Celtic Qotes on Love ... of Persons, Places, Objects and Ideas
A friend in Ireland makes labyrinths in his garden, and shares labyrinth images from his country.
I was impressed and spent some thought on the subject, and found myself making labyrinths in the snow and dreaming up designs for them, like this one that I sent round at Valentines Day.
A labyrinth is not a maze: one is lost in a maze, but found in a labyrinth, along a winding route.
Whatever your own inclinations, I hope you enjoy these quotes from the Irish Poets, and my own notes, and even feel you may wish to find more of their works.
Send me your favorites, too, or comment on these:
It is said that all breed of men and women share the Soul of Romance. That it lives somwhere within each of us, and yet it is fed and it feeds every thing around us!
While it is commonly-shared, it not at all Common, and, in fact, uniquely expressed by each soul of each era and locale and bloodline!
We need that bit of Romance, most of us, as a spark, a path or a reward!
The magic moments for any one soul to connect with another, with a place, a concept, an object!
Many of us experience such moments as life-givers - we are, for a moment, one with God, or whatever you call the Source of all Life !
Ancients sometimes said that image and text were blasphemy for that reason...that we should not imagine ourselves fit to imitate such Powers! What do you think?
Nevertheless, I was taught just the opposite...that our salvation and evolution ...our hope develops from such lights and such drivers.
Motive, path and reward - these are gifts from the spirit, and these gifts so key in the realm of romance in work and love.
It was their love that made me want to live, when grieved and the love of God and awareness of his love for me.
The following will be a collection of the works of masters, expressing the range of Celtic sentiment, romance, and love.
About "Home".
The Meeting of the Waters
There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet
As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet;
Oh! the last rays of feeling and life must depart,
Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart.
Yet it was not that Nature had shed o'er the scene
Her purest of crystal and brightest of green;
'Twasnot her soft magic of streamlet or hill,
Oh! no, - it was something more exquisite still.
'Twas that friends, the belove'd of my bosom, were near,
Who made every dear scene of enchantment more dear,
And who felt how the best charms of nature improve,
When we see them reflected from looks that we love.
Sweet vale of Avoca! how calm could I rest
In thy bosom of shade, with the friends I love best,
Where the storms that we feel in this cold world should cease,
And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace.
Thomas Moore, Irish, 1779-1852
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This one is spoken to a new love, at the brink of involvement. May I respect - and so delight.
He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
William Butler Yeats, Irish, 1865-1939
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New love!
Is It A Month
Is it a month since I and you
In the starlight of Glen Dubh
Stretched beneath a hazel bough
Kissed from ear and throat to brow,
Since your fingers, neck, and chin
Made the bars that fenced me in,
Till Paradise seemed but a wreck
Near your bosom, brow, and neck
And stars grew wilder, growing wise,
In the splendour of your eyes!
Since the weasel wandered near
Whilst we kissed from ear to ear
And the wet and withered leaves
Blew about your cap and sleeves,
Till the moon sank tired through the ledge
Of the wet and windy hedge?
And we took the starry lane
Back to Dublin Town Again.
John Synge, Irish, 1871-1909
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A very big little poem:
When You Are Old
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
William Butler Yeats, Irish, 1865-1939
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This one, not a poem, but a famous Love Letter, re-printed from http://www.TheRomantic.com Love Letter of the Week
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April 11, 1890
"... as a *nuns face* .
This is the sweet beautiful face
that you have...
and better and more beautiful than any face in the
world is your sweet, simple, loving, angelic self -
so open and
artless
that I have always with you now the feeling
that we can both
look into one another's souls."
William O'Brien,
Irish nationalist politician to Sophie Raffalovich,
his future wife.
She and her mother translated into French a novel he
had written while in jail. He was given the nickname L'Aiglon (eagle)
by them after a line from Browning's poem about Shelley which refers
to an eagle feather. They were married on June 11, 1890
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From sons to their Mothers:
In Memory Of My Mother
You will have the road gate open, the front door ajar
The kettle boiling and a table set
By the window looking out at the sycamores-
And your loving heart lying in wait
For me coming up among the poplar trees.
You'll know my breathing and my walk
And it will be a summer evening on those
roads
Lonely with leaves of thought.
We will be choked with the grief of things growing,
The silence of dark-green air
Life too rich- the nettles, docks and thistles
All answering the prodigal's prayer.
You will know I am coming, though I send no word
For you were lover who could tell
a man's thoughts - my thoughts - though I hid them -
Through you I knew Woman and did not fear her spell.
Patrick Kavanagh, Irish, 1904-1967
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Later in my life, when I was still young and suddenly widowed from the love of my life, I thought that some of our story was unique, and since those who might be interested live a distance away, I thought to simply write it out and share it here, so that, perhaps, one day, those who care might find it, and then the gift of life in it that I intended will find its mark.
I know I am far from alone, but have been blessed romantically all through my life, and my case, this gift empowered
grand deeds and peace and delight and triumph in moments that might have been disasters.
Do you realized how holy it is - the gift of soul in Romance that empowers and illuminates the darkest or most ordinary of days or times!
So holy!
No matter how much fun you are having being invincible, take a moment to collect and archive today's and yesterday's thought and memory about such moments in your work or personal life. As life goes on, such are true and powerful treasures to keep you through challenge and sorrow with the finest of music in your heart.
The Celtic passions are often stereotyped to their disadvantage - braggodocio and grit, and overdone grace, to make up for the other.
I am All-American, but of part-Irish roots, and grew up near all seven Irish Uncles, one tiny Auntie and my Normal Rockwell icons of Grandma and Grandpa, all love for me, and me to them, unconditionally.
So later, in school, when we read of such lives and their way as a group, I felt special to have such a passionate and lively and bright family , right on hand! What a gift, to be a living part of a thing of which the poets spoke!
Love was and is a tangible, a motivator, a delight, and if perverted or frustrated, a curse and a killer! Love of the land, love of country, love of family, love of compassion, achievement , success and family goals, not just the romantic love of the members.
And each of the many was like one in a box of recipes for it; each unique in their way of expressing life, ideas, anguish and love and great good fun!
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