♪I've got my love to keep me warm♫

Well, I messed up. I know I was supposed to post once a week. Well, last week, I went to post, and the internet went out. Then, I went out of town for a few days, and here it is almost to the end of this week with only one post! *sigh* I will get motivated sometime, I promise.

I'm so glad I have Billie Holiday keeping me company and reminding me that love does keep one warm. We need all the help we can get here in Wisconsin with temperatures supposed to sit at -15○ F tomorrow. BRRR! Now that's what I call chilly! (P.S. That was supposed to be a degree symbol, but I don't know how to make one.)

I was reading through  Flora Thompson's Lark Rise to Candleford book the other day, when I came across a charming old folk song. It's known simply as "Lord Lovel". I do not know from whence it originated, but I found it quite charming. Unfortunately, this makes writing history about the author rather difficult. It was probably an oral tradition for so long that even those who knew it were unsure of its true origins. It is sad to think that we have no or few oral traditions left in our culture. I would love to snuggle in front of the fire and listen to an elder hand down the stories and histories his/her elders had given him/her. Well, I can cry for our lost traditions elsewhere. So, without further ado, Lord Lovel.

Lord Lovel

Lord Lovel he stood at his castle gate,
A-combing his milk-white steed;
When along came Lady Nancy Bell,
A-wishing her lover good speed,
A-wishing her lover good speed.

"O where are you going, Lord Lovel?" she said,
"O where are you going?" said she;
"I'm going, my dear Nancy Bell,
Strange countries for to see."

"O when will you be back, Lord Lovel?" she said,
"O when will you be back?" said she.
"In  a year or two or three at the least
I'll return to my Lady Nancy."

He hadn't been gone but a year and a day,
Strange countries for to see,
When a languishing thought came into his mind,
Lady Nancy Bell he must see.

He rode and he rode upon his white steed,
Till he came to London Town;
And there he heard St. Varner's bell,
And the people all mourning round.

"Is anybody dead?" Lord Lovel he said,
"Is anybody dead?" said he.
"A lord's daughter's dead," a lady replied,
"And some call her Lady Nancy."

He ordered the grave to be opened forthwith
And the shroud to be folded down;
And there he kissed the clay-cold lips,
Till the tears came trinkling down.

Lady Nancy she died as she might be to-day
Lord Lovel he died to-morrow
And out of her bosom there grew a red rose
And out of Lord Lovel's a briar

They grew and they grew till they reached the church top
And there they couldn't grow any higher
And there they twined in a true lover's knot
Which true lovers always admire.

♪What a day this has been, what a rare mood I'm in♫

Good times and bad times seem to come in waves around here. If you know the rest of the song (blog title), you will be able to tell what my good times are! However, it seems that only on the wings of sorrow can hope fly. This nagging depression that has been eating me shows no signs of lifting, but I am strangely happy. I have begun reading a book that will hopefully help bring some relief from this darkness, and I ran across a poem that I found rather fitting.

The poem goes alternately by the title "Lend Me Your Hope" or "Borrowed Hope". Under the title "Lend Me Your Hope", it appears as an anonymous author. However, after doing a little research, I found that "Borrowed Hope" was written by a remarkable woman by the name of Eloise Cole. She truly found ways to overcome adversity and conquer with a strong spirit.

Eloise Cole grew up in an adopted home after her birth parents abandoned her. However, her new home was very dysfunctional. In the '70s, she married a widower named Elwood Cole and helped to raise his four teenage children two of whom were very ill with a neuromuscular disease and were quadriplegic. One of the boys then suffered cardiac arrest and died. He was preceded in death by Eloise's father and followed 20 days after by her mother. Eloise worked as a Bereavement Specialist and became nationally renowned for her work in that field. In 2005, she was diagnosed with lung cancer and died four months later. She was reported to say that though her body had cancer, her spirit did not.

Borrowed Hope

 

Lend me your hope for awhile.
I seem to have mislaid mine.

Lost and hopeless feelings accompany me daily.
Pain and confusion are my companions.
I know not where to turn.
Looking ahead to the future times
does not bring forth images of renewed hope.
I see mirthless times, pain-filled days,
and more tragedy.

Lend me your hope for awhile,
I seem to have mislaid mine.

Hold my hand and hug me;
listen to all my ramblings.
I need to unleash the pain and let it tumble out.
Recovery seems so far distant;
the road to healing a long and lonely one.

Stand by me; offer me your presence.
Your ears and your love
acknowledge my pain. It is so real and ever present.
I am overwhelmed with sad and conflicting thoughts.

Lend me your hope for awhile,
A time will come when I will heal
and I will lend my renewed hope to others.

A Canadian singer/songwriter named Monica Joy put this poem to music under the title "Lend Me Your Hope". I found it quite compelling so I include the link here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcE1CzQhvl0

 

My non-resolution New Year's Resolution

So, I have decided this year, as with all the year's in the past, to not make a New Year's Resolution. However, that being said, I am resolved to write more with this blog. I am thinking... once or twice a week. I will start small since there are many changes coming up in my life like potentially moving to another state. I *should* be able to handle once a week though. I will also be resolved to write more interesting things than I have in the past. I realize I tend to go on a few (dozen) tangents... this will probably not change. I will try to make them more interesting tangents, though. How about that?

That being said, I don't really have any poetry to post today. I am completely unprepared. Not that this is so terribly different than usually, except usually I have an idea of what I want to post about. Okay, so here goes nothing. I searched for new year's poetry and followed link trails until I came upon this "The Darkling Thrush" by Thomas Hardy. It seems slightly more somber than we usually think of the new year dawning, but I find I rather like it.

Thomas Hardy regarded himself as a poet who wrote novels for more mercenary means. However, during his lifetime, he was known most for his novels. As his family did not have the means to send him on to college, Hardy became apprenticed to an architect at the age of 16. It was not until he had published Far from the Madding Crowd  that he realized he could make a living as an author and quit the architectural career. After the publication of his novel Jude the Obscure, he gave up writing novels to focus on poetry. Jude the Obscure created a veritable outrage due to traveling outside the realm of "proper" in Victorian England. He was not quite as instantaneous of  a success as a poet as he was as a novelist. However, he is now considered to be one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. He wrote "The Darkling Thrush" on Dec. 30th, 1900.

The Darkling Thrush
Thomas Hardy

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware