Megalithic Poems

Also slightly reminiscent of Kipling's The River's Tale is the following - inspired I believe by the sarsens in the Grey Wethers' Valley just outside Avebury on Fyfield Down...

Valley of Dreams

Quietly now lies our Valley of Dreams
summer's dew so quickly turned to frost.
Sprinkled white on every sleeping stone and blade of grass.

So still
but for the silent fall of winter
from each dark tree and hawthorn hedge.

Was it really here
on some bright summer's day
that you and I gave this place a thousand names?
And walked
And laughed and held each other a little while?

Sleep on secret stones.
Dream your dreams of burning suns
summer blown trees and parakeets.

Dream then
of that silent creeping darkness.
Those unending winters of screeching ice
pushing inch by inch
your frozen bodies
across frozen hills.

To this warm
secret little Valley of Dreams.

Dream of a time long gone
when they came to haul you back again
inch by inch
to some proud new place in the sun.

Was it really here
that you and I walked
and laughed
and gave this place a thousand names?
Where I held you a little while
and wanted to say how much I loved you?

Such a tiny sentiment.
Such a silent drop of time
in this Valley of Such Antiquity
in this Valley of Frozen Dreams.

Anon

That's a stunner.

Excellent! You must have a lot by now - what are you going to do with them?

Great Kipling verse is the one about the Palaeolithic cave painter who is a misunderstood artist at first, but then is shown the value of market forces.

"Story of Ung" - too long for me to type out though - sorry!

just a short extract:

"Later he pictured an aurochs - later he pictured a bear
Pictured the sabre-tooth tiger dragging a man to his lair
Pictured the mountainous mammoth, hairy abhorrent, alone
Out of the love that he bore them, scribing them clearly on bone.

Swift came the tribe to behold them, peering and pushing and still
Men of the berg-battered beaches, men of the boulder-hatched hill
Hunters and fishers and trappers, presently whispering low:
"Yea, they are like - and it may be. But how does the Picture-man know?"