Desmond
Well I'm glad it wasn't John Heyrick lurking on the net all the time
considering the efforts I had to go to in order to see his book: the piece I
posted I copied out in pencil at the archive - no pens or other implements
allowed! As well as travelling up to Wigston. In near rain.
There was this lovely sensation of handling this 200 year old book that had
been touched by so few. I think I missed a vocation.
He was from the same family as the celebrated Robert Herrick, same family
different spelling, there was also another one, poet that is, in the 17th
century, Thomas Heyrick.
2009/10/22 Desmond Swords <[log in to unmask]>
> Cheers Bircumshaw, I really like it. The thy thee thou thine oft o'erness
> is
> so minimal, i thought, until I discovered this archive.org link to his
> work,
> that these two stanzas might be part of your own practice: some flarf
> strategy of passing off your own gear by presenting it as the work of a
> fictional obscure poet, a la whatsiface the nu ka ka ka Kent whatsigob..
>
>
> http://www.archive.org/stream/hardyremainslit000hardrich/hardyremainslit000hardrich_djvu.txt
>
> On first reading it, I was wondering were all the thees and thous were,
> thinking ...hey, hold on a mo 'I', could this be a post po-mo ironic
> posturing by master D, perhaps...that yonder breaks some conceptual hoodoo
> whose purpose is to trickster the plebs, cuz the thee thou malarky tis not
> present to put one off...and hark, look, only at the final couplet does thy
> soft control render to sweet sounds that break o'er the contemporary
> without
> causing pain or aural injury...This is too good, one projected, I must
> google and hopefully settle the flicker of paranoid stab one got one first
> reading.
>
> Hence the link.
>
> ~
>
> And reading the opening of it, it occurred to me that that the sentiments
> expressed by ...
>
> ...arghhhh...
>
> oops, made a mistake, it isn't Heryck but a geezer called John Stockdale
> Hardy, Esquire
>
> In the Will of: dated
>
> 4th May, 1847, is contained as follows : —
>
> "I give and bequeath all my Literary Memoranda and Manu-
> scripts to my friend John Gough Nichols, of Parliament Street,
> in the City of Westminster, Esquire, with a request that he will
> look them over and publish such of them as he thinks proper to
> be collected, together with the pamphlets I have already published,
> and collect them and the said pamphlets into a volume, such
> volume to be entitled, * The Remains of John Stockdale Hardy,
> F.S. A. sometime Registrar of the Archdeaconry Courts of Leices-
> ter.' Of this publication I of course wish him to act as the Editor.
> I particularly wish the said John Gough Nichols to attend my
> funeral. And I give and bequeath to him the sum of 56150 to
> defray the expense of the above-mentioned publication, and the
> sum of 36200 as a personal legacy and a mark of my esteem for
> him. I wish such of the articles which I communicated to the
> * Gentleman's Magazine ' as he may deem fitting to be reprinted in
> the aforesaid volume. I began to correspond in that publication
> in the year 1809, and the first article I wrote appeared in the
> Magazine for the month of August in that year."
>
>
> Here we are, imagining as untutored middle-aged marrieds, that our leaks
> one
> day before we're gone, will flash around the globe and light the page of
> every rag from the echo to review, and as the years pass it dawns on us
> that: no, there are no hoardes clamouring to hear our songs of life and
> love; but only the sound of others, silent in the forest, or tu-wit
> tu-wooing as best we can...
>
> When you compel the bird of night
> To view the sun with eagle's eye,
> Or with his bold undaunted flight
> To penetrate the noon-day sky,
>
> Then under the same soft control,
> In polish'd strains I'll learn to trace,
> The countless virtues of thy soul,
> The countless beauties of thy face.
>
> cheers
>
--
David Bircumshaw
"A window./Big enough to hold screams/
You say are poems" - DMeltzer
Website and A Chide's Alphabet
http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
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