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

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merton
Posts: 259
Joined: Tue Aug 05, 2008 10:23 pm

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

Post by merton »

Hi,

The Hospital - Patrick Kavanagh

The Hospital

A year ago I fell in love with the functional ward
Of a chest hospital: square cubicles in a row
Plain concrete, wash basins - an art lover's woe,
Not counting how the fellow in the next bed snored.
But nothing whatever is by love debarred,
The common and banal her heat can know.
The corridor led to a stairway and below
Was the inexhaustible adventure of a gravelled yard.

This is what love does to things: the Rialto Bridge,
The main gate that was bent by a heavy lorry,
The seat at the back of a shed that was a suntrap.
Naming these things is the love-act and its pledge;
For we must record love's mystery without claptrap,
Snatch out of time the passionate transitory.
lonndubh
Posts: 1219
Joined: Sun Mar 23, 2008 4:07 am
Location: Ireland

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

Post by lonndubh »

merton wrote:Naming these things is the love-act and its pledge;
For we must record love's mystery without claptrap,
Snatch out of time the passionate transitory.
I love this poem merton .
He was a poet alright.
Here is another that caught my attention on this lovely May evening


Kerr's Ass

We borrowed the loan of Kerr's ass
To go to Dundalk with butter,
Brought him home the evening before the market
And exile that night in Mucker.

We heeled up the cart before the door,
We took the harness inside -
The straw-stuffed straddle, the broken breeching
With bits of bull-wire tied;

The winkers that had no choke-band,
The collar and the reins . . .
In Ealing Broadway, London Town
I name their several names

Until a world comes to life -
Morning, the silent bog,
And the God of imagination waking
In a Mucker fog.
lonndubh
Posts: 1219
Joined: Sun Mar 23, 2008 4:07 am
Location: Ireland

Another October

Post by lonndubh »

October

O Leafy yellowness you create for me
A world that was and now is poised above time.
I do not need to puzzle out Eternity
As I walk the arboreal street on the edge of a town,
The breeze too,even the temprature
And pattern of movement is precisely the same
As broke my heart for youth passing.Now I am sure
Of something.Something will be mine whereever I am.
I want to throw myself on the public street without caring
For anything but the prayering that the earth offers.
It is October over all my life and the light is staring
As it caught me once in a plantation by the fox coveret.
A man is ploughing groung for winter wheat
And my ninteen years weigh heavily on my feet.
Diane

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

Post by Diane »

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



November Song

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

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

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

And Love shall come shouting in
The meadows once more.
But tomorrow -a mortal sin!
The rain shall pour.
And Love shall come shouting in
The meadows once more.
lonndubh
Posts: 1219
Joined: Sun Mar 23, 2008 4:07 am
Location: Ireland

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

Post by lonndubh »

July evening again in 2022

It's really marvellous this evening the first day of July
Nineteen-sixty-two,eight in the evening ,you haven't to try
For meaning ; all you have to do is state
A few facts ; the corn is shot out
And the swamp by Caffreys is a forest of yellow flaggers.
O Muse,today you cannot call us beggers.
Every man his own poet,walks down the lane
Ennumerate the same old things again
And they are not old at all,they only arrived
A few hours ago.How wonderful to have lived
To see these miracles,to feel the power
Of Pope or Milton living at this hour.
And gather round me fathers,mothers.daughters,sons
When we were twenty-two.
O let us just take notice from our pew.
Attachments
July.jpg
Last edited by lonndubh on Sat Jul 02, 2022 10:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
lonndubh
Posts: 1219
Joined: Sun Mar 23, 2008 4:07 am
Location: Ireland

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

Post by lonndubh »

Remembering Patrick Kavanagh on the anniversary of his death almost 50 years ago

Advent

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

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

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

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

Post by Diane »

Great to see you, (and Mr K), L!
Wherever life pours ordinary plenty.
Won't we be rich, my love and I, and
God we shall not ask for reason's payment,
The why of heart-breaking strangeness in dreeping hedges
Nor analyse God's breath in common statement.
We have thrown into the dust-bin the clay-minted wages
Of pleasure, knowledge and the conscious hour-
And Christ comes with a January flower
Last edited by Diane on Fri Dec 01, 2017 3:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
merton
Posts: 259
Joined: Tue Aug 05, 2008 10:23 pm

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

Post by merton »

Hi Lonndubh,
9 years to the date since you started this topic. Thank you for keeping P. K's genius alive on the Forum.
My English teacher forever quoted Patrick K's lines from the preface to the Collected Poems~
"But I lost my messianic compulsion. I sat on the bank of the Grand Canal in the summer of 1955 and let the water lap idly on the shores of my mind. My purpose in life was to have no purpose"

Oh dear.

All the best
merton
lonndubh
Posts: 1219
Joined: Sun Mar 23, 2008 4:07 am
Location: Ireland

Re: Patrick Kavanagh Raglan Road, Irelands favourite song

Post by lonndubh »

RTÉ was delighted tonight to announce the song that you have chosen as Ireland's Favourite Folk Song. The classic On Raglan Road was given a stunning performance tonight on the Late Late Show by one of Ireland's best loved singers, Luka Bloom.

Written by Patrick Kavanagh and made famous by singer Luke Kelly, On Raglan Road is one of the great iconic Irish folk songs, and tonight its place in the nation’s hearts was confirmed.

The Ireland’s Favourite Folk Song series was presented by folk legend Mary Black, who said:

"I’m delighted to hear that the public voted for the wonderful On Raglan Road as Ireland’s favorite folk song. It’s always been a favourite of mine and deserves this great accolade!"
Comedian and Monaghan native Oliver Callan, who had championed On Raglan Road as part of the television series, spoke movingly about the announcement on the Late Late Show tonight.

On Raglan Road, began life in the 1940s as a lyric poem written by Patrick Kavanagh following his doomed infatuation with Hilda Moriarty, a young medical student from Dingle. Kavanagh befriended Hilda in 1944 when they both lived on Raglan Road. She enjoyed the famous poet’s company but at twenty-two she was not interested in having a romantic relationship with this forty-year-old man. Kavanagh, struck by Cupid’s arrow, saw things differently and his ensuing disappointment found expression in the poem that would eventually become On Raglan Road. It was first published in The Irish Press in 1946 as Dark-haired Miriam Ran Away.

Writer Benedict Kiely recalls Kavanagh asking him at that time if his verses could be sung to the tune of The Dawning of the Day. It was in Dublin’s Bailey pub in 1964 that the poet told balladeer Luke Kelly that he had a song for him. It soon became a standard in Luke’s repertoire.
https://www.rte.ie/culture/folk-song/20 ... folk-song/
lonndubh
Posts: 1219
Joined: Sun Mar 23, 2008 4:07 am
Location: Ireland

July evening

Post by lonndubh »

July evening again in 2022

It's really marvellous this evening the first day of July
Nineteen-sixty-two,eight in the evening ,you haven't to try
For meaning ; all you have to do is state
A few facts ; the corn is shot out
And the swamp by Caffreys is a forest of yellow flaggers.
O Muse,today you cannot call us beggers.
Every man his own poet,walks down the lane
Ennumerate the same old things again
And they are not old at all,they only arrived
A few hours ago.How wonderful to have lived
To see these miracles,to feel the power
Of Pope or Milton living at this hour.
And gather round me fathers,mothers.daughters,sons
When we were twenty-two.
O let us just take notice from our pew.
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