slept in foreign fields. And the blood of every family in the parish, one knew without wanting to be told, antedating the modern surnames which now bore it forwards, had been present – and shed – at Pencoed in 720, in Hereford’s battles against the Welsh in 760 and in 1056, in fronting the Danes, in the bloody border wars of Mercia; as afterward, at Ludford Bridge and Mortimer’s Cross and … well: one knew that the shopkeepers and the farmers and the village as a whole were the sons and daughters in many generations of the men who’d put up the hillforts and garrisoned the little keeps and castles – no few of them Lacy castles –, and had sent archers to the battles of the wars of Stephen and Maud, and to Cressy and Agincourt, and who had held Hereford town for the Stuarts against the Scots or worn the russet of the Parliamentarians under Waller or Birch or Morgan; who had served in the Low Countries in the Protestant cause against Spain, or hidden Jesuits in priest’s holes and, perhaps, served Parma against Elizabeth 1st; who’d sailed with the Royal Navy, or been transported for poaching or Chartism, or had died, one or twelve of them, in Irish bogs for religion in Tudor times, or in the dust of Spain in the Thirties for ideology’s sake.

They’d gone, too, the wilder ones or the more dutiful, to Australia and Canada, New Zealand and India and South Africa, to America and the Argentine, or to crowd the factory towns of the West Midlands in the first hectic flush of industry, or to seek what fortune proffered in London; or turned pirate, or took service with John Company, or sweated their lives away in Malaya or HK. And some had been hanged, and some had been murdered, and some had simply vanished from all knowing. Peasants, priests, ploughmen, and privateers; severe Puritans, Singapore and Straits Settlements police, squire-parsons, and sergeant pilots shot down over the Ruhr; victims of Vikings; rectors and reprobates; families carried off wholesale by the Sweating Sickness or the Black Death; dissidents, divines, and Dissenters; hauliers and highwaymen; lords and labourers and Luddites, agitators and aristocrats and artisans: the men and women of one small parish, and every parish in England being able to say the same. Their distant kin they’d left behind them knew them not; yet these remained without recall or legend, in the little fields and woods they once had known and which knew their ghosts yet. Their stories were lost, their names and histories forgotten, save by God; yet they lived on, impalpably, and the bones’ marrows of those who came after sensed them beyond sense.

So it had been in Mansell Lacy when Millicent had been small; and so it was in the Woolfonts in her maturity. As it ever is, and ever was, in a land in which the old hillforts and rings and henges yet recall folk long vanished, and every burning of what the billhook brings down calls up anew the firing of cottages by the Great Heathen Army, and the beacons which alerted all England that the Armada had been sighted off Ushant, and the incendiaries of the Luftwaffe.

*****

In those parts of the District, the old Malet Honour after 1066, which were not devoted to sheep (as most were), or dairying (as parts of the Vale were, and parts, also, of the Cheese Country northwards of The Woolfonts and the Here Way and Grimsbarrow, towards Wanscombe and Pebdown and beyond), or arable (largely in the Vale), the forthcoming ducal nuptials were marked, noted, and mostly forgotten: for after sheep and milk and a little bit of arable farming, the District were next mostly concerned with pigs and poultry.

And January is a season of birthing and new life: farrowing time for sows (and thus a laborious season for pigkeepers and vets.): just as late February, after the duke and his new duchess should doubtless be back at Wolfdown, was always, year upon year, weaning time. The land has its rhythms, and they reck little of all human affairs save – in the case of pigs – such considerations as birth-registering new piglets, and, in the District, come April and the Feast of S George, Wadhay Pig Fair (and all which that entailed in AMLS2s and movement books and standstills after). Governments and scholars, peers and poets, come and go: but saints endure, and parishes; and pigs go on forever.

*****

[scotianostra]

Burns wrote this poem in the winter of 1785 and it appeared the next year in his first published volume: Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect.

Burns’s love of whisky has become almost as famous as his works, but it is unlikely to have had the ill effects on his health that were suggested after his death. Although he assuredly enjoyed a drink or two, there’s little evidence that he regularly drank to excess. He was a prolific writer, worked long hours on his farms and even made a living as an exciseman (a job that was hated across rural Scotland) for a number of years.

This poem was written in reference to the passing of an Act in 1784 that prohibited the Forbes family of Culloden from distilling their popular Ferintosh whisky free of duty. Burns was angered by the British government’s taxation of the drink. Here he celebrates the role whisky played in the life of the ordinary man – from festival days to gathering the harvest and settling neighbourly disputes.

Scotch Drink

Gie him strong drink until he wink, That’s sinking in despair; An’ liquor guid to fire his bluid, That’s prest wi’ grief and care: There let him bowse, an’ deep carouse, Wi’ bumpers flowing o’er, Till he forgets his loves or debts, An’ minds his griefs no more.

[Solomon’s Proverbs, xxxi. 6, 7]

Let other poets raise a fracas Bout vines, an’ wines, an’ drucken Bacchus, An’ crabbit names an’ stories wrack us, An’ grate our lug: I sing the juice Scotch bear can mak us, In glass or jug. O thou, my Muse! guid auld Scotch drink! Whether thro’ wimplin’ worms thou jink, Or, richly brown, ream owre the brink, In glorious faem, Inspire me, till I lisp an’ wink, To sing thy name! Let husky wheat the haughs adorn, An’ aits set up their awnie horn, An’ pease and beans, at e’en or morn, Perfume the plain: Leeze me on thee, John Barleycorn, Thou king o’ grain! On thee aft Scotland chows her cood, In souple scones, the wale o’ food! Or tumbling in the boiling flood Wi’ kail an’ beef; But when thou pours thy strong heart’s blood There thou shines chief. Food fills the wame, an’ keeps us livin’; Tho life’s a gift no worth receivin’, When heavy-dragg’d wi’ pine an’ grievin’; But oil’d by thee, The wheels o’ life gae down-hill, scrievin’, Wi’ rattlin’ glee. Thou clears the head o’ doited Lear, Thou cheers the heart o’ drooping Care; Thou strings the nerves o’ Labour sair, At’s weary toil; Thou ev’n brightens dark Despair Wi’ gloomy smile. Aft, clad in massy siller weed, Wi’ gentles thou erects thy head; Yet humbly kind in time o’ need, The poor man’s wine: His wee drap parritch, or his bread, Thou kitchens fine. Thou art the life o’ public haunts; But thee, what were our fairs and rants? Ev’n godly meetings o’ the saunts, By thee inspir’d, When, gaping, they besiege the tents, Are doubly fir’d. That merry night we get the corn in, O sweetly, then, thou reams the horn in! Or reekin’ on a New-Year mornin’ In cog or bicker, An' just a wee drap sp'ritual  burn in, An’ gusty sucker! When Vulcan gies his bellows breath, An’ ploughmen gather wi’ their graith, O rare! to see thee fizz an’ freath I’ th’ lugget caup! Then Burnewin comes on like death At every chaup. Nae mercy, then, for airn or steel: The brawnie, bainie, ploughman chiel, Brings hard owrehip, wi’ sturdy wheel, The strong forehammer, Till block an’ studdie ring an’ reel, Wi’ dinsome clamour. When skirlin’ weanies see the light, Thou maks the gossips clatter bright, How fumblin’ cuifs their dearies slight; Wae worth the name! Nae howdie gets a social night, Or plack frae them. When neebors anger at a plea, An’ just as wud as wud can be, How easy can the barley-brie Cement the quarrel! It’s aye the cheapest lawyer’s fee, To taste the barrel. Alake! that e’er my Muse has reason, To wyte her countrymen wi’ treason! But monie daily weet their weason Wi’ liquors nice, An’ hardly, in a winter season, E’er spier her price. Wae worth that brandy, burnin’ trash! Fell source o’ monie a pain an’ brash! Twins monie a poor, doylt, drucken hash O’ half his days; An’ sends, beside, auld Scotland’s cash To her warst faes. Ye Scots, wha wish auld Scotland well! Ye chief, to you my tale I tell, Poor, plackless devils like mysel! It sets you ill, Wi’ bitter, dearthfu’ wines to mell, Or foreign gill. May gravels round his blather wrench, An’ gouts torment him, inch by inch, Wha twists his gruntle wi’ a glunch O’ sour disdain, Out owre a glass o’ whisky-punch Wi’ honest men! O Whisky! soul o’ plays and pranks! Accept a Bardie’s gratefu’ thanks! When wanting thee, what tuneless cranks Are my poor verses! Thou comes – they rattle i’ their ranks, At ither’s arses! Thee, Ferintosh! O sadly lost! Scotland lament frae coast to coast! Now colic grips, an’ barkin’ hoast May kill us a’; For loyal Forbes’ charter’d boast Is ta’en awa! Thae curst horse-leeches o’ the’ Excise, Wha mak the whisky stells their prize! Haud up thy han’, Deil! ance, twice, thrice! There, seize the blinkers! An’ bake them up in brunstane pies For poor damn’d drinkers. Fortune! if thou’ll but gie me still Hale breeks, a scone, an’ whisky gill, An’ rowth o’ rhyme to rave at will, Tak a’ the rest, An’ deal’t about as thy blind skill Directs thee best.

And for those that struggled a wee bit with some words , here’s a translation......

bowse = booze drucken = drunken; crabbit = bad-tempered; wrack = annoy; lug = ear; bear = barley wimplin’ worms = winding spiral tubes in a whisky still; owre = over; ream = froth; faem = foam haughs = hollows; aits = oats; awnie = bearded; Leeze me on thee = blessings; John Barleycorn = the traditional personification of alcoholic drinks chows = chews; cood = cud; souple = soft; wale = choice wame = belly; scrievin’ = careering doited = muddled; Lear = learning; sair = sore massy siller weed = very fine clothing; gentles = gentry; wee drap parritch = little bit of porridge; kitchens = seasons But thee = without you; saunts = saints reekin’ = steaming; cog or bicker = bowl or beaker; gusty sucker = tasty sugar Vulcan = god of fire and metalworking; graith = gear; freath = froth; lugget caup = two-eared cup; Burnewin = blacksmith; chaup = stroke airn = iron; brawnie = muscular; bainie = bony; chiel = lad; studdie = anvil skirlin’ weanies = crying babies; clatter = babble; cuifs = fools; Wae worth = Woe betide; howdie = midwife; plack = farthing wud = wild/angry; barley-brie = barley-brew Alake = Alas; wyte = charge; weason = throat; spier = ask Fell = harsh/cruel; brash = illness; Twins = robs; doylt = muddled; hash = oaf plackless = penniless; sets = becomes; dearthfu’ = costly; mell = meddle; gill = a measure of drink blather = bladder; gruntle = face; glunch = sneer cranks = creakings Ferintosh = a whisky distillery that belonged to Forbes of Culloden; hoast = cough Thae = those; stells = stills; blinkers = spies; brunstane = brimstone Hale breeks = trousers with no holes; rowth = store

[libidomechanica]

My future waiters, poems must retire

Leaving poets through our scant patch.     Ah, Lycius, looking from the Solway, but with a continual     has poured a glade

of Carib fire, bequeathed their pleasure,     for his dress, or the and dream, when she look? Oh me! And     yet separation; and

the cape’s wet breathing all kiss handsome,     and my passing, Now vse the world of what is youth and     lived? She slept in contend

no man beneath that other once,     in ships, in the call, the Vision grew the cup that’s one can     sing which array after

dinner admitted both to war’s     alarms, and that the highest in think I cannot speake in     love, I could some peoples—

go on with a things are those whose     avarice all, an English fire grand are. And though my gentle     haire; her popular

circumstance of some he saith. By     human rose free. That he find a broke, may quickly on each     for each, find but speakes sense

among the harvest mountain, the     honey or your love, again when I speaks her losing. My     future waiters, poems

must retire from Pyrrho, on     a glade of Bow Street’s ban on which don’t hinters, its lastly     on the shade alone

dismantling the shall now no more, forcing     sweet or could even but never gardens pale an upper     sphere: she shudder, love,

and back again. In which can find     out there in hair at a time, and glows; and often sheets smells     like they grew faint! Angel

of adoring to Corinth, as     any nail inanity, of rivalship rose alone,     i’ll tak dunts frae my mammie

coft me first, thought he, Let others.     Beauties small are the Fourth at once establish’d he had been     a personified in;

dark, the Pincke and flute; rough roads leaves     scarce skimm’d the Ring of faithlessness of mine eyes were voice to     wash of gallant capital

of the wish to please, and judg’d,     and grows fair Lamia’s eager then they right dungeons like my     reason to laugheth in

me hast all akin upon the     dreams. Resort good does this blown up for ploughmen’s heart and this     epic and faces, other

ioy hath brag thousand aves     the love! Glare their excellence. To the gloom profane I will     beleeue me, that, not the onward

bends, laughing the contrived a     pretty women torture fit; never the morning, day, a     hare limp’d trembling for gold.

[nvsrworld]

FARMER'S DAY - 17th January

FARMER’S DAY – 17th January

None can give greater tributes to the farmers and Farming other than Tamil Saint  Poet Thiruvalluvar whose day was celebrated  on 16th including  a post in this Blog! The following ten couplets -chapter 104 of the Magnum Opus:

Farming though hard is foremost trade Men ply at will but ploughmen lead                 kural 1031

Tillers are linch-pin of mankind Bearing the rest who cannot tend.     …