It was not so much that the streets were filled with fear that puzzled me as that you seemed to be dsecribing that fear as your bequest. As you describe your activities, that bequest should logically be something much more positive. It was this that had me wondering.


Best wishes,   Mike




--- Alkuperäinen viesti ---
Thanks Mike. The ' winter hill' of the first stanza is a physical reality, I
live on a high hill , part of the moors that overlook the town where I live.
If it snows anywhere it snows here. The winter hill of the last stanza is a
symbol of my 'accumulated years'.The two references close off the poem I
feel.
Why does the line about streets filled with fear puzzle you, I wondered, and
then realised that you are in Finland and not England. Finland and all
places North seem a good place to be just now. England is filled with fear
some of it rational some irrational. Fear of muggings, rape, murder, terror,
you name it.  I have fought all my life for a better world, marched with CND
to Greenham Common, struck for better working conditions and wages, altered
life directions to teach and even now remain involved in Education, I am
entitled to regret that all that seems wasted. Arthur.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Horwood" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2003 12:11 PM
Subject: Re: Song for my Seventieth


Hello again Arthur,
                    The villanelle form is not a great favourite of mine in
itself but you´ve certainly made a very good job of resolving its
difficulties here. I was a bit puzzled by line 2 in S3 but puzzlement is
becoming something of a norm with me - I´ve just failed to notice the
cigarette in Grasshopper´s poem and the penny didn´t drop until I opened
your comment on that piece. Incidentally, was the phrase `winter hill´
suggested at all by the poem I posted recently, `On Winter Hill´? I don´t
think anyone commented on the idea that the `winter hill´ of that poem was
the narrator´s life.
Have a great seventieth.

Best wishes,   Mike






--- Alkuperäinen viesti ---

            Song for my Seventieth


Celebrate these accumulating years?
Who mounts to sing from this high winter hill
shall ring a peal from my bright bell of tears,

for everywhere derisive laughter jeers,
derides the many ways by which we will
celebrate these accumulating years.

I do regret this world?s brimful of fears,
and my bequest the darkening streets they fill.
They ring a peal from my bright bell of tears.



Though horrors gather as my birthday nears,
my family and my friends around me still
celebrate these accumulating years.

So love prevails, I hear their happy cheers,
who stride tomorrow's edge where young lives chill.
They ring a peal from my bright bell of tears.



Look for me then where no one comes and hears,
saddened and cold on my high winter hill.
Celebrate these accumulating years
and ring a peal from my bright bell of tears.